72 days ago
Author Andrew Hoese from Finding Value Finance discusses the potential for inflation in the near future and its impact on various markets. He believes that demographic pressures and fractional reserve lending will lead to inflation and potentially a debt crisis if interest rates rise too high. He suggests that Jerome Powell may raise interest rates further to slow inflation, but this could make it unaffordable for millennials to buy homes. Hoese also discusses the possibility of a short-term slowdown in the real estate market due to deficits and the stimulus sent in 2020. Regardless further inflation may be coming.
74 days ago
Someone, guess who, leaked to the Daily Telegraph that musicMagpie (MMAG) was in bid talks so forcing a statement from the debt laden company. It states that it is in “early-stage discussions with both BT Group plc and Aurelius Group as to a possible offer to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of musicMagpie.” So what is really happening?
2667 days ago
Markets may move down soon which may include mining stocks - that is the view of commentator David Skarica who is concerned about the potential for a big debt crisis which could cause a short term deflationary bout, but it may be a great buying opportunity. Commodities will most likely rally into that deflationary period first and be similar to 2001/2002.
4268 days ago
My piece on how UK house prices will fall by 30% prompted a range of comments. I am not surprised, house prices and the weather are two defining British obsessions. A couple of folks asked why the media/politicians always talk about rising prices as a good thing when they are patently nothing of the sort.
Incidentally, the reason that they are a bad thing is that unaffordable housing prevents labour mobility thus making the UK economy less productive. Moreover the need to a) borrow vast sums to purchase a place and b) spend vast sums funding and repaying that debt leaves the UK population as a whole far too heavily overborrowed and b) have less cash to do sensible things like save for a pension.
So why do the media and politicians say that rising house prices is good news and vice versa? Simple. Demographics. Younger folk (who cannot afford to “get on the ladder”) and the poorest folk who are equally excluded are far less likely to a) vote or b) read newspapers than those who typically own homes. And thus the newspapers are simply buttering up their readers and politicians are simply pretending to have the interests at heart of those who are most likely to troop down to the polling station. It is naked self-interest, nothing more and nothing less.
Meanwhile a reader in his late twenties emails me to say that a) I am wrong – prices will not fall and b) he is saving vast sums by buying an apartment and not renting and handing over cash to a “fat 50 year old landlord.” On the first matter, assertion is not the same as reasoned argument. But I should also pick him up on the second matter
4299 days ago
Today’s UK GDP numbers are disastrous for George Osborne. Folks do not expect to like Tory chancellors (except perhaps Ken Clarke in his fat, cigar smoking and whisky drinking pomp) but they expect them to be competent. Osborne is now going to be the chancellor who sees the UK lose its AAA rating and it is going to happen soon.
That we still have this rating is a joke. Somehow Osborne has managed to persuade us all that he is curbing Government spending ( he is not it is rising in actual terms, in real terms and per head of population) and that he is tackling the deficit ( he is not) and so getting national debt under control ( he is not). His claims were based on assumptions for growth which were, shall we say, optimistic.
4301 days ago
This is a farce. Spain is bust. So too is Italy. France will be next. We have already forgotten about Greece and Cyprus. They are buster than bust. Yet the leaders of the Evil Empire and the IMF just arse about pretending it is all under control. “Don’t panic” shouts Corporal Jones. Das is Gut says Frau Merkel as she announces that she is off on holiday for a month. The Spanish are relaxed. Just ban short selling for 3 months and if we remove the evil speculators everything will come up smelling of roses. Well at least not like the streets of 10 Italian Cities where the trash is 10 foot high and the schools will not re-open in September because there is no money. But that in no way implies that Italy itself is bust, says whichever bloke is leading Italia this week. Yeah right. Of course not. So there you have it. It is all about dealing with evil speculators and we can rest easily. Bollocks.
