Do they think we are stupid?

 30 years OK I lived in Japan for a year.  At the time I found it a very expensive place.  Roughly 3x as expensive as the UK.  My crude measure of the cost of living was a carrier bag of food shopping cost me £40 at the time whereas the UK was between £10 and £15 for a carrier bag of food. 30 years on,  I returned to Japan for a holiday. I was aware prices hadnt really changed much in 30 years but I was surprised how cheap it was compared to the UK - at least to eat out.  I would say prices were about 30% of London prices.  Sure housing is still expensive there - maybe 20% cheaper than London but certainly as a tourist it was cheap.  Pretty easy to get lunch in a restaurant/bar with a beer for about £6.  The most expensive meal in a moderately high end restaurant for 2 people, with drinks, was £75.  A cheap lunch in the UK for 2 people without alcohol can getting close to £35 nowadays. So I'm aware that Japan has had pretty much zero inf...

For nearly 100 years Britain had it's own American dream.  If you worked hard and did the right thing, Britain would be a country where you would be rewarded with success. Success being a good job, a decent home and the chance to raise a family. In a nutshell - "a secure future". Yet today the social contract is broken. For the young, there's little prospect of owning your own home even if you have a good well paid job.  It's a real prospect that you will have to live with your parents until you are in your thirties or even older.  If you are fortunate then the bank of mum and dad may be able to help you get your foot on the property ladder. If you work hard you are taxed substantially whilst those on benefits often have a better standard of living than those who are working.  For many playing by the rules means "surviving" not "living". This unfairness breeds resentment. Raising a family for those who plan ahead and think about the economics o...

Going into the spending review Rachel has been talking up the economy after realising that she had been talking it down for so long that people were starting to believe things were that bad. On Thursday  5th June she said: "The most recent GDP (gross domestic product) numbers, 0.7% growth in the first quarter, the strongest in the G7, and recent business surveys ... are very positive," ... "That is good news and does show we are beginning to turn the corner." As a result she felt she could U-turn on the politically unpopular winter fuel payments. Her comments relate to the first quarter ie Jan - March.  It therefore ignores the introduction of increased employer national insurance contributions and the inflation busting increase to the minimim wage in April. The Government borrowed more in April than expected.  She borrowed £20.2 Billion  (2x Rachel sized black holes) which was £1Billion more than March. April tax receipts were up because of the  National Insura...

 Great Yarmouth council plans to re-introduce selective licensing to "improve" the standards of private rental housing. However in 2022 Great Yarmouth council was issued with an improvement order for it's own housing being unsafe and sub-standard. The Regulator of Social Housing concluded that Great Yarmouth Borough Council has breached the Home Standard and, as a result, there was potential for serious detriment to tenants. GYBC council failed to meet statutory requirements for fire, gas, electrical, asbestos and water safety. If they were a private landlord they would have gone to prison for this but no-one from the council was prosecuted. Brent Council has just embarked on a door-to-door inspection of housing to find "criminal landlords".  The irony is that pretty much on the same day the Regulator of Social Housing has issued a damning judgement against the London Borough of Brent, highlighting huge deficiencies in the council’s ability to meet essential saf...

As the Renter Reform Bill edges towards law, the effect of the changes are already having an effect on tenants and driving up rents .  Landlords have had enough and are leaving the sector in droves. 25% of private landlords sold at least one property in 2024 and 2025 forecasts are that 40% of private landlords are expected to sell at least 1 property in 2025 (I already have).  This is resulting in massive drop in supply of available rental properties.  Although Labour is promising a massive increase in social house building with 1.5M homes, after 1 year they have built 59,680 houses. The 1.5M million homes is looking like unicorn dreams in this parliamentary term. In December 2024, there were 4.2million tenant deposits registered by 1.28 million landlords (down from 5.1million in 2021 - the conservatives have been doing their bit to kill-off landlords). So if 40% of landlords sell off 1 property in 2025 that means there will be 512,000 less rental properties. So much...

 The renter Reform Bill isn't even law and it is already  penalising tenants. This story caught my eye https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/cost-living/single-mother-landed-with-rent-increase-calls-for-rent-controls/ Basically a woman in Darlington is demanding rent controls because her landlord increased her rent by 20%. Ok that's a headline. However this biased anti landlord story has another angle. If you read the article her rent increased by £100 per month which equated to 20% So that means her rent before the increase was £500. It says she is a mother so she is renting at least a 2 bedroom house. A quick search on Rightmove shows that the absolute cheapest rent for a 2 bed house in Darlington  is nearly £600. So the landlord has increased her to rent to the absolute lowest market rent.  She may well have a 3 bed hous in which case she has a bargain basement rent  but is complaining about it. The article says she cannot move because the rents are so high - so in...

 Empires rise and fall.   Is it now time for the American empire to come to an end?  Is this Trump's plan or is he unwittingly steering the country into it's demise? Picking a fight with the Chinese is likely to cause pain. At the end of the day the USA has more to lose than China does. Since Trump's Liberation Day and the introduction of tarriffs, shipping bookings from China to the USA are 45% down.  These goods were wanted so presumably this is going to lead to empty shelves somewhere in America, and no domestic producers to take the product places. The pandemic taught us that global supply chains are complex and there can be shortages of unexpected items.  For example plumbing components in the UK became scarce. 40% of all imports into the USA are materials or components for products which will be finished in the USA.  That means these Chinese products will become more expensive with tariffs or potential cease to be available as China decides it's ...