Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

Isn't that a bit soggy and uncomfortable? Not to mention dangerous?

 

I think they should make you take the books in and get the front page restamped with a new date, that's how they did it last time I had a library book.

 

As you might know, I was a software dev for much of my career and still am in IT now, albeit more on the data side now.

One of my long term bugbears is exactly what you describe. Ie people not telling us when something doesn't work properly, or at all.

So many times throughout my career I've sat in meetings and heard people moan about some tedious workaround they've just always done. I ask, why didn't you just use such and such a feature. The conversation that follows always fits this template:

User: It doesn't work.
Tech: What do you mean? Does it raise an error message, or just freeze?
User: Dunno, we stopped using it because it doesn't work.
Tech: How long has it been broken for?
User: I dunno, we were just told to do it this way cos the other way doesn't work.
Tech: Did anyone ever report it?
User: Dunno, we just assumed it wasn't meant to work
Tech: Why would we put something in that's not meant to work.
User: Dunno, we just do it this way. It's just how we work. It's what we've always done.

 

I need an explanation, how does raising people's mortgage payments by large amounts lower inflation.

Unless you take mortgage payments out of the calculation surely it raises the inflation rate.

 

Days are getting shorter.

 

It's not just mortgages - it's all borrowing. The idea being if you have a loan - you have to pay more to service that loan - so you cut back on spending. The shops see you spending less - so they reduce prices to encourage you to buy. Lower prices means lower inflation.

Higher interest rates mean people are also reluctant to borrow to spend.

Apparently only 15% of mortgage holders are on a variable rate. I don't mean to be harsh - but if a .5% interest increase is going to cause problems - these people are living beyond their means.

 

I had to put the lights on at 9.45pm, last night

 

I think that just happens as we get older.

 

As was being said on the TV earlier today, this is a different kind of inflation to what we had in the 70s, but they are trying to tackle it just by using interest rates, as they did in the 70s, but people have so much credit now that putting up interest rates just fuels inflation.

When I was young I bought a car on credit, but there were restrictions on how much you could borrow for purchasing a car.
I also remember not being allowed to take more than about £25 out of the country when you went on holiday, you cant beat the good old days.

 

Raising interest rates doesn't seem like a solution, unless the intention is to cause a recession (in fact one economist is on record recommending exactly that).

It's not just the end consumer that is hit by higher interest rates. Business borrow money too. So if the businesses have higher overheads as it costs them more to service their debt, and consumers have less money to spend, it's hard to see how anyone will benefit except potentially the banks, but even then, not enough lots of borrowers end up defaulting.

I think a better approach, as harsh as it sounds, might be to give a few people a slap. Specifically those that keep asking for higher and higher wages without actually developing any additional skills that warrant those higher wages. When, for example, a postie is asking for the same salary as someone that's invested thousands of pounds and several years of earning potential into study and skills development, just because someone who spent years working their way up the ladder gets paid more, then we have a problem.

 

And the Goverment gets more tax from your savings

 

I think the problem is that interest rates have been rock bottom for more than ten years, not sure how they managed that.
At which point we start getting interest free loans, and even if you want to pay cash up front nobody wants to know you.
Its been like we have been in a dream world for ten yrs and reality is starting to bite.

 

Seems to me that the idea of 'stress testing' someones ability to pay has gone out of the window. Much like Putins opponents.

Turkey decided, I mean Turkiye to decrease interest rates to combat inflation. Look at what happened. Lets just say Recep isnt laughing.

 

Daylight hours are at a standstill here @clanless and won't start to decrease for another week.