NPR

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:43 pm Awww. Poor little Lizzie didn't like the joke

More widely, Truss argued, the UK media were focused overly on trivialities, and did not properly understand economics – especially the sort of small-state, low-tax economics she espoused in her disastrous, sub-50-day period in No 10.

“If I’ve got a criticism of the media, there’s too much focus on the people and seeing it as a sort of entertaining story to follow … rather than discussions of the ideas. And I particularly find that true on economics,” she said.

“Did I and my colleagues get everything perfect about communication? No, we didn’t. But I think we’re operating in an environment where the economic ideas that I believe in are not widely understood.”

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

C69 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:21 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

Oh it was far more complex than that on the ground.
But hey

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:38 pm

C69 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:21 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

Oh it was far more complex than that on the ground.
But hey

I'm sure it was, I'm not a medic.

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 7:55 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

About 2 trillion quid down the back of the sofa?

And that’s it - MPs have voted to approve the report which said Boris Johnson deliberately misled the House of Commons over lockdown parties at Downing Street.

Here's the full vote tally:

For - 354
Against - 7
The results don't include the MPs who didn't vote, who will be recorded as abstaining.

C69 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:46 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:38 pm

C69 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:21 pm

Oh it was far more complex than that on the ground.
But hey

I'm sure it was, I'm not a medic.

Without a doubt I will not be working as long as I planned to due to COVID.
The NHS is a horrible employer. COVID for frontline ICU staff was horrible and very divisive .
Medical staff in may Trusts being paid massive over time and locum rates with other staff being expected to work at plain time and senior staff on AFC denied overtime.
All the good will is now gone.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:52 pm "You don't have any friends..."

And that’s it - MPs have voted to approve the report which said Boris Johnson deliberately misled the House of Commons over lockdown parties at Downing Street.

Here's the full vote tally:

For - 354
Against - 7
The results don't include the MPs who didn't vote, who will be recorded as abstaining.

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

Biffer wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:47 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

But those are political decisions.

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:55 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:52 pm "You don't have any friends..."

And that’s it - MPs have voted to approve the report which said Boris Johnson deliberately misled the House of Commons over lockdown parties at Downing Street.

Here's the full vote tally:

For - 354
Against - 7
The results don't include the MPs who didn't vote, who will be recorded as abstaining.

Bloody hell, that's a load of abstentions.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:31 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:55 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:52 pm "You don't have any friends..."

Bloody hell, that's a load of abstentions.

The political equivalent of scuttling off to South America rather than staying in the bunker.

dpedin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 6:42 am

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:31 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:55 pm
Bloody hell, that's a load of abstentions.

The political equivalent of scuttling off to South America rather than staying in the bunker.

I thought it was funny that it was actually the Labour Whip who cried out 'No, no, no' When the Speaker asked who was against the motion in order to force the vote. As a result he is one of the 7 who are recorded as voting against. Tories are really miserable bastards scared to stand up in the HoC to vote against the biggest lier of a PM we have ever had.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan were among the senior Conservatives who supported the report's findings.

Conservative MPs who voted against included Sir Bill Cash, Nick Fletcher, Adam Holloway, Karl McCartney, Joy Morrissey and Heather Wheeler - while 118 Tories voted in favour.

No vote was recorded for 225 MPs, because they either abstained or did not turn up to vote.

Biffer wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:47 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:33 pm Nothing to do with us.........honest!!
I'd forgotten what an entitled, chinless wonder this twat is.

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

But those are political decisions.

GogLais wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 8:19 am

Biffer wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:47 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:18 pm

Tbh ok I didn’t listen to it but I don’t think the inquiry should be wasting much time and money questioning political decisions. Almost certainly we didn’t have enough PPE, ICU beds, etc and the inquiry should focus on what we need for the next pandemic.

But those are political decisions.

Yes I know. We had Cameron replying to a question yesterday on the lines of the NHS would have ended up even worse off if they hadn’t handled public finances they way they did. I really don’t think the inquiry should be addressing what’s the best way to run the economy.

Biffer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:15 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 8:19 am

Biffer wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:47 pm

But those are political decisions.

Yes I know. We had Cameron replying to a question yesterday on the lines of the NHS would have ended up even worse off if they hadn’t handled public finances they way they did. I really don’t think the inquiry should be addressing what’s the best way to run the economy.

But determining why the NHS was put into a state where it was unprepared should be part of the inquiry, surely? And if that was due to political decisions made about how they wanted to run the economy, then it's a valid question. You can't just separate these things out.

GogLais wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:29 pm

Biffer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:15 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 8:19 am
Yes I know. We had Cameron replying to a question yesterday on the lines of the NHS would have ended up even worse off if they hadn’t handled public finances they way they did. I really don’t think the inquiry should be addressing what’s the best way to run the economy.

But determining why the NHS was put into a state where it was unprepared should be part of the inquiry, surely? And if that was due to political decisions made about how they wanted to run the economy, then it's a valid question. You can't just separate these things out.

I don’t think so. It’s perfectly fine for the inquiry to conclude that the NHS wasn’t prepared for a pandemic and that to be prepared it needed either more money or to spend less on other things.

However, I think it’s a huge leap to go on from there and investigate and report on how the economy was managed in the 2010s. More for the NHS? Fine but I don’t think it’s for the inquiry to try and judge whether that should be raised by spending less on other things, borrowing more or raising taxation.

dpedin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 4:19 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:29 pm

Biffer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:15 pm

But determining why the NHS was put into a state where it was unprepared should be part of the inquiry, surely? And if that was due to political decisions made about how they wanted to run the economy, then it's a valid question. You can't just separate these things out.

I don’t think so. It’s perfectly fine for the inquiry to conclude that the NHS wasn’t prepared for a pandemic and that to be prepared it needed either more money or to spend less on other things.

However, I think it’s a huge leap to go on from there and investigate and report on how the economy was managed in the 2010s. More for the NHS? Fine but I don’t think it’s for the inquiry to try and judge whether that should be raised by spending less on other things, borrowing more or raising taxation.

The inquiry is not and will not be judging these matters, it does however need to understand the wider context within which the NHS was operating and the reasons behind the key drivers as to its performance and capacity to deliver. It will not pass judgement on whether austerity was a good or bad thing per se but it can examine the impact it had or did not have on the NHS's ability to respond in case of pandemic ie if the number of beds/ICU beds and if there was sufficient capacity to flex in times of pandemics, etc. The decision by the Gov to reduce spending in real terms is a political matter but the impact of this on reduced bed capacity, for example, is a key issue for the inquiry and which it has every right to comment on. It is perfectly right for the Inquiry to compare spending in UK and the resulting number of beds, ICU beds, doctors and nurses, etc etc with historical rates or with comparable countries to help benchmark the NHS ability and capacity to respond to a pandemic.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:32 pm Sunak's wretched performance in the panto that is PMQS again shows that when he can't read from a script or hide behind his money, his utter mediocrity and general lack of an ability to think on his feet shows through.

Simian wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:38 am Great post

_Os_ wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:32 am It's time for another interest rate post. First some of the facts...

1. Core inflation is up, overall inflation has not moved.
2. Interest rates are going up, because this is the lever the BoE has to control inflation (via supressing consumer buying power). This is all textbook (since Thatcher?).
3. Wages have been stagnant in the UK for 15 years, and in real terms declining for many.
4. The UK is now so heavily leveraged, that interest rate rises much gentler than in the past, are a much more onerous burden. There's a big difference between 5% on a £250k mortgage when the combined household income is £50k, than 5% on £40k with a combined income of £15k-£20k. That's without factoring in reduced spending power now compared to the past.

The direction of travel does not look good. Put bluntly, raising interest rates looks incapable of reducing inflation in 2023 UK (I'm not referring to the past with that statement, only the here and now), yet that's where the BoE (and the government which ultimately controls it) is heading. What I'm seeing is higher interest rates fuelling inflation.

Facts 3 and 4 are crucial to understanding the problem. Wages have not been going up at all or enough to create inflation, so using interest rates to supress spending power isn't going to do what the BoE want it to do (reduce inflation). And the UK is now so indebted that debt interest payments are a significant outgoing (both in personal finances and in small businesses), unlike in the past when there was less indebtedness if the interest rate rises now so do costs everywhere, all the costs incurred to businesses by interest rate rises are passed on (anyone with their hand in the game, can see it in real time). Consumers then stop spending on anything they don't have to (hospitality and the high street go under etc), but they also start demanding pay rises to service their own debt and not just to afford to live.

Interest rate rises also don't supress spending power equally. Anyone with their mortgage paid off and a large amount of savings will have their spending power increased in absolute and relative terms. This will mostly be older people. Anyone with a large mortgage and little savings is probably facing going under entirely if interest rates go north of 5% and stay there. This will mostly be people under 40 (and a specific subset of that group, those that did well enough to get a mortgage, will be punished for that). So there's also a huge wealth transfer mechanism from the young to the old built into this.

Another fact:

5. Economists including at the BoE haven't made forecasts that have been particularly accurate. They then make a new forecast and pretend the old one didn't exist. Interest rates at one time were supposed to peak at 4.5%, inflation was supposed to be falling much more than it is, core inflation wasn't supposed to be climbing heading into mid 2023.

A lot of what's going on seems to be ideological, economics is more ideological that it's often presented. What I'm seeing is a square peg that's being hammered into a round hole, despite that fact it doesn't seem to be working, because of ideology. Truss was the most extreme proponent of the dogma to get into power, but it's also the consensus view if more diluted, as such it's worth rewinding to Truss' time in power ...

Team Truss were in favour of interest rates much higher than they are now (that was their answer to anything regarding inflation). They believe in the power of the market, the market is almost a god to them. They do not believe that businesses can set prices, they think the market does alone (most of these people have never run a business of any size), so they thought increasing borrowing costs would eliminate what they saw as unproductive businesses making the UK economy stronger. They don't understand that this worked in the past when some businesses were heavily indebted but most weren't indebted at all, which isn't the case now (what's true in the housing market is true across the economy, you have to go into debt to compete with those willing to take debt on, if you don't do this and have no other funding the business will fail before it does anything). Nor do they understand that businesses actually do have a large say in setting prices, and this becomes more true the larger they are/the more of a monopoly they hold. Team Truss also have an ideological blindness to the possibility something within government control (interest rates) has the power to set the market, because they don't believe the state should have the power to do anything and certainly not control their god.

If I'm right and it's all actually ideology and detached from reality, how high can interest rates go? 7%? 8%? 11%? A lot of people below 40 will be hurting at 5%, anything prolonged over 7% and they're wiped out.

Biffer wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:39 am The big issue nowadays is that changes in interest rates take 12-18 months to work through into having an effect substantially because of fixed term deals. So we're only starting to see the effects of last year's rises now. If they raise too far, and it starts a recession, that will get worse and worse as the effect drips through over more than a year.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:53 am

Biffer wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:39 am The big issue nowadays is that changes in interest rates take 12-18 months to work through into having an effect substantially because of fixed term deals. So we're only starting to see the effects of last year's rises now. If they raise too far, and it starts a recession, that will get worse and worse as the effect drips through over more than a year.

The BoE's aim seems to be a recession to lower inflation. There's no consideration that using the old model may not be working. The UK currently has stagnant wages and millions of job vacancies, the textbooks say this is impossible (basic supply and demand, if there's not enough supply to meet demand then the price should go up, if someone believes only the market sets the price that is which as Tichtheid says isn't always true). I have no clue if a recession and high inflation is possible, but a recession looks probable and inflation isn't moving much.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 12:20 pm

In our current scenario, the inflation is not consumer-driven it's almost entirely driven by energy prices. (Gas, Elec and Petrol) - all of which dampens consumer spending, but it increased the costs of almost every company, who in turn raise their prices (cost-driven inflation, not consumer-led, demand-driven inflation) on almost all consumer goods ( significant increased cost of production & cost of delivery get passed along).

dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:58 am

_Os_ wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:53 am

Biffer wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:39 am The big issue nowadays is that changes in interest rates take 12-18 months to work through into having an effect substantially because of fixed term deals. So we're only starting to see the effects of last year's rises now. If they raise too far, and it starts a recession, that will get worse and worse as the effect drips through over more than a year.

The BoE's aim seems to be a recession to lower inflation. There's no consideration that using the old model may not be working. The UK currently has stagnant wages and millions of job vacancies, the textbooks say this is impossible (basic supply and demand, if there's not enough supply to meet demand then the price should go up, if someone believes only the market sets the price that is which as Tichtheid says isn't always true). I have no clue if a recession and high inflation is possible, but a recession looks probable and inflation isn't moving much.

Agree with Os analysis 100%. The Gov and BoE are driving the middle classes into the ground, the Gov have already Done that to the poorer working classes.

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 12:39 pm

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 12:20 pm

In our current scenario, the inflation is not consumer-driven it's almost entirely driven by energy prices. (Gas, Elec and Petrol) - all of which dampens consumer spending, but it increased the costs of almost every company, who in turn raise their prices (cost-driven inflation, not consumer-led, demand-driven inflation) on almost all consumer goods ( significant increased cost of production & cost of delivery get passed along).

I understand this is happening and why....however supermarkets are talking the piss!!

1 litre Olive Oil at Tesco:

Jan 2021 - £1.90
Jun 2023 - £6.00

Fuck. Off.