Inflation.

 I was blogging about the UK Government and the Bank of England's policies stocking up inflationary pressures over a decade ago. Back them Alastair Darling was chancellor. But borrowing and printing money are in Labour's DNA.

Cut to 2010 and the coalition government and still the money printing went on. Under a new name: "quantative easing". It's still printing money.

Then when Cameron got in on his own, this inflationary practice still didn't stop. 

The only reason that inflation didn't take off was that companies were able to suppress wages by importing cheap labour from Eastern Europe, along with offshoring manufacturing to China. There comes a point when suppressing wages far enough makes the job untenable. That point comes when you can only do a job when you share a house with 20 other guys. When the job doesn't pay rent, or finance a mortgage, then really the tipping point has reached.

Instead of wages rising, government allowed house prices to rise to make people feel more affluent than they really were. But now renters almost outweigh owners because low wages can't finance a house purchase.

Now Chinese workers want decent wages, and the Eastern Europeans have gone home. Tick, tick, tick, that inflation-ometer started rising.

Then the pandemic forced the Government to borrow more money to pay people's wages while they stayed at home. Tick, tick, tick, some more.

Now we're in a perfect storm: A decade or more of inflationary practices, inability to suppress wages and therefore prices of goods, lack of strategic planning by successive governments, it goes on and on.

Biden's policies in America started the upward trend in energy prices. First cancelling a pipeline and re-subscribing America to Kyoto accords.

Hence the price of fuel has risen steadily since Biden got in, as companies start to implement contingencies regarding Biden's actions. 

The sad thing is that as always, the poor will be hit hardest. Those of us just existing, working and just about covering bills will find this winter quite tough. 

"It's Nothing to do with Brexit"

 There's currently a meme on Twitter featuring a lady at a fish market complaining about inflation and the price of container shipping during a BBC (natch) interview.

Sarcastically she says to the camera "It's  nothing to do with Brexit", as if to infer the opposite.

Sadly for her, she's wrong. The cost of shipping containers has increased massively globally. Pre-Covid we could ship a container from Japan for £1500. The cheapest rate is now £9000 post-Covid. 

Brexit has nothing to do with it. It's supply and demand. After the global shutdown, companies have sold out of stock during the post-Covid restart and are demanding stock to be shipped to them, more than likely from China. 

That's EVERY company globally. Can you imagine the sort of demand that generates? There just isn't enough capacity to deliver EVRY container to EVERY company in the world within pre-Covid timescales.

So there will be delays. You want priority shipping? You pay for it. The lady in the Twitter meme was complaining of container shipping going up to £19000. I can believe it, if you have perishable goods (she sells fish and seafood) and you want the container delivered quick enough so your stock doesn't go off, then you'll have to pay a higher price than everyone else to jump the queue. 

That's just the nature of supply and demand love. Globally. Nothing to do with Brexit. Everything to do with Covid, the global shutdown and the restart. 

It's not just us. One of our suppliers has been told there will be a three  month delay in getting alloy wheels shipped to the UK. From Malaysia because the factory/foundry has taken months to restart and the Malaysian company have months worth of orders already placed with them. 

Nothing. To. Do. With. Brexit.

Absolutely.

Just as the shortage of lorry drivers has nothing to do with Brexit either. There is a shortage globally as well. Just look at the companies complaining in America. Sad to say a portion of drivers (not the fittest in the world) died during the pandemic, plus a number of drivers hit the age at which they could no longer drive trucks, or weren't able to renew medicals (everyone knows how bloody difficult it is you see a doctor face-to-face at the moment) and new drivers weren't able to take tests to replace the attrition of the older, retiring drivers. 

HGV driving is a pretty shit job too. So much regulation (medicals, driving hours, tachos and the like) the VOSA vultures ready to pounce on trucks to see if they are a couple of kilos overweight and most companies treating them like shit (not allowing them to use toilets, etc), it's no wonder that having had a rest during the pandemic, a number of drivers have not returned to the job.

In the UK the situation is compounded by East European drivers moving back home, to be with family during the pandemic and/or taking better-paid jobs in Germany, closer to home and within the EU. That's mainly a reflection of the poor wages paid to HGV drivers in the UK. Most East Europeans are now concentrating on local courier van deliveries. Less red tape and regulation and less time away from home, with comparable wages.

Again, nowt to do wi' Bloody Brexit.

Elon Musk Pees Higher than other Billionaires...

 Elon Musk just peed higher than Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, by a hundred miles or so. 

I do like Elon. He just gets things done.. Sometimes it starts a bit flaky and his timescales are wildly optimistic, but eventually he gets the bugs ironed out and makes stuff work. 

Only a couple of months after Bezos was crowing that his sub-orbital New Shepard rocket launched a private flight further into space than Richard Branson's space effort, Elon comes along with Inspiration 4: a 3-day, fully orbital flight with four private individuals on board and pisses higher than Bezos and all over his paltry spacefaring efforts.

The inspiration 4 crew can rightly claim to be astronauts. No ambiguity, they are flying higher than the International Space Station and for days, not minutes. Both Bezos and Branson give you minutes at an altitude that it can be argued if it is actually space at all. 

Good on Elon for showing who's really top dog in private space flight, with no crowing, no publicity-grabbing as a passenger. Nicely done sir, nicely done... 

Can't wait to see the Super-Heavy booster and Starship launch. That whole project should be spectacular not just launching, but during recovery.