BIG jump in UK CPI inflation.
Up from annual rate of 2% in July to 3.2% in Aug.
Not just the highest level of inflation since 2012, it’s also the biggest month-on-month change in the level in the history of this inflation measure (going back to 1997)
Here’s one reason to believe the inflation rise may be temporary: the main contributing factor was a BIG jump in prices, this year vs last, in restaurants.
And what was happening last year? Eat Out to Help Out.
Once that washes out, some of the upward pressure should go away…
Here’s a reason to believe the rise in inflation may NOT be temporary. Lots of pricing pressure in the pipeline, inc THIS: energy prices are going up v v fast, which will feed into household bills in the coming months. And that’s before you consider costs of raw goods…
You don’t have to look far to find other prices rising very FAST. These are factory gate prices - in other words the wholesale prices companies (as opposed to consumers) pay for materials. And just look: from metals to chemicals to wood, they’re all rising at record rates…
On top of everything else, here’s another inflationary side-effect of the semiconductor shortage.
Not enough chips to go into new cars means not enough new cars which means used car prices are going through the roof (dotted line compares price growth this yr with previous years)
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What does a trade war look like?
Much of what you've heard about tariffs is prob soundbites from politicians & economists.
But what does a trade war actually FEEL like at ground level?
We've spent the past year working on a film on just that.
Here's some highlights
👇
Best place to start is with this👇
It may look like a lump of metal but don't be fooled.
This is a die: a sort of mould used to shape plastics. Looks simple but it's super-engineered - designed to withstand enormous pressure.
Without dies like this there's no manufacturing...
Dies and moulds are the unsung champions in modern mass production.
One of the single most impressive things about Tesla's manufacturing processes is what @elonmusk calls the Gigapress: a massive machine that shapes metal. And at the heart of the gigapress are enormous dies.
The PM keeps repeating the figure £16bn in relation to the OBR's latest forecasts - giving the impression that this would have left a big hole in the public finances. What he fails to acknowledge is that that this is LITERALLY ONLY ONE PART OF THE STORY.
Here's why...
Yes: the OBR downgraded the fiscal numbers by £16bn (actually £15.6bn) due to weaker productivity (red bar below).
But it also simultaneously UPGRADED them by a whopping £32bn (blue bars).
This chart from @TheIFS shows it pretty clearly👇
Banging on about the £16bn productivity - as the PM did repeatedly in his press conference today - without also mentioning the £14bn inflation UPGRADE and the £17bn of other UPGRADES seems... pretty misleading to me.
It's simply NOT the full picture...
NEW
UK abolishes its "de minimis" rules which exclude cheap imports below £135 from paying tariffs.
A massive deal for the fast fashion/cheap Chinese imports sector: this is the so-called loophole used to great effect by SHEIN and Temu.
Should also bring in some tariff revenue
For more background on this, here's our investigation from earlier this year on de minimis and what it means in practice - including a glimpse inside the planes carrying these imports into the UK 👇
The flip side to this policy is:
a) stuff (yes, a lot of it is tat but even so) will get more expensive
b) it primarily hits lower income households
c) as you'll see from my thread, de minimis was a lifesaver for small regional airports. Its demise is v bad news for them...
NEW
"Data center alley" in North Virginia.
Home to the biggest cluster of server centres in the world.
Here, more than anywhere else, is the global epicentre of AI.
It's where the recent AWS outage happened.
And we've secured rare access INSIDE one of the data centres...
The inside of one of the centres, run by Digital Realty, one of the biggest datacenter companies in the world.
Extremely high security. Long, long corridors, flanked by rooms in which those servers are operating.
This is the very heart of the biggest economic story right now
And inside one of those rooms, here is one of the supercomputers powering the AI boom. This Nvidia DGX H100 is the physical infrastructure making AI a reality.
🚨EXCLUSIVE
The firm at the heart of Britain's critical minerals strategy has ditched plans for a rare earths refinery in the UK, and will build it in the US instead.
It's a serious blow to the Chancellor and her plans for "securonomics" ahead of next month's Budget👇
Not long ago Pensana was being hailed as key to Britain's industrial future.
It had plans to ship rare earth ores to the UK and refine them in a plant just outside Hull, creating 126 jobs and bringing in hundreds of millions of pounds of investment...
Its Saltend site was where the then Biz sec Kwasi Kwarteng launched the govt's official critical minerals strategy a few years ago, saying: "This incredible facility will be the only of its kind in Europe and will help secure the resilience of Britain's supplies into the future"
📽️Is Britain REALLY facing a 1970s-style fiscal crisis?
Why are investors so freaked out about UK debt?
Is this REALLY worse than under Liz Truss?
Who's to blame? Rachel Reeves? The Bank of England?
And would a bit of productivity really solve everything?
📈 Your 6 min primer👇
OK, so let's break it down.
Start with the chart everyone (well, everyone in Whitehall) is talking about.
The 30yr UK government bond yield. Up to the highest level since 1998. And it's still rising.
Does this mean the UK is facing a fiscal crisis? Let's look at the evidence
First let's compare the UK to other G7 countries.
There's two ways to do this.
First, look at absolute levels👇
And it looks pretty awkward for the UK.
Pre-mini Budget we were middle of the pack. That changed post-Truss. And now, under Labour, the UK is even more of an outlier.