Inflation to hit 15%

[onthefencesitter]

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/inflation-bank-england-cost-living-b2137311.html

www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/uk-inflation-could-reach-15-by-start-of-2023-experts-say

What do you all think?

We don't have anything like enough police to make millions of people observe strict lockdown requirements if they don't want to and have very good reason not to. Very difficult doesn't come close.

Which is why the government prioritised messaging and making people afraid from so early on. They knew they needed buy in. Literally. That meant the majority of people not only being at home but a critical mass of them knowing they had enough money coming in to be able to stay there. Simply saying go home peasants is insufficient.

The government didn't choose the easier option, they chose the only one that existed once the decision to lock down was made. It was an acceptance of the inevitable.

But alot if this is to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One man is literally screwing the whole global economy.
How’s one man getting away with this?
For the greater good, can’t there be a solution one way or the other ? Rather than the continuation of this happening.

Hitler did similar damage in WW2. It's amazing the destruction that "one man" can cause given the right circumstances.

However in the current climate of populist politics only the upside ever gets promised and the downside either not mentioned or dismissed as project fear .

People can't seem capable of separating basic logic or facts from opinion or political sway. Myself or other posters stating you can't close peoples jobs & keep them passive without financial support is not the same as me saying "I love lockdown" or "lockdown forever" but people interpret them as the same thing. I think it's one of the reasons we have such populist & divisive politics as so many seem unable to grasp nuance.

Which is why the government prioritised messaging and making people afraid from so early on. They knew they needed buy in. Literally.

Yes, people were scared & desperate for lockdown so by the time we were given it compliance was extremely high. The idea that 66m could be controlled by our police is detached from reality.

Yes. Equally, it's totally possible to be anti lockdown while still understanding that massive state financial support was an inherent part of the policy and it couldn't have been done otherwise.

Actually, for some people the need for the state to pay out (and borrow) so much is the reason they think lockdown was wrong!

Agree lockdown and furlough / financial support go together

So both have to happen or not

I'm desperately worried for a disabled friend who has a mortgage to pay but doesnt receive any help and her benefits didn't cover her basic living costs even before this crisis.

People will die due to the incompetence of this Government.

This this this.

As someone who works in the government department who does this, the whole 'government expenditure cuts is needed' makes me fear for not only my job but the hundreds of thousands of high tech startups we are supporting to get their businesses ready to push new innovations into the open markets, along with their highly skilled workforces and high productivity.

What is so bad is that more people were encouraged to go to university giving them huge debts and the jobs could have been done without a degree before

Would they have been better off being trained more specifically in a certain specialist field than doing say a media degree

The UK is a low skill low pay economy.

Probably been this way for the last few decades.
Skilled jobs have gone. Or the tradesmen have left the country.
Why would anyone want to come to the UK to live or work, when they’ll be worse off?

I’m sure people are still moving here for skilled jobs

They’re not all gone

@ApplesandBunions

"We don't have anything like enough police to make millions of people observe strict lockdown requirements if they don't want to and have very good reason not to. Very difficult doesn't come close. "

+++

By "very difficult " I meant going batshit heavy handed, forcibly locking people in their homes, suspending civil liberties, beatings etc as was done in China which would have been a tad more difficult in a democratic UK and probably wouldn't have gone down too well.

Yea, it’s absolutely zero to do with the money printing and the fiscal policies of the last two decades finally reaching a head. Absolutely nothing to do with those, and mostly Russia.

How myopic are people?

yes be more like China would be the only way to do it but I don't think it would work here.

Well you need an already functioning police state for that, which we don't have and couldn't be built over a few days. So again, simply not on the table. An impossibility.

Why do people on here talk about furlough like it was unique to the U.K.? Why do people commend Rishi for handing out/not handing out the cash? We just copied what they were doing in Europe surely? It’s not like we had a choice.

Skill doesn’t mean trade in the traditional sense. We don’t need carpenters and stonemasons to grow the economy. No disrespect to those professions. But we need software developers, data scientists, chemical engineers, specialist doctors etc. Basically people educated in and practicing STEM careers.

It is partly for the government to invest in this. Buy the private sector has a huge role to play in this too, if they are incentivised to do so. Why would large corporations invest in automation and employ engineers if they can low paid workers whose wages are subsidized by the taxpayer. Why would they invest in training and paying fees for their employees to become qualified if the terms on which we trade with the rest of the world are weak.

The UK has the worst of both worlds. A slow growth economy so low domestic demand doesn’t make it an attractive place for businesses to invest. But then low investment (and taxpayer subsidized pay) means that the workforce is low skilled. And the vicious cycle continues. To break this cycle will take 25 years of pain. To break it faster will take drastic corporation tax cutting, subsidies for business investment and de-regulation on a never before seen scale. Our politicians are too inept to dot the former and too weak to do the latter.

Reading thru the BOE report. Some of the supply side pressures are easing as people move back to spending on services rather than goods. Logistic costs are falling.
Fuel is lagging but will return to normalcy in due course. I think the media is hyping the story creating panic...
Nearly all inflationary pressure is from fuel. Goods and service rises are completely normal.

Everyone needs to chill out.

Good post but these days unless we’re in heightened state of crisis watching the media isn’t matching Covid clicks which it rather liked

@Sporty2022

Sporty2022
But alot if this is to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Economic reports suggest that between a third and 40% of the rise in inflation is due to higher energy prices.

One man is literally screwing the whole global economy. No because inflation has also been caused by pent up consumer demand from lockdowns and more importantly massive Government spending funded by printing or debt.

How’s one man getting away with this? Because he's the President of Russia and it's not a good idea to be critical of him in Russia and you can't forcibly remove him without causing WW3.

For the greater good, can’t there be a solution one way or the other ? Rather than the continuation of this happening. Well you could try
throwing Ukraine under a bus and conveniently ignore Russia's unprovoked invasion in return for normal and cheap Russian oil and gas supplies again.

Yes it really is awful listening to the media with constant doom and gloom

We are not attracting the brightest people with the best skills, unfortunately. For many reasons, but mostly because UK has lower pay than other European and North American countries.

18% of UK workforce is made up of people born abroad. Migrants are over represented in low skill sectors. 54% work in transport, storage and hospitality. Only 20% are in professional and scientific sectors. We are not attracting skills that will get the engine of the economy going again.

So here is the problem, not only do we have a low productivity economy because we subsidize low pay for the UK born population. But we bring people from abroad to also subsidize their wages and do jobs that should simply be automated. This is not xenophobia or anti immigrant sentiment. It is indicative of how far the low productivity and low wage rot has set into our economy.

Just to check what kind of salaries do you mean are lower?

Are you referring to City type salaries, what kind of figures. I’m imagining people I know who are earning very well but maybe you are referring to other work

I find your info interesting btw and agree with low productivity issue you raised and skill base we’d like to attract

Does anyone really think that whatever happens in Russia/Ukraine - that the ‘extend and pretend’ fiscal and monetary policies could have continued indefinitely?

inflation - already kicking in hard before* the invasion.

• housing - fucked for the last 22 years. price rises because of loose lending, props and idiocy on the part of the public for lapping up taking on debt.

• wages/benefits - two full time working people need state aid because cost of housing and living isn’t covered by earning. it’s been like that before the invasion.

• stock markets - at all time highs due to borrowed money juicing share prices through stock buybacks.

i could go on. Do not let our leaders of the hook. It is exceptionally easy for them to blame a bogey man. What is going on there - appalling, but the seeds of these issues we are seeing we’re down long ago.