Cost of living crisis.

[filthyfox]

1 hour ago, Greg2607 said:

hence I have absolutely no plans to leave! lol. 

 

in terms of HSBC, I interviewed a guy from there yesterday (i work in recruitment) and yeah, he is paying 7% and they pay 15%. 

 

similar at Santander & Nationwide. 

 

These are people who work in there wealth management division, so it may be different in different parts of the business, but i'm not really sure as I don't talk to people across every division. 

Local government Pension...

Employer= just shy of 18%

Employee on 32k= 6.5%

[Robo61]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

I think 6% will end up being the average for public sector so you're about right. Excl bonus the private sector will be less I suspect, althought not many data points to prove that

Really plenty of aricles if youy try google including this https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrkPat68Phjni8Kvix3Bwx.;_ylu=Y29sbwMEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1677287674/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.bbc.com%2fnews%2fbusiness-64290162/RK=2/RS=zC_HSUztq8W3VBqrVmQMPCikiSE-from the BBC  Public sector pay rises have been lagging the private sector for the last 13 years. 

[FoxesDeb]

The narrative in the MSM regarding the current salad shortage in the UK makes me laugh, I've read its being blamed on a bad winter over here. Winter here has been fine, normal and mild. If there's a shortage in the UK it probably has more to do with the reluctance of EU companies to deliver any surplus to the UK with all the after Brexit red tape, it's certainly nothing to do with the weather in the growing region here

[Nalis]

11 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

The narrative in the MSM regarding the current salad shortage in the UK makes me laugh, I've read its being blamed on a bad winter over here. Winter here has been fine, normal and mild. If there's a shortage in the UK it probably has more to do with the reluctance of EU companies to deliver any surplus to the UK with all the after Brexit red tape, it's certainly nothing to do with the weather in the growing region here

I'm confused I thought the only red tape was from Brussels, according to Brexiteers anyway.

[kenny]

16 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

The narrative in the MSM regarding the current salad shortage in the UK makes me laugh, I've read its being blamed on a bad winter over here. Winter here has been fine, normal and mild. If there's a shortage in the UK it probably has more to do with the reluctance of EU companies to deliver any surplus to the UK with all the after Brexit red tape, it's certainly nothing to do with the weather in the growing region here

It's also due to lower production due to energy prices. Many peppers are grown in heated tunnels in the Netherlands.

 

That being said, there have been peppers and tomatoes in Aldi this week albeit in lower quantities than usual. The smaller outlets that probably sell British gown produce still appear to have stock too.

[FoyleFox]

28 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

The narrative in the MSM regarding the current salad shortage in the UK makes me laugh, I've read its being blamed on a bad winter over here. Winter here has been fine, normal and mild. If there's a shortage in the UK it probably has more to do with the reluctance of EU companies to deliver any surplus to the UK with all the after Brexit red tape, it's certainly nothing to do with the weather in the growing region here

I've been bemused by the restrictions placed on purchasing. I might be very wrong (I'm sure someone will mention it ).  If you're a café or restaurant, wouldn't you buy your stuff wholesale, not the local supermarket? And if you're a standard family, who on earth needs 3 cucumbers, 3 cauliflowers or 3 packs of peppers in one shop. It's not exactly salad weather, and they'll just perish if you buy in bulk.

[Daggers]

 

 

[FoxesDeb]

27 minutes ago, kenny said:

It's also due to lower production due to energy prices. Many peppers are grown in heated tunnels in the Netherlands.

 

That being said, there have been peppers and tomatoes in Aldi this week albeit in lower quantities than usual. The smaller outlets that probably sell British gown produce still appear to have stock too.

That could also be true, but why make things up? 

[Daggers]

16 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

I've been bemused by the restrictions placed on purchasing. I might be very wrong (I'm sure someone will mention it ).  If you're a café or restaurant, wouldn't you buy your stuff wholesale, not the local supermarket? And if you're a standard family, who on earth needs 3 cucumbers, 3 cauliflowers or 3 packs of peppers in one shop. It's not exactly salad weather, and they'll just perish if you buy in bulk.

My diet is entirely salads and veg-heavy meals. So that would normally be me.

[Paninistickers]

51 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

I've been bemused by the restrictions placed on purchasing. I might be very wrong (I'm sure someone will mention it ).  If you're a café or restaurant, wouldn't you buy your stuff wholesale, not the local supermarket? And if you're a standard family, who on earth needs 3 cucumbers, 3 cauliflowers or 3 packs of peppers in one shop. It's not exactly salad weather, and they'll just perish if you buy in bulk.

 I never cease to be amazed at the supermarket bulk buying by, more often than not, older Asians for obscure products. Trolley fulls of, say, bog roll or bottled water or tinned tomatoes

[kenny]

1 hour ago, FoxesDeb said:

That could also be true, but why make things up? 

No idea.

 

Every news article is saying the same thing though even the foreign press. Many are also blaming the drought in Morocco bought about by unusually hot weather.

 

As an aside Brexit is being blamed for the shortages in southern Ireland.

[Heathrow fox]

5 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

 I never cease to be amazed at the supermarket bulk buying by, more often than not, older Asians for obscure products. Trolley fulls of, say, bog roll or bottled water or tinned tomatoes

You’re forgetting the 39 bottles of Coke 

[Babylon]

16 hours ago, Greg2607 said:

I think it's more to do with the balance of the population who are working to fund those pensions.  As people live longer, and with declining birth rates, the number of people in work versus retired will go from something like 1:10 to a 1:4 ratio in the next 30 years. 

 

as @Tommy G said, there will be a massive pensions crisis for anyone currently working & retiring in about 20-30 years. 

 

Our generation has had much higher bills to contend with, have less savings, have kids later in life (and therefore can't save as much till later) and the pension provision in the private sector is woefully poor unless you happen to work in Financial Services. 

 

it's a global issue though. every country in the world is facing the same issue. 

 

it'll be at least 60 to access a private pension by the time we retire and 70 for a state pension. 

 

Nobody has to fund the pension, it’s my money. It’s a personal pension and not a state pension. 
 

So as I say, it’s purely to keep people in the work force longer.

[Bellend Sebastian]

52 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Nobody has to fund the pension, it’s my money. It’s a personal pension and not a state pension. 
 

So as I say, it’s purely to keep people in the work force longer.

One of the things they worry about is people of modest means accessing their pension too early and pissing it all away before they get their state pension.

 

Were you set on retiring at 57? I'm very envious of those this is an option for

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Nobody has to fund the pension, it’s my money. It’s a personal pension and not a state pension. 
 

So as I say, it’s purely to keep people in the work force longer.

People live longer, they may p1ss away their personal pension and then have to rely on the state to fund them in later years. There’s been lots of work done on this. It’s not purely to keep people in the workforce longer. 

[gerblod]

On 24/02/2023 at 04:56, ozleicester said:

I grew up thinking that the post 2nd WW world I was living in was the "best of all possible worlds". Now in my seventies, I can see what a naive fantasy that was.

Attlee's post-war government established a role for socialism that had been ruthlessly resisted by feudal and capitalistic regimes for 900+ years. That took two successive brutally damaging  European wars to enable a sea change in how government could create a better life for the hitherto economically disenfranchised majority of Western European people.

It never threatened 'free enterprise', yet it has been tarred by right-wing media ever since - propagandists employed to weaken our trust in left-wing government. To be a socialist carries with it the idea of being extremist, yet I see nothing but extremism from the Brexiteers and xenophobes who are still in government - despite being the most incompetent and witless bunch I've ever witnessed in power.

Now I'm not even sure capitalism is the major 'enemy of the people'. I've been been watching a film called "97% owned". It's about the UK banking system and the power it has to electronically create 'money' in vast quantities which isn't really money as most of us conceive it. The stuff in our wallets is effectively loose change in proportion to the trillions of electronically generated and held, on computer servers, in the so-called 'First World'. Rather like the mobile phones we all carry, we use them, but we have only a rudimentary idea how they work. Such is modern banking - but we understand much less about it than we do about our mobiles. I suspect we could manage without our mobiles, yet our society is so interwoven by its banking systems that, should a bank (like Northern Rock, for example) fail, it has to be bailed out. Thus these banks can **** us about as much as they like...with impunity. Not even our government could risk that. At least we can strike as a way to resist capitalism. How does one strike against banks - by not using money??? So, the urban legend about a small clandestine group of men ruling the world is bollocks - it's a computerised system created by highly creative financiers upon which are economies are reliant. And, when it goes wrong, as in the Lehmanns' catastrophe of 2008, the criminals who used the system to create vast wealth weren't held to account for their actions.

How do you try them when you don't understand the crime?

[leicsmac]

13 minutes ago, gerblod said:

I grew up thinking that the post 2nd WW world I was living in was the "best of all possible worlds". Now in my seventies, I can see what a naive fantasy that was.

Attlee's post-war government established a role for socialism that had been ruthlessly resisted by feudal and capitalistic regimes for 900+ years. That took two successive brutally damaging  European wars to enable a sea change in how government could create a better life for the hitherto economically disenfranchised majority of Western European people.

It never threatened 'free enterprise', yet it has been tarred by right-wing media ever since - propagandists employed to weaken our trust in left-wing government. To be a socialist carries with it the idea of being extremist, yet I see nothing but extremism from the Brexiteers and xenophobes who are still in government - despite being the most incompetent and witless bunch I've ever witnessed in power.

Now I'm not even sure capitalism is the major 'enemy of the people'. I've been been watching a film called "97% owned". It's about the UK banking system and the power it has to electronically create 'money' in vast quantities which isn't really money as most of us conceive it. The stuff in our wallets is effectively loose change in proportion to the trillions of electronically generated and held, on computer servers, in the so-called 'First World'. Rather like the mobile phones we all carry, we use them, but we have only a rudimentary idea how they work. Such is modern banking - but we understand much less about it than we do about our mobiles. I suspect we could manage without our mobiles, yet our society is so interwoven by its banking systems that, should a bank (like Northern Rock, for example) fail, it has to be bailed out. Thus these banks can **** us about as much as they like...with impunity. Not even our government could risk that. At least we can strike as a way to resist capitalism. How does one strike against banks - by not using money??? So, the urban legend about a small clandestine group of men ruling the world is bollocks - it's a computerised system created by highly creative financiers upon which are economies are reliant. And, when it goes wrong, as in the Lehmanns' catastrophe of 2008, the criminals who used the system to create vast wealth weren't held to account for their actions.

How do you try them when you don't understand the crime?

This is really astute.

 

A couple of related observations:

 

Such systems, as implacable as they may seem right now, are still human constructs are so are mutable. However...

 

....they do have such power that it would take truly massive upheaval to change things definitively. As it took two world wars to change such ideas the last time (and look where we are now), it may well take something of similar magnitude to generate such change at this time. There's a reason that the backstory of Star Trek (which features an economy not far from equitable where scarcity has been rendered almost a non-issue) included a truly dreadful war before humanity finally decided to act as one species.

 

I sincerely hope that such a degree of upheaval isn't what is needed, though.

[filthyfox]

50 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is really astute.

 

A couple of related observations:

 

Such systems, as implacable as they may seem right now, are still human constructs are so are mutable. However...

 

....they do have such power that it would take truly massive upheaval to change things definitively. As it took two world wars to change such ideas the last time (and look where we are now), it may well take something of similar magnitude to generate such change at this time. There's a reason that the backstory of Star Trek (which features an economy not far from equitable where scarcity has been rendered almost a non-issue) included a truly dreadful war before humanity finally decided to act as one species.

 

I sincerely hope that such a degree of upheaval isn't what is needed, though.

We are already close to acting as one specie.

Hopefully China will realise that it would not be in their interest to side with Russia.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, filthyfox said:

We are already close to acting as one specie.

Hopefully China will realise that it would not be in their interest to side with Russia.

As much as I would like that to be true, I don't think that it is. The current issues in Ukraine (and elsewhere) seem to demonstrate that, sadly.

 

But again, I'm hoping it won't take something horrible to change worldviews on a large scale.

[grobyfox1990]

52 minutes ago, filthyfox said:

We are already close to acting as one specie.

Hopefully China will realise that it would not be in their interest to side with Russia.

Are we?!! I honestly can’t think of one example where we are. Would be delighted to be proven wrong tbf 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Are we?!! I honestly can’t think of one example where we are. Would be delighted to be proven wrong tbf 

Well, there's the consistent ban on CFC's and biological weapons that seems to be being stuck to, or at least enforced.

 

Other stuff?

 

........everyone will stop and watch a capybara video on YouTube?

[Wymsey]

Apparently the average monthly household bill for energy/gas is going be £250..

Edited 25 February 2023 by Wymsey

[FoxesDeb]

7 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Apparently the average monthly household bill for energy/gas is going be £250..

I'm not sure at this point if this is good or bad? Mine was nearly £200 at the end of 2020

[kenny]

14 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

I'm not sure at this point if this is good or bad? Mine was nearly £200 at the end of 2020

We have a 5 bed detached house and are paying £220 which is high for us.

[Babylon]

9 hours ago, grobyfox1990 said:

People live longer, they may p1ss away their personal pension and then have to rely on the state to fund them in later years. There’s been lots of work done on this. It’s not purely to keep people in the workforce longer. 

They still get a state pension like everyone else. They could have put the money in the bank and pissed it away.