#29: The pandemic & the impact on the global, US and UK economy with Shaun Richards

Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest-rates and bonds. He has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England (BoE) watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and quantitative easing (QE).  Shaun has also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates. We cover the following topics in this conversation: What has happened to the global/US and UK economy as a result of the pandemic? What is money printing and what is the impact on the economy? Should we be worried about the rising level of global and UK government debt? We're hearing a lot about UK inflation: can you explain what inflation is? What is driving inflation? What is the rate of inflation and looking ahead to H2 and 2022/23? Interest rates: what do we expect to see in the US/UK in 2021/22/23? Unemployment & productivity: what are we seeing in the UK? What's ahead? (eg structural changes) What is the economic outlook for the global/UK economy? Ray Dalio, the billionaire and hedge fund manager, says that he'd rather buy bitcoin than a bond. Do you agree?