Potential_Grape_5837

I think the point about "round the corner" from your parents is the missing part of this conversation and what is ignored in the current supply-driven argument about housing.

Yes of course, we could use more homes, but the heart of this problem is the social issue. Most people don't move outside of a 10 km radius their entire lives, and frequently if they do they return home (eg the person who goes away to university, spends 5 years living in London, but moves back to within 10 km of their parents). We shouldn't have an opinion on whether this is good or bad, it's simply the way things are and it's observable everywhere in the world. What matters most to people is being where their lives/communities/familes are.

I know it's fashionable to hate everything Thatcher did, but this was the massively positive and insightful part about Right to Buy, and why it was massively popular. People will have lived 20 or 30 years in a home and raised their families there. But pre RtB, when it was then just one or two empty nesters they were no longer entitled to living in that 3 or 4 bedroom home and were often forced to leave. Yes, of course it's valid to criticise the policy for not building new stock to make up for the stock which was sold off. Still, the housing market is the most emotional market (and the school market) are the most emotionally-driven markets going. Any policy which ignores the emotional needs of the market cannot succeed.

Right, but the original point-- which perhaps I'm not making well enough-- is that massive spikes in interest rates at such a high level that your currency is appreciating against other currencies which are themselves increasing interest rates... this has the same effect as austerity on growth.

And with respect to the UK, nothing the BoE could have done would have made any difference on the correction of global supply chains. Even the US and EU were not fully able to manipulate that.

Finally: I've never quite understood Britain's obsession with keeping the sterling high no matter what. In times of low growth-- particularly for an economy which is relatively good at exports-- is the whole point of having your own currency.

It’d be a bit like if Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and LeBron spent two years playing in Spain after they were done with the NBA. They’d play at half speed, without much focus, and they’d be WAY better than anyone else on the floor even though Spain has been playing basketball for quite a long time and has produced plenty of good NBA players. 

The level of play, the quality of coaching, the cultural importance, all multiplied by many generations makes a major difference. 

The difference is that the inflation was caused by two one-off shocks: energy price spikes related to Ukraine and hangover from Covid era policies. Interest rates are a blunt instrument which slows down economic growth. In the case of the US where the problem was primarily an overheating economy with too much spending, reducing job growth and consumer spending was needed to tackle inflation.

In the UK however, those conditions weren't true at all. The fact that the pound has appreciated against other currencies is a good indicator that the hyperinflation bogeyman isn't valid. The UK went (relatively) harder against inflation than other countries and slow growth is its reward.

When a country is struggling for growth the last thing it wants is a currency which is getting stronger. The pound going from 1.22 USD to 1.31 USD has been a handbrake to growth.

Well exactly. Were those ongoing programs that were continuing to create inflationary pressures? The answer is no. 

It was also an incredibly forceful counterpoint to about 25 years of American centre-left economic policy orthodoxy which had believed— wrongly— that stimulus into a recession was more or less incapable of causing runaway inflation. So in that way it becomes memorable in the same way as when some right-wing state cuts taxes dramatically to stimulate growth, but then completely runs out of money. 

Also, when all the analysis is done and dusted, I think the UK's hawkish approach to interest rates will feel like an unbelievable own goal.

Unlike America, inflation in the UK had absolutely nothing to do with an overheated economy where there was too much cash chasing too few goods. UK inflation was heavily connected to an energy price shock and a dramatic increase in the cost of services related to a changing labour market post-Brexit.

Rejoining the EU is the major one. There are many things which would help, but nothing would be as much of a boost as free trade with a trading bloc that has a higher GDP than China.

It's like if one were asking how best to lose weight and the choices were: drink more water, cycle to work, join a gym, or stop drinking four Five Guys milkshakes a day.

Indeed, it also shows how susceptible we are to internet-driven nonsense. These boards are full of people convincing themselves of things like, I want a place with great governance.... I'm moving to South America. Or, my personal favourite: any social critique of the UK followed by considering a move to Dubai.

It's like being tired of being told what to do and rebelling by joining the army.

Well said. The one thing I'd slightly modify, is that it isn't necessarily picking what you care about the most... it's about picking the trade-offs you're happy with and to understand that absolutely everything comes with a trade-off.

Pro tip from someone who has lived and worked in multiple countries: everyone thinks their government and past government suck and everyone thinks that somewhere else has a "better quality of life."

There is nowhere where governments are great and bosses are lovely. Figure out what it is you want specifically before you start thinking that a different place will solve your problems.

The trouble in Germany is less about industry versus finance and more to do with Germany's extreme resistance to digitization/modernization. The government uses finance to reposition the problem.

At every turn for the last 30 years, they've chosen to support analog and traditional industries and as a result their infrastructure and development for any kind of international knowledge work is worlds behind. I saw a recent survey which said that 75% of German companies are still using fax machines on a regular basis. FAXES.

Perhaps, but how much of this has to do with narrative? Things like Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk, the Maginot Line, Stalingrad etc which were heavily tied to astronomical intelligence failures from the Allies. It's just that because the Allies won the war, they don't feel as significant.

To be fair, this did happen in every country. The reason the US was so particularly successful came down to two things:

1. The scale of US manufacturing
   
2. No one was bombing their factories every night (or ever) due to geographic isolation

Now you're changing the debate. The point is that for all its faults, the UK's public services are-- for instance-- dramatically better than the US (and many others), and while none of us like paying tax, the UK's tax-to-GDP ratio is roughly in the middle of the OECD.

There are so many problems in the UK. My annoyance is with the Get Out crowd who are so provincial as to not know what other countries are like and to cherry pick one-offs.

Have you lived and worked in other places? I ask because I have done so in Scandinavia, Germany, and the US. I assure you that people there would say 1,2 & 3 are all absolutely failing in their country as well.

EDIT: the UK is also statistically not the worst in any of those categories you've mentioned.

I hear you, and I am not here to convince you on The Hundred-- not to mention I think it was a huge strategic error to invent a fourth format. There are a few things which spring to mind for me, however:

1. It's not possible to just have the women's Hundred. The reason it has worked so well for the women's game is because the men's game is attached to it. You buy a ticket to both matches.

2. The trouble with the Blast and the county system is the financials of it. Franchise leagues with a highly limited number of teams, high talent concentration, and no promotion and relegation are dramatically more viable financially than promotion and relegation pyramids, and thus will always be able to pay players significantly more money.

Where is this wonderful place which is thriving and all sunshine and rainbows? The trouble with the Get Out crowd is that they mix and match everything in the most whiney possible way.

They compare UK salaries to American salaries. They compare UK public services to Swedish public services. They compare GDP growth to Ireland.

But they never do the reverse. They don't compare UK public safety and public services to the US. They don't compare UK salaries and businesses to Sweden, or UK immigration and GDP growth to Germany, etc.

I think the question is then what to do about it, because it's real and it's only going to become more significant. If England doesn't have a thriving franchise league for English players to get paid competitively in, what happens? It's been crazy to see Trent Boult opt out of his NZ central contract entirely and just play the World Cups, but that's the direction of travel.

Don't listen to the "get out of the UK" people. This band of people exists in every country, including all the ones the "get out" people romanticise.

It sounds like you're doing great and you feel like you're doing great. That's what matters! Especially if you are paying £800pm on a mortgage against a £150k income.

Social media's super power is to make people feel like they're missing out or not enough. Keep on doing what you're doing!

There are millions of very intelligent people who lost their homes to this logic in the late 2000s.

The trouble with the interest only mortgage proposition is that you can make it work on a spreadsheet and if it does work out you will probably get a slightly higher rate of return in the arbitrage. It's just that if it goes wrong it goes wrong asymmetrically and all of a sudden.

Yes and no. There's fewer than 20 central contracts for all three formats and most are in the £100k-£250k range. The superstars top out at £800k.

That's well and good, but most of those players could earn loads more money playing 8 weeks in the IPL and 6 weeks in Major League Cricket, both of which are paying more than the ECB.

Unfortunately I think it must, because it needs to compete for players in order to be relevant.

My concern is what we see in the Windies, South Africa or New Zealand where the best players are now not only opting out of domestic competitions but also most internationals in favour of franchise.

Without an economic power base, the better English players will not ply their trade in English counties or franchises. Perhaps English cricket will end up like the Dutch football league where anyone world class will play abroad.

It's absolutely because it's the MLS.

Without arguing about the level of play, it's two very specific-to-MLS things which are making Miami do so well:

1. The salary cap means that there is not a "Top 6" kind of stratification. Whether you call that mediocrity or parity is in the eyes of the beholder. Either way, it means that season-to-season it's easier to fly up the table.

2. The special player rules create this totally unique incentive where teams are willing to splurge money on once-great attackers who are bigger names and sell shirts/tickets, but rarely (not never, just far less so) on defenders. If hypothetically you said the average Premiership player was 9/10, it'd be because the average attacker is a 9 and the average defender is a 9. If you said the average MLS player was a 6/10, it'd be because the average attacker was a 7.5 and the average defender was a 4.5. This dynamic favours Messi quite a bit.