The FT has noted:
British advertisers have cut their budgets for the first time in four years as the prospect of a trade war hit confidence in the global economy among major consumer brands, according to an industry trade body.
As they added:
Advertising budgets shrunk in the first quarter of the year, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising said on Thursday, as UK companies held back on spending due to tariff fears and concerns about weakening consumer confidence.
To put this another way, the FT article says that recession is on its way, without spelling it out, so let me do it for them.
So, as I argued this morning, we need substantial interest rate cuts now.
And we need new fiscal rules - or none at all, as we adapt to a new situation.
And we need calm heads who put the interests of the most vulnerable in the UK at the forefront of their minds in everything that they do.
Our problem is that none of those things are available or going to happen.
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Thank you, Richard.
Anecdata from the City: Focus on transactions that do not expose to credit risk, hiring freezes, use of secondees from head offices overseas to plug gaps, last minute cancellations of interviews and vacancies, and cancellations of job offers. Some, but not all, go back to last year as the impact of Brexit begins to be felt.
Noted
Plenty of contrary views from other parts of the City. But that won’t pander to your narrative, so will no doubt be ignored.
You gave a very specific and rare name in your email identification. How very odd then that Google could find no-one with that name. And then you wonder why you might be ignored?
All I would say is that -yes – the vulnerable are a concern but as things stand what worries me is that the current ‘policies’ (or lack of) will increase the numbers vulnerable if they continue as the cost of living continues to spiral upwards because of what are actually increases in rents against decreases in income.
Taking that into account, the words ‘cost of living’ take on a new more darker and desperate tone to me. It’s more like the ‘cost of existing’ to be honest.
Not sure quite where to post this, but for quite some time I’ve agreed entirely that our economy has pretty much transitioned to a rentier one and this is definitely not good news for most of us – about 99% of us probably. This is my latest (and possibly most egregious) example to date. My husband has a mobile phone reluctantly. So it’s a basic one which makes phone calls and does texts only – a dumb phone. As he uses it so rarely, there are two systemic problems we live with: firstly that in order to keep his number, he has to make a phone call once every three months minimum, which is a chargeable call (ie it has to be answered – at one pound sterling per call). Secondly, in order to minimise the amount we spend on the phone we top up manually – there is no contract. So a single top up of ten pounds sterling could last one year. The time before last that I topped it up (I do it online, and he is analogue!) I paid the due fee directly to the phone company and the whole amount when onto his phone. The other day, I had to top up again as circumstances meant he had used the phone considerably more than usual. This time, the fee did not go directly to the phone company. They’ve outsourced that process to another company – supposedly in order to make things “easier” for customers as several phone companies use this single outsourced organisation. However, this now means that a ten pound top up actually costs eleven pounds and eighty nine pence. The difference is more than ten percent. For what? Administration? Trying to force a monthly contract onto everyone? This makes no sense as a consumer – but probably allows the phone companies to cut costs. True rentierism in my eyes – although I’m no economist, so it might not meet the dictionary definition.
We’re fortunate. We shall change his mobile to a contact – the cheapest we can get – then consider that we’re paying for peace of mind and ease of life rather than for a phone. But not everyone can do that, and life has just got that bit more expensive and time-consuming for people who can’t or won’t. Oh, time consuming – you bet. A simple top up online took me about 5 minutes to organise and required only the phone number in question and card details. The new process needs the top up to be made online (same phone number and card details of course), an access code sent to an email (the outsourced company now has more than the phone number and card as data about you), a response to the email (in my case on a different phone so now another data point the company has) and a wait while the response to the email releases the “cash” to the phone it is intended for.
I think I’m going to find a cave and wait this all out. Please continue to highlight this madness Richard – you’re a sane voice in this wilderness!
Thanks for the example of exploitation and rentierism
And than ks for your thanks
CRenn
I cannot recommend Giff Gaff enough to be honest if you have internet access (somewhere to log an account) Barring that, it sounds right up your street. I use my phone for contact means really, very rarely for the internet and I don’t watch films on it or game or anything like that. And if you don’t need it, just cancel a payment whilst retaining membership.
Just a thought……………………..
Listening to Rachel Reeves you could be forgiven for thinking there was never a time when we did not have `’fiscal rules’! It’s almost as if she and her cohorts consider them to be some sort of 11th commandment. I despair.
Democracy – death by a thousand cuts willingly enacted by a group of self-interested enablers, who claim to represent our interests.