Why hasn't QE caused inflation?

In_For_A_Penny_2

Southend1 wrote: »

My thought exactly. Day to day essentials have increased greatly while items like big TVs seem to be ridiculously cheap.

Yes thats a good point. Its interesting how "weighted" some individual items are in the CPI basket. . .

Graham_Devon

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Or is a case that your earnings are no longer keeping up?

I've witnessed salaries for some jobs go back to levels approaching those of 15/20 years ago.

I've noticed field engineer jobs advertised at 20k.

They pump up the vacancy with a 5k car allowance (but that's over 4 years).

The describe a 9.30 - 4.30 working day, but that's your time on site. As a field engineer you could be anywhere within a 200 mile radius of home. You get nothing for the travelling time, bar mileage. You don't normally spend those hours on site, granted. But equally it's never a 9.30 - 4.30 day, especially when you normally have at least an hour or more travelling one way.

Breakfast is offered for overnight stays, but nothing for the actual overnight stay itself. No evening meal allowance. Weekends are sporadic as required, and for doing the weekend you get two days off in the week. They suggest weekend shifts take less time, but in my experience, they take more as no one else is around.

Internet access is required from home and on the go to communicate with head office. Again, this is an expectation and nothing given for it.

I used to do the job myself, but got overnight stay allowances (payment for not being able to get on with everyday life), traveling time allowances and an evening meal allowance of £10 per overnight stay (plus breakfast). Higher salary too, but I wasn't full time, just as and when needed in the area. This was just 9 years ago.

Does appear to me that the expectation is so much more for the same (if not less) in terms of monetry benefits.

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Does appear to me that the expectation is so much more for the same (if not less) in terms of monetry benefits.

When I used to audit. We were always on site between 9 and 5. Irrespective of where the client was based. Had some awful daily journeys to make but we accepted it as part of the job. Overnight stays were likewise part of the job.

wotsthat

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Banks operate internationally likewise so are shareholders so cash will flow outside of the UK. You'd have to look at UK operating profits in isolation to determine the impact. At it's peak HBOS barely made £10 billion total profits to put the PPI payouts in perspective.

PPI was a huge earner for the banks. Enabling cross subsidisation of products such as current accounts and mortgages. With every increasing regulatory costs being imposed on banks. Banks will have to earn their money elsewhere or contract in size.

That doesn't really detract from the fact that if there hadn't been PPI claims a similar amount of cash would have found it's way into the economy via different means.

I don't know how difficult it will be for banks to make profits in the future but cash flow from banks into the economy won't fall off a cliff when PPI claims cease.

Cyberman60

I think the reason is that coupled with QE there has been wage restraint and reduced spending by consumers as they try to pay off debt.

QE has been used to buy assets so it has caused inflation of those assets such as shares/equities and a rise in the stock market index but that money has not been spent on items used in the inflation calculations.

Simples !!

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The describe a 9.30 - 4.30 working day, but that's your time on site. As a field engineer you could be anywhere within a 200 mile radius of home. You get nothing for the travelling time, bar mileage. You don't normally spend those hours on site, granted. But equally it's never a 9.30 - 4.30 day, especially when you normally have at least an hour or more travelling one way.

9:30 to 4:30 with a couple of hours driving on top?

I'm hoping for something like that to ease me into retirement.

Thrugelmir

wotsthat wrote: »

That doesn't really detract from the fact that if there hadn't been PPI claims a similar amount of cash would have found it's way into the economy via different means.

Not sure what other "means" would have injected £5 to £6 billion of cash into the economy. Perhaps the raising of the personal tax allowance by a significant sum. Anyway let's see how the economy fares going forward. As there's bound to be a bumpy ride ahead.

wotsthat

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Not sure what other "means" would have injected £5 to £6 billion of cash into the economy. Perhaps the raising of the personal tax allowance by a significant sum. Anyway let's see how the economy fares going forward. As there's bound to be a bumpy ride ahead.

If banks hadn't paid out £19bn in PPI where would the money have gone instead?

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

9:30 to 4:30 with a couple of hours driving on top?

I'm hoping for something like that to ease me into retirement.

Good for you. Keep hoping. You'll need to when you can't even understand the words "at least"

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Good for you. Keep hoping. You'll need to when you can't even understand the words "at least"

Well I assumed if you're trying to sell a hard luck story then 'at least' an hour would be somewhat closer to 1 hour than 2 - otherwise you would have said 2.

It's just that being on site from 9:30 to 4:30 with 'at least' an hours drive each way means leaving home at 8:30 and getting home at 5:30 doesn't sound like too much of a hardship. Add on another hour a day if you like to ensure it's fully egged and it's still nothing out of the ordinary.

Your hellish hours are normal working week for vast swathes of the population.