0.7% above target and almost always ahead of wages so yes, we have been eating high inflation
I really don't know why I bother tbh, but here goes... one last time.
No, we haven't. While wage growth vs inflation is an important metric, the rate of wage growth does not dictate whether the inflation is high or not. It's the inflation rate alone that dictates that. And same applies for the wage growth.
You could have 50% wage growth and 30% inflation, that's still an abominably high inflation. Because if you have a 50k income and 5 billion fortune, you wouldn't be happy with that inflation and you wouldn't give a feck about the wage growth. Because the currency of your assets is being devalued.
But looking away from the billionaire, if you're a low-skilled worker in a job sector who's median salary hasn't increased in step with the national average, you wouldn't be happy with that inflation. Equally if you're a company who's product or service hasn't increased in value in line with that inflation, the average wage growth could put you out of business in no time.
When the rates of inflation and wage growth are high, the distribution curve for net benefit/loss produces very fat tails. The likelihood of being a massive winner or a massive loser is quite big. This is highly undesirable.
2.7% is not high inflation. Money is not devaluing fast enough to be of a concern to individuals of businesses. The bank considers it normal between 1% and 3% (basically up 1% deviation from the target). So your "high inflation" assertion finds the BoE in disagreement.
And bear in mind, the BoE has no control over median salary and no way to influence it. The only things it has at its disposal is interest rates and printing money, which is only loosely linked to jobs and incomes.
The major central banks have been desperately trying to inject inflation into the system, but failing.
QE hasn't worked as planned cos banks have kept hold of the cash rather than lend it. There have been loads of deflationary forces too- growth has been weak, competitive currency devaluing, end of the Chinese commodity super-cycle, companies hoarding cash etc...
That's a broad statement. Central banks act on their economy and economies are different. Germany for example has a budget surplus, the lowest unemployment in EU, a healthy wage growth and inflation constantly below 2%. So they've been trying to coax inflation. Britain had the worst deficit (post crash) in EU due to the large banking sector that needed saving, above 2% inflation and a wage stagnation.
I don't recall Carney trying to coax inflation, I remember him more worried about keeping it down. I recall him saying that 0.5% inflation due to falling oil prices back in 15'-16' were temporary but not that he'd do anything to increase it. And he didn't. And he later warned against an inflation creep due to Brexit and potentially having to raise interest rates.
As for the effects of QE, it was mostly to buy distressed assets and govt bonds to keep yields low. I think the system recovered liquidity pretty quickly, I don't know to what extend that was down to QE. I mean the banks have been throwing money at people and business since 2012 which fuelled the massive boom in property prices of the last 5-6 years and the large increase in private debt. This might seem a bit anecdotal of course.
Do you have any interesting reading on the side effects of QE in the UK's case? The stuff I read tends to find it quite positive in retrospect.