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Winter migration and choice

In mid-December 2012 London seems to be troubled by two issues, First, the cold spell which sees the suburbs covered in a white wintry frost in the early morning – although gone by lunchtime. Second the “Burger” war which has broken-out between West End restaurants and the City of Westminster Council.

Dealing with the first concern, cold winters seem to be the new normal and so long as the London transport system continues to operate disquiet is minimal.

However, the “Burger” war generates great passion and excitement. So what is it all about? Evidently there’s a new trend for burgers served rare or medium rare – why? Who knows but these fashions are seldom rational. According to one restaurant operator, “our regular customers know exactly how they like them [undercooked burgers] and come back again and again”.

The Westminster Council spots health and safety issues with this craze and its officers have ordered one wine bar in St James’s to take the undercooked burger off the menu. The matter is rolling towards a hearing at the Westminster Magistrates Court but already the cry of, “consumer choice” can be heard.

When it comes to choice it suddenly seems that Central Banks have lots of choices after telling citizens that it was, “their “quantitative easing” way or the highway”.

Central Banks across the World have over decades pursued monetary policies designed to restrain inflation by balancing the cost of money (interest rates) with the demand. The Bank of England has been pursuing exactly these policies since the late 1990s. when it was granted independence. At that time the Bank had to sign up to an annual inflation target not exceeding 2 per cent. The sanction where this target was missed was the requirement that the Governor write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining himself. Needless to say the mail route between Threadneedle Street and Westminster has been busy over the last couple of years

However monetary policy designed to achieve low inflation has this week in the space of a couple days been thrown up in the air. First, the incoming Governor to the Bank of England, speaking generally and not expressly about Britain’s future monetary policy, said that Central Banks should set policies around targets related to the overall size of an economy. The Federal Reserve a day later announced a policy to keep interest rates at close to zero until US unemployment falls below 6.5 per cent. The low inflation dominoes fall-over with the realisation that the need for growth overcomes the fear of inflation

This sudden change of Central Bank policy is tantamount to announcing that unlike fruit, excess amounts of process fats and alcohol are both good as part of a healthy diet. In economic terms, the equivalent of indulging over Christmas and then when growth returns getting down to the low inflation gym quickly whilst adopting New Years resolutions to achieve low annual inflation.

Finally, and statistics don’t lie. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Australia has for the first time exceeded the number visiting from Britain. In the year to 30 September the number of Chinese tourists was 573,000 as compared with the 558,000 visiting Australia from Britain. The expectation is that the number of Chinese visitors will be 1m annually by 2021.

However whether the number of Chinese tourists continues to exceed those from Britain depends on whether cold British winters are the new normal. If so then migration south from Britain may become part of the yearly ritual – well there’s a common language (almost), cricket, sunshine, beaches, and rather like being, “Home on the Range” the skies are not cloudy and seas are evidently blue.

So its bad news for those who like raw burgers but good news for travel agents specialising in Australia as a destination.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tim Stocks .