[Politics] Liz Truss **RESIGNS 20/10/2022**

[A1X]

I do understand why you are clinging to this - so much was made of the fall of £ v $, as a tangible indicator of the scale of the government's folly, that you are highlighting the subsequent rebound as evidence to the contrary.

Gleefully doing so however, whilst ignoring the hike in interest rates, the additional £65BN it cost to settle the markets, and the increased cost in future government borrowing, is making you look a bit odd.


It is as though 'your' team made a catastrophic, entirely unforced error, at great cost to the country, and somehow you think its less embarrassing to make yourself look daft defending it, than to just admit they got it wrong.

It's akin to saying "well this building wasn't on fire a week ago and it isn't on fire now", ignoring the fact that in the week in between it caught fire, got heavily damaged in the fire and then the fire was put out by the fire brigade.

 

[Giraffe]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

 

[cunning fergus]

I have seen various bods on Twitter decrying the Economist as a leftie magazine and the IMF as a global Marxist organisation.

There are some people with a fragile grip on reality.

Maybe so, however some of the optics are quite unhelpful in that respect…….

The 66-year-old economist, the daughter of a civil engineer, studied political economy and sociology at the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics in Sofia while Bulgaria was still under communist rule.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49833220

 

[JBizzle]

I have seen various bods on Twitter decrying the Economist as a leftie magazine and the IMF as a global Marxist organisation.

There are some people with a fragile grip on reality.

Must... Not... Have... Ideology... Challenged...

 

[cunning fergus]

It's akin to saying "well this building wasn't on fire a week ago and it isn't on fire now", ignoring the fact that in the week in between it caught fire, got heavily damaged in the fire and then the fire was put out by the fire brigade.

The building doesn’t exist, there’s just a sheet of glass following the £400bn splurge Sunil borrowed to get through COVID.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-spending-idUSKBN2801HO

At best the mini budget was a recently constructed mud hut which has been washed away………it will be back up by the Weekend.

 

[Swansman]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

They probably don't know everything, no. They did know how to bail out Truss from the chaos though.

 

[Bozza]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

Weren't the BoE just using the official estimate from the ONS which had stated a fall of 0.1%, indicating recession territory - https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gros...s/gdpfirstquarterlyestimateuk/apriltojune2022

If so, I'm not sure I'd be using that as some sort of stick to hit them with.

 

[Gwylan]

Maybe so, however some of the optics are quite unhelpful in that respect…….

The 66-year-old economist, the daughter of a civil engineer, studied political economy and sociology at the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics in Sofia while Bulgaria was still under communist rule.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49833220

That's a bit tenuous. Saying that someone was at university in the eastern bloc is a long way from saying that someone is a Marxist. She's come from that well-known radical organisation, the World Bank

You could use that criterion to say that Angela Merkel was a communist as she studied at an East German university.

 

[Bob!]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

I'm setting this thread as a favourite, just to see what straws Giraffe tries to clutch at!

 

[Seagull27]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

What's your view on the £65B of taxpayers money that just got lost to get the pound back to where it was?

For reference, that's enough to fund:

- the entire NHS for over 4 months
- all of UK education spending for 10 months
- the UK defence budget for 2 years

(Source: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/public-finances/)

 

[Titanic]

What's your view on the £65B of taxpayers money that just got lost to get the pound back to where it was?

For reference, that's enough to fund:

- the entire NHS for 3-4 months
- all of UK education spending for 10 months
- the UK defence budget for 2 years

(Source: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/public-finances/)

Have they actually spent the £65bn, I thought it was just a commitment to spend it if necessary, but I could be wrong?

Also, if you buy something, and then sell it again later, you end up with the same amount of money in the long term - or maybe a bit of a loss if the price falls, but not the whole £65bn. Again, I could be wrong... can anyone give us the detail on this sort of thing?

 

[Berty23]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

Yep. It is not currently because they have revised down the previous data which means we are poorer than we thought and did not come out of covid as well as previously thought. It is quite the leap to make it a positive that we are poorer than we thought but that means another word is not yet in play. and on we go.

 

[nwgull]

It's an impressive feat of flexibility for a giraffe to have its head in the sand.

When I saw last night's opinion polls released, what amazed me most wasn't so much the huge lead that Labour have opened up but the fact that around 25% of people would still vote conservative. Then I come to this thread and am reminded that the gammon demographic, many of who won't have a mortgage to worry about, will always be there in blissful denial of the catastrophic effects of BOE rates jumping to 5% (the prospect of which is probably what is causing currency traders to speculate and is propping up the £ right now).

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

Do you think you should change your username to Ostrich?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Wow the OBR meeting lasted a whole 48 minutes.

 

[Audax]

$1.12 now. Almost full recovery in a week. Decent.

Yep, it's good to see it's climbed back up. But it's important to understand the context of why:

1. The BoE emergency action to stabilise the gilts market. But (and it's a big but) - gilt yields remain high. BoE has stabilised the situation, but all they've really done is delayed / slowed a climb that will continue to heap pain on the cost of government borrowing. They've averted a crisis with pension funds, but the issue of how much government debt is going to cost remains.

2. The markets are now assuming sharp interest rate hikes by the BoE in Nov and then following months - taking the base rate rapidly to 6%. If the BoE goes more slowly, then GBP will drop again.

3. It's plausible the markets got a sniff of the better-than-expected GDP results before they were officially published, and that would be expected to prop up GBP.

4. Euro has also recovered some ground vs the USD.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I found this interesting

The Tories have become unmoored from the British people

https://www.ft.com/content/d5f1d564-8c08-4711-b11d-9c6c7759f2b8


"The Tories have plotted a course to the very edge of the economic map, and when they scan the horizon there is nobody to be seen."

 

[stewart12]

part of me wants to see her hang on because I bet a Liz Truss general election campaign is going to be MENTAL

 

[Giraffe]

What's your view on the £65B of taxpayers money that just got lost to get the pound back to where it was?

For reference, that's enough to fund:

- the entire NHS for over 4 months
- all of UK education spending for 10 months
- the UK defence budget for 2 years

(Source: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/public-finances/)

That is a lot of money.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

So the UK economy grew last month despite the BOE saying it had contracted. Interesting. Maybe they don't know everything?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63086562

"Economic output rose by 0.2% between April and June, revised up from a previous reading of -0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It suggests the UK is not currently in recession, as was predicted by the Bank of England earlier this month."

Although in another sense it undermines the Truss / Kwarteng argument that these measures were essential to prevent the UK falling into recession - as it shows that growth was indeed being achieved by the Johnson / Sunak policies.