ECB lifts borrowing costs amid energy shock, opens door for more hikes

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The European Central Bank raised its benchmark rate a quarter point to 2.5%, its second hike this year, citing inflation pressure from renewed Middle East conflict driving up energy prices.

President Christine Lagarde called the unanimous decision a “no-brainer” while declining to offer forward guidance, saying the outlook remains too uncertain to chart a path.

The bank raised growth forecasts and inflation projections simultaneously, and Lagarde also declined to address reports she might leave early for the World Economic Forum, saying flatly there was “nothing to report.”

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Raising rates to fight an oil shortage is a bit like tightening your belt to fix a flat tire, it doesn't touch the actual problem but it sure does something. Lagarde calling it a no-brainer while refusing to say what happens next is the kind of confidence that costs regular borrowers real money. The eurozone economy held up fine, we're told, right up until the next crisis nobody forecasted either.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Grand Dark Waltz Allegretto · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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