Cost of living crisis. What crisis?

[IC1967]

That was unnecessarily spiky.

I prefer the word pugnacious.

In the near future I'm going to start an arbing thread so you can all make a bit of extra free money. There is no need to thank me now. I can wait until you've all made a few quid.

[BillyStubbsTears]

That'll be grand.

Only thing is, how will we know that you're not just pull our legs, like you did to tittersome effect over the National tips?

And will we make money immediately, or will we lose 33% first and have to be in it for the long run, like when we listened to you about buying gold?

[IC1967]

Profits will be immediate and the 'system' can be paper traded until you are confident that you can't lose. I will provide verifiable proof.

[Filo]

Inflation is not going to happen anytime soon.

And only 1 month later we have this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27483957



Boom!


Come on Mick, you've posted in other threads over half an hour after I posted this, how long was 'anytime Soon' after the 16th April?

[IC1967]

As usual I answer everything that is thrown at me unlike some I could mention (you all know who he is).

This rise in the rate is "a blip" due to the timing of Easter.

I continue to think that Consumer Price inflation should ease to as low as 1% by the end of this year.

The bigger picture is the Eurozone. Deflation is headed their way with the IMF predicting a 25% probability of it by the end of this year. This will help drag us towards inevitable deflation by next year.

[Filo]

As usual I answer everything that is thrown at me unlike some I could mention (you all know who he is).

This rise in the rate is "a blip" due to the timing of Easter.

I continue to think that Consumer Price inflation should ease to as low as 1% by the end of this year.

The bigger picture is the Eurozone. Deflation is headed their way with the IMF predicting a 25% probability of it by the end of this year. This will help drag us towards inevitable deflation by next year.

So when you said that Inflation is not going to happen anytime soon, you really meant that Inflation is not going to happen anytime soon apart from the months when it does happen?

Especially when it happens in the month after your very bold statement :-)

[IC1967]

I am a big picture sort of person. I work on larger timescales than you obviously do. If inflation is say 2.5% at the start of the year and is 1% by the end of the year then I don't think you can claim inflation is on the rise and I am wrong when one month was a blip to the overriding downward trend. However, because I am so magnanimous, if it makes you happy, I will agree we have had a very temporary rise in inflation.

[Filo]

I am a big picture sort of person. I work on larger timescales than you obviously do.

In that case why did you champion the unemployment figures the other week, why didn't you wait until the end of the year?

[IC1967]

Those figures were for 3 months not 1 month and were part of a longer term trend of falling unemployment. Unemployment won't be going up anytime soon (unless we get much more immigration than we are currently getting) and I fully expect to be congratulating Dave and George at the end of the year.

[IC1967]

Anyway, back to the alleged cost of living crisis. Mr Milliband showed himself up to be a champagne socialist yesterday who hasn't got a clue about the cost of living for ordinary folk. Yesterday on Good Morning Britain he was asked about how much his family spends on groceries a week. He answered that the budget for him, his wife  and their two children was between £70 and £80! Later in the day he tried to correct the blunder by saying ‘Well, I said this morning  it was on the basic groceries, the basic fruit and vegetables, about £70 or £80 – the total shopping  bill was slightly higher than that, obviously.’

Next Mr Miliband said he was  ‘relatively comfortably off’! He said ‘Sure, lots of people are facing real struggles and I’m relatively comfortably off but what l know is that  there are deep issues that need to be tackled and we’re determined to tackle them.’ Mr Miliband earns £140,000 a year as leader of the opposition and lives in a £2.5million house in one of the most affluent parts of north London. His wife earns around £200,00 a year. Unbelievably he is so out of touch that he thinks he is only 'relatively comfortably off'!

What an out of touch clown.

[BigColSutherland]

How much is a loaf of sliced value bread?

"I don't buy the value sliced loaf, I've got a breadmaker at home which I delight in using and it turns out in all sorts of different ways. But you can buy a loaf in the supermarket for well north of a pound."

(Told the true price - 47p)

"I don't buy the...look I'm trying to get my children to eat the sort of granary - and they take it actually, they like my home made bread. A little plug for the flour made in my constituency - Cotswold Crunch - you get some of that, beautifully milled in the Cotswolds, you pop that in your breadmaker. You set the timer overnight so when you wake up there is this wonderful smell wafting through your kitchen. It takes 30 seconds to put in the ingredients. I'd recommend the Panasonic. There you are, that's a shameless plug. Very easy - even Nick Ferrari could work a Panasonic bread maker."

[River Don]

Miliband's groceries could come in at around the £70-80 mark, if he shops in Aldi at Scawsby.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I doubt he even knows these is an aldi in Scawsby!

[Filo]

I doubt he even knows these is an aldi in Scawsby!

Probably not everyone born and raised in Doncaster knows there's an Aldi in Scawsby, your point is?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

It was in relation to his interview in swindon yesterday. To steal ed's favourite place - out of touch!

[River Don]

I doubt he even knows these is an aldi in Scawsby!

Laughs, actually it is just possible he might, I believe he holds a surgery occasionally in the community hall right across the road.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I wonder if Winston Churchill or Franklin D Roosevelt knew how much the weekly shopping was, or who the mayor of Swindon was?

[BigColSutherland]

I wonder if Winston Churchill or Franklin D Roosevelt knew how much the weekly shopping was, or who the mayor of Swindon was?

They probably didn't, but unfortunately they didn't serve in the 21st century. Modern Britain is besotted with image and celebrity.

[IC1967]

I wonder if Winston Churchill or Franklin D Roosevelt knew how much the weekly shopping was, or who the mayor of Swindon was?

The difference is that they would have admitted they didn't know instead of pretending and hoping to get away with it. Also they never banged on about a cost of living crisis pretending to be in touch with ordinary people.

Regarding the radio interview, Milliband knew he was going to be asked about local issues in Swindon. He was on local radio. He didn't even know who the leader of Labour in Swindon was. He again pretended he did. He guessed that Labour were in charge of the council. He didn't know it was Tory run. Basic schoolboy errors. He made himself look like a right plonker.

So like the cost of living question he again tried to pretend he knew what he was on about. He seems to like to make things up as he goes along. Not the characteristics of someone you want leading the country. I much prefer people like Boris Johnson who when asked if he knew the price of a pint of milk on Newsnight replied 'I don't know what a pint of milk costs - so what?'

Milliband could do with taking a leaf out of his book. It's no surprise Boris is much more popular than Milliband.

[IC1967]

Oh dear. Looks like Labour needs to find something else to bang on about. If there is a cost of living crisis then I'd like to see them explain this one away - 'UK retail sales growth hits a 10 year high in April.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27498468

[River Don]

I wonder if Winston Churchill or Franklin D Roosevelt knew how much the weekly shopping was, or who the mayor of Swindon was?

They wouldn't of course.

But Miliband has been talking about the cost of living so much, it's a bit amateurish for him not to know what his own cost of living is.

I think they are right to talk about a cost of living crisis, I think there are plenty of people who aren't feeling any improvement in their circumstances and figures this week showed inflation is running ahead of wages again.

It was just an unnecessary own goal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's an irrelevance in the big scheme of things. If I identify that there are macroeconomic policies and drivers that are making people at the bottom end worse off, and I plan to implement policies to improve their situation, what REALLY matters is the efficacy of my proposals and my ability to put them into practice.

I fully accept that in the puerile political environment that we have these days, what appears to matter is how someone's face looks when they are eating a bacon sandwich and whether they know the price of a dozen eggs.

It's an environment that was played consummately by Clegg last time round, looking straight down the camera in the debates, remembering questioners' names and generally appearing like an all round lovely guy. The last four years shows what happens when a quarter of the electorate base their decisions on THOSE criteria.

But yes, there's no point bleating about it. That is the world we live in. One with a complete absence of a political leader of any colour who is capable of bringing intellectual rigour, integrity and a personality strong enough to cut through the inane media w**k.

As I say. We get the leaders we deserve.

[DubaiRover]

There is still a long way to go to repair the damage Labour wreaked on the economy. All I'm saying is that now that wages are rising faster than inflation the cost of living crisis is going to become yesterday's news. If Labour carry on banging on about it they are going to make themselves look stupid. They should be looking forwards not always backwards.
The damage Labour wreaked? Investment bankers are Tories, it was them that engineered the crash, but as blue as you are you will never be able to admit it. Lies lies and more lies will never make a recovery.

[IC1967]

The damage Labour wreaked? Investment bankers are Tories, it was them that engineered the crash, but as blue as you are you will never be able to admit it. Lies lies and more lies will never make a recovery.

You've fallen for the myth that Labour propagate that it was all the bankers fault. Have you any idea how much Labour spent when in power? Do you know how much the National Debt increased under Labour? Do you know who was responsible for the pathetic way the banks were regulated? Do you know unemployment started rising under Labour in 2005? I could go on.

Get a grip man and come into the real world.

[River Don]

It's an irrelevance in the big scheme of things. If I identify that there are macroeconomic policies and drivers that are making people at the bottom end worse off, and I plan to implement policies to improve their situation, what REALLY matters is the efficacy of my proposals and my ability to put them into practice.

I fully accept that in the puerile political environment that we have these days, what appears to matter is how someone's face looks when they are eating a bacon sandwich and whether they know the price of a dozen eggs.

It's an environment that was played consummately by Clegg last time round, looking straight down the camera in the debates, remembering questioners' names and generally appearing like an all round lovely guy. The last four years shows what happens when a quarter of the electorate base their decisions on THOSE criteria.

But yes, there's no point bleating about it. That is the world we live in. One with a complete absence of a political leader of any colour who is capable of bringing intellectual rigour, integrity and a personality strong enough to cut through the inane media w**k.

As I say. We get the leaders we deserve.

We have leaders for our times.

[wilts rover]

Oh dear. Looks like Labour needs to find something else to bang on about. If there is a cost of living crisis then I'd like to see them explain this one away - 'UK retail sales growth hits a 10 year high in April.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27498468

It's alright for some:

But averages, as they so often do, disguise a growing divide between winners and losers. Put crudely, public sector workers, bank employees and the self employed are getting a financial slap in the face, while the rest of the Britain's 30 million workforce could well be smiling.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/may/20/pay-rises-private-workforce-public-sector-2014

[IC1967]

You can't call public sector workers worse off than private sector employees. They may currently be getting lower pay rises but they are still better paid on average than the private sector. When you add in all the extra perks like, sick pay, holidays, excellent pensions, job security, hours worked etc they are much better off.

[wilts rover]

Could you provide the evidence for your statement please? All I can find is evidence to the contrary.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2559441/IFS-More-one-million-public-sector-jobs-face-axe.html

[IC1967]

You have not found evidence to the contrary. All you've found is a prediction that more than a million public sector workers face losing their jobs. Bear in mind Labour increased the size of the public sector by 600,000 during their time in office so there is plenty to go at. Despite this, unemployment was higher when Labour left office than when they came into office.

So far the Tories have created more jobs than have been cut from the public sector and this is likely to continue so there is no problem cutting these overpaid inefficient jobs ( I use the term loosely) and getting people where they belong, in the private sector.

[RedJ]

But can you provide evidence to support your claim? and I mean evidence, not just your opinion or a "look," statement.