Today’s inflation is the result of past policy measures, and current policy measures only affect future inflation. The uncertainty of the economic process in a market economy is another reason for policy-makers to be modest. The ECB does not pursue an activist policy.
The next area of focus shown in Table 1 is described as environmental. The Canterbury earthquakes served as an unwanted illustration of the power to literally shift the ground on which institutions stood and planned their activities. The consequences are now playing out across many levels, including the fact that the insurance industry was poorly prepared to deal with such a cataclysmic event.