So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
Well. That’s a take.
It is the brutal truth. As I see it
I guess we had to do parts of lockdown 1, maybe. Til we knew what we were facing. But even then it should have been voluntary, like Sweden. We should never have closed the schools
We fucked ourselves long term for a disease which is, at its worst, five-ten times more lethal than flu, and which mainly kills the very old or very obese
My wife and I are trying to hang on in there if that is ok ?
Whether cutting the money supply going into a recession is at all clever is a question left for the new prime minister.
The 2008 interventions were never sterilised. That lead to asset price inflation that has now broken through into consumer price inflation.
Would this adjustment had been done before now. But it needs to be done. Your approach is redolent of the “extend and pretend” strategy of over leveraged borrowers
QE having caused asset price inflation is not the problem right now, when inflation is due mainly to the war in Ukraine that has effected both hard and soft commodities, and partly to Covid lockdowns that disrupted manufacturing supply chains.
Asset price inflation / low yields is the fundamental driver of the cost of living crisis (through the impact on rents and borrowing). Consumer price inflation is just the symptom - and much of it is temporary.
The issue that the UK and most other western countries made was they didn’t build enough resilience into the economy. They just saw the costs - not the benefits. And now we are paying the price
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
Can I second those PB-ers who are asking: where the heck do I put cash to hedge against inflation? Somewhere reasonably liquid but safe from a crash?
I'd stick with Cash because it IS safe from a Crash - assuming you have it in very low Credit Risk places.
Other assets, eg shares and property, can lose an outright chunk of their capital value. Cash is eroded, drip drip, by inflation but £1m remains £1m and you get the benefit of an income boost as interest rates rise. Eg if rates double from 1.5 to 3, so does your income.
Hey, had a question for you - what do you make of Richmond as a place to live?
Thanks for the advice. I tend to agree. And cash is so liquid. I may shift it into $ tho. Safe haven currency - at least until Trump wins
Richmond is lovely. Mick Jagger lives there for a reason. It’s green and chic and super prosperous
However it is very pricey, you need to be near the river and/or the park, and it might feel frustratingly far out for someone used to central-ish London like you. There’s no way of dashing into the West End or King’s X or the City/Wharf from Richmond. It always takes an hour
But the river is brilliant at Richmond
Thanks, my impression too. Yes, the place we're on the verge of buying is on the river and it really is an attractive section of the Thames down there. My wife is more the driver than me but I do like the area.
The main problem is political in fact. Hampstead (along with Islington) is the heart of "lefty" North London and you feel this as you go around. You know the people you're seeing and maybe bumping into are good progressive types. In Richmond? Hmm not sure.
Also, it's a Lib/Con marginal so I'll be faced - if I want to be part of removing this shower of Tories from office - with voting Lib Dem at the GE. That will be strange since I've never ever not voted Labour at a general.
Have tried explaining this whole 'political angle' of the move to my wife but although she understands - she's leftish too - she doesn't feel it should be a major factor in our decision.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
No certainly not. Glad it’s getting no worse at least. I’ve been off work with “not covid” according to my LFDs but the last couple of days have been a bit unpleasant.
We didn't think it was covid originally but our daughter who was with us tested positive and the rest followed
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Here’s some interesting and quite detailed analysis by a politics professor on the Sunak v Truss contest. TLDR: he concludes Sunak’s only chance is coming clean about the economic woes we face, presenting himself as the grown up and worrying people about Truss’s ability to cope:
I was thinking exactly this earlier today: The “safe pair of hands” message might just work. Any other messaging Truss can just outdo him - be more Thatcherite, promise to spend more / less, clamp down even harder on deviants etc etc. But she can’t promise to be more competent.
It seems that if we want to get inflation down, we need to all we can to ensure a swift Ukrainian victory.
Not for that reason unless it results in Putin being replaced by someone willing to open up gas exports (and it could equally lead to him being replaced by an even more dangerous revanchist).
Putin is not revanchist. He can't be. Russia hasn't lost any territory.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
Well. That’s a take.
It is the brutal truth. As I see it
I guess we had to do parts of lockdown 1, maybe. Til we knew what we were facing. But even then it should have been voluntary, like Sweden. We should never have closed the schools
We fucked ourselves long term for a disease which is, at its worst, five-ten times more lethal than flu, and which mainly kills the very old or very obese
My wife and I are trying to hang on in there if that is ok ?
It’s ok. I just don’t think we should have totally screwed the economy - and our kids’ education - and many peoples heads - to protect you
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
What’s not to like . It also removes a lot of Tory voters which can only be a good thing for the country !
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
Are you needing the inheritance to fund your lifestyle?
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
It seems that if we want to get inflation down, we need to all we can to ensure a swift Ukrainian victory.
Not for that reason unless it results in Putin being replaced by someone willing to open up gas exports (and it could equally lead to him being replaced by an even more dangerous revanchist).
Putin is not revanchist. He can't be. Russia hasn't lost any territory. Zelensky is the revanchist: he wants to regain the territories of the Donbas and Crimea that separation referendums took out of the Ukraine eight years ago.
As you well know, those referendums were not legitimate and Russia’s conquest of those parts of Ukraine have never been recognised by the international community
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
The unintended consequence of that would be the even greater number of people who survived covid but left with long covid and unable to work. There is a reason unions are flexing their muscles and strikes are happening; the labour pool is smaller. If we had let covid rip and instead of 2 mil with long covid we had 10 mil, for example, then we'd have a significantly reduced labour capacity.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
What’s not to like . It also removes a lot of Tory voters which can only be a good thing for the country !
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
Not very good at avoiding those 4 horsemen anymore...
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
It would have been impossible politically as it would have killed mostly Tory voters.
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
It seems to have caught many of my friends recently, most of them for the first time.
It seems that if we want to get inflation down, we need to all we can to ensure a swift Ukrainian victory.
We kind of have to hope that we've already done enough. Ukraine has started its Kherson offensive, and the future course of the war is very different if that is successful before the end of September.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
Not very good at avoiding those 4 horsemen anymore...
Many people avoided covid because as a society we decided the only thing that mattered for a year or more was the number of people who died of covid...
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
Not very good at avoiding those 4 horsemen anymore...
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
It would have been impossible politically as it would have killed mostly Tory voters.
(That was just to save Hyufd the bother.)
OTOH lots of lovely inheritances. One wonders what the Party Line would have been if there were more Young Harry Enfield Tories in the Party.
I'm also remembering that some diseases, such as Spanish Flu c. 1917-20, preferentially killed people of young to middle age.
Worth remembering. Only a third of adults have a mortgage. Of them, only about a quarter aren't fixed rate.
How many are "fixed" for more than a few years. We are "fixed" but only got 2 years left on the term.
There's some detail here - around two thirds of fixed mortgages are fixed for 5 years and above (though it's not entirely clear whether the fix is five years total, or five years left to run).
While 83.1 per cent of existing mortgage holders are on fixed-rate contracts, as many as 32.7 per cent of this group are on short agreements of 24 months or less, according to data from the Bank of England...
I’d be almost certain that the stats are the dates the fixes are written (that’s reported to the BofE). It would be very unlikely they retained a database to track mortgages through their life
Putin regards all of Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic States as lost lands.
Plainly, it would be excellent news if Ukraine recaptured Crimea and Donbass, but that's probably too much to hope for.
So you are pro-revanchist. (That doesn't in itself mean you're wrong, but we might as well use words right.)
Anyway the neo-Nazis of the Ukrainian army's Azov Regiment already control a portion of the Donbas, so if the position is not yet "excellent" does it count as "quite good" maybe? Would you say that to people who live there? If you think it's "plain" that it would be supertastic for the Ukrainian armed forces to reconquer the Crimea and re-establish the position created by Khrushchev in the 1950s, then there's no need to argue for the proposition against dimwits like me. The same may be true of the notion that a demonic Putin wants to fly the Russian flag over Belarus.
Perhaps Khrushchev was looking a long way into the future (all the way to BЯexit and Scottish Iиdependeиce?*) when he said that if he were British he would vote Tory.
* British politicians known for cooperating up to their eyeballs with Russia Today include Nigel Farage and Alec Salmond, as well as George Galloway. I can't think of any who were pro-Remain and pro-Union. Funny that.
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
It seems to have caught many of my friends recently, most of them for the first time.
It's not such a killer anymore, but still a very miserable thing to have. If it keeps circulating then probably most people will be off work with it for a week or two each year.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
Are you needing the inheritance to fund your lifestyle?
Not at all. I’m fine. I’m saying what needs to be said
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
What’s not to like . It also removes a lot of Tory voters which can only be a good thing for the country !
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
We all know the answer though. Charge pensioners NI and increase the retirement age to 75.
The trouble is pensioners vote, and so does everyone over about 50 who knows that extension to retirement age is going to be necessary but hoped it would come after their turn.
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
The government is fucked. If that happens then around £600bn of our debt will attract RPI plus the coupon, so an average of ~19%, plus the interest on all of the other £1.2tn non index linked bonds.
We're looking at a debt servicing cost of £130-150bn per year. Absolutely insane.
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
It seems to have caught many of my friends recently, most of them for the first time.
It's not such a killer anymore, but still a very miserable thing to have. If it keeps circulating then probably most people will be off work with it for a week or two each year.
Are common colds blowing around right now? I’m not the only one I know who has had “not covid” in the last couple of weeks.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I suppose we could send the over 80s to fight the French, armed with a rolled up copy of the Daily Express.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
What we need is going people to start having children again so that we have a supply of taxpayers coming through the economy.
We also need older people to take a hit alongside everyone else. That includes the state pension.
And we desperately need to think about health. All else held equal, our demographic profile will ruin us in the next 50 years. On top of that, the cycle of medical advance will increase costs - we'll be able to keep gentlemen like you going on longer and longer. A good thing, if we can pay for it.
And on top of all of that, we might well be getting sicker as a society. The obesity bomb hasn't gone off yet.
If these BoE predictions pan out, and if they are mirrored across the West, then the pressure on Ukraine to sue for a bitter peace will be irresistible
I see Marine Le Pen is arguing this in France already. She is not entirely stupid: she sees the political opportunity
And it could get worse. Putin could shut off all gas and oil and see if we blink first. I suspect we would
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I suppose we could send the over 80s to fight the French, armed with a rolled up copy of the Daily Express.
As presaged in Alan Sillitoe's novel *Travels in Nihilon*.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Bof E also forecasting 13% inflation in Q4. A figure which seems to climb with every prediction from anyone.
That is GRIM.
On the plus side, it has risen so fast so quickly there is every chance it will fall equally fast.
Unless of course wage inflation replaces commodity inflation.
There was an economist on R4 this morning indicating that inflation might not peak until Q1 next year now and might reach 15%. The BoE has let this get so out of control that they really should be getting their jotters. Other countries have had the supply shock but have not had as much inflation. Our monetary policy has been far too loose for far too long.
Other countries have not had Brexit either. France for one is limiting inflation by capping fuel price rises. I should expect in tonight's debate that Liz Truss will return to suspending the green levy and allowing BOGOF, and perhaps also proposals to cut VAT.
France is currently in the unhappy position of importing nearly 20% of their electricity. I am sure that that is just a coincidence and not at all related that they are trying to use government dictat to determine the price of fuel.
The more I listened to the head of OFGEM this morning the more confused I got about how a Conservative government, a Conservative goverment (misquoting dear old Neil) ever entered into such anti market regulatory nonsense in the first place. The abolition of OFGEM would only be a token reduction in the cost of fuel but every little helps.
Putin regards all of Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic States as lost lands.
Plainly, it would be excellent news if Ukraine recaptured Crimea and Donbass, but that's probably too much to hope for.
So you are pro-revanchist. (That doesn't in itself mean you're wrong, but we might as well use words right.)
Anyway the neo-Nazis of the Ukrainian army's Azov Regiment already control a portion of the Donbas, so if the position is not yet "excellent" does it count as "quite good" maybe? Would you say that to people who live there? If you think it's "plain" that it would be supertastic for the Ukrainian armed forces to reconquer the Crimea and re-establish the position created by Khrushchev in the 1950s, then there's no need to argue for the proposition against dimwits like me. The same may be true of the notion that a demonic Putin wants to fly the Russian flag over Belarus.
Perhaps Khrushchev was looking a long way into the future (all the way to BЯexit and Scottish Iиdependeиce?*) when he said that if he were British he would vote Tory.
* British politicians known for cooperating up to their eyeballs with Russia Today include Nigel Farage and Alec Salmond, as well as George Galloway. I can't think of any who were pro-Remain and pro-Union. Funny that.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
The good news for you is that according to experiences with my own family (mother, aunt) and the experiences of many, many other friends with relatives the same age (80-90+) the NHS is doing its darnedest to get rid of this older cohort.
If these BoE predictions pan out, and if they are mirrored across the West, then the pressure on Ukraine to sue for a bitter peace will be irresistible
I see Marine Le Pen is arguing this in France already. She is not entirely stupid: she sees the political opportunity
And it could get worse. Putin could shut off all gas and oil and see if we blink first. I suspect we would
Putin doesn't need to cut off more gas - I suspect he's already cut off enough that December onwards is going to awkward (to say the least) in Germany and Italy
What we need is going people to start having children again so that we have a supply of taxpayers coming through the economy.
We also need older people to take a hit alongside everyone else. That includes the state pension.
And we desperately need to think about health. All else held equal, our demographic profile will ruin us in the next 50 years. On top of that, the cycle of medical advance will increase costs - we'll be able to keep gentlemen like you going on longer and longer. A good thing, if we can pay for it.
And on top of all of that, we might well be getting sicker as a society. The obesity bomb hasn't gone off yet.
If anyone is interested in this, there is also some Baumol cost disease in the health sector going on as well, people reckon.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
Not very good at avoiding those 4 horsemen anymore...
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Of course, it was completely impossible politically. There's an argument to be made that as a species we've evolved to the point where we're too efficient at avoiding nature's balancing mechanisms against population growth - war, famine and disease.
Not very good at avoiding those 4 horsemen anymore...
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
It seems that if we want to get inflation down, we need to all we can to ensure a swift Ukrainian victory.
We kind of have to hope that we've already done enough. Ukraine has started its Kherson offensive, and the future course of the war is very different if that is successful before the end of September.
But this is a false hypothesis which assumes that Russian gas and oil will come back onto the market once they have been humiliated in Ukraine. It is, frankly, inconceivable under current management that that would be the case. If Mr Putin proved to be a bit careless on his balcony (as so many are in Russia, journalists especially) we have no idea what or who would replace him and how they would respond.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
Hold on. Weren't you extolling the virtues of PB-as-boozer last night when you could meet people you know and chit chat about this and that?
That has a utility. Old people have such a utility if not for and amongst themselves, when you would I'm sure argue to get rid of the lot of them, but for family. Meeting parents and grandparents surely represents a huge increase in human happiness and well being.
If you are saying that things with proven utility should be dispensed with it sounds as though the axe won't stop at old people.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
Isn't it a legitimate question? The NHS budget could be doubled in an effort to extend people's lives by a year or two. But is it worth it. That decision is already being made, both at an individual level and at a policy level.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
What’s not to like . It also removes a lot of Tory voters which can only be a good thing for the country !
Are you really that bitter
I thought it was obvious I was responding to Leon tongue in cheek .
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
I’m evil for confronting demographic reality, and trying to make the lives of the young better?
Get a grip. This is pathetic. This is why we can’t have this debate because people like you start weeping
I have kids in their teens and I have parents in their 80s. If the latter have to die to help the former so be it. We are spending far too much time and money and political energy on the needs of the very old
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
Also, the gap narrows if you include reinvested dividends.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
I have no doubt it is although it is proportionate (the relative increases in % terms) so I'm not sure why we couldn't have increased in similar fashion.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
Isn't it a legitimate question? The NHS budget could be doubled in an effort to extend people's lives by a year or two. But is it worth it. That decision is already being made, both at an individual level and at a policy level.
No. We regularly have arguments about what level of care is proportional. NICE do a good job of it. See the debate about the Battersby kid. The contention here is if you are a burden to the state you should be told “sorry no care for you”. “Burden” is a load bearing word. Who is a burden? The disabled? The unemployed? The elderly? Only the poor elderly who can’t afford healthcare? This isn’t a debate, it’s a provocative statement that should be looked at askance and met with “bugger off”.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
I’m evil for confronting demographic reality, and trying to make the lives of the young better?
Get a grip. This is pathetic. This is why we can’t have this debate because people like you start weeping
I have kids in their teens and I have parents in their 80s. If the latter have to die to help the former so be it. We are spending far too much time and money and political energy on the needs of the very old
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
That is a terrible article by someone who (from his recent articles) sounds like an odious little man.
I read it with incredulity last night. I like a bit of realpolitik as much as anyone, but that article goes far beyond appeasement into willing subjugation
The government is fucked. If that happens then around £600bn of our debt will attract RPI plus the coupon, so an average of ~19%, plus the interest on all of the other £1.2tn non index linked bonds.
We're looking at a debt servicing cost of £130-150bn per year. Absolutely insane.
And this is why inflation linked bonds should always form part og a personal investment portfolio
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
I have no doubt it is although it is proportionate (the relative increases in % terms) so I'm not sure why we couldn't have increased in similar fashion.
Partly it's due to UK tech companies preferring to list in the US, stay privately owned or head to AIM. The other part of it is that UK investors are not very good at investing in high growth tech companies that will take 4-5 years to pay dividends. In my experience UK funds want dividends and they want them today and they prefer that to capital growth.
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
That is a terrible article by someone who (from his recent articles) sounds like an odious little man.
I used to find myself agreeing with him quite a bit. But I can't remember the last time I did agree with him. That paragraph is utterly horrific. The Guardian ought to be ashamed of itself for publishing it.
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
Isn't it a legitimate question? The NHS budget could be doubled in an effort to extend people's lives by a year or two. But is it worth it. That decision is already being made, both at an individual level and at a policy level.
No. We regularly have arguments about what level of care is proportional. NICE do a good job of it. See the debate about the Battersby kid. The contention here is if you are a burden to the state you should be told “sorry no care for you”. “Burden” is a load bearing word. Who is a burden? The disabled? The unemployed? The elderly? Only the poor elderly who can’t afford healthcare? This isn’t a debate, it’s a provocative statement that should be looked at askance and met with “bugger off”.
It is a legitimate question, otherwise we wouldn't have arguments about what level of care is appropriate, or have a statutory body to make those kind of decisions. Clearly a line is drawn somewhere, and someone is making the decision of where to draw it.
There seems to be a complete divorce between these numbers and the political conversation.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is on holiday.
The CofE speaks.
"We are also taking important steps to get inflation under control through strong, independent monetary policy, responsible tax and spending decisions, and reforms to boost our productivity and growth.
The economy recovered strongly from the pandemic, with the fastest growth in the G7 last year, and I’m confident that the action we are taking means we can also overcome these global challenges."
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
I have no doubt it is although it is proportionate (the relative increases in % terms) so I'm not sure why we couldn't have increased in similar fashion.
Partly it's due to UK tech companies preferring to list in the US, stay privately owned or head to AIM. The other part of it is that UK investors are not very good at investing in high growth tech companies that will take 4-5 years to pay dividends. In my experience UK funds want dividends and they want them today and they prefer that to capital growth.
That’s interesting. What do you think causes that cultural difference?
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
I have no doubt it is although it is proportionate (the relative increases in % terms) so I'm not sure why we couldn't have increased in similar fashion.
Partly it's due to UK tech companies preferring to list in the US, stay privately owned or head to AIM. The other part of it is that UK investors are not very good at investing in high growth tech companies that will take 4-5 years to pay dividends. In my experience UK funds want dividends and they want them today and they prefer that to capital growth.
That’s interesting. What do you think causes that cultural difference?
The UK is significantly more risk averse than the US. Our high risk funds would be considered medium risk in the US.
Bof E also forecasting 13% inflation in Q4. A figure which seems to climb with every prediction from anyone.
That is GRIM.
On the plus side, it has risen so fast so quickly there is every chance it will fall equally fast.
Unless of course wage inflation replaces commodity inflation.
There was an economist on R4 this morning indicating that inflation might not peak until Q1 next year now and might reach 15%. The BoE has let this get so out of control that they really should be getting their jotters. Other countries have had the supply shock but have not had as much inflation. Our monetary policy has been far too loose for far too long.
Other countries have not had Brexit either. France for one is limiting inflation by capping fuel price rises. I should expect in tonight's debate that Liz Truss will return to suspending the green levy and allowing BOGOF, and perhaps also proposals to cut VAT.
France is currently in the unhappy position of importing nearly 20% of their electricity. I am sure that that is just a coincidence and not at all related that they are trying to use government dictat to determine the price of fuel.
The more I listened to the head of OFGEM this morning the more confused I got about how a Conservative government, a Conservative goverment (misquoting dear old Neil) ever entered into such anti market regulatory nonsense in the first place. The abolition of OFGEM would only be a token reduction in the cost of fuel but every little helps.
France's current power woes seem to be primarily due to the hot weather. The low river levels mean they can't run their large fleet of nukes at the usual capacity for the time of year.
Just popped in and things don't change, do they. Leon polluting the thread with his toxic views again. It only needs Barty to appear with his binary views on free market and we will be in the sewer again.
Here’s some interesting and quite detailed analysis by a politics professor on the Sunak v Truss contest. TLDR: he concludes Sunak’s only chance is coming clean about the economic woes we face, presenting himself as the grown up and worrying people about Truss’s ability to cope:
I was thinking exactly this earlier today: The “safe pair of hands” message might just work. Any other messaging Truss can just outdo him - be more Thatcherite, promise to spend more / less, clamp down even harder on deviants etc etc. But she can’t promise to be more competent.
Except... Who was Chancellor the last couple of years when everything went wrong?
So glad we fixed for 5 years when we got our house last year. 13% inflation is mad, interest rates will have to rise quite substantially, much more than the Bank is currently letting on. Whoever wins in 2024 is fucked.
As fucked as whoever wins in September? By 2024, there might be enough visible failure for a grownup conversation about what we do about this, rather than all the boosterism nonsense.
Meanwhile, Bozza looks like he may have done the political equivalent of shimmying down the drainpipe just before the husband enters the room. A fair chunk of the incoming pain is his responsibility, but you can be sure that his successor will be the one to cop the blame,
Even more so, IMO. They're going to have to cut spending more than we've ever seen and to areas where cuts have previously been unthinkable like the NHS and pensions.
In retrospect, we should have let Covid rip. Kill a million old people 🤷♂️🤷♂️ and the obese 🧐
Before I am accused of callousness, my parents would have gone in the cull. So be it
It's hard to say how much that strategy would have helped. At least some lost production is due to people actually being ill with Covid rather than being due to the measures taken to mitigate the spread of Covid.
If everyone over 80 had died, that would have
1 freed up a ton of property 2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state 3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy 4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc) 5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
Come to think of it, why bother with healthcare provision at all? It costs a bloody fortune, and it's most only old people that die. Healthcare is really just delaying the inevitable.
Be serious. At some point we WILL have to ask ourselves: how much are we prepared to spend keeping very old people alive?
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
I mean, you could do both - there is immense wealth in the hands of a few that could easily be taxed at a reasonable rate to pay for both options for the young and the continued existence of anyone over 80.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
Don’t be ridiculous. People over 80 don’t “do lots of labour”. They aren’t running around looking after grandkids like people in their 60s
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
I’m about 50% sure you’re doing this for the reactions but in case you aren’t: this is inhumane, stupid and borderline evil.
I’m evil for confronting demographic reality, and trying to make the lives of the young better?
Get a grip. This is pathetic. This is why we can’t have this debate because people like you start weeping
I have kids in their teens and I have parents in their 80s. If the latter have to die to help the former so be it. We are spending far too much time and money and political energy on the needs of the very old
We can do both without a policy of letting the burdensome or, to borrow a phrase, "useless eaters" die. It's just that the alternative (progressive taxation, a solid social safety net, public investment and funding of necessary infrastructure, more equitable distribution of profits amongst the workers as well as the owners of businesses) is unacceptable to most on the right that the culling of the "burdensome" is preferable.
Braverman gives perhaps the definitive performance of "politician talking about something they don't understand in the slightest". Still, I am intrigued by the idea that the BOJ, which has failed to deliver on its inflation mandate for decades and now owns more than half of Japan's public debt, offers a model for the BOE to follow. I have a feeling that UK economic policy is about to get very "interesting".
Braverman is just riffing on Liz Truss's campaign pledges — review the Bank of England's mandate in some unspecified way; think about copying the Bank of Japan in some aspect or other. Braverman is struggling because Liz Truss is just throwing out slogans and not policies.
Japan was a very poor choice. There are several other currencies which didn't turn on the printing taps during Covid and have significantly lower inflation now. All choices come with pros and cons and the bill have to be paid somewhere so perhaps the way things are playing out is the least worst options.
But foolish to believe you can respond to a temporary reduction in the velocity of money by a permanent increase in supply, and then when velocity reverts just mouth off about Ukraine and deny any responsibility like Bailey wants to do.
Who on earth appointed Bailey ?
One look at his FCA job should have been disqualificating. Just seems there's a merry-go-round of top state jobs once you reach a certain level no matter how atrocious your performance in the previous job.
Ken Clarke should have been brought in.
Bailey epitomises cronyism at it’s worst.
Spielman, first at OFQUAL and now at OFSTED, was probably still more damaging. At least Andrew Bailey is a banker, albeit a rather rubbish one who can't stay awake in meetings.
Talk about not staying awake in meetings … In the mid-70s I was one of two economists on the UK/Ireland desk at the OECD and the Economic Policy Committee, comprising senior economists and officials from the then 24 member countries, was meeting. We had observer access to that meeting and my Greek co-worker was asked to deliver a message to Sir Bryan Hopkin (Denis Healey's chief economic advisor) by BH's sister who worked at the OECD. When he went up to place the note in front of Sir Bryan he saw that he was asleep, so he turned to the other Treasury knight seated next to him, Sir Douglas Wass, and saw that he too was asleep! It was about 3pm and they'd had a good lunch so my Greek colleague thought it quite natural and popped the note into the sleeping knight's jacket pocket.
Just reading some voxpop-esque stuff on the BBC. My heart is bleeding...
Louise and her husband have been saving to move home in Brighton since 2020, but they're having a major rethink.
"We've had to substantially reconsider the amount of money we can borrow, says Louise.
They'd been hoping to move to a bigger house so they could start a family.
But now they can only afford smaller houses, Louise says it's "making us wonder whether we should bother moving at all".
"Our options are either to stay put where we are or move to something about £200,000 cheaper than we had hoped."
Maybe, but look at the underlying message there - couple who want to start a family are now unlikely to do so because they can't afford to move into their desired house.
@Leon is right, the nation needs to have a rethink on how we approach old age care provision. The current mandate the NHS has to extend life at any cost is going to bankrupt the nation. Providing expensive care for a 90 year old so they can live for 6 more months results in higher taxes and lower income for working age people and less availability of housing which pushes up housing costs.
You may dismiss these people but we need families and we need policies to help couples become families. Not just laugh at their misfortune.
Still very much under the weather with covid but listening to the BOE governor he seems utterly powerless to mitigate the economic crisis now unfolding both here and across Europe, and it seems the country is becoming ungovernable by any political party for the forceable future and 2024 is definitely the election to lose
Is this your first bout big G? Have I got that right? I have still managed to avoid it. Or at least if I have had it I didn't know. During the pandemic I have just gone for proper ailments ( paralysed vocal cord, broken legs) not your namby pamby COVID.
Yes and for my wife.
We caught it last week while on holiday on the Caledonian canal and it has floored both of us with my wife saying she has not felt as bad since she had Asian flu. Today is day 7 and we expect it will be some days more before we see much of an improvement
We have both had 4 jabs and another due but at 78 and 82 it is not ideal to catch this rather nasty bug
Get well soon Big G. Just realised my post sounded a bit callous, which wasn't intentional.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Isn't this mostly due to America producing more new companies, which grow, enter the S&P, then grow a lot more, rather than a reflection of the relative fortunes of longstanding old-fashioned companies in both countries?
I have no doubt it is although it is proportionate (the relative increases in % terms) so I'm not sure why we couldn't have increased in similar fashion.
Partly it's due to UK tech companies preferring to list in the US, stay privately owned or head to AIM. The other part of it is that UK investors are not very good at investing in high growth tech companies that will take 4-5 years to pay dividends. In my experience UK funds want dividends and they want them today and they prefer that to capital growth.
That’s interesting. What do you think causes that cultural difference?
The UK is significantly more risk averse than the US. Our high risk funds would be considered medium risk in the US.
Just reading some voxpop-esque stuff on the BBC. My heart is bleeding...
Louise and her husband have been saving to move home in Brighton since 2020, but they're having a major rethink.
"We've had to substantially reconsider the amount of money we can borrow, says Louise.
They'd been hoping to move to a bigger house so they could start a family.
But now they can only afford smaller houses, Louise says it's "making us wonder whether we should bother moving at all".
"Our options are either to stay put where we are or move to something about £200,000 cheaper than we had hoped."
TBF it represents danger for the governing party when their natural voters are getting stung by their economic strategy. But yeah, weird pick.
Lol, people with that attitude generally vote Labour.
I’ll go past the partisan jab to say: home ownership has generally been a lead in to voting Tory. If they don’t vote Tory now they might once they have kids. If they can’t start a family on their schedule because of economics they’ll boot the incumbent government at the ballot box when they might have been swayed to the Tories in the Cameron years.
I fear for those businesses and staff predominantly in the hospitality industry. It will be a bloodbath for them, especially in the less busy months post Xmas. Discretionary spend is going to fall off a cliff and the new PM, Liz Truss, is going to have to pivot very quickly from her current promises onto it to get something done. Average bills of £3,500 a year are going to see some people with bills far higher than that.
There is still a wall of cash sloshing around from lockdown, where savings rates went through the roof, and the MPC was necessarily forced down. That is still playing out and will do for the next few months at least.
Try getting a builder/plumber/sparks to come to your house next week. Ain't gonna happen.
Add to this that Cable means our goods look cheap to the Americans. We've just had one of our best ever months for international sales....
Long may it last. I still have my Brexit (= dollar weighted) position on. Has not quite let me down albeit with a few wobbles.
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
Is that a total return comparison (i.e. Dividends reinvested) or just share price?
Wow. Simon Jenkins contrasts the west's "parody of imperial outreach" with Russia and China who "have merely desired to repossess ancestral neighbours".
Just reading some voxpop-esque stuff on the BBC. My heart is bleeding...
Louise and her husband have been saving to move home in Brighton since 2020, but they're having a major rethink.
"We've had to substantially reconsider the amount of money we can borrow, says Louise.
They'd been hoping to move to a bigger house so they could start a family.
But now they can only afford smaller houses, Louise says it's "making us wonder whether we should bother moving at all".
"Our options are either to stay put where we are or move to something about £200,000 cheaper than we had hoped."
Maybe, but look at the underlying message there - couple who want to start a family are now unlikely to do so because they can't afford to move into their desired house.
@Leon is right, the nation needs to have a rethink on how we approach old age care provision. The current mandate the NHS has to extend life at any cost is going to bankrupt the nation. Providing expensive care for a 90 year old so they can live for 6 more months results in higher taxes and lower income for working age people and less availability of housing which pushes up housing costs.
You may dismiss these people but we need families and we need policies to help couples become families. Not just laugh at their misfortune.
Your reminder of this piece on what it is like, on average, dying of old age in a US hospital
Personally I'd be happy to sign up now to an irrevocable, palliatave care only after 80 deal, in the full knowledge that I might feel a bit different about it once the euphoria of my 79th birthday party has worn off.
Comments
The issue that the UK and most other western countries made was they didn’t build enough resilience into the economy. They just saw the costs - not the benefits. And now we are paying the price
1 freed up a ton of property
2 hugely reduced the burden of care on the state
3 created a cascade of wealth thru the economy
4 created business BY ITSELF (funeral homes etc)
5 reduced the average age/obesity of the populace
I might sound like I’m joking; I’m not
The main problem is political in fact. Hampstead (along with Islington) is the heart of "lefty" North London and you feel this as you go around. You know the people you're seeing and maybe bumping into are good progressive types. In Richmond? Hmm not sure.
Also, it's a Lib/Con marginal so I'll be faced - if I want to be part of removing this shower of Tories from office - with voting Lib Dem at the GE. That will be strange since I've never ever not voted Labour at a general.
Have tried explaining this whole 'political angle' of the move to my wife but although she understands - she's leftish too - she doesn't feel it should be a major factor in our decision.
Zelensky is the revanchist: he wants to regain the territories of the Donbas and Crimea that separation referendums took out of the Ukraine eight years ago.
As you well know, those referendums were not legitimate and Russia’s conquest of those parts of Ukraine have never been recognised by the international community
Is it right that we sacrifice the options of the young to spend £££££ on anyone over 80? I don’t think it is. All societies are facing this dilemma
(That was just to save Hyufd the bother.)
I'm also remembering that some diseases, such as Spanish Flu c. 1917-20, preferentially killed people of young to middle age.
Anyway the neo-Nazis of the Ukrainian army's Azov Regiment already control a portion of the Donbas, so if the position is not yet "excellent" does it count as "quite good" maybe? Would you say that to people who live there? If you think it's "plain" that it would be supertastic for the Ukrainian armed forces to reconquer the Crimea and re-establish the position created by Khrushchev in the 1950s, then there's no need to argue for the proposition against dimwits like me. The same may be true of the notion that a demonic Putin wants to fly the Russian flag over Belarus.
Perhaps Khrushchev was looking a long way into the future (all the way to BЯexit and Scottish Iиdependeиce?*) when he said that if he were British he would vote Tory.
* British politicians known for cooperating up to their eyeballs with Russia Today include Nigel Farage and Alec Salmond, as well as George Galloway. I can't think of any who were pro-Remain and pro-Union. Funny that.
The trouble is pensioners vote, and so does everyone over about 50 who knows that extension to retirement age is going to be necessary but hoped it would come after their turn.
From a purely material point of view, as well, older people still do lots of labour, just off the books labour - childcare and such - that allows the economy to function (especially for poorer younger people who can't afford childcare, but have parents / grandparents). The accumulation of wealth by the elderly is mostly due to house prices and pensions being linked to stocks - and that is down to a refusal to build and hold on to council houses, and an attempt to make grand left wing policy harder by making older people bare the brunt of it should it happen. My grandparents are not rich, and bought their house for £9k back in the 60s / 70s; it is now easily half a million just because it's within the M25. They see their monthly shopping go up and their bills increase and can, just about, cover that. They're lucky in that even in their late 80s / early 90s they are mobile within the home and seem to be clear in mind, but even the grandparents I have lost (to strokes and dementia) had to supplement their care by paying some towards it anyway.
I know many people my age (early 90s kids) moan about policy favouring the old, but don't mistake that for distaste or dislike of the elderly.
What we need is going people to start having children again so that we have a supply of taxpayers coming through the economy.
We also need older people to take a hit alongside everyone else. That includes the state pension.
And we desperately need to think about health. All else held equal, our demographic profile will ruin us in the next 50 years. On top of that, the cycle of medical advance will increase costs - we'll be able to keep gentlemen like you going on longer and longer. A good thing, if we can pay for it.
And on top of all of that, we might well be getting sicker as a society. The obesity bomb hasn't gone off yet.
I see Marine Le Pen is arguing this in France already. She is not entirely stupid: she sees the political opportunity
And it could get worse. Putin could shut off all gas and oil and see if we blink first. I suspect we would
A friend just showed me the long term chart of the S&P v FTSE and the difference in perf (S&P = 5x FTSE) is extraordinary.
The more I listened to the head of OFGEM this morning the more confused I got about how a Conservative government, a Conservative goverment (misquoting dear old Neil) ever entered into such anti market regulatory nonsense in the first place. The abolition of OFGEM would only be a token reduction in the cost of fuel but every little helps.
Looks like Russia nabbed the village of Гусаровка today.
https://youtu.be/Z_edI_guXyc
They are generally a burden, of one sort or another. Like owning a boat. Nice to have, in some ways, and a store of cash at best, but generally a drain on resources and something you have to sacrifice in hard times. When poverty looms, you sell the yacht
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/taiwan-nancy-pelosi-visit-ukraine-us
That has a utility. Old people have such a utility if not for and amongst themselves, when you would I'm sure argue to get rid of the lot of them, but for family. Meeting parents and grandparents surely represents a huge increase in human happiness and well being.
If you are saying that things with proven utility should be dispensed with it sounds as though the axe won't stop at old people.
Get a grip. This is pathetic. This is why we can’t have this debate because people like you start weeping
I have kids in their teens and I have parents in their 80s. If the latter have to die to help the former so be it. We are spending far too much time and money and political energy on the needs of the very old
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is on holiday.
He’s surely close to being pensioned off
"We are also taking important steps to get inflation under control through strong, independent monetary policy, responsible tax and spending decisions, and reforms to boost our productivity and growth.
The economy recovered strongly from the pandemic, with the fastest growth in the G7 last year, and I’m confident that the action we are taking means we can also overcome these global challenges."
So that's all right then.
"We've had to substantially reconsider the amount of money we can borrow, says Louise.
They'd been hoping to move to a bigger house so they could start a family.
But now they can only afford smaller houses, Louise says it's "making us wonder whether we should bother moving at all".
"Our options are either to stay put where we are or move to something about £200,000 cheaper than we had hoped."
@Leon is right, the nation needs to have a rethink on how we approach old age care provision. The current mandate the NHS has to extend life at any cost is going to bankrupt the nation. Providing expensive care for a 90 year old so they can live for 6 more months results in higher taxes and lower income for working age people and less availability of housing which pushes up housing costs.
You may dismiss these people but we need families and we need policies to help couples become families. Not just laugh at their misfortune.
https://stockmarketalmanac.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/FTSE-100-v-SP-500-v-GOLD-1984-2013.png
Cons, Lab and Libs missing in action.
As it is, he's a fairly harmless eccentric who occasionally says interesting things.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/
Personally I'd be happy to sign up now to an irrevocable, palliatave care only after 80 deal, in the full knowledge that I might feel a bit different about it once the euphoria of my 79th birthday party has worn off.