What will actually happen?

[usernamechanged1]

There are many threads on here about mortgage, rent, utility, food prices all going up. I don’t think there are many left who aren’t noticing the financial strain.

So, whilst we’ve all heard “this can’t go on…” and “when will this stop…”, it is continuing to go on and shows no signs of stopping. I’m wondering what we should actually expect.

I feel like we’re heading towards a place where people will be working but literally unable to survive. I appreciate there are people in that position already, so what happens when this is a mass problem affecting a majority of the country.

It’s akin to working an eight hour shift and having 13 tasks taking 1 hour each to do. It’s simply impossible; the maths don’t add up.

Is it out of the realms of possibility that we could see people take to the streets? For crime to shoot up (shoplifting, robberies etc).

I think many of us thought the CoL crisis would be temporary, but maybe it isn’t.

I’m glad you’re settled and happy. We are okay and I’m sure we’ll move at some point in the future. Probably into a repossession! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Don't say that!

It's not my dream house by any means & like I said had to move areas & schools which isn't ideal but what can you do.

This is 't like the 70's. The 70's were a vast improvement on the times that came before. Plenty of families didn't have an indoor toilet as recently as the 60's.

This is a basically unforgiveable theft of resource by the privileged few. Successive governments since Blair have walked us into this fiasco. We are not the only ones. Western civilisation is crumbling.

Things won't change whilst people are dependant on the state. If you can't be responsible for yourself they get to control you.

Money is a made up concept. The vast debt we are carrying is made up, not real. It was obvious when furlough / stimulus checks etc was bejng dolled out that the consequence
of that would be a period of rapid inflation. Governments are inflating their debt away. It was the same post war (inflation peaked at 20% i think). Once it is reset to a managable level we will all carry on as before.

Couldn't agree more

I think the majority of people who say they can't afford to live actually mean they can't afford to live the lifestyle they are accustomed to of being able to afford basic needs and pay for essentials.

Fixed that for you.

I think you can take that back to Thatcher, not Blair.

Right to buy has hurt more people than it has benefitted. The cost and of housing vs wages in this country is the root issue, not the price of food.

If you look at the US for the last 20+ years minimum wage has stayed the same but prices have risen massively. There are hundreds of thousands of homeless, even the middle classes are struggling but the amount of wealth amassed by the super rich has risen exponentially. I don’t believe this will happen here to that extent because our mindset is very different indeed- we look down on greed and conspicuous consumption- but it is definitely going that way. We do need to put our feet down and say that enough is enough.

You will find it interesting to hear that the dark ages came AFTER a great and very advanced civilisation.

if you don’t believe regression is possible look at Syria, it was pretty much like Spain back in the 80s and now is back in the Dark Ages.

I don’t think will get that bad… as long as we stop seeing ourselves like we are still an empire and start living within our means (as a country), government, their rich acquaintances at all.

Personally, I am pretty shocked that Liz Truss is still there making some fuss and “having a voice” after making us all considerably poorer.

Well many Brexiters voted for this because of some misplaced nostalgia about how life was in the past. I guess they are now living their dream.

It's global.

I know it's shit at the moment I do, but this thread is a bit dramatic.

Child poverty in this country has doubled in a 12 month period. 4 MILLION kids are living in poverty in the UK. 22% of households are skipping meals.

The benefits bill for paying towards large numbers of people's extremely high rent needs to be addressed. How is it fair for landlords to have their BTL mortgages paid off like this. I'm surprised there has not been more uproar. Millions of Uc and Housing benefit claimants having rents in excess of 1k a month paid for for years on end. It is unsustainable. Either they need to crack down further on private landlords or build more social housing. Housing is a basic necessity but so out of reach of so many. It's appalling.

It's global

It is but why does that not mean Brexit is compounding it @Sillysheep?

I often wonder about the ‘we’ll just have to cut our cloth types”.

People genuinely think that my husband and I went looking for a house that was just barely affordable to us. That we didn’t plan for interest rate rises and now we just have to cut our cloth. The reality is that ALL house prices were ridiculous…we had to pick one and we chose a three bed semi. At the age of 38 and with a £60,000 deposit finally, I feel we were within our rights. It was just a shame that the house prices were what they were. A whopping £260,000 at the time - nothing we could do about that and not much cheaper in our area that we could have chosen from. I just despair when I hear the tutting ‘well you should have thought about that’, likely from people who were able to buy their house for £50,000.

Anyway, what’s going to happen. A crash probably, where many people lose their homes and their businesses.

Let’s not beat around the bush. Western governments flooded their country with free money during covid. They printed and printed, devaluing their currency and their economy. Thats why you have the very rich buying up land, because it holds its value. They then started sending money abroad like nobodies business.

Coupled with Ukraine and the rise in energy we have a problem.

So now you have the US trying to get the strength back to the dollar, not wanted to show the world economic weakness, so they have been regularly raising their interest rates.

To match this, and to keep the pound from slipping and becoming weaker than what it already is, the BOE has to follow.

The government’s know how this will affect people, but there is still too much of that printed money out there. With richer people hoarding it in their savings - and even richer people wanting that money themselves. So they are applying the thumb screws until it all breaks. What happens to the poorest is simply collateral damage. What even happens to businesses is collateral damage.

It is not forever. There is some indication that the US will do one more rate rise, then start bringing interest rates down (a little bit) in the near future. Only the strongest businesses will survive. The BoE will follow. It’ll take time for us all to start feeling comfortable again, and we are unlikely to get back to the very low interest rates we’ve enjoyed that have allowed so many to live, using debt alone to have what they want.

And if we do get to a point where we’re all freely spending and buying flash cars/ home extensions again…then wait for the rise in interest rates to reappear, because we’ll be back to the beginning of the cycle again.

Could this all have been avoided? I believe yes it could have been to a certain extent. If the political will had been there. Unfortunately the government’s we needed haven’t been in place, the government’s we think have our best interests at heart don’t, and I even wonder how much of this was manufactured.

But all of this is just my opinion of course.

Child poverty in this country has doubled in a 12 month period. 4 MILLION kids are living in poverty in the UK. 22% of households are skipping meals.

You took that small snippet of my post and it is out of context, I said it needs to be sorted and quickly and it is is unacceptable for those affected to that degree, my point is, that people are talking like the country is about to collapse and that what we are seeing is completely surprising. It's not surprising, it's capitalism under a Tory government, we've been here before and we will be again, it's unfair, it's shit. We need to vote this government out and overhaul how we are doing things, but this is not the end of our society and the inequality we have simply means that for many, especially middle class Mumsnet, it's not about being able to eat or heat, most of us are poorer sure, but t I differing degrees.

This is 't like the 70's.

There was huge wage growth in the 70s I believe?

The government’s know how this will affect people, but there is still too much of that printed money out there. With richer people hoarding it in their savings - and even richer people wanting that money themselves. So they are applying the thumb screws until it all breaks.

Does the theory of increasing rates to reduce money supply work when there is such inequality?

Yes, when you don’t care about the people.
Yes, when you only care about your lobbyists and how rich they are.
Yes, when it’s one of the only tools known to reduce inflation at your disposal and you’re not bright enough to think outside the box.

No, it doesn't at all. The government are prepared to make low income families collateral damage in this situation as they couldn't face increasing taxes for the wealthiest.

The problem is that the only other way of reducing inflation without raising interest rates would be to change policy.
Policy that would end up hurting the extremely rich, those that lobby and finance western governments.

And what government is going to bite the hand that feeds them?

I don’t believe Brexit makes any difference to this. The issues are stemming from across the pond.

I think it very much depends on the war in Ukraine and I can't see that ending any time soon.

It's a bit dog with a bone.

I agree with this.

People wanted lockdown and now we are paying for it. To be honest it doesn't seem to be hitting our very middle England circle very hard. Their might be a few less nights out and maybe some conscious decisions about not buying a brand new car and keeping the 3 year old one etc. The hard part is how government employees survive this as our friends in industry seem to have either chased a promotion (easier than the public sector) or got inflation linked bonuses + pay rises