As President Harry Truman once said, ‘Any schoolboy’s hindsight is better than the President’s foresight’. In summary, I have no doubt about the professional excellence of my staff, or about the rigor they bring to our projections four times a year.
Inherent in the criticism, which has been made of the Bank in recent weeks, is the view that we have unnecessarily constrained the economy by failing to allow monetary conditions to evolve as the emerging data have suggested was warranted. If that’s true, we will see inflation go near to, or below, zero.