To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
No - an interest rate of 4% destroys a housing market that prices things at 5-8 times average household earnings...
It doesn't destroy the housing market - as there will always be forced sellers and willing buyers, what it does is return prices to sane levels...
Destroys the housing market for people who have early retired on the basis of their house(s) earn more per year than they do. Opens up the housing market for renters still working.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Replying to one poster to personally criticise another seems an odd way of personally criticising someone.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
On water, I'm old enough to remember Thatcher's privatisation programme unfolding in the 1980s. Gas and telecoms first, followed by others, if I recall. In the circles I moved in, there was a running gag along the lines of "who knows, maybe they'll privatise water next". Ha ha. At the time, it was seen as so outrageous, so absurd a proposition to privatise such a fundamental service as providing clean water that we could laugh about it, often followed by "yeh, if they privatise water, it'll be air next".
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
No - an interest rate of 4% destroys a housing market that prices things at 5-8 times average household earnings...
It doesn't destroy the housing market - as there will always be forced sellers and willing buyers, what it does is return prices to sane levels...
True. Unfortunately the return to sane levels pretty much spells negative equity for anyone who's bought in the last few years, especially the last couple of years since the pandemic.
The game of musical chairs feels very close to stopping now.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
First, inflation at the moment comes from the supply side, not demand. Second, increasing interest rates as demand falls risks tipping us into recession. It's complicated. Even if we ignore supply and demand, increasing interest rates is itself inflationary, but insofar as it strengthens the pound, can reduce the price of fuel and other imports.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Its a problem because most small businesses have access to credit because they have security over the owner's house. It is most peoples main asset and source of funding. So, if you allow house prices to fall the equity in those houses reduces and the credit available to small business sharply tightens, inducing a severe recession. What we really need is a very long period where property falls in value in real terms but does not fall in nominal terms. That is very difficult to do when inflation is very low but should be easier now. Somehow, for the reasons you have identified, I do not think that will be the priority.
Wasps. Not seen that many so far this summer. (Famous last words)
Quite an alarm recently about a nest in a children's playground near here!
Oh dear. Two summers ago a local tea rooms, with an idyllic garden, was blighted by a nest. It was quite surreal seeing people struggle through afternoon tea. It was a warzone. I’ve seen about four wasps this year.
We went to a Center Parcs about a month ago where every outside eating place was 'out of bounds', due to wasps!
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
No - an interest rate of 4% destroys a housing market that prices things at 5-8 times average household earnings...
It doesn't destroy the housing market - as there will always be forced sellers and willing buyers, what it does is return prices to sane levels...
I an old enough to remember when one of our regular posters was arguing in favour of high inflation in order to reduce housing debt and allow prices to sink to lower multiples of earnings. This does tend to require wages to keep pace with inflation, while house prices reduce in real terms.
On water, I'm old enough to remember Thatcher's privatisation programme unfolding in the 1980s. Gas and telecoms first, followed by others, if I recall. In the circles I moved in, there was a running gag along the lines of "who knows, maybe they'll privatise water next". Ha ha. At the time, it was seen as so outrageous, so absurd a proposition to privatise such a fundamental service as providing clean water that we could laugh about it, often followed by "yeh, if they privatise water, it'll be air next".
Then they privatised water.
Even at the time, the argument that water was somehow different from the other utilities and had to be in the public sector struck me as very bizarre and parochial given that most of the French water industry was in private hands and about a fifth of the UK water industry was also already privately owned and had been for decades.
Football: Hmm. Anyone think Arsenal are in with a shot of the title this year?
Possibly. I've had a punt on them at 16/1. The other big 4 will be distracted by the Champions League, Arsenal won't. And they're looking good - Jesus and Zinchenko are great signings.
Wasps. Not seen that many so far this summer. (Famous last words)
Quite an alarm recently about a nest in a children's playground near here!
Oh dear. Two summers ago a local tea rooms, with an idyllic garden, was blighted by a nest. It was quite surreal seeing people struggle through afternoon tea. It was a warzone. I’ve seen about four wasps this year.
We went to a Center Parcs about a month ago where every outside eating place was 'out of bounds', due to wasps!
Sounds like I’ve been lucky this year, rather than 🐝 suffering due to the heat. Last time I was stung a wasp got under the tongue of my shoe whilst cycling and stung me repeatedly. Had a nasty reaction. I’m not a friend of the wasp ever since.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
The govt really should divert some resources from traditional university courses to construction and trades based ones, including offering guaranteed jobs on qualification as part of a national housebuilding scheme. Maybe 50k places per year.
I think this would be an easy policy for either party to sell. The pensioners will like the nostalgia of practical over academic education, and the youth both need more houses and are already realising that for most university is a financial con.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
First, inflation at the moment comes from the supply side, not demand. Second, increasing interest rates as demand falls risks tipping us into recession. It's complicated. Even if we ignore supply and demand, increasing interest rates is itself inflationary, but insofar as it strengthens the pound, can reduce the price of fuel and other imports.
We also have excess demand as shown by our balance of payments. Increasing interest rates is not generally inflationary. It should reduce the money supply by reducing new borrowing which should also reduce demand. The key factor though is what are real interest rates. Real interest rates are significantly higher than base rates but still substantially lower than inflation. There has never been a better time to borrow as much as you can because you will repay the debt in depreciated pounds. This itself is inflationary but weaning us off this extraordinary state of affairs has been neglected in the decade since the GFC.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
No - an interest rate of 4% destroys a housing market that prices things at 5-8 times average household earnings...
It doesn't destroy the housing market - as there will always be forced sellers and willing buyers, what it does is return prices to sane levels...
True. Unfortunately the return to sane levels pretty much spells negative equity for anyone who's bought in the last few years, especially the last couple of years since the pandemic.
The game of musical chairs feels very close to stopping now.
There was an article in the New Statesman on the coming house price crash and its signals this week.
Not sure that I believe it entirely, but such an event would be pretty fatal for Tories wanting re-election. The mortgage negative equity of the early to mid nineties is an under rated part of why the Major government fell. The national figures were looking a bit rosier by 1997, but people care more about their own personal household economies than abstract government figures.
Wasps. Not seen that many so far this summer. (Famous last words)
Quite an alarm recently about a nest in a children's playground near here!
Oh dear. Two summers ago a local tea rooms, with an idyllic garden, was blighted by a nest. It was quite surreal seeing people struggle through afternoon tea. It was a warzone. I’ve seen about four wasps this year.
We went to a Center Parcs about a month ago where every outside eating place was 'out of bounds', due to wasps!
How rare is it for wasps to attack first? Generally more a nuisance than a threat if you leave them alone to get on with nicking your desserts.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
Your first and second point implies that small UK builders are very inefficient but have been allowed to be so because of the easy availability of large amounts of credit...
And yes that is the UK's biggest problem we are utterly uninterested in improving productivity and focussed way too much on the next quarter / 6 months rather than 2+ years time.
Wasps. Not seen that many so far this summer. (Famous last words)
Quite an alarm recently about a nest in a children's playground near here!
Oh dear. Two summers ago a local tea rooms, with an idyllic garden, was blighted by a nest. It was quite surreal seeing people struggle through afternoon tea. It was a warzone. I’ve seen about four wasps this year.
We went to a Center Parcs about a month ago where every outside eating place was 'out of bounds', due to wasps!
Excellent place for wasps to go on holiday too, apparently. There have been extraordinarily fewer this year up here.
Full disclosure: I have a mortgage. That said, can anyone tell me how putting interest rates up helps lower inflation which is driven by the high price of gas?
My memory of the text books is hazy. But it’s often better to think of inflation about being the value of money rather than the price of goods and services. US energy prices have not seen anything like the increases as in Europe but they are facing high inflation. The US printed massive amounts during covid (on top of what came before), with furlough, bail outs, the Trump Cheque, and the Biden fiscal stimulus. Conversely refer to Switzerland, which did not and now has low inflation.
By increasing rates (or stopping or reversing QE) you are increase the value of money, as it pays a higher rate of return than before. You are also implicitly slowing the growth in the monetary base (broad money).
The supply chain issues represent a one time increase in prices (Russian gas, Chinese crap due to continued lockdown, global inventory restocking post covid). Meanwhile ongoing debasement of your monetary base represents a continual increase in prices.
The worst outcome is when high price rise expectations become embedded. Firms are forced to pay higher wages on expectations of higher prices, same for those on index linked incomes. Which in turn slams margins and thereby reduces employment and growth. The very best policy right now is to artificially deflate the headline rate of inflation by removing all tax on energy, with the price cap staying fixed. It’s a sleight of hand to stop runaway inflation expectations. The inflationary impact from this fiscal measure would take perhaps a year to feed through, by which time rate rises in the US, UK and Europe will have mostly curtailed the expansion in the monetary base.
The balancing trick to this is making sure in the process you don’t explode the deficit, which either then has to be paid for with higher gilt yields, or further QE! The other sleight of hand used in the past is to increase the percentage of “risk free” Sterling assets that banks must hold (i.e. Gilts). Allows a higher deficit with lower yields. But it’s an anti growth measure if you take the piss with it.
Wasps. Not seen that many so far this summer. (Famous last words)
We seldom see too many wasps here in coastal South Wales, but on a recent trip to Hereford and the Malvern Hills they were everywhere.
I try to avoid killing wasps now. I wasn't aware until recently they were pollinators, I assumed that was exclusively by the job of the bee, I just thought they were b*******!
Header misses the point, I'm afraid. Inflation is the method of choice for making us instantly poorer.
If supply shocks mean we have 10% or so higher expenses, we effectively and unavoidably become poorer by 10%. The people managing the economy prefer this to happen in an inflationary, rather than deflationary, way. Inflation is a feature, not a bug. If we still have 13% inflation in two years time, it won't have worked however.
The political problem is that no politician, least of all the charlatans in the UK government, are being honest with people about what's happening with their incomes.
Some indications that in large parts of the UK it is going to be a drier than average autumn/winter. If that pans out we are going to have a full-scale emergency on our hands next summer. The management of water in this country (England and Wales, at least) is disastrous - from the companies, through the regulator and government to us all as users. We waste so much, just assuming it can’t run out.
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is actually racist, anything not racist is actually racist but pretending; in fact, reality is evil, the universe is fascist, sunlight is Trumpite and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
First, inflation at the moment comes from the supply side, not demand. Second, increasing interest rates as demand falls risks tipping us into recession. It's complicated. Even if we ignore supply and demand, increasing interest rates is itself inflationary, but insofar as it strengthens the pound, can reduce the price of fuel and other imports.
We also have excess demand as shown by our balance of payments. Increasing interest rates is not generally inflationary. It should reduce the money supply by reducing new borrowing which should also reduce demand. The key factor though is what are real interest rates. Real interest rates are significantly higher than base rates but still substantially lower than inflation. There has never been a better time to borrow as much as you can because you will repay the debt in depreciated pounds. This itself is inflationary but weaning us off this extraordinary state of affairs has been neglected in the decade since the GFC.
It is hard to say what the balance of payments means when so many staples are necessarily imported, including gas. It did not help that our Brexit negotiators favoured goods which we import, over services which we export.
Completely and utterly OT but does anyone know why the Wagner Group is so-called? Is it in honour of the somewhat problematic German composer?
It’s named after the actor Robert Wagner who was the founder’s favourite actor. The founder felt that in “Heart 2 Heart” Robert Wagner encapsulated the ethos of the group, action, daring and devoted romance. In fact the Wagner Group motto is “From our Heart 2 your Heart”.
Some indications that in large parts of the UK it is going to be a drier than average autumn/winter. If that pans out we are going to have a full-scale emergency on our hands next summer. The management of water in this country (England and Wales, at least) is disastrous - from the companies, through the regulator and government to us all as users. We waste so much, just assuming it can’t run out.
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is racist, anything not racist is racist, reality is evil, the universe is fascist and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
You really should write copy for the Tory party “Why worry about the evils of the world. Forget about your problems. Go for a frothy coffee by the Medici Chapel! You’ll soon feel better!”
Just a gentle reminder that the average BoE base rate since foundation in 1694 is 5%, and between 1950 and 2008 it was more than 8%.
Bailey has been a very weak governor and that is probably already becoming priced in as part of the interest rate premium that the BoE has to offer versus the ECB. It is now a long time since the UK had a AAA rating (It is currently AA, for context Estonia is AA-, Germany AAA) and the prospect of UK finances being strong enough to see any kind of ratings upgrade seems very distant.
While the UK government will put pressure on the BoE to maintain a looser monetary policy in the short run, in the end this has to be paid for, so either we continue to tighten at a steady speed and build in some room to manoeuvre, or the next time we hit any kind of rough patch we need an emergency tightening and crush all hope of economic recovery.
Truss is caught in a bind, the recession is already here, but the room for easier monetary conditions is not, and if she pushes the Bank too hard, it will lead to worse monetary conditions, not better. If Truss does undermine the independence of the central bank she must expect the market to insist on a premium rate to pay for the increased risk of political interference.
Truss is not scared enough of the Bond Market.
Amusing how you cherry pick Germany as representative of the ECB. Of course the problem for the ECB and the EU is they're balancing the conflicting monetary demands of countries like Germany with countries like Italy, Greece etc
To actually see which countries have a bond premium it's worth looking at the bond markets and setting as a baseline, as it is in most things financial, the USA.
As it stands the US 10y bond yield is 2.989 so any countries with a yield of three or more have a premium relative to them.
The UK yield is 2.412 - so a negative premium?
By contrast the ECB is juggling the demands of the following members, to go with Germany.
Italy 3.489 Greece 3.692 Bulgaria 3.000 Romania 7.920
And in the Single Market, but not the Euro, there is also Iceland 5.56 Czech Republic 4.267 Poland 6.03 Hungary 8.74
This failed assassination on Dugin is likely to enrage Putin and his gang of thieves. Even more than the embarrassment of Crimean holidaymakers seeing his Black Sea strength inflamed with their own eyes. Could be a dangerous couple of weeks ahead.
A successful assasination of Dubin would have also, one supposes, enraged Putin & Co.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
The govt really should divert some resources from traditional university courses to construction and trades based ones, including offering guaranteed jobs on qualification as part of a national housebuilding scheme. Maybe 50k places per year.
I think this would be an easy policy for either party to sell. The pensioners will like the nostalgia of practical over academic education, and the youth both need more houses and are already realising that for most university is a financial con.
The shortage of labour is definetely one element of the problems. But the real issue is to do with land.
Observing the development of policy in this area is dark comedy. The government keep creating parasitic "progressive" regulation that increases build costs and risks - ie building safety legislation, net zero legislation, etc. It just sleepwalks in to this, without looking at the costs.
Then it also takes no accountability for the release of land through the planning system, and constructs a cynical policy framework whereby it seeks to take political credit for 'stopping' Council's or its own Inspectors from granting planning permission for new development, where its voters don't want it... so all of the south east, and much of the Midlands, and the east, and the south west.
You then have to throw on the immense complexity, risk and costs of building anything given that infrastructure is controlled by shady privatised utilities that can hold its customers to ransom.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the end, people will just stop bothering at all and nothing will get built.
This failed assassination on Dugin is likely to enrage Putin and his gang of thieves. Even more than the embarrassment of Crimean holidaymakers seeing his Black Sea strength inflamed with their own eyes. Could be a dangerous couple of weeks ahead.
A successful assasination of Dubin would have also, one supposes, enraged Putin & Co.
Unless Putin was behind the assassination of course.
If a high profile Russian political figure dies, the order usually traces back to a falling out with the Kremlin.
Full disclosure: I have a mortgage. That said, can anyone tell me how putting interest rates up helps lower inflation which is driven by the high price of gas?
By putting interest rates up, you have less money to spend. This lowers aggregate demand, and therefore demand meets supply at a lower price level.
Admittedly, at some not insignificant societal cost.
Some indications that in large parts of the UK it is going to be a drier than average autumn/winter. If that pans out we are going to have a full-scale emergency on our hands next summer. The management of water in this country (England and Wales, at least) is disastrous - from the companies, through the regulator and government to us all as users. We waste so much, just assuming it can’t run out.
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is racist, anything not racist is racist, reality is evil, the universe is fascist and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
You really should write copy for the Tory party “Why worry about the evils of the world. Forget about your problems. Go for a frothy coffee by the Medici Chapel! You’ll soon feel better!”
Will go down a storm in the “Red Wall”.
Let them drink chocolate martini's says Leon Antoinette.
Tory MP votes to let private water company flush her poo directly into the sea. Then writes to complain that the water company is flushing her poo into the sea.
The 2019 intake of Tory MPs are the dumbest ever.
This is an example of how twitter turns political discourse amongst otherwise intelligent and educated people in to school playground level tribalism. I am not claiming any knowledge of the detail. But 2 minutes googling on this shows that She did not vote to 'allow private water companies to flush poo in to the sea'. She voted for the environment bill. This included new legislation on how storm water overflows are regulated. The position espoused in government press releases at the time is that this will reduce the amount of water being discharged in to the sea. There is independent commentary at the time that supports this position. IE:
"Not only the public but also undertakers may be pleased that these duties have been enacted. They will help to reduce the long-standing situation of storm overflow discharges to the aquatic environment, a situation which the undertakers themselves have long regarded as unacceptable but did not have the necessary statutory and regulatory framework to enable the implementation of significant remedial steps. The measures within the Act set out that framework, albeit subject yet to further detail in regulations. However, a substantial unknown remains in respect of “progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from … storm overflows”, both in terms of the precise meaning of this duty, how it is to be achieved and the time period for doing so. To that extent, the Act is merely the starting point."
You believe the government press releases? The Lords had an amendment to compel the companies to reduce poo discharges. She voted it down - the government believed the amendment would cost the companies billions, and that their bill unamended already covered that.
It did not. So she backed the shareholders rights to pump shit onto beaches for profit. OK, so she won't know she did that as she is a 2019 Tory and therefore mince, but thats what she did.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
First, inflation at the moment comes from the supply side, not demand. Second, increasing interest rates as demand falls risks tipping us into recession. It's complicated. Even if we ignore supply and demand, increasing interest rates is itself inflationary, but insofar as it strengthens the pound, can reduce the price of fuel and other imports.
We also have excess demand as shown by our balance of payments. Increasing interest rates is not generally inflationary. It should reduce the money supply by reducing new borrowing which should also reduce demand. The key factor though is what are real interest rates. Real interest rates are significantly higher than base rates but still substantially lower than inflation. There has never been a better time to borrow as much as you can because you will repay the debt in depreciated pounds. This itself is inflationary but weaning us off this extraordinary state of affairs has been neglected in the decade since the GFC.
It is hard to say what the balance of payments means when so many staples are necessarily imported, including gas. It did not help that our Brexit negotiators favoured goods which we import, over services which we export.
ETA and do not overlook the risks of recession.
What it means is quite simple really. It means we are consuming more than we are sellling. Which means that we are living beyond our means. Which means we are getting progressively poorer as a nation with more and more of our assets owned by foreigners who want rent. If we want those means to improve we need to do some radical things to our domestic economy starting with productivity. If we want to stop getting poorer we need to cut demand for imports.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Header misses the point, I'm afraid. Inflation is the method of choice for making us instantly poorer.
If supply shocks mean we have 10% or so higher expenses, we effectively and unavoidably become poorer by 10%. The people managing the economy prefer this to happen in an inflationary, rather than deflationary, way. Inflation is a feature, not a bug. If we still have 13% inflation in two years time, it won't have worked however.
The political problem is that no politician, least of all the charlatans in the UK government, are being honest with people about what's happening with their incomes.
Yes. This is why the income tax thresholds were frozen for five years. Inflation was the policy.
I'm sure they would have preferred a few years of more moderate inflation, 5% or so, but it's not so easy to control.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
Your first and second point implies that small UK builders are very inefficient but have been allowed to be so because of the easy availability of large amounts of credit...
And yes that is the UK's biggest problem we are utterly uninterested in improving productivity and focussed way too much on the next quarter / 6 months rather than 2+ years time.
The efforts to improve productivity (eg houses built in factories to UK standards) have not resulted in lower build costs. They are driven by a desire to improve quality and certainty in the construction process.
I honstly don't know what the underlying problem is - but would hypothesise that it is a combination of labour costs, regulation and materials, not inefficiency on the part of small builders.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
The govt really should divert some resources from traditional university courses to construction and trades based ones, including offering guaranteed jobs on qualification as part of a national housebuilding scheme. Maybe 50k places per year.
I think this would be an easy policy for either party to sell. The pensioners will like the nostalgia of practical over academic education, and the youth both need more houses and are already realising that for most university is a financial con.
The shortage of labour is definetely one element of the problems. But the real issue is to do with land.
Observing the development of policy in this area is dark comedy. The government keep creating parasitic "progressive" regulation that increases build costs and risks - ie building safety legislation, net zero legislation, etc. It just sleepwalks in to this, without looking at the costs.
Then it also takes no accountability for the release of land through the planning system, and constructs a cynical policy framework whereby it seeks to take political credit for 'stopping' Council's or its own Inspectors from granting planning permission for new development, where its voters don't want it... so all of the south east, and much of the Midlands, and the east, and the south west.
You then have to throw on the immense complexity, risk and costs of building anything given that infrastructure is controlled by shady privatised utilities that can hold its customers to ransom.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the end, people will just stop bothering at all and nothing will get built.
Even walking past building sites it is clear that there are more health and safety roles than you see in most other countries, not sure if we have gone too far or not. Agree land and planning permission is a problem.
I would look at introducing some form of auction for planning permissions as another tax stream whilst making planning permission easier to obtain generally.
Football: Hmm. Anyone think Arsenal are in with a shot of the title this year?
Lol, no.
They can't win a league won on 90 points plus but could win if the winning post is low eighties. Not impossible given City and Liverpool making big changes going back to traditional no 9s and City in particular having a tiny squad.
This failed assassination on Dugin is likely to enrage Putin and his gang of thieves. Even more than the embarrassment of Crimean holidaymakers seeing his Black Sea strength inflamed with their own eyes. Could be a dangerous couple of weeks ahead.
A successful assasination of Dubin would have also, one supposes, enraged Putin & Co.
Unless Putin was behind the assassination of course.
If a high profile Russian political figure dies, the order usually traces back to a falling out with the Kremlin.
Yes. Anyone who looks like they might be getting to be too popular suddenly looks like a potential rallying point for discontent.
Mr. Seal, Liverpool out to 7.8 with Smarkets for the title. Manchester City layable at 1.4.
Been placing small bets on five European leagues this season. Doing fairly well in the Premiership, ok in Serie A/La Liga/Ligue 1, and have achieved the statistically improbable feat of getting every single Bundesliga bet wrong.
Full disclosure: I have a mortgage. That said, can anyone tell me how putting interest rates up helps lower inflation which is driven by the high price of gas?
By putting interest rates up, you have less money to spend. This lowers aggregate demand, and therefore demand meets supply at a lower price level.
Admittedly, at some not insignificant societal cost.
Different people have had a not insignificant societal cost from the ultra low interest rates for a decade. Every such decision has winners and losers. Time for a change.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we made?
Yes. I despise anyone who loathes members entire nationality or ethnic group simply for membership of the same. Including you and your hatred of your own nationality. Even hatred of all Germans after WW2 simply for being German would have been evil and unacceptable. As is hatred of all Russians simply for being Russian now. You’re defending a form of racism. Is that what you wanted to do?
I rarely agree with Leon but his assessment of you is pretty spot on.
The overwhelming economic issues impacting this country are in relation to the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the pandemic.
I am no economist, having been admonished on numerous occasions by former poster and monetary economist @Philip_Thompson for claiming that increasing money supply would lead to inflation, nonetheless Brexit could well impact significantly on our ability to exit any formal or informal recession. For example, I am doing work with a company importing labour from the Indian subcontinent because their EU source has dried up, so labour is an issue. And let's not even worry about new post- Brexit tariff and non-tariff barriers to certain EU markets.
Football: Hmm. Anyone think Arsenal are in with a shot of the title this year?
It’s far too soon to look past the current Big 2. If they keep this up maybe. Ask us again in October.
Arsenal look very good. Our 4:2 loss away flattered us, they could have had 6 in the first half.
Whether they can keep it up all season is the question. A top 4 place is pretty much nailed on. Winner w/o Man City at 5/1 is good though with Skybet.
Leicester is good value for relegation though. Yesterday was pisspoor. The crowd were leaving early and booing the team at the end, including me. Khun Top was there, so hopefully Rogers can be sacked and the team revitalised. It is essentially the same team as won the FA Cup a year ago, just crap game tactics.
Other contenders for first in the sack race should be Gerrard, Lampard and Ten Hag, but I reckon Rogers first. We can't afford not to.
I reckon Gerrard at 5/1 is value, as is Rogers at 4/1.
Scotland is more likely to become independent if Liz Truss becomes prime minister, according to a survey of opinion across the Union. The research also suggests that Northern Ireland is on course to leave the UK within 20 years.....
...in Scotland, support for staying in the UK falls slightly to 48 per cent if Truss becomes prime minister, and to 49 per cent if Rishi Sunak takes over at No 10.
The same poll finds by a margin of 2 to 1 English voters do not want the government to allow an IndyRef2 in Scotland. Even in Scotland only 48% want indyref2 in the next 5 years.
In Northern Ireland just 36% want a border poll in the next 5 years
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
Football: Hmm. Anyone think Arsenal are in with a shot of the title this year?
It’s far too soon to look past the current Big 2. If they keep this up maybe. Ask us again in October.
Arsenal look very good. Our 4:2 loss away flattered us, they could have had 6 in the first half.
Whether they can keep it up all season is the question. A top 4 place is pretty much nailed on.
Leicester is good value for relegation though. Yesterday was pisspoor. The crowd were leaving early and booing the team at the end, including me. Khun Top was there, so hopefully Rogers can be sacked and the team revitalised. It is essentially the same team as won the FA Cup a year ago, just crap game tactics.
Other contenders for first in the sack race should be Gerrard, Lampard and Ten Hag, but I reckon Rogers first. We can't afford not to.
I reckon Gerrard at 5/1 is value, as is Rogers at 4/1.
Maybe we’ll see you at Portman Road next season. But we’ll find a way of slipping into the playoffs and failing in the semis. We always do.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
I'm just puzzled as to why he thinks 100 years of underinvestment in proper water and sewerage systems is linked to Brexit.
Although if Scotland ever votes to leave I'll be intrigued to see how every public sector disaster caused by chronic lack of money is not attributed to Sindy...
I think Mark Steel is a bit starry-eyed about swimming conditions before the mid-90s.
In Newcastle, as late as 1970 raw sewage was still routinely (not irregularly) discharged into the Tyne. To the extent that on hot days it wasn't possible to do any work in the city centre due to the smell. Nothing was done until the Council's own offices started to be impacted.
I would be surprised to learn that was unusual. I know in the 1950s the salmon population in the Severn was severely damaged because of the sewage from Gloucester and Worcester in the estuary.
On Wednesday we were swimming in the sea near Eastbourne pier. In the surf we found a plastic bag containing a nappy. I've no idea if this was something swept out with sewage, or swept into the sea after being discarded on a beach, but it was yucky.
(On another pollution point: why do sodding dog owners leave plastic bundles of poo everywhere?)
On a happier note, we were punting on the Cam yesterday, and on the way back from Granchester Meadows we saw the most incredible, and terrifying, sight - an adder swimming in the river. It held its head up out of the water and had its mouth open. Rather put me off wild swimming. Sadly we didn't get a photo or video but it's a sight none of us will ever forget!
I was on the Lea River cycle path a few weeks ago and almost ran over a long, thin snake on the towpath as it slithered towards the undergrowth. I have no idea what type of snake it was - I think it was about two feet long and luminous green but I only saw it very briefly. Does anybody know what type of snake it could been?
Michael Gove was elsewhere that day so it wasn't his alter ego.
There are only 3 native snake species in the UK (four including Gove), and from your description it sounds like it was a grass snake.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
Tory MP votes to let private water company flush her poo directly into the sea. Then writes to complain that the water company is flushing her poo into the sea.
The 2019 intake of Tory MPs are the dumbest ever.
This is an example of how twitter turns political discourse amongst otherwise intelligent and educated people in to school playground level tribalism. I am not claiming any knowledge of the detail. But 2 minutes googling on this shows that She did not vote to 'allow private water companies to flush poo in to the sea'. She voted for the environment bill. This included new legislation on how storm water overflows are regulated. The position espoused in government press releases at the time is that this will reduce the amount of water being discharged in to the sea. There is independent commentary at the time that supports this position. IE:
"Not only the public but also undertakers may be pleased that these duties have been enacted. They will help to reduce the long-standing situation of storm overflow discharges to the aquatic environment, a situation which the undertakers themselves have long regarded as unacceptable but did not have the necessary statutory and regulatory framework to enable the implementation of significant remedial steps. The measures within the Act set out that framework, albeit subject yet to further detail in regulations. However, a substantial unknown remains in respect of “progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from … storm overflows”, both in terms of the precise meaning of this duty, how it is to be achieved and the time period for doing so. To that extent, the Act is merely the starting point."
You believe the government press releases? The Lords had an amendment to compel the companies to reduce poo discharges. She voted it down - the government believed the amendment would cost the companies billions, and that their bill unamended already covered that.
It did not. So she backed the shareholders rights to pump shit onto beaches for profit. OK, so she won't know she did that as she is a 2019 Tory and therefore mince, but thats what she did.
As far as I can see, she has a consistent position having supported legislation bought forward by her own government to deal with this issue. Obviously there will be calls to go further, lords amendments, private members bills; there always are.
I am no particular supporter of the MP in question but it isn't right to conclude that she is 'thick as mince' from this episode.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
Neither is it mentioned that 30% voted Remain in Hartlepool.
All political shorthand conceals more than it shows.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
I'm just puzzled as to why he thinks 100 years of underinvestment in proper water and sewerage systems is linked to Brexit.
Although if Scotland ever votes to leave I'll be intrigued to see how every public sector disaster caused by chronic lack of money is not attributed to Sindy...
I think Mark Steel is a bit starry-eyed about swimming conditions before the mid-90s.
In Newcastle, as late as 1970 raw sewage was still routinely (not irregularly) discharged into the Tyne. To the extent that on hot days it wasn't possible to do any work in the city centre due to the smell. Nothing was done until the Council's own offices started to be impacted.
I would be surprised to learn that was unusual. I know in the 1950s the salmon population in the Severn was severely damaged because of the sewage from Gloucester and Worcester in the estuary.
On Wednesday we were swimming in the sea near Eastbourne pier. In the surf we found a plastic bag containing a nappy. I've no idea if this was something swept out with sewage, or swept into the sea after being discarded on a beach, but it was yucky.
(On another pollution point: why do sodding dog owners leave plastic bundles of poo everywhere?)
On a happier note, we were punting on the Cam yesterday, and on the way back from Granchester Meadows we saw the most incredible, and terrifying, sight - an adder swimming in the river. It held its head up out of the water and had its mouth open. Rather put me off wild swimming. Sadly we didn't get a photo or video but it's a sight none of us will ever forget!
I was on the Lea River cycle path a few weeks ago and almost ran over a long, thin snake on the towpath as it slithered towards the undergrowth. I have no idea what type of snake it was - I think it was about two feet long and luminous green but I only saw it very briefly. Does anybody know what type of snake it could been?
Michael Gove was elsewhere that day so it wasn't his alter ego.
There are only 3 native snake species in the UK (four including Gove), and from your description it sounds like it was a grass snake.
I thought it might be an escaped species as London zoo is on the same canal system as the Lea river and I'm fairly sure it was neon green and it was much stringier than the photos I've seen of the grass snake but I know nothing about non-Gove snakes and only saw it briefly.
My other encounter with a snake was in Australia many years ago. I was hiking with a friend in the Blue Mountains and one slithered across into the path a few yards in front of us. Given how venemous some Australian snakes are, we froze and waited ten minutes for it to move, which eventually it did.
How on earth are the economics of moving tuition fees to 24k going to work.
Yet another tool to ensure the middle class can protect the status of their kids and grandkids at the expense of the poor. It will be quite effective - the dream of meritocracy seems to have died around the turn of the century.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
First, inflation at the moment comes from the supply side, not demand. Second, increasing interest rates as demand falls risks tipping us into recession. It's complicated. Even if we ignore supply and demand, increasing interest rates is itself inflationary, but insofar as it strengthens the pound, can reduce the price of fuel and other imports.
We also have excess demand as shown by our balance of payments. Increasing interest rates is not generally inflationary. It should reduce the money supply by reducing new borrowing which should also reduce demand. The key factor though is what are real interest rates. Real interest rates are significantly higher than base rates but still substantially lower than inflation. There has never been a better time to borrow as much as you can because you will repay the debt in depreciated pounds. This itself is inflationary but weaning us off this extraordinary state of affairs has been neglected in the decade since the GFC.
It is hard to say what the balance of payments means when so many staples are necessarily imported, including gas. It did not help that our Brexit negotiators favoured goods which we import, over services which we export.
ETA and do not overlook the risks of recession.
What it means is quite simple really. It means we are consuming more than we are sellling. Which means that we are living beyond our means. Which means we are getting progressively poorer as a nation with more and more of our assets owned by foreigners who want rent. If we want those means to improve we need to do some radical things to our domestic economy starting with productivity. If we want to stop getting poorer we need to cut demand for imports.
At one level, yes, which is why it is irresponsible for PB's very own Posh & Becks — @Cyclefree and @Leon — to promote the Grand Tour round Renaissance Italy (is that why PB is called PB?) while others on this thread deter staycations with warnings of wasps, adders and dog excrement. And for HMG to sell our utilities to Europe and prostitute our national infrastructure to China. Or America. Raising interest rates to fight inflation will prop up the pound and make imports cheaper.
Completely and utterly OT but does anyone know why the Wagner Group is so-called? Is it in honour of the somewhat problematic German composer?
It was Dmitry Utkin's radio handle when he was in GRU SF.
From Wikipedia:
The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014,[2] along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.[64] In 2021, the Foreign Policy report noted the origin of the name "Wagner" to be unknown.[47] Others say the group's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner", reportedly after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
The govt really should divert some resources from traditional university courses to construction and trades based ones, including offering guaranteed jobs on qualification as part of a national housebuilding scheme. Maybe 50k places per year.
I think this would be an easy policy for either party to sell. The pensioners will like the nostalgia of practical over academic education, and the youth both need more houses and are already realising that for most university is a financial con.
The shortage of labour is definetely one element of the problems. But the real issue is to do with land.
Observing the development of policy in this area is dark comedy. The government keep creating parasitic "progressive" regulation that increases build costs and risks - ie building safety legislation, net zero legislation, etc. It just sleepwalks in to this, without looking at the costs.
Then it also takes no accountability for the release of land through the planning system, and constructs a cynical policy framework whereby it seeks to take political credit for 'stopping' Council's or its own Inspectors from granting planning permission for new development, where its voters don't want it... so all of the south east, and much of the Midlands, and the east, and the south west.
You then have to throw on the immense complexity, risk and costs of building anything given that infrastructure is controlled by shady privatised utilities that can hold its customers to ransom.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the end, people will just stop bothering at all and nothing will get built.
Investment in water (and rail) has significantly increased since privatisation. This is because the price structuring positively encourages it. It gives a guaranteed return on that investment by means of the price structure. In short, since privatisation we have paid for more investment through our bills and very profitable it has been for the service providers too.
So the current problems are a result of exceptional weather with rock hard, non absorbant ground and very heavy rainfall. Before privatisation it did not require such exceptional circumstances for this to arise. The pressure now will be for yet more investment and yet more profit for the service providers who will be crying all the way to the bank.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
Indeed. Nations and nationalities are idiotic arbitrary divisions. I’d abolish them all. Municipalities, and loose, fluid, federations thereof, should be the basic governing unit.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
Your first and second point implies that small UK builders are very inefficient but have been allowed to be so because of the easy availability of large amounts of credit...
And yes that is the UK's biggest problem we are utterly uninterested in improving productivity and focussed way too much on the next quarter / 6 months rather than 2+ years time.
The efforts to improve productivity (eg houses built in factories to UK standards) have not resulted in lower build costs. They are driven by a desire to improve quality and certainty in the construction process.
I honstly don't know what the underlying problem is - but would hypothesise that it is a combination of labour costs, regulation and materials, not inefficiency on the part of small builders.
Houses in the UK are not built by small builders, the estates going up near me are Avant, Gleeson, Barrat and Persimmon. They all churn out houses at scale
How on earth are the economics of moving tuition fees to 24k going to work.
For most graduates, it will just go on their "for Pete's sake, don't call it a graduate tax" liability until it gets written off in a few decades time.
But it's a manifestation not a wider problem. All the government's tax and spend plans depend on holding to the idea that state services can absorb the incoming rise in costs of energy, supplies and staff, and don't need any more pounds than are currently budgeted for.
Full disclosure: I have a mortgage. That said, can anyone tell me how putting interest rates up helps lower inflation which is driven by the high price of gas?
By putting interest rates up, you have less money to spend. This lowers aggregate demand, and therefore demand meets supply at a lower price level.
Admittedly, at some not insignificant societal cost.
Different people have had a not insignificant societal cost from the ultra low interest rates for a decade. Every such decision has winners and losers. Time for a change.
Rising interest rates benefits savers - mostly retirees - to the detriment of borrowers - i.e. people who are mostly working and mostly in the first half of their working lives.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
I had a whole series of posts lined up for the "only by the grace of Scotland did the UK Remain" scenario.
The overwhelming economic issues impacting this country are in relation to the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the pandemic.
I am no economist, having been admonished on numerous occasions by former poster and monetary economist @Philip_Thompson for claiming that increasing money supply would lead to inflation, nonetheless Brexit could well impact significantly on our ability to exit any formal or informal recession. For example, I am doing work with a company importing labour from the Indian subcontinent because their EU source has dried up, so labour is an issue. And let's not even worry about new post- Brexit tariff and non-tariff barriers to certain EU markets.
I suppose the difference is that the supply shock will hopefully be time-limited, while Brexit is for ever. Acute versus chronic?
Also no-one wanted the pandemic or Russia to invade Ukraine. We actually voted to make ourselves poorer through Brexit. Which was rather stupid, but we are where we are. We will eventually damage-limit it, I believe.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
Indeed. Nations and nationalities are idiotic arbitrary divisions. I’d abolish them all. Municipalities, and loose, fluid, federations thereof, should be the basic governing unit.
That is a great idea. I feel a lot more attachment to my neighbourhood and city than I do to the country we are located in. Real local devolution plus a world government to manage global issues would be an interesting setup.
Completely and utterly OT but does anyone know why the Wagner Group is so-called? Is it in honour of the somewhat problematic German composer?
It was Dmitry Utkin's radio handle when he was in GRU SF.
From Wikipedia:
The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014,[2] along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.[64] In 2021, the Foreign Policy report noted the origin of the name "Wagner" to be unknown.[47] Others say the group's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner", reportedly after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich
Full disclosure: I have a mortgage. That said, can anyone tell me how putting interest rates up helps lower inflation which is driven by the high price of gas?
By putting interest rates up, you have less money to spend. This lowers aggregate demand, and therefore demand meets supply at a lower price level.
Admittedly, at some not insignificant societal cost.
Different people have had a not insignificant societal cost from the ultra low interest rates for a decade. Every such decision has winners and losers. Time for a change.
Rising interest rates benefits savers - mostly retirees - to the detriment of borrowers - i.e. people who are mostly working and mostly in the first half of their working lives.
The impact on property prices outweighs that in our current economy.
Yes, on day one rising interest rates immediately benefits retirees. But setting and almost guaranteeing artificially low interest rates just creates asset bubbles, which now need popping. Proper interest rates are a necessary but not sufficient part of reaching the popping stage. So in the medium and long run going back to normal interest rates is good for those who want to convert future earnings into assets.
Some indications that in large parts of the UK it is going to be a drier than average autumn/winter. If that pans out we are going to have a full-scale emergency on our hands next summer. The management of water in this country (England and Wales, at least) is disastrous - from the companies, through the regulator and government to us all as users. We waste so much, just assuming it can’t run out.
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is actually racist, anything not racist is actually racist but pretending; in fact, reality is evil, the universe is fascist, sunlight is Trumpite and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
Would this be a country supper or a regular one? I'd like to know how to dress when I come over to Islington to denounce your salad.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
I'm just puzzled as to why he thinks 100 years of underinvestment in proper water and sewerage systems is linked to Brexit.
Although if Scotland ever votes to leave I'll be intrigued to see how every public sector disaster caused by chronic lack of money is not attributed to Sindy...
I think Mark Steel is a bit starry-eyed about swimming conditions before the mid-90s.
In Newcastle, as late as 1970 raw sewage was still routinely (not irregularly) discharged into the Tyne. To the extent that on hot days it wasn't possible to do any work in the city centre due to the smell. Nothing was done until the Council's own offices started to be impacted.
I would be surprised to learn that was unusual. I know in the 1950s the salmon population in the Severn was severely damaged because of the sewage from Gloucester and Worcester in the estuary.
On Wednesday we were swimming in the sea near Eastbourne pier. In the surf we found a plastic bag containing a nappy. I've no idea if this was something swept out with sewage, or swept into the sea after being discarded on a beach, but it was yucky.
(On another pollution point: why do sodding dog owners leave plastic bundles of poo everywhere?)
On a happier note, we were punting on the Cam yesterday, and on the way back from Granchester Meadows we saw the most incredible, and terrifying, sight - an adder swimming in the river. It held its head up out of the water and had its mouth open. Rather put me off wild swimming. Sadly we didn't get a photo or video but it's a sight none of us will ever forget!
I was on the Lea River cycle path a few weeks ago and almost ran over a long, thin snake on the towpath as it slithered towards the undergrowth. I have no idea what type of snake it was - I think it was about two feet long and luminous green but I only saw it very briefly. Does anybody know what type of snake it could been?
Michael Gove was elsewhere that day so it wasn't his alter ego.
There are only 3 native snake species in the UK (four including Gove), and from your description it sounds like it was a grass snake.
I agree. You are very unlikely to see a smooth snake unless you are in Surrey or Dorset Heathland and even then unlikely as they are rare. Our snakes are quite short with the grass snake being by far the longest and the only one that can be green. The yellow marking behind the head is the usual give away.
Of course there is the slow worm (legless lizard) that can be mistaken for a snake, but again it doesn't fit the description.
Next time a government wants to call a referendum how about a minimum qualification to filter those who can take part.
What about an IQ over 40?
What about just restrict the franchise to Westminster, Hampstead, Islington, Oxford and Cambridge? You might even return from France then.
Working class Leave voters however got what they voted for, regained sovereignty and an end to EU free movement
Piquantly, of all the posters on PB, the one one whose vote might have been genuinely imperilled by a stipulation of an IQ over 40 - is Roger. Who is without doubt the stupidest commenter on here
How on earth are the economics of moving tuition fees to 24k going to work.
Ask the Americans. It would be a pretty normal rate for an Ivy League University.
The average annual tuition for an Ivy League is probably north of $50,000.
How do people of any kind of normal means pay that back? It's just mind blowing. My son's girlfriend is Canadian and is paying £24k for Oxford. She is being supported by her parents who can presumably afford this but so many people must spend their lives in debt.
Some indications that in large parts of the UK it is going to be a drier than average autumn/winter. If that pans out we are going to have a full-scale emergency on our hands next summer. The management of water in this country (England and Wales, at least) is disastrous - from the companies, through the regulator and government to us all as users. We waste so much, just assuming it can’t run out.
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is actually racist, anything not racist is actually racist but pretending; in fact, reality is evil, the universe is fascist, sunlight is Trumpite and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
Would this be a country supper or a regular one? I'd like to know how to dress when I come over to Islington to denounce your salad.
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
Indeed. Nations and nationalities are idiotic arbitrary divisions. I’d abolish them all. Municipalities, and loose, fluid, federations thereof, should be the basic governing unit.
That is a great idea. I feel a lot more attachment to my neighbourhood and city than I do to the country we are located in. Real local devolution plus a world government to manage global issues would be an interesting setup.
Or... Lots of layers, local as possible, large scale as necessary?
One of the odd experiences of going to Europe is seeing multiple flags, representing everything from a town to a continent. Equal in size and status. Somehow, the British (by which, let's be honest, I mean the English) don't cope with that well. Why?
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
You need to look up the meaning of 'sectarian'. I don't see Stu wearing a footie scarf while chanting "* the Pope". It detracts from your PBToryexpertise on Scottish matters.
Okay then. It’s “Anglophobic August”. Better?
The Tory Party seem not to think so*. The Tories actually tried claiming that Scottish criticism of Tory* policies was inherently racist and Anglophobic, but they back-tracked within a very few hours. That was in the months before the referendum of 2014, and I remember that very well - evidently a coordinated message out to all their mouthpieces in the news outlets, then an almost instant reverse ferret.
*Not sure about today.
**UKG included LDs at the time, of course.
The criticism was of Dickson personally. He changed the headline of a piece, critical of water quality in “Britain”, to “England”, despite the article itself clearly referring to water companies on both sides of the border. Scottish Water is publicly owned.
Scottish Nationalism is not inherently Anglophobic. Stuart Dickson absolutely is.
Anyone with a brain is anglophobic at the moment. England voted Brexit and voted Tory even with the knowledge Johnson would be Prime Minister. The Scots didn't. Can you blame them for sneering and loathing us for the choices we foisted on them?
Actually 40% or so of Scots did. Why are they never mentioned?
If 100% of Scots had voted to Remain then the U.K. would have Remained.
That would have been an absolutely hilarious result. Can you imagine the frothing on here?
Not from me as I respect the democratic vote of the people
Publicly owned Scottish Water features in your linked piece. Sturgeon's Shitty Scotland?
When they were publicly owned, you had no choice but to swim in a boring sea, that was just wet all over. But now you can either carry on in a sea that’s old-fashioned, or you can choose a more interesting one with islands of mucky toilet paper floating through it.
Katy Taylor, of Scottish Water, reassured us by saying it was up to the public to decide whether it’s safe, hinting we shouldn’t worry because the sea is “95% rainwater”.
Your man Mark Steel doesn't seem to have noticed that that one *is* publicly owned.
I'm just puzzled as to why he thinks 100 years of underinvestment in proper water and sewerage systems is linked to Brexit.
Although if Scotland ever votes to leave I'll be intrigued to see how every public sector disaster caused by chronic lack of money is not attributed to Sindy...
I think Mark Steel is a bit starry-eyed about swimming conditions before the mid-90s.
In Newcastle, as late as 1970 raw sewage was still routinely (not irregularly) discharged into the Tyne. To the extent that on hot days it wasn't possible to do any work in the city centre due to the smell. Nothing was done until the Council's own offices started to be impacted.
I would be surprised to learn that was unusual. I know in the 1950s the salmon population in the Severn was severely damaged because of the sewage from Gloucester and Worcester in the estuary.
On Wednesday we were swimming in the sea near Eastbourne pier. In the surf we found a plastic bag containing a nappy. I've no idea if this was something swept out with sewage, or swept into the sea after being discarded on a beach, but it was yucky.
(On another pollution point: why do sodding dog owners leave plastic bundles of poo everywhere?)
On a happier note, we were punting on the Cam yesterday, and on the way back from Granchester Meadows we saw the most incredible, and terrifying, sight - an adder swimming in the river. It held its head up out of the water and had its mouth open. Rather put me off wild swimming. Sadly we didn't get a photo or video but it's a sight none of us will ever forget!
I was on the Lea River cycle path a few weeks ago and almost ran over a long, thin snake on the towpath as it slithered towards the undergrowth. I have no idea what type of snake it was - I think it was about two feet long and luminous green but I only saw it very briefly. Does anybody know what type of snake it could been?
Michael Gove was elsewhere that day so it wasn't his alter ego.
There are only 3 native snake species in the UK (four including Gove), and from your description it sounds like it was a grass snake.
I agree. You are very unlikely to see a smooth snake unless you are in Surrey or Dorset Heathland and even then unlikely as they are rare. Our snakes are quite short with the grass snake being by far the longest and the only one that can be green. The yellow marking behind the head is the usual give away.
Of course there is the slow worm (legless lizard) that can be mistaken for a snake, but again it doesn't fit the description.
I've seen a few grass snakes, admittedly not recently, but I don't recall one that I would describe as green.
To me it is almost certain that the next rise will be another 0.5% but the odds reflect that and are not particularly tempting. More would reek of panic and admissions of past failures to act. Less would be rightly condemned in light of inflation being so out of control.
I am not impressed by Bailey and the others on the MPC. They have failed at their job and frankly I think that they should pay the penalty. Resignation by the Governor would be an acknowledgement of the Bank's failings.
When they actually failed though is more difficult. The lag in interest rates is probably 18-2 years now given the preponderance of fixed rate borrowing. It would have been difficult to raise rates 2 years ago when Covid was at its peak and the economy was in recession. The mistakes really came earlier when the emergency rate from the GFC was allowed to persist. At the time it seemed growth was weak but fiscal policy in terms of the deficit was generous and the Bank failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining, as one politician once said. If they had gently built base rates up to 4% or so we would be in a much better place now.
Yeah, but an interest rate of 4% destroys the housing market, and as long as people felt they were getting richer because the value of their main asset kept increasing, they voted Conservative. That's why they've tried so hard the last decade to prop up house prices. With low interest rates, with help to buy, with the stupid stamp duty holiday -- all of which pushed house prices up to the stratospheric in the interests of people who already owned property at the expense of those just looking for a roof over their head.
I honestly don't think the economy can ever be fixed as long as policy automatically defaults to whatever keeps house prices high.
Sorry to trot this one out again but house prices are not artificially inflated. If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%) The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else. Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros. The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
Your first and second point implies that small UK builders are very inefficient but have been allowed to be so because of the easy availability of large amounts of credit...
And yes that is the UK's biggest problem we are utterly uninterested in improving productivity and focussed way too much on the next quarter / 6 months rather than 2+ years time.
The efforts to improve productivity (eg houses built in factories to UK standards) have not resulted in lower build costs. They are driven by a desire to improve quality and certainty in the construction process.
I honstly don't know what the underlying problem is - but would hypothesise that it is a combination of labour costs, regulation and materials, not inefficiency on the part of small builders.
Go to the smallest building site in France and you will see at some point a crane to move heavy material round.
In the Uk it is still deemed cheaper to get someone to carry the bricks up to the brick I’d or even get the brickie to do it himself.
The overwhelming economic issues impacting this country are in relation to the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the pandemic.
I am no economist, having been admonished on numerous occasions by former poster and monetary economist @Philip_Thompson for claiming that increasing money supply would lead to inflation, nonetheless Brexit could well impact significantly on our ability to exit any formal or informal recession. For example, I am doing work with a company importing labour from the Indian subcontinent because their EU source has dried up, so labour is an issue. And let's not even worry about new post- Brexit tariff and non-tariff barriers to certain EU markets.
I suppose the difference is that the supply shock will hopefully be time-limited, while Brexit is for ever. Acute versus chronic?
Also no-one wanted the pandemic or Russia to invade Ukraine. We actually voted to make ourselves poorer through Brexit. Which was rather stupid, but we are where we are. We will eventually damage-limit it, I believe.
Agreed.
Roger's analysis although in many respects correct was very much out of context. BigG's response was that other factors exclusively not Brexit are at play, hence EU nations are currently struggling.
My point was the panoramic sunlit uplands of frolicking unicorns will take longer to materialise than post-shock recoveries in say France and Germany.
Comments
Good for UK productivity.
Who could have quessed?
Next time a government wants to call a referendum how about a minimum qualification to filter those who can take part.
What about an IQ over 40?
Then they privatised water.
The game of musical chairs feels very close to stopping now.
If build costs are £2500 per sqm in the south east, then a 100 sqm house costs £250,000 to build - everything else is just the cost of land and developer profit (usually 20%)
The inflation is being driven by build costs as much as anything else.
Where we will end up is a situation where private housebuilders don't build anything because it isn't viable to do so, there will be no finance available.
In wealthy parts of Western Europe you can buy a pre fabricated 100 sqm kit house for 150,000 Euros; and a serviced plot of land for about 60,000 Euros.
The dysfunctionality in the UK is due to inadequate supply of land and dysfunctional regulation.
He is now a supporter of Truss.
"Angela Rayner: Scottish independence 'not very nice' and means 'perpetual' Tory rule"
https://tinyurl.com/2p9xryra
I think this would be an easy policy for either party to sell. The pensioners will like the nostalgia of practical over academic education, and the youth both need more houses and are already realising that for most university is a financial con.
https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/08/will-housing-market-crash-50-year-mortgages
Not sure that I believe it entirely, but such an event would be pretty fatal for Tories wanting re-election. The mortgage negative equity of the early to mid nineties is an under rated part of why the Major government fell. The national figures were looking a bit rosier by 1997, but people care more about their own personal household economies than abstract government figures.
And yes that is the UK's biggest problem we are utterly uninterested in improving productivity and focussed way too much on the next quarter / 6 months rather than 2+ years time.
By increasing rates (or stopping or reversing QE) you are increase the value of money, as it pays a higher rate of return than before. You are also implicitly slowing the growth in the monetary base (broad money).
The supply chain issues represent a one time increase in prices (Russian gas, Chinese crap due to continued lockdown, global inventory restocking post covid). Meanwhile ongoing debasement of your monetary base represents a continual increase in prices.
The worst outcome is when high price rise expectations become embedded. Firms are forced to pay higher wages on expectations of higher prices, same for those on index linked incomes. Which in turn slams margins and thereby reduces employment and growth. The very best policy right now is to artificially deflate the headline rate of inflation by removing all tax on energy, with the price cap staying fixed. It’s a sleight of hand to stop runaway inflation expectations. The inflationary impact from this fiscal measure would take perhaps a year to feed through, by which time rate rises in the US, UK and Europe will have mostly curtailed the expansion in the monetary base.
The balancing trick to this is making sure in the process you don’t explode the deficit, which either then has to be paid for with higher gilt yields, or further QE! The other sleight of hand used in the past is to increase the percentage of “risk free” Sterling assets that banks must hold (i.e. Gilts). Allows a higher deficit with lower yields. But it’s an anti growth measure if you take the piss with it.
I try to avoid killing wasps now. I wasn't aware until recently they were pollinators, I assumed that was exclusively by the job of the bee, I just thought they were b*******!
If supply shocks mean we have 10% or so higher expenses, we effectively and unavoidably become poorer by 10%. The people managing the economy prefer this to happen in an inflationary, rather than deflationary, way. Inflation is a feature, not a bug. If we still have 13% inflation in two years time, it won't have worked however.
The political problem is that no politician, least of all the charlatans in the UK government, are being honest with people about what's happening with their incomes.
Not sure Brexit is involved in Germany
https://www.dw.com/en/german-chancellor-heckled-amid-promises-on-cost-of-living/a-62843478
The worldview of the modern left. Everything is disastrous, those things that aren’t disastrous are catastrophic, everything which is either disastrous or catastrophic is actually racist, anything not racist is actually racist but pretending; in fact, reality is evil, the universe is fascist, sunlight is Trumpite and Brexit is like slaughtering all firstborns: but worse
Meanwhile I am off for a cappuccino by the Medici Chapel
Really, when did they get like this? When did the left turn into these medieval c*nts bewailing the world, the flesh and fhe devil?
Awful people. Don’t invite them to supper or they will denounce your salad Nicoise as a Nazi
ETA and do not overlook the risks of recession.
Will go down a storm in the “Red Wall”.
To actually see which countries have a bond premium it's worth looking at the bond markets and setting as a baseline, as it is in most things financial, the USA.
As it stands the US 10y bond yield is 2.989 so any countries with a yield of three or more have a premium relative to them.
The UK yield is 2.412 - so a negative premium?
By contrast the ECB is juggling the demands of the following members, to go with Germany.
Italy 3.489
Greece 3.692
Bulgaria 3.000
Romania 7.920
And in the Single Market, but not the Euro, there is also
Iceland 5.56
Czech Republic 4.267
Poland 6.03
Hungary 8.74
Observing the development of policy in this area is dark comedy.
The government keep creating parasitic "progressive" regulation that increases build costs and risks - ie building safety legislation, net zero legislation, etc. It just sleepwalks in to this, without looking at the costs.
Then it also takes no accountability for the release of land through the planning system, and constructs a cynical policy framework whereby it seeks to take political credit for 'stopping' Council's or its own Inspectors from granting planning permission for new development, where its voters don't want it... so all of the south east, and much of the Midlands, and the east, and the south west.
You then have to throw on the immense complexity, risk and costs of building anything given that infrastructure is controlled by shady privatised utilities that can hold its customers to ransom.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the end, people will just stop bothering at all and nothing will get built.
If a high profile Russian political figure dies, the order usually traces back to a falling out with the Kremlin.
Admittedly, at some not insignificant societal cost.
It did not. So she backed the shareholders rights to pump shit onto beaches for profit. OK, so she won't know she did that as she is a 2019 Tory and therefore mince, but thats what she did.
I'm sure they would have preferred a few years of more moderate inflation, 5% or so, but it's not so easy to control.
I honstly don't know what the underlying problem is - but would hypothesise that it is a combination of labour costs, regulation and materials, not inefficiency on the part of small builders.
I would look at introducing some form of auction for planning permissions as another tax stream whilst making planning permission easier to obtain generally.
Been placing small bets on five European leagues this season. Doing fairly well in the Premiership, ok in Serie A/La Liga/Ligue 1, and have achieved the statistically improbable feat of getting every single Bundesliga bet wrong.
Scottish National Party +5
Scottish Green Party +/-0
Scottish Labour -3
Scottish Liberal Democrats -13
Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party -38
(Ipsos Scotland; 12-15 August; sample size: 1,000)
Working class Leave voters however got what they voted for, regained sovereignty and an end to EU free movement
I rarely agree with Leon but his assessment of you is pretty spot on.
I am no economist, having been admonished on numerous occasions by former poster and monetary economist @Philip_Thompson for claiming that increasing money supply would lead to inflation, nonetheless Brexit could well impact significantly on our ability to exit any formal or informal recession. For example, I am doing work with a company importing labour from the Indian subcontinent because their EU source has dried up, so labour is an issue. And let's not even worry about new post- Brexit tariff and non-tariff barriers to certain EU markets.
Whether they can keep it up all season is the question. A top 4 place is pretty much nailed on. Winner w/o Man City at 5/1 is good though with Skybet.
Leicester is good value for relegation though. Yesterday was pisspoor. The crowd were leaving early and booing the team at the end, including me. Khun Top was there, so hopefully Rogers can be sacked and the team revitalised. It is essentially the same team as won the FA Cup a year ago, just crap game tactics.
Other contenders for first in the sack race should be Gerrard, Lampard and Ten Hag, but I reckon Rogers first. We can't afford not to.
I reckon Gerrard at 5/1 is value, as is Rogers at 4/1.
In Northern Ireland just 36% want a border poll in the next 5 years
SNP 50 seats (+2)
Con 4 seats (-2)
SLD 2 seats (+/-0)
Lab 1 seat (nc)
(Baxter)
Scottish Labour really do have an extremely unfortunate distribution of supporters.
23% and 2nd place translates into 1 seat and 4th place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOGta6LO-I8
I am no particular supporter of the MP in question but it isn't right to conclude that she is 'thick as mince' from this episode.
All political shorthand conceals more than it shows.
My other encounter with a snake was in Australia many years ago. I was hiking with a friend in the Blue Mountains and one slithered across into the path a few yards in front of us. Given how venemous some Australian snakes are, we froze and waited ten minutes for it to move, which eventually it did.
The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014,[2] along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.[64] In 2021, the Foreign Policy report noted the origin of the name "Wagner" to be unknown.[47] Others say the group's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner", reportedly after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich
So the current problems are a result of exceptional weather with rock hard, non absorbant ground and very heavy rainfall. Before privatisation it did not require such exceptional circumstances for this to arise. The pressure now will be for yet more investment and yet more profit for the service providers who will be crying all the way to the bank.
But it's a manifestation not a wider problem. All the government's tax and spend plans depend on holding to the idea that state services can absorb the incoming rise in costs of energy, supplies and staff, and don't need any more pounds than are currently budgeted for.
This is... optimistic.
Also no-one wanted the pandemic or Russia to invade Ukraine. We actually voted to make ourselves poorer through Brexit. Which was rather stupid, but we are where we are. We will eventually damage-limit it, I believe.
49% for indy but support rises under every single viable near term scenario .
Yes, on day one rising interest rates immediately benefits retirees. But setting and almost guaranteeing artificially low interest rates just creates asset bubbles, which now need popping. Proper interest rates are a necessary but not sufficient part of reaching the popping stage. So in the medium and long run going back to normal interest rates is good for those who want to convert future earnings into assets.
Of course there is the slow worm (legless lizard) that can be mistaken for a snake, but again it doesn't fit the description.
2/3 of English voters though back Truss in refusing indyref2, even only 48% of Scots want indyref2 within 5 years
One of the odd experiences of going to Europe is seeing multiple flags, representing everything from a town to a continent. Equal in size and status. Somehow, the British (by which, let's be honest, I mean the English) don't cope with that well. Why?
https://twitter.com/johnrentoul/status/1561091235179274240?s=21&t=SwBsArp_dkpfau41nIOHFA
In the Uk it is still deemed cheaper to get someone to carry the bricks up to the brick I’d or even get the brickie to do it himself.
That’s just 1 obvious example.
Roger's analysis although in many respects correct was very much out of context. BigG's response was that other factors exclusively not Brexit are at play, hence EU nations are currently struggling.
My point was the panoramic sunlit uplands of frolicking unicorns will take longer to materialise than post-shock recoveries in say France and Germany.