British families must “accept that they’re worse off” after a surge in inflation and stop pushing for a pay rise, a senior Bank of England official has said.
Huw Pill, the Bank’s chief economist, warned that rising prices have made the whole country poorer and said that attempts to bid up wages were merely prolonging the agony.
Not politic, but true.
I wonder if the same is true for bank of england pensioners – are their pensions going to be frozen for a year?
What is his salary, and what is his record of success? How well does the BoE perform its mission nowadays?
British families must “accept that they’re worse off” after 13 years of ‘Conservative’ rule and 26 years of Blairism.
FTFH
Has this Muppet had a pay rise?
Or has he led by example and declined any increase in remuneration?
It seems to me people are worse off largely because of a shortage of accommodation. Rent and house prices are silly. Energy and fuel prices are not helping.
Now, what could be causing a shortage of accommodation and energy? Could it be anything to do with artificial barriers to supply?
It seems to me people are worse off largely because of a shortage of accommodation.
No, that’s a baseline problem. Right now even people who own houses and rent out properties are also worse off. Everyone is poorer because the government shut down the economy and printed fuck loads of money.
Stage 1 – accept that we’re poorer – do not prolong the agony
Stage 2 – hang the fuckers responsible – prolong the agony
Now, what could be causing a shortage of accommodation
It must be all those babies British people are having.
Stage 1 – accept that we’re poorer – prolong the agony
Stage 2 – hang the fuckers responsible – do not prolong the agony
FTFY
Whoever would have guessed that HMG’s hysterical response to a new coronavirus would have been so consequential?
I’ll grant you that the panic was heaped on top of Brownballs since the financial crash of 2007-08-09, and on top of Net Zero nonsense, and on top of an incompetent Bank of England response to rising inflation.
If it has taken all these causes to reduce our standard of living, the underlying economy must have been remarkably healthy. What did Smith say about ruin?
What did Smith say about ruin?
“Aye, well, ye ken noo”?
Getting poorer? You ain’t seen nuffink yet.
Wait for the net zero bollocks to really kick in. You can have a turnip raw for ten quid, or cooked for a hundred.
You need a plumber? Sorry mate, can’t oblige on account of the ULEZ and 15 minute city legislation.
Philip. Why am I thinking of Crassus’ lining the roads with the corpses of the crucified??
Three years ago everyone was screaming that we should lockdown and damn the economy. Very popular at the time.
Surely people haven’t changed their minds now it’s too late.
Exactly Pat. All those who said we were callous, more interested in the economy than lives, said “if it saves one life it’s worth it” have no right to moan . Ditto anyone who agrees with net zero. They are getting what they were warned about good and hard. The problem is that everyone else is getting it good and hard too.
@ Chernyy Drakon
Stage 2 – hang the fuckers responsible – do not prolong the agony
No, it was right first time – short drop, no merciful tug on the ankles. Make the buggers suffer longtime.
Huw Pill’s salary is £190,000-per-year and he received a £7,662 relocation allowance when he joined the Bank as chief economist in September 2021.
As for record of success, not much. Same applies to the Bank of England as a whole. Inflation was pretty much guaranteed to happen post-COVID, yet the Bank of England were slow to react when it did start to appear and have interest rate rises should have been far steeper than they initially were.
While I agree that he’s probably right in what he says, it shows a somewhat callous disregard, especially when comparing his humongous salary to that of the ordinary man-in-the-street.
@asiaseen
Ah, I see.
It depends on whose agony you think is being talked about.
I understood it as our agony in the general public.
If we accept we’re poorer and just knuckle under, the agony will prolong.
If we hang the bastards, the agony ends that much sooner.
Just depends on the reading… 🙂
@ Chernyy Drakon
Indeed!
British people. in aggregate, are worse off as a result of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and yet another pandemic of Chinese origin (like the plague and the Black Death – the only plague to have hit enough of the world to have been described, however inaccurately, as “world-wide” was the post-WWI “Spanish flu). That is simple, regrettable fact. Whether it was made worse by lock-down and Sunak’s furlough scheme is open to debate but it is indubitable that the primary culprits are the CCCP and Putin’s Russia.
Private-sector pensioners are, in general, the principal sufferers. The Public Sector unions (RMT still thinks of itself as if Public Sector) want all the loss to fall on “someone else”. The BoE is trying to point out that there is a smaller pie to share *and that every strike makes the pie progressively smaller*.
British people. in aggregate, are worse off as a result of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine
Are we? Or are we mostly poorer as a result of the actions of our politicians sanctioning Russia and falling over themselves to give away billions of pounds of military equipment to the Ukrainians to compete with other nations’ politicos to be the most “righteous”?
In fact we’d be in a much better position if we hadn’t sanctioned Russia. We could be buying loads of gas on the cheap cheap and arbitraging the shit out of loads of it by selling it to Europe.
But hey, who cares if people are struggling with their heating bills, we’ve got to appear to be right on, right?
The problem is that we decided not to frack and rely on that nice Mr Putin for gas. If we were fracking we would be richer and he would be poorer.
We should of course also not pay people who can’t support themselves to come here.
@ Chernyy Drakon
Russia invaded one of the world’s top three producers and exporters of wheat. The world’s supply of grain has gone down and the price has gone up. We have to import grain because we have a popultion of 68 million in a country that was a grain exporter when the population was less than ten million.
So, YES, we are poorer thanks to Putin.
Don’t be an idiot.
Didn’t NATO send Boris Johnson to Ukraine last year to close down ceasefire talks that Israel had been brokering, so there is some blame for prolonging the situation as well as for starting it.
“Russia invaded one of the world’s top three producers and exporters of wheat. The world’s supply of grain has gone down and the price has gone up.”
No the price hasn’t gone up. Or rather it went up, and now its come back down again, and is now no greater than it was 14 years ago. Wheat briefly hit £200/tonne in the aftermath of the 2008 bio-fuels debacle, and is currently trading at £190/tonne, which is well within its historic trading range. And thats all nominal prices, chuck inflation in and cereals have never been so cheap.
Jim,
My comparison is not with the previous price peaks that resulted from the recurrent shortages and famines caused by collective farms or bio-fuels (nearly as insane) but with the price before Putin invaded. Looking at a chart I see that it has dropped from a peak of $12/bushel in 2022 to $7.36/bushel but it is still roughly double the price half-a-dozen years ago.
The price of bread to the end-consumer has gone up by treble the RPI increase. If all of this money had gone to British farmers the British people, in aggregate, would be no poorer, but it hasn’t.
John77 @ 6.14.
UK inflation was at 6.2% in February 2022.
The price of fossil fuels has been rising for decades due to the war – against fossil fuels.
And prices had been going up for a year when Treason May put a price cap on the amount suppliers could charge consumers in 2017. Wholesale prices were going up but the consumers didn’t see it as the suppliers were swallowing the increase. This being the main reason why 28 energy suppliers went bust in 2021 and consumers got the shock that she had been stalling.
As for grain, I posted here a few days ago that Poland and other Eastern EU countries are resisting the efforts of the EU to force them to take tons of Ukrainian grain as it would crash the price for the domestic suppliers. Again, if it the shortage of Ukrainian wheat driving up prices where is the Ukrainian wheat the EU are trying to dump on Poland coming from?
The price of wheat is higher now than over the last 5 – 6 years but at or below the level of 10 years and 15 years ago.
“Looking at a chart I see that it has dropped from a peak of $12/bushel in 2022 to $7.36/bushel but it is still roughly double the price half-a-dozen years ago.”
We live in the UK not the US.
Here in the UK the price of wheat has traded in the £100-200/tonne range for the last 15 years or so, apart from the Ukraine invasion inspired spike of 2022. You can cherry pick dates if you like to show ‘OMG the price of wheat has doubled!’ and equally you can do the same to show its halved. But fact remains grain is no more expensive today than it has been on multiple occasions in the last 15 years, and that is, as I pointed out, nominal prices so £190 today is not the same as £190 in 2011 or 2013 (two other times its been this high). Using todays prices to justify rises in the cost of food is pure profiteering.
@ Adolff
With any weather-related commodity you can find occaasional peaks in price and in this case you have chosen to do so in order to make a misleading comparison. It’s below the price ten-and-three quarter or 15 years ago but higher than 10.0 or 11 or 12 or 13 or 14 or 16 or 17 or 18 or … or 9 or 8 or 7 or 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 years ago.
You may have failed to see all the news about a “corridor” allowing *some* Ukrainian wheat to be shipped via Turkey. In normal years most Ukrainian wheat is exported by ship but Russia has destroyed two of Ukraine’s major ports and attacked Odesa – this had more impact on grain exports than its attacks on cities has had on wheat growing in the countryside. The local demand for wheat is less than the supply so the price balancing supply and demand for Ukrainian wheat that can be exported by rail is below production cost. Polish farmers want to sell their wheat above production cost.
It’s not that difficult to understand.
@John77
I’ll try not to be an idiot.
Russia invaded one of the world’s top three producers and exporters of wheat. The world’s supply of grain has gone down and the price has gone up.
Oh my goodness! How much has the world’s production been affected?
I’ll start by looking at the tables for wheat production and export.
Wheat production 2020 (M tons)
1. China 134.3
2. India 107.6
3. Russia 85.9
4. USA 49.7
5. Canada 35.2
6. France 30.1
7. Pakistan 25.2
8. Ukraine 24.9
Wheat export 2020 (M tons)
1. Russia 37.27
2. USA 26.13
3. Canada 26.11
4. France 19.79
5. Ukraine 18.06
Er… Ukraine isn’t in the top three for either of these.
If you take the top ten exporters in 2020 and sum you get approx 170 M tons.
Remove the 18 from Ukraine and it’s approx 10% drop.
Not exactly catastrophic. I would suggest that maybe the excessive bread price increases be a result of something else? Maybe high energy prices?
And, if we’re short on wheat because Ukraine no longer manufacturing it, we could ask the largest exporter if they have more. Who is… Oh, Russia.
So my point stands. It isn’t Russia invading that’s making us significantly poorer. It’s our politicians incompetent virtue signalling at our expense that’s making us poorer.
I would suggest that maybe the excessive bread price increases be a result of something else?
Sure. Elasticity. How much do prices have to change to reduce consumption by 10%?
What Tim said.
But bread is an exceptional case since poor people *increase* their consumption of bread when prices go up by switching from more expensive foodstuffs. So to reduce bread consumption by 10% requires the middle classes to switch more than 10% of the previous bread demand to other foods
@ chernyy drakon
Sorry, I was assuming the BBC was correct because there seemed no reason for them to lie (I had expected the top 3 to be Canada, USA, Australia). I’ve now checked and Ukraine was only the fifth largest exporter in 2021 at $4.7bn – but that is enough to change the balance of world supply and demand even in the absence of a famine in East Africa.
When there is a sudden shortage the price goes up and keeps on going up until enough would-be buyers are squeezed out and give up trying to buy – look at the apparently insane housing market in south-east England.
The cost of importing food (and gas) has gone up massively as a Result of Putin’s war so we are poorer thanks to Putin. Splitting hairs does not change that.