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?

Um.

3.How about the energy companies not acting so obscenely in their profits. Even the UN are saying something

and 4.Uk Government at least looks like it it trying to help things and care.

😂
People keep hanging on to the microcosmic thought it's the lack of investment from the Tories.

Er, nope, the pandemic isn't over, this is what pandemics do. They attack governments and the population.

Another poster mentioned manufacturing and industry. Well, the economy is now fully globalized, and some countries' strengths are manufacturing. Britain cannot compete, it's just too costly. It's cheaper to import than to develop an industry from the ground up. Plus we don't have the work ethic or the workforce.
30% of the population is neither use nor ornament.

oh and 5 of course. stop with the net zero
Being green is making people poor. Literally.

This autumn and winter will see a return of Covid, flu and pneumonia cases ( because it's that season) coupled with people living in damp and cold conditions because they can't afford to turn the heating on coupled with higher particulate pollution a more people burn logs and coal (as a cheaper alternative) and you end up with a respiratory illness / death time bomb as bad as Covid was.

The government don't care. They don't care about all the people who are homeless now or all the people who have to use food banks, the only point they will start caring is when the businesses start going bust and even then they'll just try and get a few more bank handlers before fucking off into the sunset with their millions.

They should fall, but I doubt a conservative government will let them. As pp said they'll be numerous schemes to get people in that sacred property ladder.

I certainly agree the Tories won't want house prices to fall, and will be prepared to throw various props to artificially maintain them as they have since getting back in. For me it's whether they're actually going to be capable of it now. It was one thing a few years back, quite another now in this global climate. So I expect to see it attempted, I am less sure it'll come off.

Replace government with Politicians. At no stage in my life have I felt such a disconnect from ALL major political parties.

None of them have an ounce of empathy in their bodies, and are self serving trough feeding pigs.

Yes but why is UK worse hit than other G7 economies?

Its because we have a low skills, low wage economy. Leading to lower productivity. The roots can be traced back to nu Labour when tax credits were introduced. It was effectively a subsidy for employers so they could get away with paying low wages. If employers were not subsidized by low wages, they would be compelled to invest in automation.

Automation would increased productivity. This country has the worst of both worlds. Low wages and paying people to do jobs that machines should be doing. Instead of having high skilled people producing and maintaining those machines

Higher productivity would have meant that our economy would have been more resilient to these shocks. So we had years of poor decisions leading to low productivity, exacerbated by a total shutdown of productivity with pointless lockdowns and then finally unprecedented money printing. Perfect recipe for inflation and worse….stagflation.

Hey now, don't you go speaking the truth like that

@fromdownwest what do you mean I conveniently forgot to mention the pandemic? who has forgotten about it?

My response was to the OP asking about how bad inflation could get. No one is denying the impact of the pandemic or the war, why do you think that? However it's not helped that our economy wasn't in a good place to start with & a lack of labour & skills shortage plus companies not invested is having an impact. You can disagree though.

Its because we have a low skills, low wage economy. Leading to lower productivity.

why do so many not understand this or the impact of this on the economy?

Yes, we had a terrible problem in the 50s with Smog and pollution but this crisis with the high energy bills will drive those with log burners to utilise them more and surely this will cause more pollution

although @sst1234 i disagree with you somewhat & think QE & low interest rates have had a huge impact.

So did they have to give the money back?

If you have a pension invested in UK stocks, you should be happy that the value is going up since UK economy is all about banks and oil companies. We don’t have much else. No tech, no manufacturing etc.

Its not BP’s fault that it’s doing well out of oil prices and that more than half of what we pay for oil is tax.

It’s not BP’s fault that we don’t have energy security. A few examples -

Nuclear - Hinckley and Sizewell C receiving opposition from ‘campaign’ groups.

Fracking - unwashed blue haired protestors turning up to stop an initiative that made US consumers energy secure since Obama years.

Wind farms - the largest wind farm in Europe initiative off the coast of Shetlands receiving opposition from locals because they don’t think it’s the right place for it. You couldn’t make up this crap. The windiest, most remote place in the British isles is apparently not right for a wind farm.

Basically, everyone is a scientist or a an environmentalist or an economist in this country. So we are paralysed and cannot get anything done. Every idiot’s opinion counts so everyone suffers through inaction. Don’t blame BP.

This is true. You see it on here all of the time people are so used to being subsidised there is genuine anger and disbelief at higher earners. For example, you’ve gone to uni, studied for years, got £££££ become a highly qualified technician, medic, barrister or whatever and there is genuine belief that people are entitled to earn similar from work which doesn’t require the training and educational and financial commitment.

The issue we have now is we have a low skill population, heavily reliant ontop-up with no incentive to pull themselves out of the trap. This means business has escaped having to pay a proper wage. We are a service industry and apart from banking/IT/law/medicine it’s usually the lowest paid sectors going.

I agree a switch to high skilled economy is a good idea

And that productivity shut down was woeful and said at the time. People demanded something that would harm them more financially later - it was maddening to see

However I don’t think we were heading for a crisis we see today, without two major global events, which iirc was pp point, although a while back and long thread (and I don’t mean you are saying it)

We likely would have tried to make alterations and certain sectors not liked it but no where near the level of unions being unhappy about that

Basically I agree with From that they seemed to be skipping over major events to focus on a lesser one. Although maybe just how it came across and not intended.

In talking about low productivity - yes businesses dont invest in automation. However, we are also one of the few G7 countries i.e. except for America where university education and skills training is that expensive. If we welcome automation then we also need to give people the option to upskill and that's not going to be done by throw a tiny amount of cash at it. It needs to be a real investment from the government. Tech change is so quick at the moment that skills learnt 20-30years before wont be any use now. But we dont give people many options for upskilling. Businesses arent bothered - because they just assume they can hire skilled people already. Government isnt interested because they would like the public to pay for them directly. But the British workers are often too poor to throw 20-30k at upskilling/retraining.

In order to manage inflation - there basically needs to be a way of bringing down energy cost across the board - not only for private customers but also businesses otherwise these higher prices end up baked into the system. Therefore, giving a bit of cash off your energy bill is simply not enough

Or is it we are massivley impacted by energy prices as we are net importer of energy due to our fixation with Green power!

@woodhill

So did they have to give the money back?

+++

The money found at airports would be seized anyway as an undeclared taking money out of the country. There would also be an investigation of fraud but to be honest nothing really happens with that investigation.

My parents always talked about when the interest rates soared in 80s. They very much counselled me to be aware that could happen again and work redundancies if at all possible. It had such huge impact on them. I remember food was short supply and many days just beans on toast for meals.

BOE just raised interest rates by 0.5%.

news.sky.com/story/interest-rates-rise-to-1-75-in-biggest-hike-for-27-years-12665163

It beggars belief, doesn't it,?🙄

That’s the point I am making. We are not energy secure because we can’t get any initiative off the ground. Unpopular view, but since Thatcher, no leader has had the backbone to get anything done in this country, on energy or any other imprint any issue. We have been coasting for 30+ years.

To be honest, it’s not about Labour vs Tories. The ineptness and inability to get things done runs through our political discourse. The short term-ism is deep rooted within our political system now. Energy security, productivity are issues that take 25+ years to achieve. Our civil service is full of zombies and our politicians are mediocre show people lacking backbone. It’s a cultural problem in this country where mediocrity has well and truly taken root within public life. It’s not a party political issue.