There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
If the Putin regime falls and Russia leaves the Ukraine, then things could normalise very quickly.
Otherwise, it's a long slog while the world - as it always does - replaces lost Russian energy sources with those from Israel*/Mozambique/etc. and renewables.
* The Russian invasion couldn't have come at a better time for Israel's Leviathan field; I seriously thought it might be massively scaled back to just domestic Israeli production, but the Russians have done the Israelis a huge favour
I was thinking... if the Ukraine conflict gets resolved, many of the factors driving up inflation could be instantly curbed. This could have a significant positive economic impact.
Absolutely right: it would spark a significant economic boom.
This housing wealth is distorting the labour market now, too. I know plenty in my cohort who have discovered they don't need 2 salaries to live with the mortgage paid off. So. One retires. Or they both go part-time. And why shouldn't they when simply owning a home earns more than working does? Losing loads of experience from the workforce. Because of house prices.
For all that I agree we need to deal with house price inflation, the situation you have just outlined would be even worse if house prices were lower. Many people are only still in work because they have a mortgage. As soon as your mortgage is paid off it becomes much easier to cut back on work or have one of a couple retire.
So I don't see how house price inflation is distorting the market in the way you claim. Contrary to popular belief many, if not most, people do not have a house as an investment. They have it as a place to live and it is usually their biggest outgoing each month as well.
This is not in any way an argument against ending the idiotic house price inflation, but I think your perspective on this is incorrect as far as its effect on the labour market. Indeed I think it is exactly the reverse.
I think I disagree, because mortages are fundamentally less burdensome for people who bought their houses earlier. People buying pretty much identical houses to mine now are locking in a price about twice as high as I paid a decade or so ago. Now that's extreme in some ways (not everywhere is on the verge of having a natty new rail link), but it's a wider problem. After all, I will have neighbours in my street whose house price and mortgage payments have been frozen in at half what I paid. (And in that case, their mortgage almost certainly isn't their biggest monthly outgoing, and hasn't been for a long time.)
So there's a generation above mine who can afford to retire unimaginably early and a generation below me who might never be able to afford to do so. Two nations, separated by house prices. Living in one street of generic London suburban houses.
My experience.is anecdotal. Lots of folks in their fifties simply quitting work. They specifically cite value of house as their reasoning.
In part seeing the paper value of their house as their retirement pot.
Which, if you plan to retire to a cheaper locale is totally rational.
I think @dixiedean already lives in one of the cheapest parts.
This housing wealth is distorting the labour market now, too. I know plenty in my cohort who have discovered they don't need 2 salaries to live with the mortgage paid off. So. One retires. Or they both go part-time. And why shouldn't they when simply owning a home earns more than working does? Losing loads of experience from the workforce. Because of house prices.
For all that I agree we need to deal with house price inflation, the situation you have just outlined would be even worse if house prices were lower. Many people are only still in work because they have a mortgage. As soon as your mortgage is paid off it becomes much easier to cut back on work or have one of a couple retire.
So I don't see how house price inflation is distorting the market in the way you claim. Contrary to popular belief many, if not most, people do not have a house as an investment. They have it as a place to live and it is usually their biggest outgoing each month as well.
This is not in any way an argument against ending the idiotic house price inflation, but I think your perspective on this is incorrect as far as its effect on the labour market. Indeed I think it is exactly the reverse.
I think I disagree, because mortages are fundamentally less burdensome for people who bought their houses earlier. People buying pretty much identical houses to mine now are locking in a price about twice as high as I paid a decade or so ago. Now that's extreme in some ways (not everywhere is on the verge of having a natty new rail link), but it's a wider problem. After all, I will have neighbours in my street whose house price and mortgage payments have been frozen in at half what I paid. (And in that case, their mortgage almost certainly isn't their biggest monthly outgoing, and hasn't been for a long time.)
So there's a generation above mine who can afford to retire unimaginably early and a generation below me who might never be able to afford to do so. Two nations, separated by house prices. Living in one street of generic London suburban houses.
My experience.is anecdotal. Lots of folks in their fifties simply quitting work. They specifically cite value of house as their reasoning.
In part seeing the paper value of their house as their retirement pot.
Yes. Particularly if one of them is still working. We've lost a heck of a lot of folk from the Labour market in their fifties.
The worst economic performance in the G20 excluding Russia. They're discussing it on C4 News.
Is it Brexit they want to know?
Interesting that the BBC are more balanced about this than Channel 4. A few points from the BBC report.
These are just predictions not actual measures. This year the UK will have the fastest growth in the G7 so 'worst performance' is frankly bollocks. Next year we are predicted to have the worst performance in the G7. So if that comes true then they will have a point. Until the it is nothing more than a prediction and, as the BBC says, there are a huge number of variables that could change it quite considerably.
As I understand the report it is because taxes are too high and a tax cutting budget is needed including vat, corporation tax, and increase personal allowances
Where did you find that? The OECD is a forecast. It rarely recommends action.
Umm no. The Economic Outlook contains both forecasts and recommendations for policies.
Indeed. But it stops well short of saying "taxes are too high, a tax cutting budget is needed." It is in the language of "could" and "should consider" Nor should it. As that's a political decision.
Agreed, it is couched in what may appear to be vague language or generalities, but the country policy-makers can read the runes and interpret them appropriately. Indeed they had a hand in writing them. The Economic Outlook is only published after a to-and-fro between the OECD economists and the senior officials in the country concerned. It was many years ago (mid-70s) that I was engaged in this process on the OECD side, but that is still how it happens.
I did not know that. That must have been an interesting gig.
It was. On the UK/Ireland desk we wrote the forecast that the IMF used and Peter Jay leaked after a chat with my boss. The beginnings of the UK asking for the infamous loan from the IMF in 1976.
There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
If the Putin regime falls and Russia leaves the Ukraine, then things could normalise very quickly.
Otherwise, it's a long slog while the world - as it always does - replaces lost Russian energy sources with those from Israel*/Mozambique/etc. and renewables.
* The Russian invasion couldn't have come at a better time for Israel's Leviathan field; I seriously thought it might be massively scaled back to just domestic Israeli production, but the Russians have done the Israelis a huge favour
I was thinking... if the Ukraine conflict gets resolved, many of the factors driving up inflation could be instantly curbed. This could have a significant positive economic impact.
Absolutely right: it would spark a significant economic boom.
Dependent really on a Russian outright, defeat, retreat and collapse of the Putin regime replaced by a pro-Western one, so sanctions can end.
Boris Johnson will tomorrow announce plans to allow low earners to use benefits to buy a home
He wants to change rules so people can use benefits to pass affordability checks & make monthly mortgage repayments
Lol what drivel
Wow that must have come from Gove as that is a very sensible policy that I have advocated for on this site in the past. I am shocked to see the Conservatives do that. 😲
Indeed if in parts of the country the mortgage is equivalent to the monthly rent then investing in their own home does seem an excellent policy
I pay significantly less for my one bed mortgage than I did for my two bed shared private rental.
Then I found out what my girlfriend pays for her one bed rental... ouch.
I assume the concept is that those on benefits renting their home can convert it into a mortgage then that property value can be invested building more homes
Boris Johnson will tomorrow announce plans to allow low earners to use benefits to buy a home
He wants to change rules so people can use benefits to pass affordability checks & make monthly mortgage repayments
Lol what drivel
Wow that must have come from Gove as that is a very sensible policy that I have advocated for on this site in the past. I am shocked to see the Conservatives do that. 😲
Indeed if in parts of the country the mortgage is equivalent to the monthly rent then investing in their own home does seem an excellent policy
I pay significantly less for my one bed mortgage than I did for my two bed shared private rental.
Then I found out what my girlfriend pays for her one bed rental... ouch.
Aye in most of the nation the mortgage on a home will be less than the rent, and that only gets more true over time as your mortgage is (barring rate changes) locked in when you buy but rent goes up with or often above inflation.
But if you're on benefits you're out of luck as Housing Benefit has for far too long been Landlord's Benefit where you can only get it if your money is going to a Landlord rather than to a house. Those on benefits would be massively more secure and better off it they could use it to pay for a home of their own, and it would massively reduce the bill to the Exchequer too, but instead the money all gets funnelled to Landlords presently.
If this is as CHB says, this is the first major sensible reform in this area in years. Seems too good to be true, I'd like to see a proper source on it.
I see Garry Kasparov has picked up on the artillery theme on twitter. Slow, small quantities and apparently missing the necessary electronics. Are they worried about the Russians getting hold of them?
I saw the comment earlier criticising the UK for 'only' sending 3 of our 44 artillery pieces.
To be honest (if I am reading this right) I am not sure we should be denuding our own front line forces to support Ukraine right now. If we can replace them as quickly as possible or send new equipment that is not part of our own immediate defence then fine but whatever we send is effectively gone for good so we need to make sure we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable.
I don't know how important artillery is to our battle plans so it may be this is worrying about nothing but before we start criticising the scale of our response it would be nice to know that what we are sending will not denude our own forces significantly.
The Americans are sending 7 out of a total of 600 and without advanced electronics. They aren't usually too short of military equipment themselves.
This housing wealth is distorting the labour market now, too. I know plenty in my cohort who have discovered they don't need 2 salaries to live with the mortgage paid off. So. One retires. Or they both go part-time. And why shouldn't they when simply owning a home earns more than working does? Losing loads of experience from the workforce. Because of house prices.
For all that I agree we need to deal with house price inflation, the situation you have just outlined would be even worse if house prices were lower. Many people are only still in work because they have a mortgage. As soon as your mortgage is paid off it becomes much easier to cut back on work or have one of a couple retire.
So I don't see how house price inflation is distorting the market in the way you claim. Contrary to popular belief many, if not most, people do not have a house as an investment. They have it as a place to live and it is usually their biggest outgoing each month as well.
This is not in any way an argument against ending the idiotic house price inflation, but I think your perspective on this is incorrect as far as its effect on the labour market. Indeed I think it is exactly the reverse.
I think I disagree, because mortages are fundamentally less burdensome for people who bought their houses earlier. People buying pretty much identical houses to mine now are locking in a price about twice as high as I paid a decade or so ago. Now that's extreme in some ways (not everywhere is on the verge of having a natty new rail link), but it's a wider problem. After all, I will have neighbours in my street whose house price and mortgage payments have been frozen in at half what I paid. (And in that case, their mortgage almost certainly isn't their biggest monthly outgoing, and hasn't been for a long time.)
So there's a generation above mine who can afford to retire unimaginably early and a generation below me who might never be able to afford to do so. Two nations, separated by house prices. Living in one street of generic London suburban houses.
My experience.is anecdotal. Lots of folks in their fifties simply quitting work. They specifically cite value of house as their reasoning.
In part seeing the paper value of their house as their retirement pot.
Yes. Particularly if one of them is still working. We've lost a heck of a lot of folk from the Labour market in their fifties.
There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
Over half the price of petrol goes to the government, it is absurd to suggest they cannot influence the price significantly.
But the government's portion is not going up, indeed it came down. The cost of petrol is being driven by a market distorted by Russian sanctions which has put the 3rd largest producer on the planet largely out of play.
Second largest, surely?
I may be wrong but I think it is Saudi, the US and then Russia.
You are wrong: the US is comfortably the largest oil producer in the world, at about 11.2m b/d (2021 numbers). Russia is number two (10.1m), and Saudi third (9.3m).
Edit to add: I think you were thinking of oil exporters, where Saudi is clearly the largest exporter of oil
About a decade ago the second largest oil exporter in the world was little old Norway. They were well down the list of producers but they basically exported just about everything.
Mind you huge oil reserves do not mean great wealth. Or even any wealth. Just look at the country with the largest reserves in the world - poor old Venezuela.
If you include the Orinoco Belt reserves, Venezuela has as much oil as the rest of the world combined.
Unfortunately, the the mismanagement of both the reserves and the Venezuelan economy has been monumental.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
This housing wealth is distorting the labour market now, too. I know plenty in my cohort who have discovered they don't need 2 salaries to live with the mortgage paid off. So. One retires. Or they both go part-time. And why shouldn't they when simply owning a home earns more than working does? Losing loads of experience from the workforce. Because of house prices.
For all that I agree we need to deal with house price inflation, the situation you have just outlined would be even worse if house prices were lower. Many people are only still in work because they have a mortgage. As soon as your mortgage is paid off it becomes much easier to cut back on work or have one of a couple retire.
So I don't see how house price inflation is distorting the market in the way you claim. Contrary to popular belief many, if not most, people do not have a house as an investment. They have it as a place to live and it is usually their biggest outgoing each month as well.
This is not in any way an argument against ending the idiotic house price inflation, but I think your perspective on this is incorrect as far as its effect on the labour market. Indeed I think it is exactly the reverse.
I think I disagree, because mortages are fundamentally less burdensome for people who bought their houses earlier. People buying pretty much identical houses to mine now are locking in a price about twice as high as I paid a decade or so ago. Now that's extreme in some ways (not everywhere is on the verge of having a natty new rail link), but it's a wider problem. After all, I will have neighbours in my street whose house price and mortgage payments have been frozen in at half what I paid. (And in that case, their mortgage almost certainly isn't their biggest monthly outgoing, and hasn't been for a long time.)
So there's a generation above mine who can afford to retire unimaginably early and a generation below me who might never be able to afford to do so. Two nations, separated by house prices. Living in one street of generic London suburban houses.
My experience.is anecdotal. Lots of folks in their fifties simply quitting work. They specifically cite value of house as their reasoning.
In part seeing the paper value of their house as their retirement pot.
Which, if you plan to retire to a cheaper locale is totally rational.
I think @dixiedean already lives in one of the cheapest parts.
I do. But I'm thinking more of the cohort I went to Uni with in London. As well as some who live in more desirable areas of the NE. They are retiring in droves. Maybe I just naturally hang out with slackers?
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
Even offshore wind can be done within that timeframe. We'd be installing a huge amount of generation capacity every month right now if we'd begun the process 10 months ago, the first major turbine parts would be rolling off the line in the north of England, the interconnects would be complete and we'd be building the giant turbines out in the North Sea that can withstand 90-100mph wind speeds. £3-4bn spent a year ago would have cut the cost of that £20bn subsidy by 75% today because that generation capacity would already be coming online lowering electricity prices.
There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
Over half the price of petrol goes to the government, it is absurd to suggest they cannot influence the price significantly.
But the government's portion is not going up, indeed it came down. The cost of petrol is being driven by a market distorted by Russian sanctions which has put the 3rd largest producer on the planet largely out of play.
Second largest, surely?
I may be wrong but I think it is Saudi, the US and then Russia.
You are wrong: the US is comfortably the largest oil producer in the world, at about 11.2m b/d (2021 numbers). Russia is number two (10.1m), and Saudi third (9.3m).
Edit to add: I think you were thinking of oil exporters, where Saudi is clearly the largest exporter of oil
About a decade ago the second largest oil exporter in the world was little old Norway. They were well down the list of producers but they basically exported just about everything.
Mind you huge oil reserves do not mean great wealth. Or even any wealth. Just look at the country with the largest reserves in the world - poor old Venezuela.
If you include the Orinoco Belt reserves, Venezuela has as much oil as the rest of the world combined.
Unfortunately, the the mismanagement of both the reserves and the Venezuelan economy has been monumental.
Well of course pisspoor management will destroy any country, so we had better get rid of Johnson before he does any more damage.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
I see Garry Kasparov has picked up on the artillery theme on twitter. Slow, small quantities and apparently missing the necessary electronics. Are they worried about the Russians getting hold of them?
I saw the comment earlier criticising the UK for 'only' sending 3 of our 44 artillery pieces.
To be honest (if I am reading this right) I am not sure we should be denuding our own front line forces to support Ukraine right now. If we can replace them as quickly as possible or send new equipment that is not part of our own immediate defence then fine but whatever we send is effectively gone for good so we need to make sure we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable.
I don't know how important artillery is to our battle plans so it may be this is worrying about nothing but before we start criticising the scale of our response it would be nice to know that what we are sending will not denude our own forces significantly.
The Americans are sending 7 out of a total of 600 and without advanced electronics. They aren't usually too short of military equipment themselves.
Yep I see that and my comment was only really directed towards the UK contribution. But even on that score following on from Mark's comments it looks like my concerns are misplaced so I do agree with you that this looks like a poor show from the West.
I see Garry Kasparov has picked up on the artillery theme on twitter. Slow, small quantities and apparently missing the necessary electronics. Are they worried about the Russians getting hold of them?
I saw the comment earlier criticising the UK for 'only' sending 3 of our 44 artillery pieces.
To be honest (if I am reading this right) I am not sure we should be denuding our own front line forces to support Ukraine right now. If we can replace them as quickly as possible or send new equipment that is not part of our own immediate defence then fine but whatever we send is effectively gone for good so we need to make sure we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable.
I don't know how important artillery is to our battle plans so it may be this is worrying about nothing but before we start criticising the scale of our response it would be nice to know that what we are sending will not denude our own forces significantly.
The Americans are sending 7 out of a total of 600 and without advanced electronics. They aren't usually too short of military equipment themselves.
They have promised 90 of the USMC m777, and some are in action, others in transit
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
Onshore wind has less density that offshore and more intermittency. Though we should probably build it anyway.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
It does not seem especially sensible to me to expand housing credit to those on welfare.
Low income earners, or perhaps specific classes of buyers (like first time buyers), maybe.
But people on welfare in this economy are surely much less likely to be reliable mortgagees.
And what happens when house prices fall?
This is all partly, too late and finally understanding, also trying to redress some of the terrible damage of the welfare policies of the Cameron-Osborne era.
But at the coalface of welfare policy itself, they seem to be pursuing contradictory policie, and to have learnt nothing at all. Look at last year's reversal of the UC uplift, or Coffey's idiotic blocking of the truth of the DWP's report into the uselessness of welfare sanctions, earlier this year; or in fact, of her actual *extension* of various types of punishments, also earlier this year. All socially morally and economically idiotic nonsense, thinking it's still pleasing a public who have actually moved in their views since the pandemic, according to the surveys.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
And exactly who is going to pay for this £3bn per year? Oh right, middle income people who are already struggling with the mortgage, kids and rising prices. Get fucked Boris.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone but Boris had announced it or even the lib dems then it would be well received
A third problem, people on UC generally have lower credit scores than other people, usually with defaults and CCJs, who the feck are going to lend these people other than sub prime with usury interest rates?
Can anybody think of a recent example of letting sub prime people getting mortgages going very badly?
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone bit Boris had announced it or eve the lib dems then it would be well received
No, it's trapping people on benefits over very long periods of time, hence the very high cost of the policy because eventually hundreds of thousands will essentially be getting a mortgage subsidy from the state. It's completely mad.
A third problem, people on UC generally have lower credit scores than other people, usually with defaults and CCJs, who the feck are going to lend these people other than sub prime with usury interest rates?
Can anybody think of a recent example of letting sub prime people getting mortgages going very badly?
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
Onshore wind has less density that offshore and more intermittency. Though we should probably build it anyway.
Agree- it's "both and". One of the things about extracting useable energy from weather is that you have to gather all the scraps together- there's a useful amount of energy out there, but it's very spread out.
And also- Bart is almost right. The only problem with Nimbies be dammned (I wish we could) is that Nimbies vote in sufficient numbers that no party can damn them without losing the next election.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone but Boris had announced it or even the lib dems then it would be well received
Although the article states that savings from housing benefit might be generated, it then goes on to say that the policy would cost an additional £3bn if rolled out nationally.
A third problem, people on UC generally have lower credit scores than other people, usually with defaults and CCJs, who the feck are going to lend these people other than sub prime with usury interest rates?
Can anybody think of a recent example of letting sub prime people getting mortgages going very badly?
None at all - all of the building societies that turned themselves into banks are still on the high street (not)..
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
Even offshore wind can be done within that timeframe. We'd be installing a huge amount of generation capacity every month right now if we'd begun the process 10 months ago, the first major turbine parts would be rolling off the line in the north of England, the interconnects would be complete and we'd be building the giant turbines out in the North Sea that can withstand 90-100mph wind speeds. £3-4bn spent a year ago would have cut the cost of that £20bn subsidy by 75% today because that generation capacity would already be coming online lowering electricity prices.
Current plans are to quadruple offshore wind by 2030.
We should have commissioned replacement nuclear reactors 15 years ago to replace those coming offline, but Blair, Brown and then Cameron all passed the buck.
A third problem, people on UC generally have lower credit scores than other people, usually with defaults and CCJs, who the feck are going to lend these people other than sub prime with usury interest rates?
Can anybody think of a recent example of letting sub prime people getting mortgages going very badly?
Is this the UK's communities reinvestment act? 🙈
And the repeal of Glass–Steagall.
You'll be telling banks to give mortgages to people who really shouldn't have them.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
Even offshore wind can be done within that timeframe. We'd be installing a huge amount of generation capacity every month right now if we'd begun the process 10 months ago, the first major turbine parts would be rolling off the line in the north of England, the interconnects would be complete and we'd be building the giant turbines out in the North Sea that can withstand 90-100mph wind speeds. £3-4bn spent a year ago would have cut the cost of that £20bn subsidy by 75% today because that generation capacity would already be coming online lowering electricity prices.
To be fair we are installing offshore wind as fast as we can. The limits are things like crane vessels which have to be booked two or three years in advance. Also survey vessels (I run site surveys for oil and gas developments and know that getting surveys done is a very costly and time consuming thing Get it wrong and your wind turbine falls over). Everything is running at capacity even though we are increasing capacity.
Since 2008 we have been the largest generator of offshore wind power in the world and have increased our generation tenfold in 14 years.
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
You could always do what I did, Richard, and supplement your pension with betting winnings.
You'll find politics a good medium - easy pickings and plenty of sound advice freely available.
I see that Boris’s big idea is to bring back sub-prime loans.
It's completely mad, just as Klarna begins to wobble the government is suggesting Wonga makes a phoenix like comeback.
'Klarna' ?
Swedish “buy-now-pay-later” service.
Has expanded too aggressively and is now facing questions over its overall valuation and perhaps viability.
Materially insolvent within months, investors have sunk billions in and will have to weigh up whether it's worth sinking in another few billion or just cut their losses.
I fear for a lot of Northern European economies that are being propped up by ultra loose credit conditions that are suddenly snapping back.
My biggest worry is that we're something like 10 months into the gas price crisis (remember the gas subsidies given out last year to keep fertilizer plants running for CO2 and farming) and the government hasn't made any moves to rapidly increase generation capacity from alternative sources in that time. There's just no urgency to get anything done, just wishful thinking that this will all just go away in a few months but that few months just keeps getting further away.
Max, you forgot the “dash for nuclear” which was savagely torn apart in Jesse Norman’s letter.
Yes, a dash for nuclear which will produce its first kW of electricity in 15 years. Very useful. I'm not against the idea of nuclear but it does nothing to increase electricity supply by 50% within a year which is what the government needed to start planning when gas prices spiked. Everything we do with gas can be done with electricity, we just need a lot more of it.
There just seems to be no one at cabinet level having that discussion, how do we rapidly increase electricity supply by 50% within 12 months, how do we do it without increasing our carbon footprint and what do we need to get started tomorrow. Just pie in the sky rubbish about 7 nuclear plants using the EPR design that has still yet to reliably produce any electricity at scale.
And if those are the criteria, it's blooming obvious. Lots of onshore wind. No, it doesn't work all the time, but gas is switch on-and-off-able enough that it doesn't matter much. The aim is just to burn less gas over a season.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
100% agreed with you.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
Jesus Barty. I'm agreeing with you hard and often this evening. Stick up turbines. We've loads round here. Nobody cares. Or even notices them. They are part of the landscape. Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
I think the pylon example is a very good one. They'd never have gone up if it were today.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone bit Boris had announced it or eve the lib dems then it would be well received
No, it's trapping people on benefits over very long periods of time, hence the very high cost of the policy because eventually hundreds of thousands will essentially be getting a mortgage subsidy from the state. It's completely mad.
This is a socialist government, rent controls are next.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone but Boris had announced it or even the lib dems then it would be well received
Although the article states that savings from housing benefit might be generated, it then goes on to say that the policy would cost an additional £3bn if rolled out nationally.
Depends on how many homes are built from the proceeds but it could be a very innovative policy
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
You could always do what I did, Richard, and supplement your pension with betting winnings.
You'll find politics a good medium - easy pickings and plenty of sound advice freely available.
Ah. My guilty secret. With the exception of a few one off hundred pound bets on here over the last decade, I don't bet at all. As a student I won a grand back in the mid 80s in a competition. I then proceeded to lose the whole lot in a few weeks in a series of very stupid bets. Since then I have stayed away from betting almost entirely. I also don't do the stock market.
And with that news I await my well deserved expulsion from PB.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone bit Boris had announced it or eve the lib dems then it would be well received
No, it's trapping people on benefits over very long periods of time, hence the very high cost of the policy because eventually hundreds of thousands will essentially be getting a mortgage subsidy from the state. It's completely mad.
This is a socialist government, rent controls are next.
It's not a Conservative government in any sense I recognise, except in the cultural sphere.
Quite a lot of polling support for them in today's Yougov:
38% support, 49% oppose the striking workers.
Support strongest with the under 65s.
4.2% in Scotland and most likely to be in that ball park
The rail unions need to note that we have bailed out rail £16bn in the last few years cos no one is using it
I am pro rail but the Government needs to say we can't afford these pay rises, if you want it then it must be met from commercially generated revenue, no more subsidies and if that means 80% of the network closes so be it. Never thought I would say that!
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone but Boris had announced it or even the lib dems then it would be well received
Although the article states that savings from housing benefit might be generated, it then goes on to say that the policy would cost an additional £3bn if rolled out nationally.
Depends on how many homes are built from the proceeds but it could be a very innovative policy
How does this policy create proceeds that'll be used to build houses?
Same as any mortgage which provides the purchase price on the home
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
A question that arises is why we're paying all this housing benefit to landlords. If these people were in council housing, we'd slash the benefits bill. But we haven't been building council housing.
Fourthly, the 4% of UK adults, I think 1.3 million adults, do not have a bank account, and 88% of those are on universal credit.
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
How do they get their UC then? Genuine question.
UC is paid into credit unions or the bank accounts of friends/family.
Isn't that a smack bang recipe for fraud? We heard just this week 13% of UC claims were fraudulent. Imagine if the fraudsters could enter the mortgage market. Making a bank account a right might be easier.
Fourthly, the 4% of UK adults, I think 1.3 million adults, do not have a bank account, and 88% of those are on universal credit.
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
Edit - I think the 88% is on benefits, just not UC.
You're putting the cart before the horse, saying this is possible is not the same as saying this is necessary for everyone. Saying a bank can issue a loan is very different to saying a bank must issue one.
Some of those on benefits may have poor credit or no bank account, they won't get a mortgage then. However many on benefits will have good credit, a bank account, a secure job, and are paying rent each month that would be as much or more than a mortgage would be - except they can't presently get a mortgage because they're getting the benefits so are compelled to rent instead.
Why should someone with good credit and good security on benefits be compelled to give more money to a landlord, that only increases annually increasing the benefit bill annually, rather than taking a foot on the property ladder instead?
This has to have come from Gove as it is an extremely sensible policy, but I never expected it would ever see the light of day, as the Tories normally hate those on benefits too much, while Labour don't care enough about getting people into a home of their own, so neither party would do it.
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
You could always do what I did, Richard, and supplement your pension with betting winnings.
You'll find politics a good medium - easy pickings and plenty of sound advice freely available.
Ah. My guilty secret. With the exception of a few one off hundred pound bets on here over the last decade, I don't bet at all. As a student I won a grand back in the mid 80s in a competition. I then proceeded to lose the whole lot in a few weeks in a series of very stupid bets. Since then I have stayed away from betting almost entirely. I also don't do the stock market.
And with that news I await my well deserved expulsion from PB.
You need to slag off Radiohead to be sure of that.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
You will not be surprised I do not agree with you
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone bit Boris had announced it or eve the lib dems then it would be well received
No, it's trapping people on benefits over very long periods of time, hence the very high cost of the policy because eventually hundreds of thousands will essentially be getting a mortgage subsidy from the state. It's completely mad.
This is a socialist government, rent controls are next.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
If that 16k is all their savings, and they're financially fragile, getting people to do a leveraged investment in a house has a lot of potential to wipe people out entirely.
Especially if you think house prices are due to fall. Some people even think that would be a good thing.
There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
If the Putin regime falls and Russia leaves the Ukraine, then things could normalise very quickly.
Otherwise, it's a long slog while the world - as it always does - replaces lost Russian energy sources with those from Israel*/Mozambique/etc. and renewables.
* The Russian invasion couldn't have come at a better time for Israel's Leviathan field; I seriously thought it might be massively scaled back to just domestic Israeli production, but the Russians have done the Israelis a huge favour
I was thinking... if the Ukraine conflict gets resolved, many of the factors driving up inflation could be instantly curbed. This could have a significant positive economic impact.
Absolutely right: it would spark a significant economic boom.
Dependent really on a Russian outright, defeat, retreat and collapse of the Putin regime replaced by a pro-Western one, so sanctions can end.
No time soon, IMO.
Putin must go so we can stop doing this thing we're doing to ourselves is not the most convincing of arguments.
Fourthly, the 4% of UK adults, I think 1.3 million adults, do not have a bank account, and 88% of those are on universal credit.
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
How do they get their UC then? Genuine question.
UC is paid into credit unions or the bank accounts of friends/family.
Isn't that a smack bang recipe for fraud? We heard just this week 13% of UC claims were fraudulent. Imagine if the fraudsters could enter the mortgage market. Making a bank account a right might be easier.
HSBC have been great for helping the great unbanked in getting bank accounts.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
There's much in what you say. The principles are right. But there's plenty of detail not explained too. Particularly around deposits. So chalk that up as half an agreement.
Yes, I do. You might be thinking it's justified but they don't have the leverage.
Pay settlement will be constrained this year and the 4.2% offer by Scotland seems fair
Fair to those for whom a 4.2% rise is a real-terms pay cut? House prices going through the roof, petrol is on fire. Even food prices are piling on the pounds. A 4.2% nominal rise in these conditions means those workers are poorer.
Whilst I see your point, that is what is facing everyone. And you can be certain very few private companies will be able to afford to give people even a 4.2% pay rise this year.
Quite a lot of polling support for them in today's Yougov:
38% support, 49% oppose the striking workers.
Support strongest with the under 65s.
4.2% in Scotland and most likely to be in that ball park
The rail unions need to note that we have bailed out rail £16bn in the last few years cos no one is using it
I am pro rail but the Government needs to say we can't afford these pay rises, if you want it then it must be met from commercially generated revenue, no more subsidies and if that means 80% of the network closes so be it. Never thought I would say that!
Par is about a subsidy of £4-6bn per year but it should be noted that's not a free lunch.
Without much of it traffic would either simply cascade onto congested roads, damaging them and increasing costs further and reducing economic growth. In other areas cutting back services entirely would totally isolate some communities.
What we need to look at is how we return to those sort of levels given usage patterns post-Covid and get back on a sustainable footing.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
A question that arises is why we're paying all this housing benefit to landlords. If these people were in council housing, we'd slash the benefits bill. But we haven't been building council housing.
We've got Housing Associations instead. Far, far more in them than in council.
There is nothing that this or any government can do to stop us having 6-9 months of misery. Inflation is going to remain high until the new year. Unemployment will edge up. A technical recession is very likely. There are going to be masses of public sector strikes and vain attempts by the government to restrain public sector pay. We are all getting poorer, fast and it is not much fun.
By 2023 Q2 things might start to improve. But until then we all need to buckle down and brace ourselves. A government with a sense of direction and a sense of priorities would help but only at the edges. The biggest problem we have are fuel prices because the delivery costs drive the cost of everything else. Rishi took 5p off duty, it turned out to be less than a week's increase. That shows how futile the government's efforts are in the face of the tsunami. Brace, brace and think of the most vulnerable.
If the Putin regime falls and Russia leaves the Ukraine, then things could normalise very quickly.
Otherwise, it's a long slog while the world - as it always does - replaces lost Russian energy sources with those from Israel*/Mozambique/etc. and renewables.
* The Russian invasion couldn't have come at a better time for Israel's Leviathan field; I seriously thought it might be massively scaled back to just domestic Israeli production, but the Russians have done the Israelis a huge favour
I was thinking... if the Ukraine conflict gets resolved, many of the factors driving up inflation could be instantly curbed. This could have a significant positive economic impact.
Absolutely right: it would spark a significant economic boom.
Dependent really on a Russian outright, defeat, retreat and collapse of the Putin regime replaced by a pro-Western one, so sanctions can end.
No time soon, IMO.
Putin must go so we can stop doing this thing we're doing to ourselves is not the most convincing of arguments.
Strong "why dya keep punching yourself?" vibes from you
Yes, I do. You might be thinking it's justified but they don't have the leverage.
Pay settlement will be constrained this year and the 4.2% offer by Scotland seems fair
Fair to those for whom a 4.2% rise is a real-terms pay cut? House prices going through the roof, petrol is on fire. Even food prices are piling on the pounds. A 4.2% nominal rise in these conditions means those workers are poorer.
And that is the problem facing governments around the world
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
Totally disagreed here sorry.
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
If that 16k is all their savings, and they're financially fragile, getting people to do a leveraged investment in a house has a lot of potential to wipe people out entirely.
Especially if you think house prices are due to fall. Some people even think that would be a good thing.
Even if house prices do fall, many would be better off paying into a mortgage than renting, especially in an inflationary environment. This is the bizarre thing with people obsessing about negative equity so much which is an aberration almost rarely seen - anyone renting that money is dead, apart from for the landlord. Anyone who gets a home and it goes into "negative equity" so long as they don't sell and keep up repayments, they've not lost money really they're still paying off their mortgage and have an ever increasing share of a home of their own.
Before long the property market rebounds, it always eventually will especially in nominal terms, and the person paying off a mortgage is through the other side of the dip with a home of their own and a potentially half paid off mortgage by now, versus a renter who's still got nothing to their name and will be just facing more rent ongoing.
Johnson can not force banks to lend to those on benefits and their decisions aren’t just based on income so this policy is one of him trying to dupe the plebs into thinking he’s a man of the people !
The policy is designed to grab some headlines and then won’t go anywhere as the over riding problem in the UK is a lack of supply . That won’t change because of Nimbyism and the Tories desperate to avoid annoying those who are more likely to vote for them .
From what I have seen, retiring in your 50s is often a big mistake. I've seen a couple of people go downhill fast in their 60s after retiring in their 50s. A couple of people I know started new careers in the public sector in their 50s, which they have both been successful in and are highly respected. The impression I get is that working full time is good in your 50s and early 60s. Probably best to wind down significantly though in your late 60s. Thats what I plan to do, even though I may not need to from a financial point of view, particularly if this house price inflation keeps going strong.
I took 4 months off work last year and it was a really good experience. I hadn't taken a serious amount of time off work for 15 years. I took a few holidays etc. But the experience made me realise that if I stop work, life becomes meaningless. The best thing to do is to find work that is meaningful and that you enjoy.
Fourthly, the 4% of UK adults, I think 1.3 million adults, do not have a bank account, and 88% of those are on universal credit.
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
How do they get their UC then? Genuine question.
UC is paid into credit unions or the bank accounts of friends/family.
Isn't that a smack bang recipe for fraud? We heard just this week 13% of UC claims were fraudulent. Imagine if the fraudsters could enter the mortgage market. Making a bank account a right might be easier.
HSBC have been great for helping the great unbanked in getting bank accounts.
Challenger banks, such as Monzo, are also great as they don't run credit checks when opening accounts, only identity checks.
It just needs someone at the DWP to go the extra mile to help these people.
But yes, the recipe for fraud is great.
Must say this is something that's always confused me. Why should you refuse a bank account to someone on account of a credit check? You just give them a basic one with no overdraft facility. I don't have an overdraft facility. Nor a credit card.
Johnson can not force banks to lend to those on benefits and their decisions aren’t just based on income so this policy is one of him trying to dupe the plebs into thinking he’s a man of the people !
The policy is designed to grab some headlines and then won’t go anywhere as the over riding problem in the UK is a lack of supply . That won’t change because of Nimbyism and the Tories desperate to avoid annoying those who are more likely to vote for them .
The article doesn't say anything about forcing banks, it says allowing banks, there's a big difference.
Currently the state forbids housing benefit from being used for mortgages, it must be used for rent.
All it takes is for the state to deregulate housing benefit so it can be used for mortgages or rent and suddenly people with good credit can now afford a mortgage. Good for the renter who can become a home owner, good for taxpayers who no longer have to uprate housing benefit annually for that person for the rest of their time.
The only people who lose out are landlords who find their most reliable customers who always paid their rent on time and have a good credit history can now own a home instead of pay rent. Sucks for them. Oh well, how sad.
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
You could always do what I did, Richard, and supplement your pension with betting winnings.
You'll find politics a good medium - easy pickings and plenty of sound advice freely available.
Ah. My guilty secret. With the exception of a few one off hundred pound bets on here over the last decade, I don't bet at all. As a student I won a grand back in the mid 80s in a competition. I then proceeded to lose the whole lot in a few weeks in a series of very stupid bets. Since then I have stayed away from betting almost entirely. I also don't do the stock market.
And with that news I await my well deserved expulsion from PB.
Not if I can help it, Richard!
Seriously, politics is a good medium to bet in, but the margins are much tighter than when I started doing so seriously about fifteen years ago.
Ah well, you'll just have to carry on working for a living a bit longer.
Fourthly, the 4% of UK adults, I think 1.3 million adults, do not have a bank account, and 88% of those are on universal credit.
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
How do they get their UC then? Genuine question.
UC is paid into credit unions or the bank accounts of friends/family.
Isn't that a smack bang recipe for fraud? We heard just this week 13% of UC claims were fraudulent. Imagine if the fraudsters could enter the mortgage market. Making a bank account a right might be easier.
HSBC have been great for helping the great unbanked in getting bank accounts.
Challenger banks, such as Monzo, are also great as they don't run credit checks when opening accounts, only identity checks.
It just needs someone at the DWP to go the extra mile to help these people.
But yes, the recipe for fraud is great.
In my work for Citizens Advice over the past three years I haven't come across anyone who hasn't got a bank account. Sure, they are basic no frills no credit accounts but they are still accounts.
I am not sure what benefits one can get without a bank account these days.
Quite a lot of polling support for them in today's Yougov:
38% support, 49% oppose the striking workers.
Support strongest with the under 65s.
4.2% in Scotland and most likely to be in that ball park
The rail unions need to note that we have bailed out rail £16bn in the last few years cos no one is using it
I am pro rail but the Government needs to say we can't afford these pay rises, if you want it then it must be met from commercially generated revenue, no more subsidies and if that means 80% of the network closes so be it. Never thought I would say that!
Par is about a subsidy of £4-6bn per year but it should be noted that's not a free lunch.
Without much of it traffic would either simply cascade onto congested roads, damaging them and increasing costs further and reducing economic growth. In other areas cutting back services entirely would totally isolate some communities.
What we need to look at is how we return to those sort of levels given usage patterns post-Covid and get back on a sustainable footing.
Yes it was about £1bn in 1980 so as you say £4 to £6bn today.
Your response is far more considered than mine and is correct, I am just fed up with rail unions demanding the impossible given what the general population is facing
Yes, I do. You might be thinking it's justified but they don't have the leverage.
Pay settlement will be constrained this year and the 4.2% offer by Scotland seems fair
Fair to those for whom a 4.2% rise is a real-terms pay cut? House prices going through the roof, petrol is on fire. Even food prices are piling on the pounds. A 4.2% nominal rise in these conditions means those workers are poorer.
Whilst I see your point, that is what is facing everyone. And you can be certain very few private companies will be able to afford to give people even a 4.2% pay rise this year.
From what I have seen, retiring in your 50s is often a big mistake. I've seen a couple of people go downhill fast in their 60s after retiring in their 50s. A couple of people I know started new careers in the public sector in their 50s, which they have both been successful in and are highly respected. The impression I get is that working full time is good in your 50s and early 60s. Probably best to wind down significantly though in your late 60s. Thats what I plan to do, even though I may not need to from a financial point of view, particularly if this house price inflation keeps going strong.
I took 4 months off work last year and it was a really good experience. I hadn't taken a serious amount of time off work for 15 years. I took a few holidays etc. But the experience made me realise that if I stop work, life becomes meaningless. The best thing to do is to find work that is meaningful and that you enjoy.
I am exactly the opposite. I have always said that I could retire tomorrow on only enough to live on - so no expensive holidays or fancy toys - live to be120 and never be bored a day in my life. My trouble is time. I don't have anywhere near enough of it.
The latter two are so close together that I am not surprised to see their positions reversed in some other sources. (However, it seems likely that sanctions have cut Russian production enough so they are clearly in third place now.)
The fourth, fifth, and sixth nations in that list surprised me.
FWIW, the United States is now self sufficient in oil, producing about as much as we consume: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/energy-independence-oil-gas-renewables/ "But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points."
US tight oil production has very high decline rates, so if you stop drilling, your production rapidly falls. (On the other hand, the geological risk is small: you know where the oil is, you just need to drill.)
During Covid, drilling in the US collapse: from about 660-670 working rigs in March 2020 to a low of about 170.
People left to go find other jobs, and even with record oil and gas prices, getting trained rig workers is tough. Basically, we're still only at 574 rigs, although the numbers keep rising.
Same issue in the UK. As soon as the slump comes they lay everyone off and then wonder why most of them don't want to come back when things tick up again. Oil field wages are good but not enough to compensate for 3 or 4 years of no work.
They also fail to invest in people. So it is a massively aging workforce with few people coming into it.
On the positive side Richard, that means that you can choose to retire very gradually.
Sadly not. Tied in with the other discussion I have a large mortgage which, with the best will in the world, I won't get paid off until I am well into my sixties. My choice entirely and I love our place but I am not completely convinced I made the right decision.
Living on 75 acres in one of the highest CoL counties in the US with a huge mortgage, already in my 60s, so sympathize.
That say your two happiest days are the day you buy the farm, and the day you sell it (probably in reverse order).
Yes, I do. You might be thinking it's justified but they don't have the leverage.
Pay settlement will be constrained this year and the 4.2% offer by Scotland seems fair
Fair to those for whom a 4.2% rise is a real-terms pay cut? House prices going through the roof, petrol is on fire. Even food prices are piling on the pounds. A 4.2% nominal rise in these conditions means those workers are poorer.
And that is the problem facing governments around the world
The specific problem right now is yours. You think 4.2% is fair, but you seem to be tacitly accepting my point that this leaves those workers poorer. "Fair" isn't the word I'd reach for here.
From what I have seen, retiring in your 50s is often a big mistake. I've seen a couple of people go downhill fast in their 60s after retiring in their 50s. A couple of people I know started new careers in the public sector in their 50s, which they have both been successful in and are highly respected. The impression I get is that working full time is good in your 50s and early 60s. Probably best to wind down significantly though in your late 60s. Thats what I plan to do, even though I may not need to from a financial point of view, particularly if this house price inflation keeps going strong.
I took 4 months off work last year and it was a really good experience. I hadn't taken a serious amount of time off work for 15 years. I took a few holidays etc. But the experience made me realise that if I stop work, life becomes meaningless. The best thing to do is to find work that is meaningful and that you enjoy.
Comments
We've lost a heck of a lot of folk from the Labour market in their fifties.
No time soon, IMO.
But if you're on benefits you're out of luck as Housing Benefit has for far too long been Landlord's Benefit where you can only get it if your money is going to a Landlord rather than to a house. Those on benefits would be massively more secure and better off it they could use it to pay for a home of their own, and it would massively reduce the bill to the Exchequer too, but instead the money all gets funnelled to Landlords presently.
If this is as CHB says, this is the first major sensible reform in this area in years. Seems too good to be true, I'd like to see a proper source on it.
No pockets in shrouds.
Unfortunately, the the mismanagement of both the reserves and the Venezuelan economy has been monumental.
But again, we can't do that because the country isn't running itself for productivity, it's running itself to be genteel. Can't upset the Nimbies. Even if that leads to decline.
They are retiring in droves.
Maybe I just naturally hang out with slackers?
This new plan looks like an accident waiting to happen.
Low income earners, or perhaps specific classes of buyers (like first time buyers), maybe.
But people on welfare in this economy are surely much less likely to be reliable mortgagees.
And what happens when house prices fall?
You are ineligible for UC with savings over £16k.
I had this argument with MrEd I think the other day, he was arguing that the solution to the high gas prices was to abolish green policies, no its to invest in what works as fast as we can. At the time of the argument I checked Gridwatch and renewables plus nuclear combined at that time (it was a windy day) were producing 80% of our electricity while gas was producing 16%. Thankfully because we were getting power from other sources, our gas demands had been reduced to 1/6th of what it would have been if it were all gas.
If we pushed for onshore wind as fast as we can then we could be running at times with absolutely no gas burnt and the interconnectors used to export instead of import electricity, boosting our balance of trade too.
The more we can maximise that, the sooner we can, the better. NIMBYs be damned.
https://twitter.com/TmorrowsPapers/status/1534648860194258946?t=OHn5SBsHYs7aMG2rlJeKPA&s=19
Like pylons. Only nicer to look at.
I expect this will not work out as they hope
However, the scheme is likely to be limited to a series of pilots as the costs will be met from within existing government spending, without additional funding.
Internal estimates suggest that if it was uncapped the programme could cost the government £3 billion a year with hundreds of thousands of people taking advantage. One government source said that the scheme would be capped at about £500 million, although the cost has yet to be agreed.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/benefits-to-bricks-as-boris-johnson-announces-right-to-buy-plans-for-low-paid-workers-wlg626frn
I texted the story to my friend who works at JCP and deals with UC every day has pointed out a few major flaws.
1) The 16k UC limit on savings makes the deposit situation complicated
and
2) Given the way the people on UC are regularly sanctioned for minor breaches (and often for no breaches at all when reviewed) then letting people on UC apply for mortgages is setting up a new sub prime disaster.
But at the coalface of welfare policy itself, they seem to be pursuing contradictory policie, and to have learnt nothing at all. Look at last year's reversal of the UC uplift, or Coffey's idiotic blocking of the truth of the DWP's report into the uselessness of welfare sanctions, earlier this year; or in fact, of her actual *extension* of various types of punishments, also earlier this year. All socially morally and economically idiotic nonsense, thinking it's still pleasing a public who have actually moved in their views since the pandemic, according to the surveys.
That's one detail right there.
It has the opportunity of changing people's lives from renters to owners and releasing money to build more homes
Of course safeguards will be needed but I suspect if anyone but Boris had announced it or even the lib dems then it would be well received
Can anybody think of a recent example of letting sub prime people getting mortgages going very badly?
Yeah, this policy has some pretty substantial flaws.
Edit - I think the 88% is on benefits, just not UC.
And also- Bart is almost right. The only problem with Nimbies be dammned (I wish we could) is that Nimbies vote in sufficient numbers that no party can damn them without losing the next election.
38% support, 49% oppose the striking workers.
Support strongest with the under 65s.
We should have commissioned replacement nuclear reactors 15 years ago to replace those coming offline, but Blair, Brown and then Cameron all passed the buck.
So now we have a problem.
You'll be telling banks to give mortgages to people who really shouldn't have them.
Since 2008 we have been the largest generator of offshore wind power in the world and have increased our generation tenfold in 14 years.
You'll find politics a good medium - easy pickings and plenty of sound advice freely available.
Genuine question.
And with that news I await my well deserved expulsion from PB.
I am pro rail but the Government needs to say we can't afford these pay rises, if you want it then it must be met from commercially generated revenue, no more subsidies and if that means 80% of the network closes so be it. Never thought I would say that!
1) Yes its complicated but less than £16k would be more than a 10% deposit for starter homes in much of the country.
2) The idea it will cost money is typical short-sighted Treasury naval-gazing.
Many people on benefits could pay for a mortgage, how do we know this, because they already pay rent. By saying that the benefits must go into landlords pockets instead of a home you do nothing other than featherbed landlords who pocket the money, instead of it going towards a home.
By forcing people to continue renting all you do is ever more increase the benefits bill. This years rent will be one figure, but next years rent will be higher, and so on for many years to come and the benefits bill will only keep going up. Get the benefits paying a mortgage on the other hand and the mortgage value is fixed at the year of purchase rather than annually uplifted like landlords benefit and before long you'll have people off benefits altogether.
We heard just this week 13% of UC claims were fraudulent.
Imagine if the fraudsters could enter the mortgage market.
Making a bank account a right might be easier.
Some of those on benefits may have poor credit or no bank account, they won't get a mortgage then. However many on benefits will have good credit, a bank account, a secure job, and are paying rent each month that would be as much or more than a mortgage would be - except they can't presently get a mortgage because they're getting the benefits so are compelled to rent instead.
Why should someone with good credit and good security on benefits be compelled to give more money to a landlord, that only increases annually increasing the benefit bill annually, rather than taking a foot on the property ladder instead?
This has to have come from Gove as it is an extremely sensible policy, but I never expected it would ever see the light of day, as the Tories normally hate those on benefits too much, while Labour don't care enough about getting people into a home of their own, so neither party would do it.
Sod the workers, us grey-hairs need the money.
Thoughts and prayers with him as people ask him to come up with a report on this latest bit of socialism from the government.
Especially if you think house prices are due to fall. Some people even think that would be a good thing.
https://www.hsbc.co.uk/opportunity/financial-independence/
Challenger banks, such as Monzo, are also great as they don't run credit checks when opening accounts, only identity checks.
It just needs someone at the DWP to go the extra mile to help these people.
But yes, the recipe for fraud is great.
So chalk that up as half an agreement.
Without much of it traffic would either simply cascade onto congested roads, damaging them and increasing costs further and reducing economic growth. In other areas cutting back services entirely would totally isolate some communities.
What we need to look at is how we return to those sort of levels given usage patterns post-Covid and get back on a sustainable footing.
The lights are going out all over Ventnor. We won't see them lit again in our lifetime.
Before long the property market rebounds, it always eventually will especially in nominal terms, and the person paying off a mortgage is through the other side of the dip with a home of their own and a potentially half paid off mortgage by now, versus a renter who's still got nothing to their name and will be just facing more rent ongoing.
The policy is designed to grab some headlines and then won’t go anywhere as the over riding problem in the UK is a lack of supply . That won’t change because of Nimbyism and the Tories desperate to avoid annoying those who are more likely to vote for them .
I took 4 months off work last year and it was a really good experience. I hadn't taken a serious amount of time off work for 15 years. I took a few holidays etc. But the experience made me realise that if I stop work, life becomes meaningless. The best thing to do is to find work that is meaningful and that you enjoy.
You just give them a basic one with no overdraft facility.
I don't have an overdraft facility. Nor a credit card.
Currently the state forbids housing benefit from being used for mortgages, it must be used for rent.
All it takes is for the state to deregulate housing benefit so it can be used for mortgages or rent and suddenly people with good credit can now afford a mortgage. Good for the renter who can become a home owner, good for taxpayers who no longer have to uprate housing benefit annually for that person for the rest of their time.
The only people who lose out are landlords who find their most reliable customers who always paid their rent on time and have a good credit history can now own a home instead of pay rent. Sucks for them. Oh well, how sad.
Seriously, politics is a good medium to bet in, but the margins are much tighter than when I started doing so seriously about fifteen years ago.
Ah well, you'll just have to carry on working for a living a bit longer.
I am not sure what benefits one can get without a bank account these days.
Your response is far more considered than mine and is correct, I am just fed up with rail unions demanding the impossible given what the general population is facing
😡
Been on the River Ouse tonight and mine own tongue spleets what it speaks.
Sleep well everyone.
That say your two happiest days are the day you buy the farm, and the day you sell it (probably in reverse order).