Are we expecting BOE to remain at 4.75% on 8th February 2025?

Strummer22

michaels said:

NorfolkCanary said:

There's plenty of careers that obviously do require uni degree/post grad doctorates; there's also plenty of jobs out there that don't need that level of study and young adults that would benefit from on the job apprenticeship training, support and learning, therefore not needing to get into £20k+ ? of debt. Of course thanks to government cuts to schooling / H.E. & F.E. education the availability and quality of those schemes is now also heading up the creek with a broken paddle.

Think it was crashy who earlier said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

Increase wages for essential jobs is the answer, not more immigration, IMO.

True, but essential jobs are being paid more, however there's a limit to what the end customer will pay for the good/service provided before they go elsewhere, either to sacrifice a little quality or service. We of course do need more immigration, after all Juliusz hasn't taken two-toothed Bob's job as a surgeon on a whim.

Anyway, is it about time the title was changed to "..................5% or 5.25% on 3rd August"?

My DD1 is doing a micky mouse 'law degree' at a London 'uni' - just a standard 3 year course but with living cost and tuition fees and inflation her 'debt' will be 75-80k at the end.  No doubt if she ends up earning median income (35k in today's money?) she will pay extra graduate tax of about 30k before it gets written off.

Does she have any idea what job she wants once she's got her 'law degree'? £35k in today's money as a salary target (I'm talking mid-career, not graduate) is pretty low for a law professional, even if they only have a micky mouse degree!

michaels

Strummer22 said:

michaels said:

NorfolkCanary said:

There's plenty of careers that obviously do require uni degree/post grad doctorates; there's also plenty of jobs out there that don't need that level of study and young adults that would benefit from on the job apprenticeship training, support and learning, therefore not needing to get into £20k+ ? of debt. Of course thanks to government cuts to schooling / H.E. & F.E. education the availability and quality of those schemes is now also heading up the creek with a broken paddle.

Think it was crashy who earlier said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

Increase wages for essential jobs is the answer, not more immigration, IMO.

True, but essential jobs are being paid more, however there's a limit to what the end customer will pay for the good/service provided before they go elsewhere, either to sacrifice a little quality or service. We of course do need more immigration, after all Juliusz hasn't taken two-toothed Bob's job as a surgeon on a whim.

Anyway, is it about time the title was changed to "..................5% or 5.25% on 3rd August"?

My DD1 is doing a micky mouse 'law degree' at a London 'uni' - just a standard 3 year course but with living cost and tuition fees and inflation her 'debt' will be 75-80k at the end.  No doubt if she ends up earning median income (35k in today's money?) she will pay extra graduate tax of about 30k before it gets written off.

Does she have any idea what job she wants once she's got her 'law degree'? £35k in today's money as a salary target (I'm talking mid-career, not graduate) is pretty low for a law professional, even if they only have a micky mouse degree!

The volume of 'law graduates' far exceed the number of high paying jobs in law (many of which go to those with good degrees in other subjects from proper universities anyway).

Sarah1Mitty2

RelievedSheff said:

NorfolkCanary said:

There's plenty of careers that obviously do require uni degree/post grad doctorates; there's also plenty of jobs out there that don't need that level of study and young adults that would benefit from on the job apprenticeship training, support and learning, therefore not needing to get into £20k+ ? of debt. Of course thanks to government cuts to schooling / H.E. & F.E. education the availability and quality of those schemes is now also heading up the creek with a broken paddle.

Think it was crashy who earlier said:

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

Increase wages for essential jobs is the answer, not more immigration, IMO.

True, but essential jobs are being paid more, however there's a limit to what the end customer will pay for the good/service provided before they go elsewhere, either to sacrifice a little quality or service. We of course do need more immigration, after all Juliusz hasn't taken two-toothed Bob's job as a surgeon on a whim.

Anyway, is it about time the title was changed to "..................5% or 5.25% on 3rd August"?

If inflation doesn't come down substantially next month it will be almost a dead cert that they will raise the rate to at least 5.5% next time!

You could be right, any "hot" inflation figures in that time will see that more or less nailed on, the transmission mechanism of old, where they raised rates and there was an almost immediate effect in the economy is broken, people have too much access to credit now and there was far too much free money given away during Covid, the BOE need to start using the larger hikes to get the economy to notice.

sevenhills

propertyhunter said:

I think we have to relieve the labour market. It's too tight - not enough people to do essential jobs. So we relax our immigration policy - grant more visas. It allows us to be more productive. I think hold interest rates now they are where they are because their effects aren't filtering through yet - only a proportion of mortgage holders are affected so far since more people are on fixed rates. I dread to think what is going to happen in 2025-26 when most people are exposed to the current interest rates. 

Net migration latest data shows a record high of 600,000

sevenhills

lmitchell said:

Scrap VAT on energy. Enforce lower standing charges. Reduce fuel duty.

Those three solutions alone would get us back down fast - and without rates having to go much higher than 3%.

If they do things in the correct order, reverse the 0.5% interest rate hike, increase VAT by 1% to pay off the Governments debt, once that debt is paid off it will save £90 billion per year in debt payments, which would then allow the Government to reduce VAT to 5% on everything.

Although my preference would be to reduce taxes on earnings.

[Deleted User]

FTBs completely shafted. No help at all.

Sarah1Mitty2

[Deleted User] said:

FTBs completely shafted. No help at all.

Interest rate rises are the only help they need really?

ader42

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

5% is about the historical average? but that was when they could manage the inflation rate at around 2%, if they can`t get inflation back to 2% (many commentators are saying this won`t be possible) they won`t be able to make low rates the norm, it will have to be high(er) rates as the norm (again)?

Nope. The average historical BOE base rate from 1971 to 2023 is 7.11%

We have further to go. 

tony863

Prior to reading the last few pages of this thread I convinced myself a tracker mortgage might be worth the punt being around half a percent lower than fixed. My finger in the air feeling was that the rate would peak around 5-5.5% and then fall steadily back down to 2 or 3%.

Having now read some of the recent comments am I right in guessing the higher rates are here to stay? I appreciate it's a crystal ball moment, but maybe the better question is - would anyone opt for a 2yr tracker mortgage right now? 

sevenhills

tony863 said:

I appreciate it's a crystal ball moment, but maybe the better question is - would anyone opt for a 2yr tracker mortgage right now? 

I got a 10 year fix just under six years ago, no one knows where interest rates will be in twelve months time. Fixes cost more, but if rates stay high, my gamble will have saved me some money.