If you want to see a currency in hysterical trouble, rather than this recent mild turbulence in the £, look at the performance of the Turkish Lira against sterling in the last decade
Is this the best the Tory loyalist(s) can come up with?
"But what about the Turkish lira?"
We'll get a whole load of "I survived 15%" next.
I survived 15%; it wasn't fun.
With the increased capital values, something like 8% would have the same effect now I think.
No, it's the presentation of it as a tax cut which will result in significantly more economic growth. That's the issue. If they had just done it and said "yeah fuck off poor people, we want to help our rich mates" it would have probably been fine as well. It's that they have gone on TV and defended it as a measure which will push up trend growth rates which has got everyone in the City scratching their heads and questioning whether the top team really understands how the economy functions. That's where the credibility gap is coming from.
Yes, and I think the other thing which makes it clear that the government has completely lost its marbles is the lack of any attention to the spending side. In that sense, Kwarteng was right when he claimed this wasn't a budget: in a budget, you look at spending, tax revenues and borrowing, as a whole. It's abundantly clear that there are going to be big spending increases, even if just to match inflation - everywhere you look, you can see enormous pressures. The fact that Kwarteng doesn't seem to think that any of these pressures are worth mentioning is hardly conducive to confidence.
Yes, where are the spending cuts? Osborne proposed a huge round of spending restraint and real terms cuts for 4 years which won market credibility for a nation that was on the brink of this situation. Rishi is going to have to come in and do the same.
Respect democracy, Rishi lost the election fair and square, the Tories have made their choice. Liz and Kwasi need to do what they believe in and if it works, great. If it doesn't, then it will be up to Labour to sort out, not Rishi.
No, it won't get that far after the weekend of turmoil. If Liz and Kwasi can't turn it around within the next few days and push sterling back up and gilt rates down the Tory MPs will move to dump them and I think Rishi becomes leader without a member vote.
Sunak has just lost a membership vote. If there is to be a coronation it won't be Sunak. Choosing a leader without a membership vote is one thing; choosing one that has been put to the vote only to lose it is another.
At this rate the conservatives will soon be changing leaders every day...maybe they can give all their mps a go
I was hypothesising - I don't think Truss is going anywhere. Al least not before she loses the next GE badly.
So we need to put up or shut up?
Put up - basically yes - only the CP can change leader as we know. Shut up ..... that's a different matter!
At least Johnson has gone. That's what you wanted I think??
The assumption was that the Tories might have learned something from having put a clueless clown in office the first time?
They have though.
There's a valid theory that every new PM tends to be an overreaction to the flaws of the last PM. That works here too.
The last PM was someone who didn't believe in anything, except how to further his own career, someone who believed in nothing and put himself first. The new PM now is the polar opposite, an ideologue who is doing what others dislike as she genuinely thinks its the right thing to do and is putting her ideology first.
Whether you like it or not, its a significant change.
Yes, you’re right that the clown would probably have u-turned at least twice already, whereas Truss is renowned among officials for never letting go of anything, and probably sees herself as MrsT incarnate, destined to stick to these policies regardless of the fallout.
Indeed. A lot of people here misjudged Truss as a flip-flopper because of her acceptance of the Brexit vote in 2016, or her no longer being a Lib Dem republican as she was as a teenager.
She's not a flip-flopper, she's probably the most ideological PM we've had in many decades. She changes her mind on things over time, as all thinking people do, but when she does she can embrace the new position with the zeal of a convert. But that's not remotely the same thing as someone who goes with the wind or the opinion polls.
Blimey inter-meeting tightening as a response to the government announcing fiscal loosening not 72hrs previously puts us in a very strange situation indeed.
The problem with that - and I say this as somebody who wouldn't need a lot of convincing to vote Labour - is it's very difficult to see how we don't have austerity from the mess we're in.
Public finances are creaking. Interest levels are soaring. We need to get the deficit under control so we can begin to deal with the latter problem, but even if we stop adding to it tomorrow, for the next several years we will be spending as much on debt interest as on defence, education and transport combined.
Well, that's got to be paid for. How? Tax rises are one way, and they're going to have to be part of it one way or another. But unless we have such enormous tax rises that they are in themselves a form of austerity then we're going to need to cut spending pretty dramatically as well.
So I'm doubtful about her claims.
What this country has needed for years, and not had, is an honest conversation about what things cost, how much we want to pay, what is needed in terms of time and resources and what we get for it. That was just as true under Brown and Blair as under the Tories, incidentally. Many of the problems we have now are because they were too timid to make the really difficult calls - on power generation, transport and communication links, taxation, spending and government remit - at a time when they were both very popular and had the financial room to do so.
Thing is, it seems unlikely in light of this Labour are going to offer that.
Equally, we can now say for certain that Truss not only won't offer it, but is actively lying to us about the situation we're in, apparently without realising she's more transparent than the Emperor's New Clothes.
Enormous tax rises on the very wealthy, moderate tax rises on the wealthy, no tax rises on those in the middle, modest tax cuts for the lowest earners.
problem is we have had furlough and now the energy bailout...the uk electorate doesnt want pain and would prefer to live in fantasy land...the politicians oblige
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
The ideal is to have house prices rising by more than zero (preventing negative equity) but by less than wages.
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Did you get your Morrison's Nyetimber? Nicer than cava, but not displacing my current house champagne, was my view.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
Funny, but I don't agree with it, but a work colleague this morning, when I asked, thought the mini-budget was pretty good and would lead to the government having to undertake significant spending cuts.
"Mainly the bloated NHS I hope" he said, before remarking that he considered the NHS to be hugely overburdened with management staff who could easily be cut for huge savings in spending.
The chap is a senior manager and been in accountancy for fourty years..... I wasn't totally taken by his argument.
Could he be right?
According to the published figures, the NHS spends a smaller proportion on management than many other health services. Especially the United States! I think it was Dr Foxy who pointed out last week that many of the people titled manager also had health professional jobs.
Some of the people I read (Andy Cowper etc.) are pretty confident the NHS is underspending on managers... that more are needed to drive efficiency gains, redesign services etc.
Whether that's true or not - I am pretty confident that the pressures on the service far outweigh any easy low-hanging fruit on spending cuts.
I suspect it is true. I've heard numerous times about doctors and senior nurses spending a considerable chunk of their time doing administration and management tasks that could be picked up by dedicated admin staff.
Step 1: Sack a bunch of admin staff on £20k Step 2: Get their work done by doctors on £70k using up 25-40% of their time Step 3: Wonder why the outcomes are getting worse against money spent. Step 4: Look at options to decrease non-medical-staff spend Step 5: Return to Step 1
My experience of the US healthcare system is that the NHS is incredibly efficient by comparison. Quite normal to get billed separately by 5 or 6 different people for the same procedure, each providing a detailed breakdown of the costs and required copay. Each had to be paid for by cheque. Sometimes the required copay was about the same as the cost of the postage involved.
Perhaps the major reason the US healthcare system is the most expensive on the planet is the incredible amount of bureaucracy involved.
It’s also one of the reasons it’s politically very difficult to fix: any change to the system that eliminates this extra bureaucracy instantly puts 5% of the US population out of work. That 5% is not equipped to do anything else either - they’re specialists in navigating the US healthcare system as currently constructed.
(5% is a rough guess, based on the difference in proportional GDP spent of healthcare by the US vs the most expensive EU healthcare systems.)
That and market capture by suppliers, particularly the US drug manufacturers
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
The main driver is that there are plenty of cash buyers out there. Savills stated there were 482,000 cash buyers in the year to March 2022 and they spent £178bn buying homes, That was 17 and 32 per cent higher than the three-year average before the pandemic. More than 8 million people do not have a mortgage.
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Did you get your Morrison's Nyetimber? Nicer than cava, but not displacing my current house champagne, was my view.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
Yes, 2010. It is a *lot* nicer than cava btw, not complaining.
Nutty Liz and Kwasi's budget going down well then?
Supposedly the defence line that has emerged though this morning proves that the markets now have confidence.
Then you read Nomura analysists forecasting £0.95 = $1.00 and saying "hope is not a strategy". Then you read the market has priced in a BofE intervention this week.
No, it isn't confidence. They are placing their bets.
Who gets sacked first Gareth Waistcoat or Fizzy Truss?
I can't comprehend how a player like Maguire, who isn't even being selected for Manchester United anymore, can be a guaranteed starter but a player like Trent isn't making the squad.
I don't understand what Gareth is thinking. Its like he's just not thinking, just sticking with his picks he made a few years ago when Maguire was playing well.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Did you get your Morrison's Nyetimber? Nicer than cava, but not displacing my current house champagne, was my view.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
Yes, 2010. It is a *lot* nicer than cava btw, not complaining.
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
Leon emitting strong Swiss Tony vibes.
I always regard being surrounded by beautiful young women at the height of their attractiveness as one of the perks of working at University. As I'm happily married (18 years now) its purely looking only.
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
The main driver is that there are plenty of cash buyers out there. Savills stated there were 482,000 cash buyers in the year to March 2022 and they spent £178bn buying homes, That was 17 and 32 per cent higher than the three-year average before the pandemic. More than 8 million people do not have a mortgage.
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Absolutely. We need a hefty and annual ongoing property tax on people with properties they aren't resident in, these "investments" are distorting the market dreadfully. If you want to invest, invest in businesses, not property.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Did you get your Morrison's Nyetimber? Nicer than cava, but not displacing my current house champagne, was my view.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
PB pissheads may be interested in Sainsbury's, currently 25% off almost all wine if you buy at least 6 bottles. I took the opportunity to stock up including a bottle of Nyetimber.
Conway doesn't say that, who are you actually quoting?
Hopefully a house price crash happens soon. Long overdue.
Again, spiteful as fuck. People lose homes in house price crashes.
Nobody who keeps paying their mortgage loses their home in house price crashes. Anyone who does can just ride out to the other side and still have a home.
The people who lose out are those with multiple homes as "investments". Fuck them.
Jesus, Bart. Yes, and people with one home, which they live in, and a mortgage who stop paying the mortgage because they cannot afford it, lose the home. Normal, non wealthy, perfectly nice people with, often, small children.
And that's a shame for them. And they'll end up in the same position as millions today who want a home, but can't afford one because prices have been driven up by people using real estate as "investments", which you are totally spiteful about.
Why do you think this a good thing?
A house price crash and high interest rates will be great for those in a position to buy and those with savings or able to save.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Can we apply the same rule to cricket scores? Widely available for the few that need them.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
By the “left” you mean Jeremy Corbyn and friends, but thankfully they’ve been banished.
Labour is now the only sensible choice. I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Which bit? I missed the bit between 'no more austerity' and 'this is how we will pay for all the goodies'. Truth is the country is in a tough spot. In 2010 the Tories were attacked for choking off the recovery with austerity, which implies they should have been borrowing to spend. Kind of like they are now. No-one seems to have nailed the obvious issues with labours windfall taxes on energy giants that are based in the middle east. Never forget - opposition is easy.
As I understand it, the gas price guarantee caps at a benchmark of £2500 when the predicted un-capped price would be about £5000.
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
Petrol in the US was over $4 when I started my trip, but I filled up yesterday for $3.20. Experts here are already talking about inflation possibly having peaked.
Conway doesn't say that, who are you actually quoting?
Hopefully a house price crash happens soon. Long overdue.
Again, spiteful as fuck. People lose homes in house price crashes.
Nobody who keeps paying their mortgage loses their home in house price crashes. Anyone who does can just ride out to the other side and still have a home.
The people who lose out are those with multiple homes as "investments". Fuck them.
Jesus, Bart. Yes, and people with one home, which they live in, and a mortgage who stop paying the mortgage because they cannot afford it, lose the home. Normal, non wealthy, perfectly nice people with, often, small children.
And that's a shame for them. And they'll end up in the same position as millions today who want a home, but can't afford one because prices have been driven up by people using real estate as "investments", which you are totally spiteful about.
Why do you think this a good thing?
A house price crash and high interest rates will be great for those in a position to buy and those with savings or able to save.
But not so good for those who lose their homes.
I don't know whether you want this or not.
All investments can go down as well as up. Anyone who bought anything should always be given that disclaimer.
Just as it would be good to see energy prices come back down from current highs, I would like to see property prices come down to 3-4x income multiples and to stay down at those levels.
Ideally that should be because of massive house building rather than financial turmoil, but anything that sees price to income ratios improve (ie come down) is a good thing.
Property is about the only price where for some perverted reason people view prices going up as "progress" rather than inflation, and prices coming down as turmoil rather than aiding affordability.
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
No, it's the presentation of it as a tax cut which will result in significantly more economic growth. That's the issue. If they had just done it and said "yeah fuck off poor people, we want to help our rich mates" it would have probably been fine as well. It's that they have gone on TV and defended it as a measure which will push up trend growth rates which has got everyone in the City scratching their heads and questioning whether the top team really understands how the economy functions. That's where the credibility gap is coming from.
Yes, and I think the other thing which makes it clear that the government has completely lost its marbles is the lack of any attention to the spending side. In that sense, Kwarteng was right when he claimed this wasn't a budget: in a budget, you look at spending, tax revenues and borrowing, as a whole. It's abundantly clear that there are going to be big spending increases, even if just to match inflation - everywhere you look, you can see enormous pressures. The fact that Kwarteng doesn't seem to think that any of these pressures are worth mentioning is hardly conducive to confidence.
Yes, where are the spending cuts? Osborne proposed a huge round of spending restraint and real terms cuts for 4 years which won market credibility for a nation that was on the brink of this situation. Rishi is going to have to come in and do the same.
Respect democracy, Rishi lost the election fair and square, the Tories have made their choice. Liz and Kwasi need to do what they believe in and if it works, great. If it doesn't, then it will be up to Labour to sort out, not Rishi.
No, it won't get that far after the weekend of turmoil. If Liz and Kwasi can't turn it around within the next few days and push sterling back up and gilt rates down the Tory MPs will move to dump them and I think Rishi becomes leader without a member vote.
Sunak has just lost a membership vote. If there is to be a coronation it won't be Sunak. Choosing a leader without a membership vote is one thing; choosing one that has been put to the vote only to lose it is another.
At this rate the conservatives will soon be changing leaders every day...maybe they can give all their mps a go
I was hypothesising - I don't think Truss is going anywhere. Al least not before she loses the next GE badly.
So we need to put up or shut up?
Put up - basically yes - only the CP can change leader as we know. Shut up ..... that's a different matter!
At least Johnson has gone. That's what you wanted I think??
The assumption was that the Tories might have learned something from having put a clueless clown in office the first time?
They have though.
There's a valid theory that every new PM tends to be an overreaction to the flaws of the last PM. That works here too.
The last PM was someone who didn't believe in anything, except how to further his own career, someone who believed in nothing and put himself first. The new PM now is the polar opposite, an ideologue who is doing what others dislike as she genuinely thinks its the right thing to do and is putting her ideology first.
Whether you like it or not, its a significant change.
Yes, you’re right that the clown would probably have u-turned at least twice already, whereas Truss is renowned among officials for never letting go of anything, and probably sees herself as MrsT incarnate, destined to stick to these policies regardless of the fallout.
Indeed. A lot of people here misjudged Truss as a flip-flopper because of her acceptance of the Brexit vote in 2016, or her no longer being a Lib Dem republican as she was as a teenager.
She's not a flip-flopper, she's probably the most ideological PM we've had in many decades. She changes her mind on things over time, as all thinking people do, but when she does she can embrace the new position with the zeal of a convert. But that's not remotely the same thing as someone who goes with the wind or the opinion polls.
As I understand it, the gas price guarantee caps at a benchmark of £2500 when the predicted un-capped price would be about £5000.
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
Petrol in the US was over $4 when I started my trip, but I filled up yesterday for $3.20. Experts here are already talking about inflation possibly having peaked.
Hopefully the Fed stop screwing up the currency markets by ratchetting up base rates faster than everyone else.
Inflation will come down hard next year, but the Fed aren't giving their rate moves time to work before they announce their next moves.
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
By the “left” you mean Jeremy Corbyn and friends, but thankfully they’ve been banished.
Labour is now the only sensible choice. I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Which bit? I missed the bit between 'no more austerity' and 'this is how we will pay for all the goodies'. Truth is the country is in a tough spot. In 2010 the Tories were attacked for choking off the recovery with austerity, which implies they should have been borrowing to spend. Kind of like they are now. No-one seems to have nailed the obvious issues with labours windfall taxes on energy giants that are based in the middle east. Never forget - opposition is easy.
Reversal of the egregious tax cuts Investment in medical training places Commitment to fully costed fiscal policy Abolition of business rates in favour of more equitable charge that does not discriminate against physical retail Industrial strategy, centred on green new deal. National wealth fund Commitment to improve trade deal with EU Increase in minimum wage
I’m a Liberal, but as others have noted, Reeves (and Starmer) are the adults in the room.
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
Really great Kiwi sauv blanc as well. Turtle Bay
It's Falmouth at the tail end of the holiday season. If you were sat there in November and it was busy then I would accept your statement but until the end of October it's going to be busy....
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
Leon emitting strong Swiss Tony vibes.
Why don't we all post on here when we've seen a looker out of the window or on the bus or at the deli counter in Waitrose? - It'll improve the site no end.
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
Leon emitting strong Swiss Tony vibes.
I always regard being surrounded by beautiful young women at the height of their attractiveness as one of the perks of working at University. As I'm happily married (18 years now) its purely looking only.
Talking to some academics over the past few weeks, they were commenting that finding it hard to attract PhD and post-docs because of inflation (especially at the top unis located in expensive towns / cities). 10% inflation when you only get £15-16k stipend and rent + bills is £1000+ / month does not compute.
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
The main driver is that there are plenty of cash buyers out there. Savills stated there were 482,000 cash buyers in the year to March 2022 and they spent £178bn buying homes, That was 17 and 32 per cent higher than the three-year average before the pandemic. More than 8 million people do not have a mortgage.
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Absolutely. We need a hefty and annual ongoing property tax on people with properties they aren't resident in, these "investments" are distorting the market dreadfully. If you want to invest, invest in businesses, not property.
The market is being distorted because we've not built enough houses over 30 years! There's nothing wrong with people having multiple homes - just build more houses so supply can keep up with demand!
Sacking Sir Tom Scholar on Day 1 wasn't terribly smart, was it?
Why?
They wanted a break with ideology of the past they didn't believe in. They need a team that believe in, or at least willing to implement, their own ideology.
The markets will just have to react and adapt. We have a freely floating exchange rate, so let it freely float.
I thought the whole point of the Civil Service was that people would deliver policy even if they didn't agree with it. Indeed, having sceptics on a team is useful, more likely to spot the pitfalls and have some solutions ready to go if it all goes to shit.
You shouldn't have to sack people to implement your democratic mandate. Advisers advise etc...Whether that mandate exists is another question.
Well yes, you shouldn't have to. Scholar should have been prepared to implement Truss and Kwarteng's ideas.
If he wasn't, then he wasn't fit to be in the Treasury, he should go into politics if he wants his own ideas instead.
Any evidence of your claim that he wasn't willing to do his job? Or are you simply assuming the worst about him in order to justify his sacking?
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Did you get your Morrison's Nyetimber? Nicer than cava, but not displacing my current house champagne, was my view.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
PB pissheads may be interested in Sainsbury's, currently 25% off almost all wine if you buy at least 6 bottles. I took the opportunity to stock up including a bottle of Nyetimber.
Yes there are some good deals around. I am getting mailshots of several companies (Tanners, Averys, etc) because I take up those "introductory offers" where they have a small parcel of something interesting and that's it. Although the discounting can be pretty severe if you press them when they call to offer you other things.
Big problem for me (first world problem, obvs) is that the easy sell to people and hence very popular is a high ABV merlot-dominated wine. I try not to drink anything above 13.5 and I am much more of a left bank than right bank kind of guy so I need to look around a bit.
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
They won’t (IMHO). We may see further slowing/cooling down or at worst a small correction but the SDLT cut will keep the market warm - for now.
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
"This thing that is in no way like MMT failing shows how MMT doesn't work" doesn't make much sense.
I'm not an economist or even particularly good at economics, but from my understanding MMT argues that taxation needs to be a lever to use to reduce inflation once money is hoarded. MMT includes borrowing, printing money and targeted increases in taxation.
Truss' plan so far is borrowing and reducing taxation at the same time, something which is likely to increase inflation; we are in a supply-side issue (reduced supply due to covid) and instead of a supply-side solution Truss has decided to flood more money to the wealthiest, who would only spend money on luxury items where supply is limited, rather than the poorest who will spend their money on items where supply is more stable - necessities and such.
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
By the “left” you mean Jeremy Corbyn and friends, but thankfully they’ve been banished.
Labour is now the only sensible choice. I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Which bit? I missed the bit between 'no more austerity' and 'this is how we will pay for all the goodies'. Truth is the country is in a tough spot. In 2010 the Tories were attacked for choking off the recovery with austerity, which implies they should have been borrowing to spend. Kind of like they are now. No-one seems to have nailed the obvious issues with labours windfall taxes on energy giants that are based in the middle east. Never forget - opposition is easy.
Reversal of the egregious tax cuts Investment in medical places Commitment to fully costed fiscal policy Abolition of business rates in favour of more equitable charge that does not discriminate against physical retail Industrial strategy, centred on green new deal. National wealth fund Commitment to improve trade deal with EU Increase in minimum wage
I’m a Liberal, but as others have noted, Reeves (and Starmer) are the adults in the room.
I'm on board with a lot of that. I expect Truss to deliver on Trade with the EU, starting with a bit of common sense on both sides around NI. I don't see answers about how the first two etc are paid for. You can slam the Tories for uncosted goodies, but you dimish the impact of criticism if you promise the same.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Can we apply the same rule to cricket scores? Widely available for the few that need them.
Conway doesn't say that, who are you actually quoting?
Hopefully a house price crash happens soon. Long overdue.
Again, spiteful as fuck. People lose homes in house price crashes.
Nobody who keeps paying their mortgage loses their home in house price crashes. Anyone who does can just ride out to the other side and still have a home.
The people who lose out are those with multiple homes as "investments". Fuck them.
Jesus, Bart. Yes, and people with one home, which they live in, and a mortgage who stop paying the mortgage because they cannot afford it, lose the home. Normal, non wealthy, perfectly nice people with, often, small children.
And that's a shame for them. And they'll end up in the same position as millions today who want a home, but can't afford one because prices have been driven up by people using real estate as "investments", which you are totally spiteful about.
Why do you think this a good thing?
A house price crash and high interest rates will be great for those in a position to buy and those with savings or able to save.
But not so good for those who lose their homes.
I don't know whether you want this or not.
There are those who do want it because homelessness will serve those born-inferior loser proles right.
But it's possible to have a house price crash that doesn't cause anyone to lose their home, and that gives people more security not less. The key element is for the banks to crash too, which they will if the housing price crash is severe enough, because so many of their assets take the form of loans secured on houses. The state takes over mortgages, exercises them, becomes the freeholder, offers secure tenancies with a lump sum, i.e. free rent for a while and housing security. If it's a choice between crushing the moneylenders or crushing the poor b*stards who are to most intents and purposes paying rent to the moneylenders in the form of loan repayments, which do we choose? Because it's going to come to exactly that.
As I understand it, the gas price guarantee caps at a benchmark of £2500 when the predicted un-capped price would be about £5000.
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
Petrol in the US was over $4 when I started my trip, but I filled up yesterday for $3.20. Experts here are already talking about inflation possibly having peaked.
Hopefully the Fed stop screwing up the currency markets by ratchetting up base rates faster than everyone else.
Inflation will come down hard next year, but the Fed aren't giving their rate moves time to work before they announce their next moves.
I’m on one of my favourite train lines in the world. Truro to Falmouth. Tiny little stations. Beautiful girl students from the uni. Woodland and creeks
The troubled world seems a long way away
You dirty old man...
He doesn't have to be a 'dirty old man' to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman!
Leon emitting strong Swiss Tony vibes.
I always regard being surrounded by beautiful young women at the height of their attractiveness as one of the perks of working at University. As I'm happily married (18 years now) its purely looking only.
Talking to some academics over the past few weeks, they were commenting that finding it hard to attract PhD and post-docs because of inflation (especially at the top unis located in expensive towns / cities). 10% inflation when you only get £15-16k stipend and rent + bills is £1000+ / month does not compute.
What's your experience?
Oddly we've just had a potential post doc turn down an offer, so we are re-advertising. That said he is currently in post elsewhere, so I'm not sure how serious he was.
There is a lot of chatter on social media about PhD stipends, but I don't think its translating through just yet. Funding councils such as EPSRC etc are looking at this.
Our new PhD cohorts arrive this week. It will be interesting to talk to them to see how the feel at the start of their journeys.
As I understand it, the gas price guarantee caps at a benchmark of £2500 when the predicted un-capped price would be about £5000.
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
Petrol in the US was over $4 when I started my trip, but I filled up yesterday for $3.20. Experts here are already talking about inflation possibly having peaked.
Hopefully the Fed stop screwing up the currency markets by ratchetting up base rates faster than everyone else.
Inflation will come down hard next year, but the Fed aren't giving their rate moves time to work before they announce their next moves.
They are also managing to screw up everybody else's economy because many commodities are priced in dollars and hence their moves are exporting inflation elsewhere.
I suspect once the midterms are out of the way, this will ease. The Biden Admin needs to be seen to be "doing something" about inflation (and no, I don't believe the Fed is really independent)
There should be a German-Cornish compound noun for the “profound contentment that settles over the diner after half a dozen excellent fresh oysters and two good glasses of white”
No other food can do this. There is something in oysters. Is it zinc? What is it?
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
By the “left” you mean Jeremy Corbyn and friends, but thankfully they’ve been banished.
Labour is now the only sensible choice. I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Which bit? I missed the bit between 'no more austerity' and 'this is how we will pay for all the goodies'. Truth is the country is in a tough spot. In 2010 the Tories were attacked for choking off the recovery with austerity, which implies they should have been borrowing to spend. Kind of like they are now. No-one seems to have nailed the obvious issues with labours windfall taxes on energy giants that are based in the middle east. Never forget - opposition is easy.
Reversal of the egregious tax cuts Investment in medical places Commitment to fully costed fiscal policy Abolition of business rates in favour of more equitable charge that does not discriminate against physical retail Industrial strategy, centred on green new deal. National wealth fund Commitment to improve trade deal with EU Increase in minimum wage
I’m a Liberal, but as others have noted, Reeves (and Starmer) are the adults in the room.
I'm on board with a lot of that. I expect Truss to deliver on Trade with the EU, starting with a bit of common sense on both sides around NI. I don't see answers about how the first two etc are paid for. You can slam the Tories for uncosted goodies, but you dimish the impact of criticism if you promise the same.
A reversal of (some) tax cuts do not need to be paid for.
But my issue with Kwasi-nomics is *not* with the increased borrowing, but rather on its use of borrowing to fund measures that are *ineffective* in driving growth, are inequitable, and come without an overarching fiscal framework that demonstrates how borrowing will come down longer term.
I think that’s in tune with most mainstream analysis, and that’s where Labour will be coming from too.
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
Long term, yes, but there will imo be a negative house price correction of the order 10/15% over the next couple of years. The era of cheap-as-chips borrowing and money printing is over. Property must fall, ditto other asset classes.
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
The main driver is that there are plenty of cash buyers out there. Savills stated there were 482,000 cash buyers in the year to March 2022 and they spent £178bn buying homes, That was 17 and 32 per cent higher than the three-year average before the pandemic. More than 8 million people do not have a mortgage.
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Absolutely. We need a hefty and annual ongoing property tax on people with properties they aren't resident in, these "investments" are distorting the market dreadfully. If you want to invest, invest in businesses, not property.
The market is being distorted because we've not built enough houses over 30 years! There's nothing wrong with people having multiple homes - just build more houses so supply can keep up with demand!
But the ‘demand’ is people wanting to buy houses, not (solely) people wanting to live in them, and way too much of the demand comes from people not intending to live in them.
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
House sellers have continued to raise their asking prices despite borrowers facing higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, data from property portal Rightmove shows.
The average price of a home coming to market increased by £2,587, or 0.7% month-on-month in September to £367,760, according to the company.
House prices will continue to increase because having a house is basically mandatory, and the government keeps stoking demand without increasing supply. Families can cut back on other expenses - food, heating, electricity, travel - but a house is an absolute, you either have one or you don't, and being genuinely homeless is so shit families will do whatever it takes to stay housed until rent/mortgage repayments surpass 100% of their income.
The main driver is that there are plenty of cash buyers out there. Savills stated there were 482,000 cash buyers in the year to March 2022 and they spent £178bn buying homes, That was 17 and 32 per cent higher than the three-year average before the pandemic. More than 8 million people do not have a mortgage.
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Absolutely. We need a hefty and annual ongoing property tax on people with properties they aren't resident in, these "investments" are distorting the market dreadfully. If you want to invest, invest in businesses, not property.
The market is being distorted because we've not built enough houses over 30 years! There's nothing wrong with people having multiple homes - just build more houses so supply can keep up with demand!
Plenty of houses. Supply isn't the problem; affordability is.
The relish from some posters for a crash in the housing market is absolutely despicable.
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
I agree, but there is another side to this. The father of a good school and uni friend of mine was very much into property speculation in the Midlands, and got into serious trouble in the property crash in the early 1990s. He had five or six houses, all mortgaged to the hilt, and IMV was *not* a good landlord (I spent a night in one of the properties whilst it was vacant one time, and it was totally minging).
A property price crash that stunts the power of the large landlords would be good - but that's probably impossible without also hurting those you mention - or friends of ours who are desperately looking to buy a larger house for their small family (and they're already on the ladder).
The relish from some posters for a crash in the housing market is absolutely despicable.
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
A crash in house prices doesn't directly affect anyone who's already bought unless they overextended themselves and need to refinance.
True, but house price crashes are a consequence of interest rate rises which will already have directly affected anyone who bought at the limit of repayment affordability.
So not that adult then. Just another politician/liar who claims we can go on borrowing indefinitely.
Labour are going to put up taxes to pay for that extra spending though, especially for high earners and corporations
Tsk, paying for things is so 20th Century…
One thing is this utterly tanked the belief in MMT, something which those on the left might want to look at.
By the “left” you mean Jeremy Corbyn and friends, but thankfully they’ve been banished.
Labour is now the only sensible choice. I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Which bit? I missed the bit between 'no more austerity' and 'this is how we will pay for all the goodies'. Truth is the country is in a tough spot. In 2010 the Tories were attacked for choking off the recovery with austerity, which implies they should have been borrowing to spend. Kind of like they are now. No-one seems to have nailed the obvious issues with labours windfall taxes on energy giants that are based in the middle east. Never forget - opposition is easy.
Borrowing to spend/invest in public services is one thing.
Borrowing to give tax cuts to the already wealthy is quite another.
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
Can we apply the same rule to cricket scores? Widely available for the few that need them.
As I understand it, the gas price guarantee caps at a benchmark of £2500 when the predicted un-capped price would be about £5000.
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
Petrol in the US was over $4 when I started my trip, but I filled up yesterday for $3.20. Experts here are already talking about inflation possibly having peaked.
Hopefully the Fed stop screwing up the currency markets by ratchetting up base rates faster than everyone else.
Inflation will come down hard next year, but the Fed aren't giving their rate moves time to work before they announce their next moves.
Election maps uk has revised his hint about tonights redfield from very spicy to spicy as the Labour fan boys were convinced it was the long awaited 20 pointer. It isnt, he says. 13 pointer, biggest lab lead with them yet is my prediction
Don't indulge the poll rampers. They should either publish the numbers or STFU.
There should be a German-Cornish compound noun for the “profound contentment that settles over the diner after half a dozen excellent fresh oysters and two good glasses of white”
No other food can do this. There is something in oysters. Is it zinc? What is it?
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
Really great Kiwi sauv blanc as well. Turtle Bay
Shocking.
Empty glass. What's going on?
Also I see a spoon, but no shuck !
ALSOOOOOOOOOOO.
Are those outsize orange Jackie Onassis sunglasses behind the laptop?
Interesting historical reading on British energy production from former Energy Minister Lord Howell in the Telegraph for those who can see it:-
Thatcher’s energy plan was derailed – now we are paying a gigantic price Short-termism prevailed in the push for nuclear power
It was a favourite dictum of the late Ernest Marples, for whom I worked as a young man, that in politics the urgent always ousted the important. When Margaret Thatcher asked me to be Energy Secretary in her first Cabinet I was to learn the truth of this view soon and bitterly.
The relish from some posters for a crash in the housing market is absolutely despicable.
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
A crash in house prices doesn't directly affect anyone who's already bought unless they overextended themselves and need to refinance.
True, but house price crashes are a consequence of interest rate rises which will already have directly affected anyone who bought at the limit of repayment affordability.
And a house price crash will mean that anyone who takes out a mortgage going forwards needs to borrow less. What's wrong with that?
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
Really great Kiwi sauv blanc as well. Turtle Bay
It's Falmouth at the tail end of the holiday season. If you were sat there in November and it was busy then I would accept your statement but until the end of October it's going to be busy....
Mate, I’m Cornish. I have multiple family members all over Cornwall (including Falmouth), and I have spent many months here and probably visit four or five times a year
It is not normal for oyster restaurants in Falmouth to be absolutely rammed on a cool, breezy Monday lunchtime in late September
Cornwall has boomed in recent years. Which is great for the locals who don’t mind the crowds. It is also shows there are plenty of people with money to spend
The relish from some posters for a crash in the housing market is absolutely despicable.
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
A crash in house prices doesn't directly affect anyone who's already bought unless they overextended themselves and need to refinance.
I mean, if you borrowed at 2% and you are renewing at 7%, you’re kind of fucked no matter how prudent you think you were.
A decent chunk of the market is renewing in the next two years.
And the political issue is that Labour has a decent chance of pinning at least some of the blame for the current round of increases onto the government’s “new” economic policy….
Sacking Sir Tom Scholar on Day 1 wasn't terribly smart, was it?
Why?
They wanted a break with ideology of the past they didn't believe in. They need a team that believe in, or at least willing to implement, their own ideology.
The markets will just have to react and adapt. We have a freely floating exchange rate, so let it freely float.
I thought the whole point of the Civil Service was that people would deliver policy even if they didn't agree with it. Indeed, having sceptics on a team is useful, more likely to spot the pitfalls and have some solutions ready to go if it all goes to shit.
You shouldn't have to sack people to implement your democratic mandate. Advisers advise etc...Whether that mandate exists is another question.
Well yes, you shouldn't have to. Scholar should have been prepared to implement Truss and Kwarteng's ideas.
If he wasn't, then he wasn't fit to be in the Treasury, he should go into politics if he wants his own ideas instead.
Any evidence of your claim that he wasn't willing to do his job? Or are you simply assuming the worst about him in order to justify his sacking?
They need to neuter "Treasury Orthodoxy" - aka keeping at least something of a grip on the public finances - to smooth the way for their "Reforms". I imagine this is why he had to go.
Election maps uk has revised his hint about tonights redfield from very spicy to spicy as the Labour fan boys were convinced it was the long awaited 20 pointer. It isnt, he says. 13 pointer, biggest lab lead with them yet is my prediction
Don't indulge the poll rampers. They should either publish the numbers or STFU.
- Undoing the childcare cliff edge would cost ca. £800m but the additional tax raised would come in at £1.4bn due to people working full time again or canning pension AVCs.
- Undoing the allowance withdrawal would cost £1.6bn but raise somewhere between £3.3bn and £4.1bn depending on overall behavioural change and it would stop an annual tax gap (through avoidance) of £0.5bn.
These two measures are slam dunks. I still can't fathom why we got an additional rate cut but not this which affects far, far more people.
Because Kwasi Kwarteng is an idiot and just randomly picked ideas his mates had suggested instead of doing any proper analysis.....
Somebody suggested that Kwasi's performance so far is worthy of a tinpot dictatorship in some Latin American banana republic. He is certainly out of his depth here. Ought not Truss to do something to resolve this problem?
Kwarteng could not even sit still for 2 minutes at HMQ's funeral and behave with a modicum of good manners. Are we surprised that he's behaving like a fuckwit with the economy?
Can Cambridge revoke his PhD for making them an embarrassment...
Kwarteng's academic achievements are seriously fecking impressive.
Double first. Two University Prizes. A Kennedy Scholarship. Winning team on University Challenge. PhD in economic history. Friendship with @rcs1000 (as I recollect).
He is certainly the academically most gifted Cabinet Minister since ... Harold Wilson?
Personally, I don't understand why anyone so academically gifted would go into politics ...
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
Really great Kiwi sauv blanc as well. Turtle Bay
It's Falmouth at the tail end of the holiday season. If you were sat there in November and it was busy then I would accept your statement but until the end of October it's going to be busy....
Mate, I’m Cornish. I have multiple family members all over Cornwall (including Falmouth), and I have spent many months here and probably visit four or five times a year
It is not normal for oyster restaurants in Falmouth to be absolutely rammed on a cool, breezy Monday lunchtime in late September
Cornwall has boomed in recent years. Which is great for the locals who don’t mind the crowds. It is also shows there are plenty of people with money to spend
One last hurrah before nuclear armageddon/mortgage rates of 15%/meteor strike (which I see NASA is doing something about today).
Another metric they won’t like the look of in @hmtreasury. The cost of insuring the UK against a default (credit default swaps) has risen v v sharply indeed in the past week. The higher these lines are, the bigger the risk. UK has just leapfrogged every G7 country save for Italy. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1574380571765121025/photo/1
Can I please ask that people download an app or use their preferred one in order to track tick-by-tick movements of GBP.
It is getting hugely tiresome to have posts which declaim: "$1.070456 now!!!" or somesuch every few minutes. We can all access such information and we don't want PB to become a live GBP-USD ticker tape.
The relish from some posters for a crash in the housing market is absolutely despicable.
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
A crash in house prices doesn't directly affect anyone who's already bought unless they overextended themselves and need to refinance.
True, but house price crashes are a consequence of interest rate rises which will already have directly affected anyone who bought at the limit of repayment affordability.
And a house price crash will mean that anyone who takes out a mortgage going forwards needs to borrow less. What's wrong with that?
All prices can go down as well as up.
Nothing is wrong with it, but that doesn't affect the plight of people whose lives are wrecked going in to the crash. It is also only partly true, because interest rates will be higher and banks will demand bigger deposits.
Another metric they won’t like the look of in @hmtreasury. The cost of insuring the UK against a default (credit default swaps) has risen v v sharply indeed in the past week. The higher these lines are, the bigger the risk. UK has just leapfrogged every G7 country save for Italy. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1574380571765121025/photo/1
We can't actually default.
I mean I see this as a huge gamble and the markets have already given their opinion but we can't technically default if we issue sterling debt.
Sacking Sir Tom Scholar on Day 1 wasn't terribly smart, was it?
Why?
They wanted a break with ideology of the past they didn't believe in. They need a team that believe in, or at least willing to implement, their own ideology.
The markets will just have to react and adapt. We have a freely floating exchange rate, so let it freely float.
I thought the whole point of the Civil Service was that people would deliver policy even if they didn't agree with it. Indeed, having sceptics on a team is useful, more likely to spot the pitfalls and have some solutions ready to go if it all goes to shit.
You shouldn't have to sack people to implement your democratic mandate. Advisers advise etc...Whether that mandate exists is another question.
Well yes, you shouldn't have to. Scholar should have been prepared to implement Truss and Kwarteng's ideas.
If he wasn't, then he wasn't fit to be in the Treasury, he should go into politics if he wants his own ideas instead.
Any evidence of your claim that he wasn't willing to do his job? Or are you simply assuming the worst about him in order to justify his sacking?
They need to neuter "Treasury Orthodoxy" - aka keeping at least something of a grip on the public finances - to smooth the way for their "Reforms". I imagine this is why he had to go.
Spending GBP400bn on furlough, riddled with fraud, paying people to do nothing: Perfectly logical.
Spending GBP60bn giving people their own money back: Insane gamble of the century.
Comments
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng declines to comment as pound hits all-time low against US dollar
https://bbc.in/3SDwgb3 https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1574367429379211265/video/1
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/63032975
Who gets sacked first Gareth Waistcoat or Fizzy Truss?
She's not a flip-flopper, she's probably the most ideological PM we've had in many decades. She changes her mind on things over time, as all thinking people do, but when she does she can embrace the new position with the zeal of a convert. But that's not remotely the same thing as someone who goes with the wind or the opinion polls.
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251742 https://twitter.com/alanbeattie/status/1574329107252248576/photo/1
If so, that should mean that each 1% fall in the price of gas reduces the government's obligation by 2% and so on.
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1574372990917156864
Labour is now the only sensible choice.
I’m hugely impressed with Reeves today.
Isn’t it 2010 tho? Nyetimber has improved immensely in the last 12 years - like all English fizz
I had a bottle of Nyetimber rose to accompany Her Late Majesty’s funeral and it was - sincerely - the best pink fizz I’ve ever had in my life
That is what is driving up prices even as rates increase.
Then you read Nomura analysists forecasting £0.95 = $1.00 and saying "hope is not a strategy".
Then you read the market has priced in a BofE intervention this week.
No, it isn't confidence. They are placing their bets.
I don't understand what Gareth is thinking. Its like he's just not thinking, just sticking with his picks he made a few years ago when Maguire was playing well.
Kwasi needs to STFU, unless he is announcing the terms of an actual budget married to OBR forecasts, or - better - his own resignation.
If I was a Tory MP I would already have my letter in.
A house price crash and high interest rates will be great for those in a position to buy and those with savings or able to save.
But not so good for those who lose their homes.
I don't know whether you want this or not.
Just as it would be good to see energy prices come back down from current highs, I would like to see property prices come down to 3-4x income multiples and to stay down at those levels.
Ideally that should be because of massive house building rather than financial turmoil, but anything that sees price to income ratios improve (ie come down) is a good thing.
Property is about the only price where for some perverted reason people view prices going up as "progress" rather than inflation, and prices coming down as turmoil rather than aiding affordability.
I’m in a very pleasant seafood gaff in Falmouth snacking down on half a dozen Porthilly oysters, and the place is rammed. On a Monday lunchtime. Turning away lots of customers 🤷♂️
Really great Kiwi sauv blanc as well. Turtle Bay
Inflation will come down hard next year, but the Fed aren't giving their rate moves time to work before they announce their next moves.
Investment in medical training places
Commitment to fully costed fiscal policy
Abolition of business rates in favour of more equitable charge that does not discriminate against physical retail
Industrial strategy, centred on green new deal.
National wealth fund
Commitment to improve trade deal with EU
Increase in minimum wage
I’m a Liberal, but as others have noted, Reeves (and Starmer) are the adults in the room.
What's your experience?
You are talking about families, perhaps already struggling to get by, whose “crime” is simply to get a foothold on the property ladder.
Big problem for me (first world problem, obvs) is that the easy sell to people and hence very popular is a high ABV merlot-dominated wine. I try not to drink anything above 13.5 and I am much more of a left bank than right bank kind of guy so I need to look around a bit.
I'm not an economist or even particularly good at economics, but from my understanding MMT argues that taxation needs to be a lever to use to reduce inflation once money is hoarded. MMT includes borrowing, printing money and targeted increases in taxation.
Truss' plan so far is borrowing and reducing taxation at the same time, something which is likely to increase inflation; we are in a supply-side issue (reduced supply due to covid) and instead of a supply-side solution Truss has decided to flood more money to the wealthiest, who would only spend money on luxury items where supply is limited, rather than the poorest who will spend their money on items where supply is more stable - necessities and such.
Ladbrokes still has it 21.
But it's possible to have a house price crash that doesn't cause anyone to lose their home, and that gives people more security not less. The key element is for the banks to crash too, which they will if the housing price crash is severe enough, because so many of their assets take the form of loans secured on houses. The state takes over mortgages, exercises them, becomes the freeholder, offers secure tenancies with a lump sum, i.e. free rent for a while and housing security. If it's a choice between crushing the moneylenders or crushing the poor b*stards who are to most intents and purposes paying rent to the moneylenders in the form of loan repayments, which do we choose? Because it's going to come to exactly that.
There is a lot of chatter on social media about PhD stipends, but I don't think its translating through just yet. Funding councils such as EPSRC etc are looking at this.
Our new PhD cohorts arrive this week. It will be interesting to talk to them to see how the feel at the start of their journeys.
Is it the same as a fixed rate mortgage ie the rate is locked in or can it change in running? And what is the average tenor of these arrangements?
We are all quick to criticise the MPC but there is a shedload of the British economy that has a very scary delta on a rate rise.
I suspect once the midterms are out of the way, this will ease. The Biden Admin needs to be seen to be "doing something" about inflation (and no, I don't believe the Fed is really independent)
No other food can do this. There is something in oysters. Is it zinc? What is it?
But my issue with Kwasi-nomics is *not* with the increased borrowing, but rather on its use of borrowing to fund measures that are *ineffective* in driving growth, are inequitable, and come without an overarching fiscal framework that demonstrates how borrowing will come down longer term.
I think that’s in tune with most mainstream analysis, and that’s where Labour will be coming from too.
Empty glass. What's going on?
A property price crash that stunts the power of the large landlords would be good - but that's probably impossible without also hurting those you mention - or friends of ours who are desperately looking to buy a larger house for their small family (and they're already on the ladder).
A decent chunk of the market is renewing in the next two years.
Borrowing to give tax cuts to the already wealthy is quite another.
Are those outsize orange Jackie Onassis sunglasses behind the laptop?
I think they must be.
Thatcher’s energy plan was derailed – now we are paying a gigantic price
Short-termism prevailed in the push for nuclear power
It was a favourite dictum of the late Ernest Marples, for whom I worked as a young man, that in politics the urgent always ousted the important. When Margaret Thatcher asked me to be Energy Secretary in her first Cabinet I was to learn the truth of this view soon and bitterly.
The priorities of that moment, June 1979, both the urgent and the important, seemed clear enough.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/26/thatchers-energy-plan-derailed-now-paying-gigantic-price/ (£££)
https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1574378901761048576
All prices can go down as well as up.
Or are we back in Big Short land?
It is not normal for oyster restaurants in Falmouth to be absolutely rammed on a cool, breezy Monday lunchtime in late September
Cornwall has boomed in recent years. Which is great for the locals who don’t mind the crowds. It is also shows there are plenty of people with money to spend
Double first. Two University Prizes. A Kennedy Scholarship. Winning team on University Challenge. PhD in economic history. Friendship with @rcs1000 (as I recollect).
He is certainly the academically most gifted Cabinet Minister since ... Harold Wilson?
Personally, I don't understand why anyone so academically gifted would go into politics ...
What's that behind your laptop?
The cost of insuring the UK against a default (credit default swaps) has risen v v sharply indeed in the past week.
The higher these lines are, the bigger the risk.
UK has just leapfrogged every G7 country save for Italy. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1574380571765121025/photo/1
A massive hike delivered directly by a Tory Chancellor, seemingly drunk at the roulette wheel, no.
I mean I see this as a huge gamble and the markets have already given their opinion but we can't technically default if we issue sterling debt.
Spending GBP400bn on furlough, riddled with fraud, paying people to do nothing: Perfectly logical.
Spending GBP60bn giving people their own money back: Insane gamble of the century.
Or could it be the other way around.....?