The rising cost of living

[sidcow]

3 minutes ago, Xela said:

If you go out to pubs/bars/restaurants, they are all rammed. Tour operators reckon they'll be back to near pre pandemic levels this year. People are spending strongly still.

Whether they have a more "**** it, lets enjoy life" mentality after covid, who knows, but things in certain sectors are booming. 

There is still a lot of pent up wealth from lockdown. People couldn't spend money anywhere really so lots of people built up a savings bank they're probably tearing through right now. 

[sidcow]

15 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I think we have to be a bit realistic we had it good that interest rates were so low for so long. I cant see it getting back to under 1% for a very long time (if ever) 

But it badly needs to come down from the current 4.7% they have it. Thats ridiculously high and long term people cant afford that on top of everything else thats gone up. 

Yeah, rates have been way way lower than traditional levels. People have borrowed more than they should because they could afford to pay it back at rock bottom rates.   Rates are still below were they were before the 2008 crash. 

I still think irresponsible lending has driven the housing market for years.  Where would house prices be if you literally could only borrow 2 x individual or 1.5 times joint income as always used to be the case? 

If you allow people to borrow 5 x Salary they're naturally going to bid more to secure the home they want driving up prices. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by sidcow

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

Yeah, rates have been way way lower than traditional levels. People have borrowed more than they should because they cold afford to pay it back at rock bottom rates.   Rates are still below were they were before the 2008 crash. 

I still think irresponsible lending has driven the housing market for years.  Where would house prices be if you literally could only borrow 2 x individual or 1.5 times joint income as always used to be the case? 

If you allow people to borrow 5 x Salary they're naturally going to bid more to secure the home they want driving up prices. 

Some good points. I do agree there has been irresponsible lending. When i took out my morgage i got my broker to work out how much extra i would pay if it hit 5% so i knew what i would be paying (this was when rates were rock bottom luckily i fixed fir 5 years because i just thought have much more could it drop so even if it went down i wont bw saving that much as opposed to if it goes up)

I really thought interest rates would have gone up alot sooner than they did

[foreveryoung]

So in reality the government should not be giving pay rises as it will stop inflation from dropping as people will start spending again. 

[Panto_Villan]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

So in reality the government should not be giving pay rises as it will stop inflation from dropping as people will start spending again. 

Inflation and its relation to interest rates is an incredibly complex topic, and not even a fully settled question among economists.

But yes, this is one of the reasons why the government is resisting giving public sector workers pay rises that match inflation, and why the governor of the Bank of England is saying private companies should not do it either.

At the most fundamental level, the events of the last couple of years (e.g. the war in Ukraine, Brexit) have made us poorer - which means things have got more expensive compared to our incomes. You can't escape that with everyone putting up their wages by the equivalent amount, because then companies would need to raise their prices by the same amount, which just entrenches inflation and causes a cycle where wages and prices continue to drive each other up.

(Simplistic explanation for a complex topic there obviously)

[Panto_Villan]

3 hours ago, desensitized43 said:

What pisses me off most about all this is that what they’re trying to do is get inflation down to 2% again. Prices will still be what they are now just not rising to the level they were.

Prices need to come down not rise by less. The economic model of the west is totally **** and has been for decades now.

Realistically you're going to see prices decline from what they now as energy prices decline to normal levels. They won't fall back to previous levels, but the spike in energy prices was so severe that prices are bound to fall at least somewhat when they correct. Particularly in areas like food prices where energy plays such a big part.

You don't want actual deflation, though, where prices are consistently dropping month on month for a prolonged period. That's actually a lot worse than inflation (just ask Japan).

[Demitri_C]

11 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

So in reality the government should not be giving pay rises as it will stop inflation from dropping as people will start spending again. 

Id rather not have a pay rise if prices returned to normal than have a pay rise and prices are high like they are now.

But the shitty mps shouldnt be getting a pay rise either like they do every year. If any party rejects theirs i will vote for them based on that alone but none of them will. They will just say its the recommendation of the regulators (which they set up)

[foreveryoung]

25 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Id rather not have a pay rise if prices returned to normal than have a pay rise and prices are high like they are now.

But the shitty mps shouldnt be getting a pay rise either like they do every year. If any party rejects theirs i will vote for them based on that alone but none of them will. They will just say its the recommendation of the regulators (which they set up)

I always think though, instead of sitting I there arses when inflation was at a all time low,  should the unions not have forced a pay rise then? Seems almost unprofessional to fight for a rise now, surely the unions know its gonna be a problem.

[Davkaus]

Funny though, isn't it.

Can't afford to give payrises while inflation is low, can't afford to give payrises while inflation is high.

Fight among yourselves plebs, after being shafted by minimal (or no) payrises for 13 years. It's for the good of the economy.

[The Fun Factory]

The rise isn't really a surprise to anyone who does food shopping as the prices are still going up. The previous forecast in that it would be all over by christmas in time for tea and cakes sounded very naive. I think we are going to have to deal with high inflation for a quite some time.

[Davkaus]

58 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I always think though, instead of sitting I there arses when inflation was at a all time low,  should the unions not have forced a pay rise then? Seems almost unprofessional to fight for a rise now, surely the unions know its gonna be a problem.

Because we'd just come through a "once in a lifetime" economic shock, we were all in this together, everyone has to tighten their belts, and there's no money left. You think the unions were getting anywhere during the austerity phase? They can't do anything without the votes of their members, and the tories did a great job of baking "no money" into the public consciousness and convincing the public that national finances are like a household budget. "Where's the money coming from" was shouted to drown out any ideas about making things, anything, slightly better.

We did have some strikes during that time, not in the coalition government, but by 2016-2017 some sectors had started to have enough and we started to see strikes in rail and higher education. I think for the most part they were denounced as greedy bastards.

[Seat68]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Id rather not have a pay rise if prices returned to normal than have a pay rise and prices are high like they are now.

But the shitty mps shouldnt be getting a pay rise either like they do every year. If any party rejects theirs i will vote for them based on that alone but none of them will. They will just say its the recommendation of the regulators (which they set up)

MPs are not allowed to decline a pay rise but when it was given last year a hand full of Labour MPs pledged to give their increase to charities.

[Demitri_C]

33 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

MPs are not allowed to decline a pay rise but when it was given last year a hand full of Labour MPs pledged to give their increase to charities.

Why are they not allowed? 

[Seat68]

5 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Why are they not allowed? 

Quote

Under the terms of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, as amended by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, IPSA is required to pay MPs’ salaries. As such, MPs have no mechanism by which they can refuse to receive the recent salary increase and all MPs have been paid the full salary.

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/freedom-of-information/2015-16/cas-34057

 

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/news/mps-pay-facts

Quote

By law, once we set MPs’ pay, this will be paid to them and there is no option for MPs to refuse it.

 

[Demitri_C]

2 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/freedom-of-information/2015-16/cas-34057

 

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/news/mps-pay-facts

 

Who ever created this legislation should be thrown in prison. Absolute load of bollocks.

The public should be able to vote whether they deserve a pay increase. They serve us so we should be able to object to them getting a pay increase when they perform pathetically like we  have had for a while now

[desensitized43]

12 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Realistically you're going to see prices decline from what they now as energy prices decline to normal levels. They won't fall back to previous levels, but the spike in energy prices was so severe that prices are bound to fall at least somewhat when they correct. Particularly in areas like food prices where energy plays such a big part.

You don't want actual deflation, though, where prices are consistently dropping month on month for a prolonged period. That's actually a lot worse than inflation (just ask Japan).

No I really do want to see some deflation. It's not one thing that's too expensive, it's pretty much everything at the moment. Energy, Food, Houses, Cars, Building Materials, the list goes on.

How much inflation do we have to see before the powers the be look at it and go "yeah, prices have gone up so much that just bringing inflation down to 2% isn't going to correct this".

I know what you're saying, in an economy that's fueled by consumer spending, why would I make a purchase today if it'll be cheaper tomorrow? I have a theory that this is looking like massive bubble territory and if they don't get a grip on it and start to bring down living costs to something affordable and with them the interest rates you're going to see mass defaults on Mortgages soon and a situation where people who've run up a load of debt in order to maintain their living standards (because we don't live in a society anymore where people will accept being poorer and start acting like it) start to go bankrupt.

[foreveryoung]

I'm sure in reality there's no real rush to decrease inflation due to the government most probably making billions in taxes, which in turn is helping with the national debt including money wasted in Covid times. 

[Wainy316]

13 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

You can't escape that with everyone putting up their wages by the equivalent amount, because then companies would need to raise their prices by the same amount

Businesses seem to be pretty much universally raising their prices anyway though

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

 

The public should be able to vote whether they deserve a pay increase. 

On balance while it's appealing to think "nah **** them, no payrise for you lot, ever", realistically it's probably not a particularly good use of what would essentially be an annual referendum.

What I would like to see is MPs wages linked to either the national average wage increase, or the lowest public sector pay increase.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Davkaus

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

On balance while it's appealing to think "nah **** them, no payrise for you lot, ever", realistically it's probably not a particularly good use of what would essentially be an annual referendum.

What I would like to see is MPs wages linked to either the national average wage increase, or the lowest public sector pay increase.

Well thats as good as my suggestion in terms of they will never agree to that . Although i do think that is a good idea personally!