The Guardian has reported this morning that:
So, a simple question. Who is it that is ratcheting inflation upwards? Is it multinational corporations, such as these, or nurses, teachers and rail workers?
Isn't the answer obvious?
And what is the government doing about this base of monopoly power? It is asking very nicely if they might not increase their prices so much, knowing full well that they will be ignored.
No wonder people are angry.
And no wonder strikes are very unlikely to end soon when it is becoming ever harder for people to make ends meet.
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Nothing is to be done about inflationary corporate price rises; such rises are an act of God. Nothing is to be done. Those who must exclusively pay the price of inflation, without the freedom to do anything about it (save leave the employment, which they are now doing in droves), are those who work in the public services; because their efforts are, unlike the private sector (no matter how trivial, profligate or even harmful the private activity), decreed to contribute precisely nothing useful to the economy; at least according to the logic of the Conservative Government.
The NHS is tasked with solving the health problems of the nation, without the people or resources to do so; and the Government expects the employed NHS staff to pay the full price of inflation they did nothing to create, by accepting large real falls in income; and are expected to survive to accept it, and continue to work for buttons. . That may be why, by September 2022 there was a 133,000 shortfall in NHS staff in England, and 162,000 in social care (House of Lords Library). It is estimated that by 2030 the shortfall in NHS staff will be around 420,000, and 490,000 in social care. Meanwhile the BMJ estimated the total spend on temporary staff in England’s NHS Trusts was £8.9Bn, and provided illustrations of the profligacy such desperate measures they are driven to can entail; an agency, for example apparently charging around £2,500 for one nurse for one shift (BMJ, November 2022).
It seems to be beyond the wit of government to see they could increase the pay of NHS staff, cut the staff shortfall, reduce staff numbers leaving, increase new entrants reduce waiting times, reduce stress, and save substantial costs in agency fees for what will be an inefficient service, offsetting at least part of the increase.
…..because their aim is not to sort out the NHS, but sell it off. It has been run into the ground by design.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/12/nhs-consultants-run-private-firms-charging-to-cut-waiting-lists-at-their-own-hospitals
People working in it are running it into the ground, intentionally. This should be illegal.
Do you know what – I don’t whether to laugh or cry?
My organisations say that it cares about affordability for its social housing tenants, and yet we have – due to budget cuts from central government – been trying to do what is known as ‘channel shift’ and get our tenants to talk to us by email and web based services more as we close down local housing offices.
So, now having achieved that, the cost of accessing online services is about to go up for some of the poorest people in society.
I understand that water costs are also going up but I was criticised the other day for putting wet rooms in a new bungalow and not a bath as showers use less water?
But apparently that was not appreciated!
In this new society of ours, you just don’t seem to be able to win – we’re just chattels for corporations to exploit.
You are right about the significance of mobile phones
A good wet room is very good…
They are not doing this to speak to people. They aren’t mobile phones; they are “smart” phones. The purpose is to reduce all communication with people to a dataset; and recalibrate all problems into abstract statistics; which, with the aid of the neoliberal press can be made to mean anything. The last thing desired is to listen to people suffering, or actually doing anything about it; from mouldy homes to rivers that have been adopted as public sewers.
Britain has been trashed by neoliberals for over forty years and all the wealth privatised, over everything; from domestice energy security, through clean rivers, to the armed forces: cleaned out to allow private fortunes to me be made, gratis.
Inevitably the rot and decay, the detritus of neoliberalism it never takes responsibility for, cannot be hidden entirely from public view forever: but it seems that the British electorate’s minds have also decayed and rotted ,with the diffusion of all these spores from all that mould, or the rat-infested sewage that has cascaded through our constitutional institutions.
You might be tempted to think that this situation is grist to the political mill of opposition parties; that a Bevan or Bevans would arise in the public eye, addressing mass meetings around the country, kicking off in the media, and mobilising everyone of that party’s MPs and activists to get the messages and policies out there; that a green and alternative to this wilful destruction was in everyone’s mind.
A resounding silence is all there is. The main party is donning the same ludicrous clothes as the destroyers, funded by the same corporate interests. The polity has abandoned its people.
One person going round the country and getting big meetings happening is Jeremy Corbyn. Can’t think why that doesn’t get in the MSM!
Stepping back for one moment you have to wonder what additional costs telecommunications companies have to carry.
I can think of three obvious ones which probably make up most of their costs:
1) Staffing
2) Infrastructure
3) Electricity
It feels like all three of these items will be creating inflation for telecoms right now.
I am not sure if wages have gone up yet in the telecoms sector, but they almost certainly will over the next 12 months. Copper is almost double the price it was pre-Covid, and even fibre optics have gone up about 20% (less of an issues for mobile operators). As for electricity, I think we all know what has happened to the price of that.
It will be interesting to see whether there is an increase in the profit margin as a percentage after the prices increase. Only then will we really know if they are just covering the impact of inflation on their own costs.
British society as a whole is poorer because of sanctions that it has imposed on Russia which have resulted is higher energy prices.
How is this loss of income to be distributed throughout society?
Private sector workers are demanding and getting wage increases. Private sector corporations are passing their increased costs onto society as a whole via increased prices.
The private sector, workers and corporations, are moving the cost onto the public sector.
The government seem quite content to let public sector workers bear the brunt of the drop in the standard of living caused by the Ukraine war. That will cause workers to move out of the public sector and so further the Tory government’s desire to reduce the size of the state.
As has been pointed out in this blog, an increase in public sector wages would not lead to a direct increase in prices since many of the services like health and education are not sold at a price. There would be no direct inflationary impact of these public sector wage increases.
There might be a secondary inflationary effect. The increased spending power of the public sector on food, clothing, energy etc products could lead to an increase in their prices if the society is unable to produce more of these products.
I had a £7.50pcm contract including a phone that came from Carphone Warehouse (?) provided by Talk Mobile (?) ncluded the smartphone, goodness only knows when but probably 13 – 14 years ago.
Anyway after 2 years or so I got a better handset which lasted until recently.
Some years ago as I had by now paid for the handset they dropped the price to £5 and more recently as a loyal customer they said I could have all the calls and texts I could eat – not many in my case and they would freeze the price,
They have just dropped the price to £4.99 and doubled my data to 4GB – whatever that is.
Now if they are keeping the same price and giving me some more data then I suspect that it must be worth their while so why is everyone else’s price going up?
I do not know….