Sir, – You reported last month (Business, October 13th) that the Central Bank expected “inflation to peak at 8 per cent for this year as a whole, before easing to 6.3 per cent next year”. This week you report (Business, November 10th) that inflation has hit 9.2 per cent, but don’t worry – nameless Government sources predict it will peak at 10.4 per cent by Christmas.
These are 40-year highs.
We cannot slay this beast without facing facts.
Cozy euphemisms like “the cost of living crisis” are not only unhelpful but pernicious.
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Quite simply, the bill for lockdown has arrived. Whatever the medical arguments for preventing a population from working for a year, it was a radical economic experiment that cost trillions globally, and it came, lest we forget, at the end of a decade-long binge of printing money.
It was a wild party. Enjoy the hangover. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN HARTE,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.