Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

Of course a year later inflation peaked at 27%. Inflation is a thief and no-one gains. People become poorer and jobs disappear. It is hardest on the poorest. You say about benefitting from low inflation this century, though it's more like post-financial crash so really 13 years. But it was this mirage of low inflation that made people forget the lessons of the '70s. In reality after the crash we should have had deflation and they quite rightly reflated the economy to stop that but they've kept on doing it. Now we have a supply side issue with too much money chasing too few goods.

 

Are governments capable of running public transport? North of the border definitely NOT. The lot in power could not run a bath if the tried. CalMac ferries, Scotrail just for starters.

 

But as I said 12 months later it peaked at 27%.

 

There has been a constant fight over Keynsian Policy and Monetarism for nearly 60 years, except 60 years ago the latter was disparagingly called 'laissez-faire' theory. Then the whole Treasury team resigned over the cabinet ministers being unwilling to accept cuts to their budgets which meant money was printed to make up the difference. The farcical prime minister Harold M referred to it at as a 'little local difficulty' which was overcome by bringing in his own man to toe the Keynsian line. The outcome was the next 20 years of stagflation as Keynsian Consensus held sway. It was only in 1979 that the bullet was bitten by Chancellor Howe that inflation began to be tamed, but at what a price. It could have been so easy in 1957/8.
Will the ECB be willing to limit spending. I don't think they are tough enough.
The UK should be in better shape but it does put a lot of focus on Brown's decision to give the BOE the responsibility for monetary policy. The present governor appears to have swallowed the Keynsian dream, and let rip with spending.

 

Aren't we lucky not to have a constitution in the UK? That the great US of A swears to and preserves a constitution that in most cases is more than 200 years old is bizarre. It would have been interesting if the American Revolution was a hundred or two hundred years earlier, there'd still be saying it was their constitutional right to kill women who nagged too much (ie Witches).
Bravo to America for having rules adopted by a bunch of outlaws and for still wanting to live that way.

 

Perhaps we should blame Samuel Colt for inventing a gun that was first used to systematically eradicate Native Americans- and then one another.
Sadly though, we Brits didn't grow up with guns but did nothing to stop them flooding into the country. We then waited fifty years or so to introduce a law with penalties of 10 and 5 years for carrying guns and knives respectively. How often has it been enforced? Never!
It highlights the 'laissez faire' weakness of modern UK governments, coupled with their overindulgence of minority groups to the detriment of the majority will of the people. We have become the ultimate antithesis of communism- where anything goes!
Discipline, respect, and tradition are old hat. Greed is paramount. If we haven't got it, the government must pay for it.
I reserve my right to protest and to run over anybody who glues himself to the road and stops me getting to the golf club.
As my sister,Carol, said before she tragically died..."Is this what my father spent years and died in a stinking Jap prisoner of war camp for?"

 

You have pretty much summed it up. The problem has been created by the central banks just printing too much money. The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are all to blame. The Great Unwashed blame politicians for the inflation when those really responsible are the economic technocrats who have billions of debts, mostly in government bonds, that are losing all of us money as the global bond market has been totally trashed.

As Milton Friedman said inflation is caused “by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output”. Two years of Covid largesse by this unconservative Chancellor is leading us towards stagflation and recession. I did read the other day one commentator referred to the present situation as a return to the 1970s but without the good music.

Two years of paying people to stay at home has created a culture of entitlement and the public sector (which creates no wealth) employs more people than the private sector (which creates wealth and tax revenues to fund the public sector). Too many people like the Magic Money Tree solution and Socialist Sunak has effectively implemented Corbynism.

 

I am not sure that the SNP are capable of running anything.

They nationalised ScotRail (cost £4m) this year and then offered half price ScotRail tickets to get people back on the trains. Now they have axed 700 ScotRail services because of disputes with the rail unions.

They ordered two new CalMac ferries for Arran and the Hebrides in 2015. The building of the ferries was 4 years overdue and more than double cost when shipbuilders Ferguson Marine went bankrupt. So they nationalised Ferguson Marine in 2019 and accounts show Ferguson Marine has lost £100m since nationalisation.

This is not “progressive” politics, it is fiscal stupidity.

 

You correctly recall that I am no fan of Quantitative Easing (QE), an experiment that was tried in Japan in the 1980s and failed horrendously so for some reason Western economists decided to try it again.

The ECB is still stuck in the QE cycle because most of the Eurozone is on the verge of recession, including the Germans who used to service most of the debt. They are trapped as putting up interest rates immediately impacts the wealth creators and risks bursting the asset bubbles that make people think they are better off than is actually the case.

 

I hope that I am right that you are being intentionally sarcastic.

It is questionable whether it is right to refer to them as a bunch of outlaws. Strictly speaking the definition of an outlaw is one who has been cast outside the protection of the law, while I suspect that you mean somebody that is a fugitive from the law.

In America they still do kill women who nag too much but it is so commonplace that it barely gets reported. Every year more children are killed by firearms than are killed in traffic accidents but America is run by powerful lobby groups like the NRA so change is very slow or non existent.

 

I suppose the term outlaws may be questioned but the so called war of Independence established the self-interests of the white elite, allowed the planters to renege on huge financing debts they contracted in Britain, gave them the freedom to extend black slavery and disregard the in-place treaties with North American Indians ( with accompanying loss of life and land for the NAI) and allowed them to make fortunes from this expropriated continent. This war is often sold to us as the plucky Colonists beating off the cruel, greedy Colonial Power, who anyway was run by a mad King and weak ministers.
The ironic thing is that the key battle, Yorktown, was won by the 'American' army staffed by mainly French Regulars. France thought it had much to gain yet as the victor of this war was within 35 years in total disarray, as opposed to the defeated nation.

Anyway good to have you back QM. Making good points as ever.

 

Printing Money is the term , although they don’t actually print it , just create it via govt bonds . All adds up to devalue of currency, the small savers ( plebs ) lose out , while brokers etc take their percentages and the same **** is repeated ad finitum , at least a mugger looks you in the eye !

 

Professor Higgins at the University of Sydney was giving a lecture on "Involuntary Muscle Contraction" to the first year medical students.
This was not an exciting subject and the professor decided to lighten up the mood.
He pointed to a young woman in the front row and asked :
'Do you know what your arsehole is doing while you are having an orgasm ?'
She replied "Probably golfing with his mates'