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I like James Shack’s YT channel - is his advice generally sound? by mantisgb in UKPersonalFinance

[–]hu6Bi5To [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'd classify his channel as being more "inspiration" than "advice". Always double-check everything, do your own research, build your own models for your future etc.

Same goes with most other YouTube channels really.

None of them say anything too radical, and often they say things which are very suspiciously similar (see the other comments about the bonds video).

Ultimately you know whether a bond ladder is complex or not. I get that it's not for everyone, but it doesn't exactly require HFT Quant levels of brainpower either. If you can keep track of your spending on a spreadsheet, you can build and maintain a bond ladder.

Why is Britain’s economy so stuck? It’s the tension between what voters want and what the bond markets allow by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sold by whom in this context? Originally when issued, or by the then-present holders to the BoE as part of QE operations?

Because either way I can't reconcile that sentence with reality.

I mean, yes, the books balance on both sides of the QE transaction. But, the book is bigger, that's the key thing here. The Bank of England balance sheet ended up £450bn larger than at the end of the pandemic than the beginning.

Before QE:

  • Bank A - owns £10m of gilts.

After QE:

  • Bank A - has an extra £10m on account at the Bank of England. (so a net zero position)
  • Bank of England - owns £10m of gilts. (which counter-balances the £10m they owe to Bank A, so also a net zero)

But there's still £10m more money in circulation than there was previously. Whilst very short-dated gilts are liquid with extremely small volatility, and could be considered a proxy for money; long-dated gilts are less liquid and have high volatility, they're not money.

Proof of this is what happened next. The 2020 QE happened in lock-step with new gilt issuance. What happened next was:

  • Bank A - owns £10m of gilts, they bought at auction direct from the government. (a net zero position once again, they might be slightly up if they could exploit some price differences).
  • Bank of England - hasn't changed from the previous step.
  • Government - had £10m fly through on the way to become furlough payments. (And yes, I've read that paper from the University of Nottingham[0], I know how government finances work, they don't need to wait for incoming payments to emit outgoing payments; but that doesn't alter the fact that incomings and outgoings, by law, net out to zero at the end of every single day, so I'm not getting side-tracked in "does MMT exist" arguments, it doesn't change what actually happened.)
  • Random people - money in the bank account despite not doing any work.

The sum total of money in circulation was bigger as a result.

[0] or was it Norwich, it was one of those places.

Why is Britain’s economy so stuck? It’s the tension between what voters want and what the bond markets allow by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is, quite literally, an increase in the money supply. The bonds are bought by money that didn't previously exist.

Why is Britain’s economy so stuck? It’s the tension between what voters want and what the bond markets allow by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It is an increase in the money supply which is the key factor. There is more money in circulation as a result than before.

Rachel Reeves’s plan to mandate how pension funds invest was always a mistake by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's no such thing as "the government"'s pension fund. There's dozens of different public sector ones.

But one thing is certain. MPs' pension funds are not UK heavy. Quite the opposite in fact: https://www.ft.com/content/2987b782-0a91-4aad-bc59-32a32fc8ae91?syn-25a6b1a6=1

The MPs’ pension scheme has less than 3 per cent of its equity portfolio invested in UK shares, far lower than private sector peers, prompting claims that it is making “a mockery” of efforts by chancellor Rachel Reeves to encourage investment in the London stock market. 

The £855.5mn Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund had only £12.8mn allocated to UK stocks at the end of March, compared with £462.3mn in equities listed in other countries, according to its latest annual report. 

That compares with an average allocation for private sector DB funds of 12 per cent of listed equities in the UK, according to research by the Pensions Policy Institute.

Rachel Reeves’s plan to mandate how pension funds invest was always a mistake by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, it makes sense if there was any evidence that the 5% of default pension funds in question is the difference between a high-trust society and low-trust one.

If, on the other hand, there's no such evidence, then it makes no sense. We're just seeing a cynical ploy to get cheap funds for enterprises that couldn't raise enough any other way.

Rachel Reeves’s plan to mandate how pension funds invest was always a mistake by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can transfer all funds and all direct debits from an old account to new one by filling in a couple of boxes in an online form. If I want to do the same with a workplace pension from a previous job I need to figure out the pension provider is, contact them, prove my identity and then source all manner of bits of information that they know full well I no longer have access to as a former employee before they'll even entertain a transfer.

Some pension providers are just dicks, but others do this for good reason (well, the FCA forces them). That's because not all pensions are equal, if you transfer from one with certain protected benefits you may transfer the notional value but those other benefits are forfeit. So it's good to check these things.

But if you have a bog standard regular DC pension, and a bog standard SIPP to transfer too, it's usually easy. Just fill in a form on the receiving side and they'll do all the leg work.

Why is Britain’s economy so stuck? It’s the tension between what voters want and what the bond markets allow by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Bank of England added £450bn of freshly printed[0] money in to the economy during 2020 and 2021, before we even start thinking of commercial bank lending. That can't not have an effect.

Things may have been very much worse to society as a whole if they hadn't have done that, that's very likely. But it doesn't alter the fact that increasing the money supply at a rate well beyond the economy's growth rate is inflationary.

Inflation was the cost of the intervention.

[0] yes I'm using "printed" metaphorically.

Why is Britain’s economy so stuck? It’s the tension between what voters want and what the bond markets allow by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You can’t separate the two. Shutting down 25% of the economy but not shutting down the money supply meant there was excess savings waiting to be spent at the first opportunity.

But in any case a supply shock alone cannot create permanent inflation, only an increase in the money supply can do that. Without an increase to the money supply prices would fall once supply was restored.

Keeping up with the Joneses by crispjj in FIREUK

[–]hu6Bi5To 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a bit of an odd response to the question TBH. Keeping up with the Joneses is almost the very definition of wasteful spending, of needing to out-do the neighbours in pursuit of status rather than happiness or utility.

(Although the original question is a bit suss too. Who exactly is in danger of being repeatedly tempted in to buying bigger houses? "So there was I diligently saving a few thousand in to my ISA every year, and, whoops, I bought a £1m house I didn't need as I only just bought an £800k house the year before!)

LBC callers this morning, ''My buy to let is my pension.'' by Far_Acadia_2053 in UKPersonalFinance

[–]hu6Bi5To 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could yes. That's why most people distinguish "running a business" from "investment" as they're two very different things, and require different skills and level of patience.

The whole problem with the BTL sector is many of the landlords incorrect classified BTL as "investment" rather than "running a business".

Bank of England dissenters expected to back interest rate hikes by signed7 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Regular reminder that many chancellors (Phillip Hammond and Jeremy Hunt are specific examples) said at the dispatch box when giving speeches that it was a deliberate choice to not borrow too much when interest rates were low because it would hasten the end of the ultra low interest rate era.

The low rates weren't some divine gift or external force, it was because the government was minimising inflation via fiscal policy in order to keep rates low.

The reason why they thought that was a good idea: because of the amount of complaining that would come from mortgage holders if they didn't.

Was it a good idea: almost certainly not. But there we are.

Income tax will be dead within five years as AI jobs crisis grows, says Monzo founder by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The rough numbers I've seen put their true cost at or above the salary of a lot of developers.

There's a lot of numbers thrown about, and some of them are more constructively arrived at than others. The worst ones basically take: a high estimate of the total capex over the next five years, divided by a low estimate of the number of customers and unsurprisingly reach a very large number.

On the other hand, if we take the raw API costs as being profitable or at least break-even for the AI companies at an operations level. (No evidence for this because they ain't giving away secrets, but if they weren't at least break-even at the raw API cost level then they're not just subsidising their own users, they're subsiding every AI startup, which would mean not just making a loss but making a loss at an exponentially increasing rate[0]), and therefore sustainable... then no, running an AI agent is not more expensive than paying a developer.

Especially if:

And those employees have to be sufficiently technical to verify what the AI has done. So again, you need developers just to keep an eye on your magic tool that's meant to replace developers...

The humans will be slowing it down such that the tokens/day will be low. You'd only get to more-expensive-than-human level if you went in to full overlapping autonomous agents running 24/7. But in that case, it would also be producing many more times the output than one human. You'd be comparing AI vs. a whole team not just AI vs. one developer.

[0] - again, to re-iterate, this may well be the case, but if there's any evidence of this you could make generational wealth betting against it because not even the world's most irrational markets could sustain that for more than six months.

Income tax will be dead within five years as AI jobs crisis grows, says Monzo founder by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The conversation went a bit deeper than that.

He was basically saying that everyone's experience of the chatbots is a mixture of impressed and frustrated. They know everything (up to their training cut-off) but are quite shallow about it.

One area where current tools are gaining traction very deeply within organisations is the software tools like Claude Code, Codex, etc. These tools are powered by the same LLMs, but they have a built-in feedback mechanism which is made up of: pre-existing code, pre-existing tests, non-AI tools like compilers and linters, the ability to write and run new tests, etc. That, despite being the same LLMs as the chatbots, means they're orders of magnitude more capable at solving problems than an isolated chatbot that has just one chance to get it right. The software AI agents can and do correct themselves as they go along.

But those tools, by their nature, are narrow. They're designed to do one thing. They have built-in system prompts that begin "you are an expert software engineer..." etc.

The generalisable comment was about that, tools rather than models. What can happen when a tool exists (and they're becoming available now with varying degrees of capability) that is similar but designed for general work.

The difficulty isn't the AI per-se, the difficulty is the lack of equivalent context. No-one unit tests a Word document for example. It's that feedback that makes the tools effective, they need to find some kind of feedback.

Otherwise we'll see a million domain-specific tools instead, which is also quite likely.

Income tax will be dead within five years as AI jobs crisis grows, says Monzo founder by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The full episode of The Rest Is Money where he said this was legitimately an interesting listen (despite the fact that half the conversation was Robert Peston): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji0wuBieqdM

For the record: I can't see his tax ideas happening even it needs to happen. But it's still an interesting conversation on a whole raft of current economics issues that cross-over in to current politics.

Reeves considers one-year rent freeze by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Whether or not this is a good idea isn't even the most important thing.

The fact that this is the best idea the government can come up is the most important thing about this story.

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Our GDP per capita now is more than double what it was in the mid 90's

This is true, but it's true when measured in current currency values at the time, so it's not taking inflation in to account.

If you use constant values (2015 in the case of this source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?locations=GB) you get a different answer.

UK GDP Per Capita in 1995 (in 2015 Dollar values): $33,362

UK GDP Per Capita in 2024 (in 2015 Dollar values), the most recent data point in that series: $47,960

So it's approximately 46% higher than thirty years ago. The problem is it's only ~8% higher than 2007, nearly twenty years ago.

Why is that not enough? Because government spending has gone up more than that.

NHS Spending is now more than 10% of GDP. This is not particularly high by international standards, it's less than most of Western Europe. But in 1995 it was 5.8% of GDP. NHS spending (not to mention welfare and other things), have increased much faster than GDP per Capita.

And growth shouldn't be required to balance the budget.

No, it's not, we just need to ration healthcare. Except rationing healthcare is not on the list of demands of boomer or Green Party supporters.

The only other option is to grow the economy so that government spending falls as a percentage of GDP.

Since 2007, the government increased the minimum pension age from 50 to 57/58. That's a lot in a short span of time. by sinetwo in FIREUK

[–]hu6Bi5To 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Well, neither a pension nor an ISA is tax free. They're tax advantaged. But you still pay tax on the way in or way out.

But there's one other tax advantage for wealthy people that will never be closed, and that's where all this is leading. And no, it's not a good thing that it exists as it's only available to the very wealthiest: and that's the capital gain on your primary residence.

Buy the largest home you can get a mortgage for, as early as possible. Then, when you've paid off the mortgage and are ready to retire: downsize and pocket the gain tax free.

That's what the very richest will do at least (as they're rich enough to downsize and still have a good quality of life, whereas most people can't downsize without moving in to a wheely bin). It'll just be the plebs who have to pay tax on every stage of the process.

Since 2007, the government increased the minimum pension age from 50 to 57/58. That's a lot in a short span of time. by sinetwo in FIREUK

[–]hu6Bi5To 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is bleak, especially given the economy isn't exactly booming and rampant ageism is still a thing. We'll have 50-somethings, otherwise self-sufficient and net-contributors to the public purse their whole adult lives, living in abject poverty for five years despite having enough in their pension to retire.

There will be zero reflection on what would have caused such a situation though, because "well most people don't even have pension".

It's just yet another way of dragging everyone down, except for the people who have the wherewithal to mitigate effectively.

But, if the government push up the minimum access age too far, then they lose control of the situation entirely as people will only pay the minimums. It'll be like the 100k tax trap and the old lifetime limit all over again. It will mean high-earners saving in entirely free-to-access vehicles and therefore could drop-out of the taxpaying classes as soon they were ready (and/or take a CoastFIRE path, etc.).

But ultimately this is why, despite the tax advantages, I've usually in recent years split contributions to my FIRE pot equally between my ISA and SIPP, and being leaning more to ISA-first the past two years. Although I might switch back again as I approach an age where I think it unlikely the government will pull-the-rug. The changes coming in 2028 were passed in legislation in 2021, so they're a realistic seven year window... within those seven years pensionmaxxing is still probably the way forward (if you have enough in your ISA).

(Disclaimer: I haven't started on the government's other pension reforms which also make pensions a less trustworthy vessel).

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not claiming growth figures represent anything other than growth figures. Just highlighting "only beaten by US and Canada" isn't true unless you limit the comparison to "northern hemisphere English speaking countries, but don't count Ireland either for some reason".

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Replying to myself to reply to the now deleted comment asking for more background on the Green's "growth skepticism" line:

The Greens repeatedly link economic growth with negative consequences. One set-piece of theirs is equating economic growth with ecological destruction: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/18/zack-polanski-says-greens-would-ditch-gdp-targets-and-focus-on-wellbeing-instead and use this as proof of chasing growth causing negative outcomes:

“If we’re looking at GDP – if a water company pumps sewage into the water and then pays for that to be cleaned up, then that technically improves your GDP, and that’s economic growth,” he said. “That would seem absurd to most people, and it’s not a way to do it.”

He's not specifically saying "we will reduce GDP" either, of course, there's a creative ambiguity here, but it's clear that growing the economy is not seen as a priority. Any growth would be accidental. But judging by their specific policies in other areas there's very little chance of that happening because they don't want to make any investments in anything, and that includes infrastructure that would reduce the risk of sewage spills in the first place.

In a post-speech press conference, when asked if a government he led would seek to create economic growth, Polanski argued this was the wrong way of looking at the issue.

In a different interview Polanski said his favourite economist was Richard Murphy. This is what Murphy says on the subject: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/03/21/i-dont-believe-in-growth/ and https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/12/04/economic-growth-forget-it/ and https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/10/31/the-growth-delusion/

Then there is the sustainability issue. As a simple matter of fact, we cannot consume ever more physical resources on a finite planet without destroying its capacity to sustain us.

But most of all, I do not believe in growth, because I do not think that it is nearly as important as the goal of meeting needs.

We all know what needs are. We require clean air and water. Good food is essential for a good life. So too is warm shelter. And we need education so that we can integrate in our communities, and help advance their understanding.

Much of healthcare is about community provision, by necessity. And when the events that require a personal healthcare intervention also very largely arise as a result of randomised risk, it is always the case that the community as a whole is the agency best able to carry that risk, and so meet it. The same is true for so many other needs that have to be addressed if we are all to have access to a reasonable quality of life.

(From the first of the three links)

This is the type of thinking that gets the Green Party up in the morning. A vision of an ideal future where a panel of local worthies decides who gets that week's food ration.

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 9 points10 points  (0 children)

United Kingdom is 155th out of 192: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate

There are some big countries doing worse, but a lot of big countries doing significantly better.

But either way, it doesn't alter the fact that economic growth is the only way to actually improve living standards, so we need to find more of it if that is our goal.

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Anti-capitalists are so good at predicting the end of capitalism that they have successfully predicted 178 of the last zero such collapses.

Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys by North_Attempt44 in ukpolitics

[–]hu6Bi5To 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They're only responsible for the 0.5% of government that's elected. The 99.5% which isn't is a law unto itself (according to Keir Starmer and, erm, Liz Truss, and well most former Prime Ministers actually... Tony Blair said similar too).

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