andrewducker | Interesting Links for 06-10-2021

Yes, I think that's probably a fair assessment given my understanding of inflation.

It would be more honest of the government to say
1) the World and British economies are growing quickly after a long and unusual period of contraction
2) additional changes to the UK labour market (which you voted for) are also happening
3) this means that the supply of energy and the supply of workers for many types of job is out of balance with the increaed demand
4) you will see this in some combination of shortage and prices increases for many (but not all) goods and services.
5) there is not much the government can do about this in the short-term
6) some of it will go away on its own as energy markets and chip manufacturers catch up
7) here is a longer-term plan to address the fundamentals

and I'm not saying that they are *not* saying that. Many of the elements of that argument have been mentioned. Not sure how sincere they are about it or how much they appreciate that there is an economic difference between saying a thing and doing a thing. But a bit a waffle about inflation is not really the answer.

Probably not!

And yes, if I felt they understood the fundamentals I'd be a lot happier.

Is there actually increased demand in the UK versus, say, 2019?

I'm not sure there is a huge amount of additional demand now than in 2019. There will be a bit of a backlog in demand and some things will be in the wrong place or wrong configuration (see the problems with loo roll back at the beginging of lockdown when half the loo roll produced in the UK was for offices).

I think specifically on HGV drivers the numbers of drivers have been steadily falling for years I believe and then the impact of Brexit on drivers and lorries from the EU.

Yeah, drivers were slowly declining, but we were making do. And then Brexit pushed us over the edge and made it clear quite how fragile the system is.

I do incidently have quite a lot of sympthay for the government position that it is not their job to prevent shortages at Christmas - when shortages are defined as sausages being more expensive or in short supply and not inadequate calories are available.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for it not being their job to make sure that we must all have the food we expect, rather than there just being sufficient food.

Except that I largely view it as their fault. If Brexit had *necessitated* the level of cutting ourselves off that we did then one could say "They followed through on what they were told to do, and the consequences must now be accepted." But there were many middle grounds they could have gone with, and I can totally hold them responsible for not having done so, and the consequences thereof.

This is true.

At one level it is not the government's job to make sure that specific goods are in specific shops at specific times at a specific price.

At a higher level it is the government's job to create the container where it is easy for people to buy and sell the things they want to (allowing for other societal considerations) by e.g. not ruining our membership of the Single Market.

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