Our favourite autoeconomist:
Inflation in the UK has fallen below 5%.
I am not surprised. I always said it would. Supply chain disruptions after Covid were, inevitably, resolved. The disruption from the war in Ukraine proved to be the result of stupidity in the commodity markets, and prices returned to pre-war levels, as I expected. And so inflation was always going to go away.
Inflation always works like that. After a period of inflation – most of which periods are of very short duration – things go back to normal.
Always, eh? Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, they show that.
And now Rishi Sunak is claiming credit.
He should not be. This was a phenomenon that was largely beyond his control.
Barring one thing, that is. He could have made the impact of inflation much less than it was if only he had told the Bank of England to do nothing to tackle it.
Hmm
Now, me? I’m going to put a little faith in this money supply size theory thing about inflation. On the grounds that it probably is about right, d’ye see?
M1 being the thing that the central banks larlgey controls and which QT reduces, M4 being the wider thing not directly controlled but heavily influenced by interest rates. But, you know, maybe that’s just me and the entire economics profession there. What’s what when cofronted with Spud?
And now Rishi Sunak is claiming credit.
Is Ritchie so far gone he thinks people are going to be grateful to Rishi Sunak?
Rishi Sunak would lose an election to colonic polyps. Anal carcinomas also have higher personal approval ratings.
“I woke up this morning and it was sunny. Just as I correctly predicted last night. I went downstairs and, as I correctly predicted to one of my two friends last week, the milkman had forgotten that I’d ordered blue top and not green. This is a stark reminder that capitalism is a one way ticket to hell in a handbasket – milk deliveries need more government involvement to avoid unfettered selfish private interests, as I predicted last month.
Seems like every election is between people or groups where you’d happily see both of them lose, Trump v Biden rerun isn’t what most people want and can’t imagine many people want Starmer to win, they just expect it’s a consequence of Sunak losing
Why can’t we be a normal country, like Israel, or Pakistan, or India?
They have their own problems, but nobody thinks the Pakistani government is anti-Pakistani, do they?
Normal countries have no lack of will in policing their borders or expelling unwanted migrants. Their governments seem to broadly govern in accordance with some sort of popular democratic mandate – hotly debated (and rightly so) as that may be.
We get plastic straw bans and other bizarre crazy madness nobody voted for.
I want England to be more like Pakistan, but not in the Bradford way.
Does that make me racist? Who can tell these days.
Pakistan is kicking out 1 million + Afghan asylum seekers, many of them been there for years, and all co religionists.
Failure to integrate, apparently.
No one marching in London about this blatant racism / tribalism.
Ah, the all-seeing eye of the potato!
I predict he’ll be wrong again tomorrow.
@ Steve
“They have their own problems, but nobody thinks the Pakistani government is anti-Pakistani, do they?”
I could make the argument they hate the rapey ones who come to the UK as they don’t seem too keen to have them back.
He spent most of 2021 telling us inflation wouldn’t be a problem. When over the summer the outgoing BofE chairman warned that inflation would be 4% at Christmas, Spud opined it meant he didn’t know what he was talking about. It was 4% at Christmas.
If history “proves” inflation is always temporary he obviously doesn’t think 1970-1983 is part if history.
I’ve heard it said that a good economist can always explain why their predictions were wrong. Spud goes one better and simply rewrites his predictions.
It’s all going to be so much better once they get rid of silly things like cash and the money in our bank accounts and transition us to digital money.
Inflation will be less of an issue when you can’t spent any of your CBDC because you’ve refused to take the latest medical treatment, have been caught driving more than five miles from your home, or have been tracked and identified commenting on seditious blogs by Portugal-based economics writers (which tracking will be so much easier once they remove the possibility on online anonymity, a kite currently being enthusiastically flown across the west).
But these are minor matters compared to what a retired accountant says.
Call me slow but it has only just struck me why banks and the like are so keen on virtual money. On every transaction they get at least one bite of the cherry, more probably two, whereas with cash they are entirely out of the loop.
which tracking will be so much easier once they remove the possibility on online anonymity
My real name is Fuckles McCuntshagger.
I struggle to see how this suggested internet tracking thing works (in practice), even if a government succeeded in the absurdity of mandated on-line ID?
If attempted, VPNs suddenly become as common as https (which might be counter -productive given how much successful work goes into tracking in the current environment?). The only realistic defence against cross-border VPNs would presumably be some “national” firewall (China style). Which then destroys the internet completely (for a small country of our size) – I can’t see how it’s possible for any single western country to do that. And presumably even more difficult for the UK given its physical hub/transit position between Europe and the US? And once you’re coordinating across groups of countries, then that will have its own failings.
Perhaps an IT chap might explain how it could successfully work in practice?
PF
I think the practical objections are obvious but as Interested, a veteran of these parts points out it’s not going to be for want of trying on the part of the powers that be. Regarding practical application – the entire history of the UK since 1997 is of totally impractical things being put into practise! Inefficiency and impracticality are the hallmarks of every public sector activity in the country!
The CBDC establishment is definitely on the agenda – the BiS (bank of international settlements) is pushing it hard and they have the usual connections to Davos, Bilderberg, WEF and so on. I;m not sure hoping it collapses in ignominy is the same as making sure it doesn’t – and there’s ample proof they want you to be unable to travel. That’s the entire purpose of Net Zero!!
I do feel that Murphy, as the most evil person extant in Britain does deserve the exposure he gets here but there are other threats out there for sure.
Perhaps an IT chap might explain how it could successfully work in practice?
It’ll work on retards, and that’s all that matters.
Even the Chinese authorities know they can’t actually police the internet, only the unwary.
But – Nota Benny – it’s not the government you need to worry about.
Big Tech is extremely politically partisan all by its lonesome.
PayPal, Microsoft, Google, Cloudflare and a whole host (heh) of T1 providers have all gotten into the cancellation game. If you’re even remotely “right wing” and find yourself building an audience, you do not have the same rights to use the internet that left wingers, trannies and other special classes do.
You will be de-banked, de-hosted and de-monetised, even if your content is perfectly legal. Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, etc. have no interest in permitting freedom of speech on the Internet. We should put lions on their private jets.
Steve,
It’ll work on retards, and that’s all that matters.
Even the Chinese authorities know they can’t actually police the internet, only the unwary.
Yes, agreed. But then it’s already the case that tracking takes place (or easily can) if one is not specifically defending against it. Which then suggests (to me at least) that there is a “for the cameras” element to some of these proposals?
VP
Indeed, I get the Net Zero angle wrt currency, that’s a whole new battle…
PF – your internet traffic is routinely being spied on, yes.
Five Eyes permits them to do this “legally” by, for example, outsourcing spying on private British citizens to the American letter agencies and vice versa.
But at that level, nobody gives a fuck about your opinions on immigration, Net Zero or LEZzies. The Safety bill and other measures are aimed at bringing a much bigger criminalisable audience of people within striking distance of, for example, your local council or whichever rainbow flag lanyard comedy police force blights your region.
However, they already control the Internet well enough. There won’t be any more Donald Trumps or Brexit campaigns allowed to slip through the censorship we already have in place today. Most righties on the net seem oblivious to the extent they are already kettled, rate limited and shadowbanned.
I’m not a tech bloke at all, I’m a bare hands sort of chap.
That disclaimer out of the way, computing power is growing ever greater and quicker and AI is (AIUI) going to make this sort of thing easier.
Probably not perfect, but if you can only buy stuff using digital currency, and to spend digital currency you have to be identified in the same way as you have to be to eg open a bank account, and your devices registered and so on…
If they can find a way around the US Constitution, and they have been finding plenty, then it’s not much of a stretch to say they’ll insist on your identity and devices being registered to use Twitter and Facebook and comment on blogs etc, and once the US falls we’re all pretty much fucked.
Seems to me whatever they manage to introduce it’s going to be good enough to defeat most of us, leaving the authorities a lot more free time to focus on the recalcitrant few – whom will be dealt with only occasionally pour encourager les autres – look at the Silk Road chap, or the bloke currently in jail for spreading anti Hillary memes FFS, or the poor cunts in jail for a decade for being invited into the Capitol by the cops.
Yes, sure, VPNs. But ‘only terrorists and traitors use them’ so 20 years in jail for their use, and the arrest of anyone anywhere in the world setting up or profiting from VPNs, should go a long way to ending that. Always assuming they can’t actually see through the veil, which I strongly assume they can.
Nikki Haley has recently ‘walked back’ her calls for the end of internet privacy, but this is an alleged Republican hoping to become the alleged President, and these people play a very long game.
They just need a few big crises and low information dickheads will be begging for the end of anonymity.
Who knows, it might never happen. But when they’re saying this is what they plan to do, and you look at who they are, how much of your assets are you prepared to wager?