Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic UK Inflation Rate / UK Economics - Buckle up !

Without betting on digital money, you're missing out on one hell of a roller coaster ride. One minute you can be a millionaire, the next minute you're broke. Can't get much more exciting than that!

It's so much fun, the BoE is thinking of creating yet another digital currency (albeit one underpinned by sterling current government thinking). It has another advantage that they can print more money at the push of a button :-)

I see he is getting grief for not attending COP27 - can you provide me with that quote - can't find it anywhere.

What are you suggesting these two things mean? (Digital money and not fracking?)

Cheers
Tom

A quote to what Tom?

If you mean his support for the Green Agenda targets, It was all over Twitter, her account, his account, UK Government account. After they had a phone call.
On the gov.co.uk website too in brief.

He announced that he was 100% behind the Cop targets set out with the EU when he redacted the lift on fracking.

How can he go from saying he totally behind allowing fracking to happen when he was in his election race with Truss, and then supporting fracking as we need to be in conrtol of our own energy, and even saying many are saying there is no risk to earthquakes in the UK and where we frack is tested extensively so really not an issue, to... I am banning fracking and we are going to rely on imported energy again within 2 days of being in number 10?

It is an incredible turn around, that seems to be getting very, very little air time. In fact virtually none compared to him not going on a jolly at Cop 27.

So, while we are in a energy crisis, the fact we have decided not to increase domestic supply gets virtually no news coverage, yet not going to Cop 27 is covered by just about everyone?

I wasn't actually commenting as such, just a run down of what he is doing. But I have now.

I guess I was commenting on the talk of digital currency already as interesting.
I think we will see a slow drip feed of info on it, praising the virtues of it, slowly over the next year or so until it seems normal and then bang.

Who do you follow for news?

I suggest you follow as many on twitter as possible, far less censored than our TV, which is just getting absolutely ridiculous.

Hi Guy

In your post you wrote that Sunak said " we are 100% aligned with Ursula Von Der Leyen with the Green Agenda"

Is this the UKGOV press release?

PM Call With EU President If it is, it's pretty different.

I read and listen to the news, watch TV news, read a mixture of newspapers and take most of what is said as being 90% accurate. I'm cynical enough to know that rich people that own the right wing press have an conflict in interest when it comes to providing impartial news/ Likewise I can see that left wing papers also have an agenda and that it is rare that you get truly unbiased and balanced news.

f I see something that I think is far fetched or contradicts things beyond my tolerance and I can be bothered, I'll research it in more detail using the internet and search engines or if I'm able to speak to specialists e.g. economists that I work with.

Do you think Boris will go to Cop27?

Cheers
Tom

It was more their tweets where they were gushing over their alignment with each other.

Cool.

I presumed you didn't just listen to BBC.

I wasn't very clear, what I meant when I said "I suggest you follow as many on Twitter.." ... is Twitter tends to to be interesting as you get to hear what many really think, lots of spur of the moment comments, many of which are soon deleted shortly after when the tweeter realises that may come back to bite. Haha
But what people say first is more often than not, what they truly believe.

I don't think there is much in it these days between left and right, not with those in politics anyway. We are led to think there is. but not really.
I don't actually think there is that much difference between the people either, maybe a few extremists at each end, but they all tend to grow up in the end.

I have no idea, has that been mentioned over the last couple of days then?

Who knows? It was all a bit weird when Bozo headed back from his hols, all ready to fight the fight for Number 10 again, and then within hours he was stepping back and showing support for Rishi.

Nothing would surprise me any more.

So true Guy!

So, how is Rishi doing so far?

He hasn't had to line up the removal vans yet, so that's a promising start!

I think a lot will hinge on the budget, take 2.

I think it is great that, even though many of us are going to struggle to keep our businesses going forward, pay for heating, afford the new mortgage rates, put food on the table, that we are now going to pay out other countries again for historic events linked to climate change.

Who saw that coming!?

I did say the monetising push of the green agenda would be in full flight once they realised the people had got bored of Covid and the war.

Oh, and the Universal Basic Income conspiracy...

EXCLUSIVE: Rishi Sunak urged to examine universal basic income to protect Brits from future crises

Had a rather interesting discussion with lots of retailers yesterday, the situation is looking very, very bleak for many.

Mortgage rates for many of us are based on a tracker, around 3.5-4.5% above Libor rate.

Most have seen an increase of around £10,000-15,000 so far, and a few considerably more, lots of the southern retailers are seeing 30,000 increase.

Energy is a big worry. Quotes are getting stupid, some are being quoted close to £2 a unit!!! These same people were paying around 10-12p 12 months ago.

People don't know what to do. Many don't want to commit to next season so have decided to have their January sale and close the doors. These are ... were ... good businesses.

We have jumped from £8100 interest pa to £17976.

Energy up from £4000 to £12000 when we come off our deal.

Oh, and another thing, business in retail has dropped off a cliff this week. Everyone is saying the same.


I spoke to a few car dealers this morning, suddenly died last two weeks. Bubble has burst.

One has been slowly reducing prices on some of the most sought after cars, the ones that everyone was desperate for, the ones with 18-24 month new wait times, he said they have reduced some of those by 25% now and still no bites.
He said the worst is that the 4 and 5 year old cars that before Covid would retail for 30-50% of new list, that have been selling for 70-80% of new list are falling back to where they should be and bloody fast. He said there are going to be a hell of a lot of dealers getting their fingers seriously burnt.

I offered £33k on a 997.2 Porsche 911 with 64k miles on it 3 weeks ago, and he laughed at me. He said it was a £40-45k car all day long and wanted £38k absolute minimum.
Well, it is now on the forecourt at £33995 and I can get it for is £33k, and now think that is too much. It has sat there for 2 weeks.

Also my autotrader I have had 2 or 3 pages of cars saved over the last 3 months and every day 6 or so cars get sold, with none of them on there for more than 2-3 weeks.
The last week, not one car has sold, they are all still on there.

A 991 911 that was £54.950, which is the oldest on there, 5 weeks or so, is now at £46,948 (god knows why 948? ).
At £54950 it was too expensive imho, and in others eyes it seems too, but I would have been interested at sub £50k. Not now.

A private sale 997 at £28k now down at £23950. Seems like a massive price reduction, which tells me not a single call or all calls of offers in low 20's.

I was offered £29k on a 2016 Macan in August from WeBuyAnyCar, and £31k from Porsche Norwich.
WBAC had that at £26k two weeks back and now at £22800 today.

For now I am sticking with my older, paid for cars, that owe me nothing. I'm sure many will be doing the same, it may happen over the next 12 months or so as it hits home personally, but I'm sure it will happen.

Now I understand that this is first world problems and all that, but the reality for many is they are talking about simply not being able to afford any car, or needing to get out of their financed car that was 40% overvalued and they are now stuck.
We are a debt nation (world even) and many are going to struggle with their debt going forward.

We really, really need to start listening to all the retailers and those in hospitality, because every single economic crisis that has been before has always been forewarned by these sectors, we see it first, and it is always ignored.

I'm in the extremely fortunate position that I have enough money sat there to buy my commercial property outright avoiding the huge monthly increases, and I have been able to pay off my mortgage into an offset savings account, left £30k short as they still take monthlies and want access to the money if needed. But many, many more out there are not in this position and are seriously, seriously worried how long they can hang on for.

We need to start talking about how we can make life easier for people here, in the UK, not how we are all going to suffer for 'the greater good' for some event that might happen in 50-100 years. People need to feel secure, and now.

I think it will all be OK, but we mustn't wait till it is too late for many as we usually do, we need to start acting now.

Interesting thoughts, as ever. The car prices are remarkable...
What would you suggest?

Well, we are rushing far too fast towards Net Zero in the west, and seem happy to have all the pollution in China etc. so we can say we are carbon neutral.
But offshoring it means we loose control of it too.

When I say here in the UK, I mean from a UK perspective, each country needs to do what is best for them at the moment.

I think the problem with the UK is we tend to play by the rules so much more, Italy, France etc. say they will and do whatever, if we did more than that great, but it seems like many in charge here are appeasers, almost like they are apologising for where the UK was in years gone by.
You don't see Germany doing that too much, and they have as much reason to as anyone. But good on them.

The whole Green Agenda is so messed up it is unreal.
Even Deloitte, who were in charge of looking at the consequences of our climate targets, have said that millions of people in the west will die to achieve these targets to try and save people in 100 years. And they have admitted they are not sure they are even at risk yet as all modelling is worst case scenario and doesn't take into account advances in technology that will give us cleaner lives over the next 100 years.


I'm all for a less polluted world, but crap like cutting down 1000s of hectares of forests to put in solar is absolutely nonsensical to the point it can only be money making corruption.


We need to seriously start discussing how money works, I mean from the top up, who controls it, what that control gives and how it effects us all. Too many decisions are made based on keeping those who control the money happy and not for the good of the people around the world. I know it has always been this way, but it is getting beyond ridiculous now.

We can't keep having the same few people/corporations funding all the major things in our lives, from governments, to banks, to medical, to media etc.
Because it controls the narrative too much.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Well, it takes a strong man to it, and we don't seem to have many of those anymore. We are all too selfish.

We are all the same, if it is paying your lifestyle, well, you keep it happy. But right now, it has shifted, and it is paying a certain segment of society and really is screwing over many others, mainly those at the bottom, but the bottom is getting bigger and bigger.



I just wish we could all stop talking Labour vs Tory, Dems vs GOP, and start talking about a fairer, kinder society. The hate out there is unreal currently for anyone who thinks we will achieve the goals we would all like to see differently to someone else.
But you can't even discuss that anymore, if you say you want to achieve something, even if that is a good something, a fairer something, or if you say you want to look after a certain group (doesn't matter who) 'the other side' start calling you evil. Not because what you want is evil, but because you wanted it.



I think the last 2 weeks or so show us which direction the UK is heading, and it is one of playing the globalists long game. Not just the UK, many others too, but it won't be good.

That's fine, but what would you actually DO? What active steps would you take if you were in No 10? Raise taxes or lower taxes? Raise spending or lower spending? Windfall tax on the profits of energy companies? Nationalise areas of the economy?

I think it's fairly easy to say what's wrong with a given situation (we're all armchair experts) but not quite as easy to come up with realistic improvements that haven't already been thought of / tried / dismissed.