Rising Prices

yawn I leave you to your spiral of despair

 

And you enjoy happy, clappy unicorn land.

 

The real issue is that we've been on stupidly low interest rates for far too long. But it's clear that the perfect storm of Covid and Brexit hasn't helped, and you'll get that response from almost every business across the UK.

You basically have a whole load of inefficient companies (with no creative destruction) trying to expand and serve an increasing customer base, at a time where raw materials aren't being dug/ created in the same quantity, shipping containers can't meet demand and goods can't get into the country because we have made it harder to transport goods and recruit people to do so.

As Buffett says, it's only when the tide goes out that we'll see who's swimming naked. I imagine we're absolutely starkers and it won't be a pretty sight.

 

Making the point that everyone is paying more so therefore it doesn't matter that we're paying even more than they are doesn't strike me as a winning argument, in all honesty.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/food-shortages-brexit-covid-boris-johnson-b1917763.html

"It'll all be over by Christmas"...where have we heard that one before?

 

Exactly, saying lockdowns were unnecessary because more people die from obesity Vs covid is like saying seatbelts and airbags are unnecessary because few people die in car crashes

 

If the chance of death or long covid was linear across the population you would be right. But it wasn’t and isn’t.

The chance for young and fit was incredibly low, and rises according to age and health.

Therefore a one size fits all simply wasn’t logical. Locking down a 20 year old was taking a hammer to an egg. Different risk groups needed different solutions.

To have still been locked down at the point high risk groups had been vaccinated was inexplicable.

Different solutions would have taken the edge off of post covid economic damage, the likes of which we are only starting to experience. I shake my head as every thread on ‘cost rises’ and ‘no containers’ appear… weren’t they all obvious consequences?

 

I completely agree with your overall point.

But as an aside, the researcher part of my brain is interested whether we know for certain that airbags and seatbelts have saved more lives than they have cost?

I say this because wearing seatbelts and having airbags probably have increased average driving speeds and encouraged more people onto the roads, which means that whilst fewer people die per crash, the number of crashes and deaths has substantially increased.

I remember QI mentioning that wearing a helmet when cycling is more dangerous than not, as cars give you a wider berth if you are not wearing a helmet. So, whilst you are more likely to die if you are hit by a car, you’re less likely to be hit by a car in the first place.

 

Theoretically, in an apolitical and purely utilitarian society, perhaps you have a point.

But A) we know a lot more about the virus now than we did then, and B) this ignores the fact that mixing would be taking place. Young people increasingly live with their parents due to not being able to afford a house, Asian families are more likely to live in households with more older people, including Grandparents, and then a greater incidence leads to more casual transmission routes e.g. public transport and supermarkets. And then how many more older people would just ignore lockdown, because they saw the young people out and about whilst they were confined to their homes? C) How many actual jobs would actually have been saved, given many people who couldn’t work from home still went in, many who could work from home didn’t, and for much of the service sector, it would have been financially unviable to open with 2/3rds of the population (including the richest portion of the population) in lockdown.

And that’s ignoring the obvious argument that the Tories are strongly against penalising the older voters in any way, even if it is fair to them and society in general (see May’s social care policy).

I’m actually one of the more vocal posters around the dangers of eating away civil liberties, but I think the proposed policy would be more problematic than what it was replacing.

 

I think it would be safe to assume airbags and seat belts saved many more lives than they cost.

How much faster can people go? The speed limits in this country haven’t changed for years, and have gradually got more and more regulated. Of course you can still speed and many do, but the chances of getting caught and fined for it have increased over time. Do people speed more now when the motorway limit is 70, than they did 30 years ago with the same limit but when speed cameras didn’t exist, just because they have an airbag?

Also I don’t think that’s how the human brain works. Most people feel inherently safe in a car, people aren’t thinking ‘oh I’ve got an airbag so I don’t mind crashing’ nobody actually wants to crash their car, if they speed it’s because they don’t think they’ll crash.

 

A 6” spike in the centre of every steering wheel would have saved far more lives than airbags

 

A death sentence for those caught speeding (using their phone etc) would save even more. Not sure it would be an acceptable solution though.

Sorry for adding to the off topic discussion

 

Doesn't that mean that they share the shortage, and whatever happens, they share the shortage, with no country being able to go to another supplier, more expensive or not (but then, if there is no gas, it doesn't matter whether it is cheep or expensive), and even if they do, what ever they can get their hands on must be shared out among 26 other countries, some of whom may not be as economical in their use of resources.

I'm not saying you haven't got a point, but with the EU, what appears to be a benefit in good times, almost invariably ends up being a burden, at least for some members, when the cack hits the fan.

 

That’s the wrong way around. If the good times mean that you can get energy cheaply from elsewhere, then the EU may be a restraint. If the bad times mean you can’t, then you want in on the protection it offers. We are paying far more for energy than members are.

This is why those for exit have always lavished dollops of I’m an optimistic, freewheeling sort of global person, because any sense in it relies on believing in a fair wind always blowing. Well, that didn’t last long.

 

The underlying issues with energy, which will become a crisis if not faced in to, is the lack of a pragmatic balanced approach. The incompetence was masked by being in the EU, and being connected to the veritable forest of French nuclear power stations.

WM (in it's latest version Boris) has gone charging off towards a green utopia and forgotten the wind sometimes doesn't blow, the sun sometimes doesn't shine, the tide comes in and out twice a day, one day the cable connecting the UK to France might burn down, and if we build the energy strategy on that sandy ground its all going to collapse one day.

 

Mrs D always wanted to remove the chimney breasts whilst I was always dead against it, (I don't put my foot down for much but this was a biggie for me). Who's laughing now with my particulate emissions keeping us warm this winter?

 

You evil (but warm) polluter.

 

It’s like Groundhog Day with you and this view. This notion that the young could be left to do as they pleased simply ignores the risk they would pose to others and then to themselves when healthcare collapsed. It got mighty close to collapse last winter and people died waiting for ambulances.

Once every adult had been offered the vaccine restrictions were lifted quickly.

 

So Grant Schapps is blaming the lorry drivers shortage on Europeans undercutting Brits, and making it unattractive for them to consider up to now.

So what higher paid jobs have these would be lorry drivers been doing in the meantime?

 

How does it offer you protection. If any of the other states have less gas than you, then what you have extra will be shared about among them. That is simple maths based on your description of how they handle shortages.

When there is a shortage, the issue isn't necessarily price, but whether there is enough to go around, and if it is easier for us to obtain gas from other sources, all be it more expensively, surely that is a benefit? And what sort of prices are the EU going to have to pay when they look outside the market, if that happens, are are they going to say that they should get the gas the UK has previously negotiated to buy, and get all upset when the supplier says no?

 

Breathtaking isn't it? Apparently leaving the EU means we can increase the number of HGV tests we can run. He's probably right though in that the EU would not be keen on the UK making its testing regime much easier - I wonder if this will lead to the EU understandably looking at whether UK HGV licenses should be valid on the continent.

 

I've got two mates who are fast tracking to become HGV drivers (paid for by the companies) and people are coming out of early retirement. The answer to your question, what jobs? Is, at least in part, early retirement and better paid jobs. Simples.

It was always an argument that free movement and EU regulations were holding down wages (as they were brazenly promoted as doing, to mitigate the limitations of the Eurozone comprising so many different national economies) and this would seem to to support that view. Yet now it seems the thing that upsets socialists the most in all the world is wage improvements. The left is almost certainly the side of the corporations these days. Big government and industry combining is synonimous with a form of governance that is often more associated with the right. Funny how the world has turned on its head.

 

But what jobs? Waitrose are paying £60k to their lorry drivers, so if you would’ve considered being a lorry driver but the pay was too low, what occupation would you be doing instead?

And maybe a few are coming out of retirement, but i would imagine driving an HGV probably has some sort of age limit from a safety perspective, how many 65/70 year olds are realistically coming out of retirement to drive an HGV?

 

As ever, arse about face. Left wing people simply want higher wages without shortages. Hardly unreasonable. For that you cannot simply rely on the market.

Capitalism feeds on high labour supply so it can drive down costs. That’s the only real ‘efficiency’ outsourcing or privatisation provides and of course those costs are picked up elsewhere through universal credit to meet the gap between wages and the cost of living.

Yet all you can offer is that or a short term bounce as the supply of labour is restricted. That’s not a strategy.

 

Imagine that, Lorry Drivers who can afford to shop at Waitrose. Result.

 

How can anyone answer on behalf of all the people that would make the decision to change jobs for one that is better paid. One of my mates teaches English, the other works in accounts. So there are two for you. I would imagine anyone who wouldn't mind the lifestyle and fancies a decent wage would consider the move. Teachers, nurses, anyone. And specifically I said early retirement. People who have given up on a job that didn't pay well for the lifestyle it entailed (because freedom of movement kept the wages down - as it was designed to do), but now have a more favourable incentive. A benefit of Brexit.

 

?? The problem is practically world wide. It is causing shortages in Europe like it is in the UK and the US. Yet wages in Europe remain the same, because people are being shipped around the Union to mitigate the effects of a situation that would, more naturally, result in the raising of wages. It is your explanation that is arse about face.

So why is it the left leaning EU, remainers and socialists in general, that want to allow freedom of movement? Which the EU desribed as a desirable mitigation to compensate for the limitations of the Euro Zone (by a UK professor you brought my attention to about a year ago in the politics section), the primary effect of which is to keep wages down. It is what I describe it as, not capitalism; which must rely (if it is to survive, else it will kill itself) on people having money in their pockets to spend; Big government, in combination with big government are the ones creating laws to keep wages down and to increase reliance on the state; a primary element of a form of economics associated with extremist politics, formerly of the right, now, it apppears, of the left. In the post modern version of socialism/communism, the vanguard elite is just expanding to include big business, where people will work for no wages and get whatever they are given, until it runs out. This has nothing to do with capitalism.

How many big corporation have come out with any right wing views in the last two years? They are very much a product of the left these days, but just as greedy as ever.

You are right. It is not a strategy. It is a circumstance.

 

Europhiles finally discover what everyone else has been complaining about for years, that cheap eastern european labour has been used to keep UK wages artificially low

Pay a proper wage and jobs will attractive people

 

As long as nobody minds everything costing correspondingly more of course. I trust nobody will be complaining about the price of everything going up to cover the wages.

 

It's all getting a bit political, isn't it? Maybe that's because life is politics. Maybe we should shut down the GTTT section.

But before it is removed, can I just state on record how funny/sad it is that as even the worst predictions of the remoaning traitors get outstripped by reality, the brexit Spartans still convince themselves that black is white, and that by this time next year, Rodney, we'll be millionaires.

 

It's particularly hypocritical this. People supporting this view here have supported Tory wage and benefit suppression, outsourcing, attacks on unions, exporting manufacturing etc all their working lives and now **** ups lead to scramble for certain labour, you pat yourself on the backs even while a fifth of population gets poorer before your eyes.

 

Exactly. A steady rise in wages across working society in general is a good thing and we can debate all day how quickly that could or should be done and the benefits of it. But a chaotic rise in wages in only some sectors, a lot of which are closely linked to supply chains for essential goods and so drive up prices rapidly too, is never going to be good.

 

TBF LTC68 is a Lexiteer. Which is of course the most tragic of creatures, driven by Bennite dogma to be the patsy of disaster capitalists.

 

Lexit has always been a perfectly reasonable position -

Stop UK wages being artificially lowered through cheap imported labour
Business which choose to relocate from the UK to low labour rate countries, or which are asset stripped by foreign ownership, do not get a free pass to sell back into the UK without paying a 'tax'
Use the freedom from EU rules to reset ownership of UK, particularly the failing privatised industries

 

How's that going? Tomorrow, Rodney, we'll be millionaires. To anybody with a functioning brain, Brexit was being driven and bankrolled by the most capitalist of capitalists - Robert Mercer, Koch, the Barclays, Murdoch, and the likes of Crispin Odey. In what universe were they going to allow their project to be subverted into a socialist utopia? Like I said, Lexiteers were patsies, useful idiots.