The parent then said it is in effect calling for price controls on labor, which is true.
Pill is then recorded as saying wages do contribute to inflation:
> "He said that firms and workers are in a “pass the parcel game” that’s causing more persistent price pressures, contributing to the UK’s main inflation rate remaining stuck in double digits."
The final parent comment captures a very common line in corporate media messaging: which is that wages always need to be suppressed lest inflation rear its head, but corporate profits never should because that is market distortion and not related to inflation.
> So somehow in the UK, someone needs to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices, whether higher wages or passing the energy costs through on to customers. And what we’re facing now is that reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off, and we all have to take our share, to try and pass that cost on to one of our compatriots.
> That pass-the-parcel game is generating inflation and that part of inflation can persist. How much bargaining power and pricing power exists for different actors in the value chain in the corporate side and in the labor market?
He is literally saying that corporations passing on energy costs is also causing inflation. Absolutely nowhere does he even advocate for policy intervention. Not only is everyone putting words in his mouth, it goes against his larger point that interventions on individual actors are meaningless.
> someone needs to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices, whether higher wages or passing the energy costs through on to customers.
Coupled with prior remarks from the BoE governor:
> In the sense of saying, we do need to see a moderation of wage rises, now that's painful. I don't want to in any sense sugar that, it is painful
And add to that politicians using that (amongst other things) to deny pay rises for healthcare workers who've had a real-terms cut to wages of 25%+ over the past decade (when inflation was supposedly under control yet easy money was pumping risk assets like stocks).
Together, it all paints a picture of: hey we can't control prices for food and energy, and because of inflation we have to increase taxes, and also we can't pay you more, oh and because we're going to support energy prices we will also have to tax you more.
In totality, one should understand the frustration felt here is a culmination of the inequity that's been slowly building over a long time.
I'm lucky, I'm relatively well off but I don't want to live in a system that screws (or at least appears to screw) the least-well off at every turn.