Member Info for skier1

The BoE does need a shakeup. It has overprinted sterling, undercontrolled inflation, forecasts are woeful, and successive governors do little else but talk down Britain. Time for change.

Caught by chance today a YouTube video, where a vox pop was chiding the state for its extensive surveillance network, house arrest for citizens, relentless daily propaganda on state-run TV, unaffordable food inflation, electricity blackouts, unaffordable home energy costs, heat or eat... immediate reaction was to think they were talking about the UK in 2022... in fact, there were talking about life in Soviet USSR communist Romania in 1989!

If anything reflects Britain's uncontrollable desire for self-inflicted misery and doom, the reporting of GDP figures does.

UK GDP was actually up +2% YoY in Q2 2022. This compares Apr to Jun with Apr to Jun and is the best comparison. Strip out the one-off Platinum Jubilee extended Bank Holiday closedown in Jun, and the quarterly figures are holding steady at +0% QoQ (i.e. not down).

We are a very weird nation :-(

As stated many times on here before -- banks are out of fashion on all major stockmarkets worldwide. The 2007-2009 banking collapse saw to that. Banks today have become low-growth, high-regulation, high-risk investments. For example, America is trying to crush Barclays' rival investment bank, China is desperate to breakup rival HSBC into tiny pieces, while Lloyds has the cloud of a rumoured windfall tax from the red UK Tories. Banks are very risky. It is why HSBC AM recently forecasted the average global bank to run an average PE ratio of 8 throughout the 2020s to 2030. LLOY today in 2022 has a PE of 8.

"...I'd like to hear your thoughts on other governments"...

The UK has for decades had just about the highest electricity prices on all of planet Earth. Under-investing, over-taxing, green hysteria. It is one reason (of many) why the UK industrial base of factories has collapsed since the 1960s. It is just too darn expensive to run a big factory in the UK.

Run your mouse or finger over this map. Prices are 2-3 times higher than the US, for example.

https://www.cable.co.uk/energy/worldwide-pricing/

Yesterday = US consumer inflation (retail) falling
Today = US wholesale inflation (factory) falling

US is roaring back in an incredible bull market.

My mate's got a midsized outdoor heated swimming pool -- his heating bill for the pool alone is forecast to hit £25k a year by Jan.

To be fair, since the BoE was nationalised in 1946, the bank has delivered a -70% collapse in the GBP £. One of the worst-performing major currencies of all time. If the Bank of England is not overprinting pounds, it is publishing dodgy forecasts, or talking down the country with self-loathing hysteria. It can't get much worse.

Great inflation report from the US. Inflation is falling. As predicted last month, the bull market is back...

Rather bizarre that everyone obsesses about the 5-10% dividend here, when the share price has collapsed -70% (and keeps on falling). ABDN has far bigger fish to fry than the dividend.

The world's richest man (Musk) and the world's richest fund manager with $10t (Fink) have been dumping near-record levels of stock in the past 5-10 days.

Good old prof. The CGNR shareprice has collapsed -99.9% since the year 2000 and still drilling away in 2022!

The Edinburgh finance "hub" is in a longterm spiral of steep decline. BOS, RBS, Abrdn, etc. The list of failed or declining firms is getting longer and longer with every passing year. The sector is losing credibility, skills and scale. The trend is not your friend here.

Britain is becoming an "emerging market country," analyst says.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/09/britain-is-becoming-an-emerging-market-country-analyst-says.html

Scotland IndyRef is like Remain and Labour.

They shout loud... but never win.

The silent majority are (much) bigger than you think.

As predicted, Truss is now 1/9 odds-on to win! She has it in the bag.

To be fair, the NHSSR today has an astonishing 6 million people on the waiting list for treatment, more than the entire population of Denmark, a physical queue lined-up that would stretch from London to Kiev. And back again.

The NHSSR takes weeks to see a basic doctor and the average first-visit window lasts just 300-600 seconds.

The NHSSR takes months (or even years) to see a dentist and our typical teeth are wonky and covered in crusty plaque.

To suggest the public NHS today is some kind of utopia is delusion of the highest order.

UK housing remains as affordable as it ever was for the past half-century, at 20-50% of average wages, depending on location. With longer 30-to-100-year mortgages on the way, bigger income multiples now permitted, mortgage rates likely falling again next year, and Tory tax cuts and subsidies and sweeteners before the next election, any slowdown in the housing market for now is going to be mild or short-lived.

Will never understand the dividend thing. Dividend stocks have been a disaster for decades. Losing £26k, and probably more like £50k after inflation and index-benchmarking, and saying one is "happy", is delusional.

Growth is where it's at... If you'd plonked just £10k on AMTD Digital (HKD) in the US just 3 weeks ago, in mid-July, you'd now be a £1m millionaire...

Well done to the New Iron Lady for standing up to Sturgeon. The role of a leader is to lift up their country and be inspiring, make people smile. Their role is not to be miserable 365 days a year and talk the nation down with relentless artificial hysteria. At the end of the day, Scotland has lost 2 major referendums by a big margin, and the extremist SNP is losing seats in the Scottish "parliament" and trending down. It is time to move on. The dream is over.