Yes of course raising wages is only a short term fix because if everyone’s wages rise then all the goods and services rise as one is connected to the other.
The free market relies on no obstructions to supply chains. It’s a time for close cooperation with our neighbours and allies around the world. Unfortunately, running the country we have an army of still wet behind the ears, management consultants who are only interested on the least amount of input to earn their inflated salaries and move on to the next assignment.
It’s also impossible for ordinary people to relate to this message when they see palm-greasing and corruption in the sum of £m’s at the centre. As well as good trading relationships, the country needs a climate of innovation and talent nurturing. But also heaps of simple common sense and not allowing government funding to dribble out in pointless initiatives agreed by anonymous committees.
It’s unbelievable that despite decades knowing that our nuclear capacity will be much reduced in the 2020’s very little enthusiasm has been evident about new investment in infrastructure. Only now when we are in an energy crisis are we finally innovating smaller sized reactors etc. At least we are not being a silly as Germany where they just closed their last reactor for environmental reasons, when they have France on the border relying on their many reactors…
That’s because if banks go bankrupt it affects everything in our society. When that icelandic bank went down in the noughties it was discovered that many local authorities were in dire straits due to investments held at this bank. Due to the complexity of the movement of money, private financial institutions have a big impact on the ordinary individual if they go bust. Pension funds would have a big hit. Companies we rely on for basic services will have loans, deposits, cash flow through these banks. Ordinary individuals may have deposits that are suddenly wiped out overnight. But it’s the hidden world of financial instruments that has the biggest impact as we have seen in previous crises. A bank folding anywhere in the world is one of the worst things that can happen. It’s not about self interest for the BoE. They are the banking “policeman”
This is an interesting viewpoint because you are assuming individuals controlling the local economy are altruistic and have no self-interest in their own profit! If locally controlled business was so good, why did we need unions in the first place? Unions have far less power than ever before. There’s only a handful of any magnitude left and we are likely to see their power eroded too.
Most sophisticated economies have offshored manufacturing. That’s what happens in a developed global system (which relies on political stability/peace). Most of our problems and solutions in the last 30 years are down to our relationship with China and China’s relationship with the rest of the world. I did predict that eventually that convenient situation would come back to bite western economies on the tail.
Here’s a list of bank bankruptcies in the US. It’s a rare year that doesn’t have a bank bankruptcy. Even the largest banks in the country have filed for bankruptcy. In the case of the largest banks, the government has bailed them out.
Banks in the US are federally insured so depositors don’t lose their savings. Generally the bank restructures or another bank buys them out.
That’s a very expensive business! I think I read recently that the US is planning to re-establish tougher regulations on banks. Recently it was decided that strict controls introduced in the UK following our last banking crisis should be relaxed…
But in terms of BoE their job is to ensure banks behave themselves so it’s not self interest.
Unfortunately it is unwise to rely on other countries to supply the bulk of your food and most other goods Annie. There will always be unrest in the world and that will impact on your supplies and transport. Some unrest will hurt more than others as we have learned since the Ukraine conflict. This is what you can expect when you go too global.
I don’t think the British race would become extinct if there was no more tea or coffee Annie.
We would probably miss those for a while until we found a replacement, and however did we manage before tea and coffee came to these shores. Plus, if they are correct about climate change, we will soon be able to produce our own.
However, I didn’t say we should cease to trade with other countries all together. But you have to admit, we could produce a helluva lot more than we do now and if people are serious about saving the planet, shouldn’t we be doing this?
There is lots of land that could be used to grow crops that is currently used for growing oil seed Muddy, and lots of trees are being planted to be harvested for bio-fuel.
When people are up against it like they were during WW2 it’s surprising how much food can be grown on allotments and even gardens. Land is not the problem, it’s the fact that you can easily source any food you can dream of from supermarkets. Path of least resistance applies.
OGF we are not up against it like WWII nor should we be. People here like tea and coffee and don’t want shoddy alternatives. Nobody wants to go back to medieval times. You’ve completely forgotten to answer my question about the self interest of local producers. We all know what went on here. Child labour and workhouses. Anyone who has grown their own produce knows how much backbreaking work goes into growing anything that can feed them through the winter. All you need is a bit of poor weather to ruin it. You’re really talking about going back to the caves. We have / had a good system to feed everyone. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Land is exactly the problem. Britain hasn’t been able feed itself for nearly two centuries, there is certainly not enough arable land to feed 67 million people. What on earth do you think all those convoys across the Atlantic were carrying during WWII? It wasn’t all oil and ammunition.
Not yet we’re not Annie. But if our government have their way supplying Ukraine with weapons, planes, missiles and soldiers, with our money, it won’t be long.
Some people enjoy the so called ‘Back breaking work’ instead of being sat on their ar$ses watching box sets and messing about on social media, or fiddling with their smartphones.
As usual, people take what I say to the extreme…
All I’m saying is we could do more to produce our own food and other things instead of shipping it half way around the world. Not very planet friendly is it? And they want us to turn down our thermostats to save energy and stop us from driving into the towns and cities to do our shopping.
In fact, they want us to stop driving altogether. Probably to make room for more lorries on the motorways.
Perhaps if we had not shipped in so much food from other countries our population would not have increased the way it has. And in answer to your question…Why do you think that our family run food produces would be more concerned with ripping us off by self interest?
You said yourself, producing food is hard backbreaking work, don’t you think they should be properly rewarded? The supermarket today pay a pittance to our farmers, and if they object, they just ship goods in from elsewhere.
I went to buy my apples from Tesco last September, and there were apples from South Africa, New Zealand, France and Germany among others. There were no English apples! For heavens sake, it was our season for apples. I run out in the country and pass many orchards with apples rotting on the ground…How is this right?
