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UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

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Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#231
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How extreme do you want to go? - Tax capital gains and dividends that are classically the rates actually paid by the megarich rather than income tax. - Tax wealth directly rather than just income. - Tax much more heavily generally and commit to a significant basic income to ensure everyone has a solid baseline. This is just off the top of my head, we have an entire government of people and a huge field of existing re…

I don't want to go extreme at all; centralising economies has the worst track record of starvation and killing in all of history. I'm just wondering what the plan was :)

I'm talking about relatively minor levels of taxation. It's absurd to compare that to communism.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#232
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Characterizing them as >100% efficient is poor communication. It doesn't map to any intuitive understanding, it does not communicate anything about how much heating could be done with that energy (thus leading to people believing absurd claims), and it does not map to either the colloquial or technical meaning of efficiency in any other context. Efficiency as a concept doesn't go over 100% and just because confusing…

> It doesn't map to any intuitive understanding, it does not communicate anything about how much heating could be done with that energy But that's exactly what it does. It's technically wrong, but communicates the understanding that you put 100% of electrical energy into it and get 250-450% of heating energy for your home out of it, as opposed to 100% with resistive heating. That some of the electrical energy comes o…

No it doesn't. "400%" gives you no indication that the upper bound is 800%.

And failing to communicate that the heat comes from elsewhere is condescending and leads to misunderstandings. It also fails to communicate that it's harder to move the heat when it is colder.

We have a perfectly valid term that does what yoh want without lying and without anti-education in the name of making it 'easier' which is coefficient of performance. You could even give it a different name to `void the scary word if you want, just don't call it efficiency because it's not.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#233
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is going to come out strong out of this whole mess. The political unity so quickly after the start of the war was unexpected (and admirable). Ten years from now, Europeans will drive electric (if they'll drive at all), solar panels will be everywhere, and the continued flex-work-from-home revolution will have created an enormous amount of extra time for everybody. They'll be comfy in their sustainable homes an…

The price to drive an electric car has spiked recently. We are in this shit because of Putins war (75% of the blame), Europes general hatred of having a military (15%, say), and finaly Biden not being willing to use military force directly to stop Russia. We can't do anything about the first, it will take decades to solve the second, but if Biden was willing to take of the gloves, Donbas and Crimera + a good chunk of…

While Russia is for sure to blame for taking the final action by launching the war, let's not pretend the US hasn't been meddling in Ukraine for years across multiple administrations. I'd argue that in fact we can do something about "the first." Ukraine is a proxy war between Russia and the US, one that has been brewing since at least 2008.

Only a fool believes a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO/US is a good outcome or would improve the situation. Also let's not fall into the trap of believing propaganda about military performance from either side, it will take years for an honest assessment to come out.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#234
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian war crimes apologists are the worst. Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losses to their army and economy. It wasn't something to prepare for because it was unthinkable. It was still a huge risk to prepare for…

> Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. Alas, the world doesn't operate based on the moral principles you imply, but cold hard realpolitik. Actions have consequences in the great power game between nation states. > And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losse…

> Alas, the world doesn't operate based on the moral principles you imply, but cold hard realpolitik. Actions have consequences in the great power game between nation states.

If there's anything the Russian invasion of Ukraine isn't, it's realpolitik. Invading a country because "they aren't a real country and they should be ours" is as far as the cold practicality of realpolitik as possible. (Unless you choose to believe Russia's propaganda that it was all due to NATO's expansion, which even if true is even stupider - check Finland and Sweden which joined). Invading with the walking clown of an excuse of an army is also pretty far from practical considerations.

> The Russian economy is doing fine, business with India and China is thriving.

What are you basing this on? Have you checked their official interest rates, inflation rates (of course a bucket of salt is to be applied with those) and the warnings from the central bank governess? Not only is their economy not doing great, they are still yet to feel the effects of being cut off from industrial machinery and electronics they used to rely on. China and India can't replace all their planes, tractors, cars, trucks, phones, computers.

> "Massive losses to their army" I believe is far from accurate

Well thankfully people are actively working on this so we don't have to "believe" into anything. We have cold hard data from the ground in OSINT, compiled by volunteers such as Oryx. The fog of war is certainly obscuring things, but it's plainly obvious to see that Russian losses are massive in absolute and relative terms, in men and matériel. And the Russian army confirms that itself by the type of machines it fields (they've started reactivating obsolete tanks from the reserves) and it's desperate recruitment drives.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#235
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deliberately chosen path that wasnt hard to avoid if we'd wanted to - simply by withdrawing an invitation. Yes, imagine what would have happened to Chechnya or Georgia if we had let them into NATO. No, that would have been an invitation to attack Ukraine, we should have let them in.

Well, we put Georgia on a NATO membership action plan after years of meddling in their politics and that triggered the invasion in 2008. Ukraine isnt the first time this happened. It's just this time stirring up ethnic conflict along Russia's border is causing us to really suffer.

And what did we do to Chechnya? Have you considered you've got your causality backwards? These countries want to join NATO because they are sick of Russian meddling. No country is being forced into NATO.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#236
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian war crimes apologists are the worst. Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losses to their army and economy. It wasn't something to prepare for because it was unthinkable. It was still a huge risk to prepare for…

> Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. Alas, the world doesn't operate based on the moral principles you imply, but cold hard realpolitik. Actions have consequences in the great power game between nation states. > And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losse…

> The Russian economy is doing fine, business with India and China is thriving. "Massive losses to their army" I believe is far from accurate. I'll be greatly surprised if at the end of this, Ukraine isn't economically destroyed, geographically devastated. Territories lost will remain lost, and the deaths of so many people will have been for nothing more than furthering the geopolitical and industrial interests of the main instigators.

1,000 tanks and close to 45k soldiers either KIA or WIA is not “massive losses”?. The world thought Russia had years worth of tanks, turns out it only took 6 months before they started breaking out the the 4 man T62s.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I care about is that when I go to book a driving test, I can get one. I could do that pre-2020. I now can't. Sounds like a supply and demand problem. The marker solution would be to increase wages for driving testers and attract more candidates to these positions.

Yes, across the entire economy, because it's not just driving tests, it's everything. What we actually did, is to print money and give it to people for not working. And so, as in the article, 20% inflation. Oops!

The alternative was mass unemployment, it would have taken two decades to re-prime the pump. So the alternative to such a large shock was either ~5 years of inflation / stagflation largely caused by supply side issues (can't get a driving test, can't get employees, can't get something shipped from China, etc), or a two decade (a la 30s / 40s) rebuilding the economy from scratch.

And (as a side issue) you shouldn't be surprised that large scale uncontained shocks lead to war. Look at the drought in Syria from 2006 to 2010. Look at the largely global economic shock in the 30s. If you want to see what a systemic supply shock can do to economies at scale have a look at the complete collapse in the lead up to 1177 BC.

So a large systemic shock like COVID will need to be "paid for", and the choices are "a very big bill" or "a catastrophic bug bill". I suspect that you feel that life was fine pre COVID and you were happy with your lot. And now you're not, you wish it was back the way it was (e.g. you can book a test). So since we had interventions (most "imposed" on us), post hoc ergo propter hoc the interventions are bad.

So my suggestion is to do a root cause analysis and realise that humans (both individually and collectively) are bad at dealing with black swans, even when we know it will come (sooner or later). And secondly, even if you don't like this human short coming and you wish that someone would just "get a grip" of the situation so you don't have to deal with something you don't like, it might help to have a bit more empathy towards people trying to help.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#238
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to go extreme at all; centralising economies has the worst track record of starvation and killing in all of history. I'm just wondering what the plan was :)

I'm talking about relatively minor levels of taxation. It's absurd to compare that to communism.

Taxing wealth is not relatively minor. It is the way to transfer ownership of companies to the government.

Take most rich people; their wealth is generally in assets like land, or in investments. If you gradually move their company ownership and land ownership to the government, what do you get?

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, across the entire economy, because it's not just driving tests, it's everything. What we actually did, is to print money and give it to people for not working. And so, as in the article, 20% inflation. Oops!

The alternative was mass unemployment, it would have taken two decades to re-prime the pump. So the alternative to such a large shock was either ~5 years of inflation / stagflation largely caused by supply side issues (can't get a driving test, can't get employees, can't get something shipped from China, etc), or a two decade (a la 30s / 40s) rebuilding the economy from scratch. And (as a side issue) you shouldn't be…

Nah, the alternative was to not close everything down :)

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#240

Inflation aside, does anyone think that they’ve really screwed with society with the lockdowns, the money printing, the vaccine mandates, and the work from home mandates? Everything feels very broken. Nobody wants to work. Even people who have been asked to come to the office are screwing off at least 1-2 days of the week and no one is able to do a thing. A massive group of people are essentially walking around with…

Well... Faith in economy and money is falling down. Hopefully society realize what is really important in live. I thing we live in changing times. Which is interesting actually and I'm really surprised how we adopt to the new values.

But yes... Lockdowns are major reason of so called "inflation". Caused by few corporates. But I'm not sure if majority reflects that.

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