"Cost of living crisis" nonsense

mayonnaise

There is no cost of living crisis.
As a nation, we have gone from decadent levels of spending power pre-recession to high levels of spending power now.

Sure, some items have ticked up considerably, like food and energy, but for the average Brit these were most likely offset by huge savings in other areas.

Anyone on a mortgage should be paying a pittance in interest now, petrol down to levels not seen for several years, home and car insurance premiums plummeting, big ticket items like cars, white goods, computing, etc. costing less than ever.

ruggedtoast

The cost of living is an economic crisis for many families.

Labour are making a distinction between a recovery that benefits big business and Tory politicians, and that which benefits actual people trying to balance their shopping budget at the end of the month.

Fella

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Labour are making a distinction between a recovery that benefits big business and Tory politicians, and that which benefits actual people trying to balance their shopping budget at the end of the month.

Lol, that is class-warrior nonsense of the first order. Straight out of Labour's spin phrasebook.

BTW If you'd care to explain what kind of a recovery wouldn't benefit big business I'd be fascinated to hear it.

Loughton_Monkey

The "Cost of Living Crisis" is, of course, an extremely desperate invention of a sad raving socialist with nothing constructive to say. What Miliband "really" wants is a return to Brownist rampant benefits increases, and a tight squeeze on wealth creation by draconian taxes on high earners, corporations, and the 'rich' in order to stifle innovation and growth.

But he knows how unpopular these policies are with the voters. Most of his potential voters hover around the median wage level, and they tend to seethe at the embarassingly high benefits packages received by millions who have so far chosen not to work. So he's got to think of something. Immigration, too, is something he would relax, but is frightened to say so.

Hence he has clutched the only straw he can think of.

Osborne, of course, is a bit more clever. He has won the "austerity works" debate hands down. He has given homeowners the 'feelgood' factor. Inflation has been controlled down to 2%. And now, in the final push to the election in a years time, he is igniting the blue touch paper of wages. Just as FFL and HTB was a low-cost stimulus to the house market, increasing NMW is a similar low-cost stimulus to higher wages all round.

He knows the potential inflationary dangers of this but (a) they will not come until after the election, and (b) there is a good chance that the economy will be stimulated enough to ramp up the tax-take.

Either by luck or by judgement, his timing is excellent. As always, we all know that it doesn't matter how "bad" an economic factor is in real terms [e.g. your wages, your house price, inflation, interest rates] 90% of people become "happy" provided that factor is improving. He aims to have almost all measures 'improving' by early 2015.

If it all works, Miliband is dead in the water. I am looking forward (over the next 12 months) to "The Two Eds" becoming the best comedy duo this country has ever seen!

CLAPTON

of course we don't have a crisis of any sort in the UK

water, gas, electricity, food, clothing, transport, fuel and general luxuries (alcohol, creational drugs, fast food, flat screen TVs, Sky etc) are readily and affordably available for the vast majority of the UK people

Housing is expensive but available.

Some people have a lower (real) income than 6 years ago but the many (including up to a million immigrants) clearly do not.

Personally I don't use the metric of what a child thinks as a guide (although I am told that 11 years olds are particularly bright) but we live in a democracy with little real differentiation between the political parties on economic policy. To describe the current UK economic conditions as a crisis might justify the use of the word 'childish'.

The purpose of economic policy is to makes the citizens richer : i.e. higher pay in relation to prices.

Failing that isn't really a crisis but is a reasonable point for a politicians to comment on and to propose alternative policies.

ruggedtoast

Fella wrote: »

Lol, that is class-warrior nonsense of the first order. Straight out of Labour's spin phrasebook.

BTW If you'd care to explain what kind of a recovery wouldn't benefit big business I'd be fascinated to hear it.

The Labour Party makes you pretty angry, doesn't it Fella.

BillJones

Southend1 wrote: »

Except there is a cost of living crisis. Pay has been lagging well behind prices for a few years now. The cost of essentials ie housing, energy, food has risen particularly fast in relation to wages.

It's not a crisis, though. The country was living beyond its means on credit, and is now living at a more realistic level.

To pretend that anything less than a debt-fuelled boom is a "crisis" is just silly. You have to choose a particularly narrow term window and set of people to even be able to point to any reduction in living standards at all, let alone a "crisis".

BillJones

ruggedtoast wrote: »

that which benefits actual people.

This sort of snide phraseology always make me laugh. "Real people", "actual people" or "genuine people" are phrases trotted out, always by the Left, who want to imply that people other than their target group simply don't count, and should be excluded.

Quite why middle classes, wealthy people, doctors, lawyers, CEOs etc are not "actual people" is always glossed over, but apparently, they simply don't matter.

Of course, if anyone were to turn this around, and airily dismiss your special people inn a similar way, we'd get outrage.

Generali

BillJones wrote: »

It's not a crisis, though. The country was living beyond its means on credit, and is now living at a more realistic level.

To pretend that anything less than a debt-fuelled boom is a "crisis" is just silly. You have to choose a particularly narrow term window and set of people to even be able to point to any reduction in living standards at all, let alone a "crisis".

And everyone in the UK can still feed, clothe and house themselves with state help.

Nobody is starving.

lemonjelly

Fella wrote: »

Lol, that is class-warrior nonsense of the first order. Straight out of Labour's spin phrasebook.

BTW If you'd care to explain what kind of a recovery wouldn't benefit big business I'd be fascinated to hear it.

I think the point being made by rugged, is that a government is supposed to be for the people, not for big business.

Generali wrote: »

And everyone in the UK can still feed, clothe and house themselves with state help.

Nobody is starving.

The large increase in use of/need for foodbanks would suggest that people could be, were charitable support not there.