GAS and the cost of living

[tegs07]

17 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Do you not see the inconsistencies in your position? You express sympathy for "those poor sods re-mortgaging from 2% to around 6% over the coming months", yet argue against pay rises for them. I am quite happy with my income. I have the good fortune to own my home outright, have a couple of pensions and a decent amount in savings and investments. I am able to survive comfortably. I am not certainly calling for increases for "middle managers,  senior IT staff and the like" and never did.

 

You state you "fully support pay rises for those on lower tier paybands" and then say that "a few % payrise is not going to touch the sides on a tripling of mortgage debt". The logical conclusion to that is that those low-paid public service workers need substantial increases.  And yet you oppose that, from memory of the previous exchange on here. I too would rather we had a system that is closer to that in France (although they are not without their problems). The consequences of Brexit make that highly unlikely, sadly.

 

So where do we go? People who are lower paid have to survive and they need substantially more income in order to do so. How do you suggest we square that circle?

 

"Insults"? Care to elaborate? Either I'm unaware when I'm insulting people or you are extraordinarily sensitive.

I think I will conclude this bun fight as you don’t really grasp the economic factors behind the debate. 

 

I would try googling monetarism, Friedrick Hayek , Milton Friedman, Inflation and what causes it.

(Quantative Easing, decades of interest rates kept too low, supply shock due to pandemic and war as source of inflation).

 

Then try Wage price Spiral (symptoms of inflation) and find out what the MPC is, what their remit is and what factors they are targeting. (attempts to ‘cure’ inflation). Wage price spiral is a contentious topic but nevertheless it’s something the BOE have said they are targeting on several occasions. The comparison with German wage constraints and one off payments to tackle inflation and the cost of living crisis are stark. This can be handled with sensitivity.

 

At this point you might see there is no inconsistency in my position and you then can dismiss my arguments or suggest how I could look at situation from a different angle.

 

There are other perspectives. My position is fairly old fashioned and doesn’t chime with much of modern economic theory. I have a feeling it may make a popular resurgence though. The world is changing.

 

I never claimed the poor don’t deserve more money, just that if wages jump 7% across the board (this is the figure currently and believe it or not UK pay is rising faster than the EU at the moment) and the MPC is looking to stop inflation getting entrenched by raising rates to curtail it we will end up a circle that can never be squared.

 

More money will be needed to ease the effects of inflation, which fuels inflation, which causes the MPC to tighten which means more money is needed, and so on until we have hyper inflation or a savage recession.

 

It’s too late now anyway. Any chance to have contained inflation has been missed.

 

At this stage inflation is entrenched and policy is already tightened. Naturally people will fight for pay increases. The spiral has started in earnest. How or when it will stop is anyone’s guess. I suspect rates will hit at least 5% by winter. The cost of servicing debt will be horrendous. Some councils will go bankrupt, some commercial real estate projects will most likely fail and there may be a crash in the housing market. The UK is really exposed to property slumps due to the prevalent short term fixed rates.

 

There will be periods of optimism that the hikes are working and inflation is easing, whether this reverses as winter fuel bills kick in though is not known.

As for extraordinary sensitive, you keep accusing me of being uncaring and being some kind of tool that wants to put people in their place “you wish to preserve the distance between you and those at the bottom of the heap. Fine, but just be frank about it..”

is both rude and presumptuous.

 

I work in the public sector so have some concept about lack of pay over the last few years. I also have (a limited) understanding of economics so could see the storm brewing and the damage it was likely to bring so tried to warn people to watch out. The time for pay restraint from middle income earners has passed, the opportunity missed and the consequences are being felt. The most pressing for most people is the price and availability of mortgages.

I got a lot of rudeness for pointing out some very basic economic principles. Usually the rudeness comes from people who appear to be economically illiterate.

Edited June 12, 2023 by tegs07

[neepheid]

FFS can we please just get back to generic moaning about not being able to afford shiny things whenever we want?

[tegs07]

31 minutes ago, neepheid said:

FFS can we please just get back to generic moaning about not being able to afford shiny things whenever we want?

Absolutely. Even I’m bored with myself.

Edit: The reason I am so preoccupied with this matter though is even if by some miracle the powers that be manage to halve the current rate of inflation it doesn’t mean prices will go down, just that they will RISE at twice the rate they did two years ago. It’s fairly shocking.

Edited June 11, 2023 by tegs07

[Dan Dare]

13 hours ago, tegs07 said:

I think I will conclude this bun fight as you don’t really grasp the economic factors behind the debate. Etc, etc.

 Of course not. We're all stupid, apart from you. As for your being "being uncaring and being some kind of tool that wants to put people in their place", you said it. 

[tegs07]

2 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 Of course not. We're all stupid, apart from you. As for your being "being uncaring and being some kind of tool that wants to put people in their place", you said it. 

Well I’ve learned a lot from various people on BC, particularly on topics I know little about such as technical build and music theory. I guess the key is knowing my limitations and having a willingness to learn rather than get defensive and insult people.

 

Plenty of people post about prices going up sharply, the cost of living, about mortgage rates increasing etc.

 

I have some knowledge around these issues and try to explain the economic factors that drive them. Most people are politely bored, some interested, some just plain rude. If you want to vent some spleen do it at Andrew Bailey and the BOE. They are the ones that let inflation get out of control and they are the ones raising interest rates and defining the factors that influence each decision. Their decisions have directly impacted the level of mortgage debt people have taken on and the increase in costs of repaying that debt.

Edited June 12, 2023 by tegs07

[asingardenof]

On 11/06/2023 at 07:27, lownote said:

Anyone noticed a slow down in the BC marketplace? Might seem a no-brainer that less free money around means less buying, but I anyway react the opposite, buying comfort toys rather than essentials when things are tight. I only ask because I had a reasonably sale-able set of kit at a good price on here recently that didn't sell after weeks.  And elsewhere I've a slug of sax kit on commission sale and the market's gone stone dead.

Yep, now I've got essentials out of the way I'm having to not get tempted, and the one purchase I'm eyeing up will require some quite rigorous saving and selling of other gear.

[tegs07]

There does seem to be a growing number of really nice instruments for sale at some very reasonable prices that get little interest. Sign of the times.

[Steve Browning]

You'd think the Ukrainians could have picked off the board of the BoE easily enough, when they invaded.

[tegs07]

24 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

You'd think the Ukrainians could have picked off the board of the BoE easily enough, when they invaded.

The war hasn’t helped but UK inflation had overshot its target by a staggering 250% before the Russian invasion. If you measured RPI (which includes housing costs ) it went parabolic after Covid. And still they sat in their hands and did nothing.

Source ONS. Seriously! Brown trousers time.

 

I have covered most of this stuff before. Let’s let the guys talk about GAS and stuff not selling. Happy to take discussion to another thread.

Edited June 12, 2023 by tegs07

[Pseudonym]

13 hours ago, tegs07 said:

Let’s let the guys talk about GAS and stuff not selling. Happy to take discussion to another thread.

But GAS and inflation are closely correlated, or at least they are in my abdomen.

[tegs07]

3 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

But GAS and inflation are closely correlated, or at least they are in my abdomen.

I think that may be constipation. Maybe try some prune juice, followed up with four pints of stout and a vindaloo 👍

[snorkie635]

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

I think that may be constipation. Maybe try some prune juice, followed up with four pints of stout and a vindaloo 👍

Dear Sir, I write this to you from hospital, having been removed from a tree by a passing fire-engine ... ... 🤯

[tegs07]

2 hours ago, snorkie635 said:

Dear Sir, I write this to you from hospital, having been removed from a tree by a passing fire-engine ... ... 🤯

Dear reader

 

Our lawyers refer you to page 43, section 5, paragraph 4 of our T&Cs entitled “Our advice and your responsibility” in which we clearly state, in latin, that we can say whatever we want and you are responsible for your own actions.

We wish you a good day and as a gesture of goodwill will halve the usual legal fee to a mere £200 for this clarification.

Edited June 13, 2023 by tegs07

[EssexBuccaneer]

We are living in scary times, and we’re certainly all feeling the pinch. (Well, except for the ones who put us here)

 

On the flip side though, budget gear has never been of a higher quality. I was astounded at how good my guitarist’s Harley Benton Flying V is - for the grand sum of £170. Is it perfect? No. Is it comparable to mid-price guitars from a few years back? Definitely.

[asingardenof]

2 hours ago, tegs07 said:

Dear reader

 

Our lawyers refer you to page 43, section 5, paragraph 4 of our T&Cs entitled “Our advice and your responsibility” in which we clearly state, in latin, that we can say whatever we want and you are responsible for your own actions.

We wish you a good day and as a gesture of goodwill will half the usual legal fee to a mere £200 for this clarification.

Dear reader,

 

We refer you to the response given in Arkell v Pressdram.

 

Yours, &c.

Edited June 13, 2023 by asingardenof

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

Dear reader,

 

Our response is that similar to that given in Arkell v Pressdram.

 

Yours, &c.

Haha yes I remember that.

[tegs07]

If the powers that be have a trump card now is the time to play it. 

Things are Truss bad with gilts yields. Maybe hold off the GAS for a while. Something is brewing and it doesn’t smell good.

I tend to talk into a bit of a void as folks find this stuff boring. I guess it is, if it wasn’t so fundamentally important in determining one of the biggest costs of our adult lives. Anyhow for anyone who may be interested, debt swaps are struggling to be filled even at a couple of % above the current bank rate. In plain english this translates as mortgage products are likely to be pulled and repriced at a higher rate over the coming days. 2 year fixed could easily hit 7% if this continues.

Edited June 15, 2023 by tegs07

[Mickyk]

inflation in Britain is nearly always  caused by this country's Obsession with  Growth, one would have thought by now we would have  learned something looked at Japan and tried to copy their model .Very tiny growth with by far a better standard of living. We could with doing something about illegal immigration but successive governments choose not 7 million per day and counting.

 

[tegs07]

5 hours ago, Mickyk said:

inflation in Britain is nearly always  caused by this country's Obsession with  Growth, one would have thought by now we would have  learned something looked at Japan and tried to copy their model .Very tiny growth with by far a better standard of living. We could with doing something about illegal immigration but successive governments choose not 7 million per day and counting.

 

Japan has suffered decades of deflation, largely as the result of letting an asset bubble get totally out of control and then collapse in the early 90’s. We may well follow them. One thing that surprised “experts” however was that with the decline in economic growth and stagnation in wages the overall “happiness” of the population actually increased.

Edited June 16, 2023 by tegs07

[Woodinblack]

11 hours ago, Mickyk said:

We could with doing something about illegal immigration but successive governments choose not 7 million per day and counting.

 

Wow- that is high, at that rate it will only take just over 3 years to get to the cost the money we lost in corrupt covid contracts from the government. But nah, lets focus on the migrants instead!

[neepheid]

11 hours ago, Mickyk said:

inflation in Britain is nearly always  caused by this country's Obsession with  Growth, one would have thought by now we would have  learned something looked at Japan and tried to copy their model .Very tiny growth with by far a better standard of living. We could with doing something about illegal immigration but successive governments choose not 7 million per day and counting.

 

 

 

That end bit smells odious to me.  Were you drunk when you wrote this, it's a little garbled?  I'm looking for any benefit of the doubt before coming away with the impression that you're a right wing racist.

 

[Dad3353]

11 hours ago, Mickyk said:

...We could with doing something about illegal immigration but successive governments choose not 7 million per day and counting.

 

It's true I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I can't work out what this sentence is trying to impart. Is there a decoder available, please..? Is this about immigration, or illegal immigration..?

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

It's true I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I can't work out what this sentence is trying to impart. Is there a decoder available, please..? Is this about immigration, or illegal immigration..?

 

For some people in the UK, there is no difference between the two.

[TimR]

On 11/06/2023 at 07:27, lownote said:

Anyone noticed a slow down in the BC marketplace? Might seem a no-brainer that less free money around means less buying, but I anyway react the opposite, buying comfort toys rather than essentials when things are tight. I only ask because I had a reasonably sale-able set of kit at a good price on here recently that didn't sell after weeks.  And elsewhere I've a slug of sax kit on commission sale and the market's gone stone dead.

 

I'm not sure. There's two or maybe three sides to the coin.

 

Not a lot of people have spare money, some people have quite a lot of spare money, some people have gear to sell that they think is worth more because new versions are costing more to purchase, others have gear they need to get rid of quick because they have no cash.

 

There's a very complicated supply/demand curve going on.

 

Tag into that, I think there may be a wariness for scammers.

 

I contacted a seller a couple of months ago over an item they've had up for sale for nearly 3 years. It's still for sale, I gave a reasonable offer, no reply, not even - no offers! The latest version isn't a lot more expensive so don't understand. Someone is sitting on an unused bit of gear that's only going to go down in value.

[Pseudonym]

3 hours ago, neepheid said:

That end bit smells odious to me.  Were you drunk when you wrote this, it's a little garbled?  I'm looking for any benefit of the doubt before coming away with the impression that you're a right wing racist.

 

I just hope he isn't an economist. Sure, let's emulate Japan. All we need to do is find overseas buyers for our world-beating production of grumble.