Inflation

[clogs]

I left Blighty for good 25 years ago.........
had a good bus employing 5 people.......
The increase in taxes, the nastyness of the VAT man, building rates, printing, phone etc as well as the accountants screwing you...
I just quit, realising I was working for everyone else during the week and what I earned on Friday was mine.....
earnt more working out of a Transit van on my own FOR LESS HOURS....

All the self employed engineers, joiners and general building trades I knew just quit within a 5 year period.....
most going to Spain etc and doing a few private jobs for extra money.....
In South Manchester, we had a close knit community where u could get anything done by someone recomended....

The scheme Iso 2002 or whatever it was, was the last nail for the small engineer......it just cost so much to upgrade /new machines...bigger premises to house it all.......
now I wonder why u can get one -off's or small batches made anymore.....?

Only the `chinese have the money to kit out and make everything......but are they now in a down turn......?

prob one of the best jobs with increasing numbers would be to making prayer mats but they wont buy from a Brit anyway.....

biggest prob was the gentry wouldn't really allow the working self employed to become better off....aways finding some way to screw u down....

"we're all doomed".....*pvt Frazer, Dads Army*....

even now I dont want a special favour/price for work.......I just want a local guy doing it.......

 

[Spectric]

That is basically the best careers advice you can give someone, get qualified and a trade then emigrate where you will be valued and not seen as just something to be taxed in every position possible. This is like when IR35 came in, we lost a lot of good skilled engineers and the same is happening across the UK now because we are not appreciating the remaining skills base which is slowly but surely getting watered down and everything seems to be focused on monetary gain, once all the boomers have left the workplace then we will be in a real mess but when we finally all depart then there will be a surplus of housing. Maybe 3D printing will solve the issue with your windows one day and they just get printed and you drop in the sealed units and don't forget AI is going to replace many jobs so perhaps the future is leisure.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

We (collectively) are responsible for the decline in UK manufacturing industries. Buying decisions are based largely upon price. Prices are driven by the much lower cost base overseas.

Over the last 60 years this has been repeated with Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and now China. Initially cheap, low quality and fake. Within a decade or so quality (and prices) improve to Western/European levels.

Their cost levels increase as they pay higher wages and build infrastructure. They start to lose out to the next low cost competitor - which may currently be India or Indonesia or ......

Inflation does not uniformly affect all products and services. Overseas competition, technological change, and more recently conflict, impact. Were the costs of computing and communications measured on a cost per gigabyte or processing unit one would note a massive deflation.

Most economic activity in the UK is service industry. Reliance on imports for critical supplies (eg: energy and food) bothers me. Where several overseas sources exist this is less of a concern.

Over the long term many things become relatively cheaper and consume a smaller proportion of income - eg: food, electronics. Other become more expensive.

Artificial intelligence may be the end game of a process which started running at the start of the industrial revolution.

Simple economics of supply and demand means that if material goods require little effort to produce, they will have a low value. Conversely services and "craft" industries which will (certainly for a while) require people will increase in cost - they are relatively scarce.

Were I looking for a career today electrician would likely be a better bet than accountant. and

 

[XTiffy]

Clogs,I am afraid it was always thus! When I left school in 1962 my father a carpenter/joiner causioned me against woodworking as a career. He worked very long hours and as he didn't drive carried his tools all over London by public transport. I joined the navy for a five year electronic apprenticeship and when qualified earned a lot more than he ever did. Then when I left the navy at the age of 30 I went into woodworking! (stupid boy!)
I have heard clogs tale so many times over the decades, which was way before Brexit. The fact unfortunately is that academia is put above engineering. The vast majority of civil servants have no background in what loosely might be called manual jobs ie. making things. Politicians are from the same group, so many lawyers in all of the political parties. The end result is that they continually add to the burden of work with additional rules and regulations. Shape of bananas anybody? As I oversee the new house build, thankfully it will be the last. The undoubted aim (in my view) of councils is to obstruct building new houses in anyway they can. The latest is the requirement to photograph any element of the construction that is energy related. This is to be for all houses individually, so can you imagine the 100-200 house estates that are springing up around here (and of course all round the country). So that is another non-job for a photographer to go around these estates and record these details at each stage for each house. Now who the hell is going to check them? Must be another opening at the council to do that?

 

[Jameshow]

The problem with wood is that it comes from trees and in the past few years large amounts of them have been on fire both in Europe/Russia and North america. My understanding is that the americans were buying up all the wood as they use it a lot more than we do. Add in the current Russia problem and inflation and it's not surprising your quote for wooden windows has gone up.

My feeling (hence i could be wrong) is that the younger generation (I'm not that old yet tbh although this sounds like it) isn't that interested in making/fixing things. I grew up fixing my cars and taking everything apart i could. I built a kit car at 25 but I've seen a decline in the kitcar community and less and less builders and less and less shows happening.

Having access to loads of cheap things for many years seems to have killed peoples desire to learn to do things themselves, or pay a lot for someone to do it for them. Why pay UK wage prices for a product when Amazon will deliver it tomorrow for 1/4 the price.

It's hard but I'm trying to buy more local and British if I can as I think companies like Amazon are the problem. Everyone used to take their little cut of the money and it went around, now people like Bezos takes almost all of it and destroys everything in his wake.

Not to mention burning wood by the thousands of tonnes at drax!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Now who the hell is going to check them? Must be another opening at the council to do that?

That's an opening for a huge new department.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Not to mention burning wood by the thousands of tonnes at drax!

Drax burns over 7 million tonnes of wood pellets each year  to produce electricity. This requires 14 million tonnes of green wood, because pellets must be dried and compressed before they can be burned as fuel. This exceeds the UK’s total annual wood harvest, which is 11 million tonnes .

 

[powertools]

Pre covid we were paying £13 for 72.

I have say that I am amazed that anybody can tell us how much toilet rolls were pre covid .

 

[Jameshow]

Drax burns over 7 million tonnes of wood pellets each year  to produce electricity. This requires 14 million tonnes of green wood, because pellets must be dried and compressed before they can be burned as fuel. This exceeds the UK’s total annual wood harvest, which is 11 million tonnes .

Should have said millions!

Yet it's counted as green fuel, the Canadians should kick them out!!

 

[pgrbff]

We are on holiday at the moment in Spain, her indoors likes super seedy bread, it’s about 20p cheaper here for a loaf of hovis than at home!
The answer I believe is yes there is a huge amount of profiteering going on, I believe the government have tried to intervene as all the major supermarkets said they would be bringing down prices of staples a month or so ago, I’ll believe it when I see it..
I haven’t looked for the last month or so but there has been a big correction lower in most major commodities so within time we should start to see that filter through, hopefully

You can buy a Hovis loaf in Spain?

 

[ian33a]

Although not true for absolutely everything (global food being an example), desire drives up prices : if consumers chose to not buy because of price, suppliers would need to soften prices to sell and prices would drop.

The problem is that consumerism drives demand and while people have spare cash they reward themselves with purchases and this keeps prices high - hence the Government/Bank of England approach to reduce spending through interest rates.

As an example, if everyone stopped going to premier league football matches on account of gate prices, would gate prices go up or would football teams make more effort to reduce costs and therefore attract supporters?

Global prices wont come down unless all leading nations approach inflation in the same way - which wont happen - but consumers could do more to reduce national pricing - but only if forced.

 

[Keith Cocker]

I know this rising cost of raw materials is often slated for rising costs but very recently Neslee said they had to put up prices due to rising raw material costs, then posted a 20% rise in profits. I believe this trend is true across the building industry. Energy and fuel companies have all posted record profits, when people are using their cars less, turning down heating etc.

I believe you are right. There is “Scamflation” across the board. Especially with larger companies. The events of recent years have given them cover for boosting profits. That’s unregulated free market capitalism for you!!!!

 

[stuart little]

I wonder how many other companies are riding on the back of "inflation" to increase profits. As an example, my normal Co-op pricing for everyday items has increased beyond all bounds of credibility e.g.
Yoghurt x 4 was £1.50 now £2.75 83%
Heinz soup £0.75 now £1.95 160%
Toilet roll x 9 £4.50 now £8.35 86%

Am I a cynic or is someone profiteering?

Yes, to profiteering!

 

[stuart little]

I left Blighty for good 25 years ago.........
had a good bus employing 5 people.......
The increase in taxes, the nastyness of the VAT man, building rates, printing, phone etc as well as the accountants screwing you...
I just quit, realising I was working for everyone else during the week and what I earned on Friday was mine.....
earnt more working out of a Transit van on my own FOR LESS HOURS....

All the self employed engineers, joiners and general building trades I knew just quit within a 5 year period.....
most going to Spain etc and doing a few private jobs for extra money.....
In South Manchester, we had a close knit community where u could get anything done by someone recomended....

The scheme Iso 2002 or whatever it was, was the last nail for the small engineer......it just cost so much to upgrade /new machines...bigger premises to house it all.......
now I wonder why u can get one -off's or small batches made anymore.....?

Only the `chinese have the money to kit out and make everything......but are they now in a down turn......?

prob one of the best jobs with increasing numbers would be to making prayer mats but they wont buy from a Brit anyway.....

biggest prob was the gentry wouldn't really allow the working self employed to become better off....aways finding some way to screw u down....

"we're all doomed".....*pvt Frazer, Dads Army*....

even now I dont want a special favour/price for work.......I just want a local guy doing it.......

'Don't panic!' .........*Cpl. Jones* ....

 

[Lampost46]

You can buy a Hovis loaf in Spain?

Yes and many other British items in ‘Iceland’ (not the country) and other shops specialising In other countries food. I lived there for 8 years.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are over 90000 Brits living permanently on the Costa Del Sol.

Most went there for the better climate. Some move there for the food and culture.

Others view it as Eastbourne, Skegness, or Bournemouth with sunshine. There are several (often small) businesses exploiting this market + the millions of holiday makers with traditional Brit fare - Typhoo tea, Walls sausages, Cornflakes, Baked beans - the list is endless.

We spend a few months each winter there!