Central bankers feel the heat as populists demand easy fix
Economic slowdown has governments under pressure and rate-setters are being blamed for tightening their policy
Central bankers from the US to Europe are coming under pressure from their governments to loosen their purse strings again as a decade of accelerating economic growth and booming markets fuelled by cheap cash comes to an end. For 10 years since the global financial crash of 2008, the US Federal Reserve and other central banks across the world have engineered a global upswing through ultralow interest rates and massive money-printing programmes. As inflation recovers, rate-setters are now tightening their policy, leaving indebted governments, entrepreneurs and households feeling the pinch from higher borrowing costs and, in fragile emerging economies, sliding currencies. What started as an issue for countries with sizeable US dollar debt, such as Argentina and Turkey, is now reaching the world’s richest and supposedly most advanced economies in the US and eurozone. US President Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on the Fed last week for being “too aggressive” in raising rates an...
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