economics

Ian Guider: Why we need to start talking about the impact interest rate hikes will have on squeezed households

Money markets are pricing in three 0.25 per cent moves this year, and probably the same or more in 2023

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank: having put off the decision for months, the bank now has no option other than to increase interest rates. Picture: NurPhoto

I’m old enough to remember the launch of the now infamous ad campaign which was designed to improve financial literacy, and which began in 2007, just before the economy went wallop.

The line “I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is” has become emblematic of all that was wrong in the Celtic Tiger, where unsuspecting people were loaded with debt by unscrupulous banks.

As it turned out, the banks didn’t have much of a clue ...