Tema: PPCC-Pisitófilos Creditófagos-Otoño 2022

[R.G.C.I.M.]

Fíjese lo claro que lo tengo yo, que tengo caso exactamente el 50% de mi patrimonio en ladrillo y el 50% en liquidez absoluta.
Es decir apuesto exactamente lo mismo a los dos escenarios extremos.

Sds.

[Manu Oquendo]

Para todo navegante, y más si es corsario,  de vez en cuando es necesario subir a la cofa y otear el horizonte evaluando cada mota discernible en el vasto entorno.   El historiador Braudel recomendaba frecuentemente este escrutinio, metódico y experimentado, del espacio que nos rodea

Por entorno vamos a entender aquí aquello que, no siendo el sistema en el cual residimos, influye en él de forma importante o determinante.

Nuestro "sistema" hoy es la Unión Europea. De hecho toda la legislación relevante para nuestras vidas ya proviene de las Instituciones de la UE y ha sido traspuesta a leyes españolas a un ritmo poco conocido del público pero que algunos años ha sido de hasta de 14 disposiciones diarias. Es decir, una churrera normativa.
Pensamos que nos mandan desde Moncloa, Vitoria, Barcelona, Sevilla, Santiago o Madrid, pero no es cierto. Y si no lo creen miren el Elysium de Madrid central, proscrito para la sufrida chusma no peatonal --racaille que diría Saturno-- por mandato bruselensis.

La misma gente que ha deslocalizado nuestra industria, la misma gente que al imposibilitar la permanencia de lo que era nuestra industria, nos lleva del ronzal  a "invertir" en viviendas. Los que nos obligan ahora a rehabilitarlas "para hacer PIB" y que ya van abiertamente a por los agricultores y el ganado so pretexto de que respiran. Estamos ya en pleno Plan Morgenthau para la vieja Europa.  Parque temático sumiso.

El "Entorno" de la UE podríamos dividirlo en tres grandes bloques pero sin duda el más determinante es Washington. A una cierta distancia estaría el resto de Eurasia y, ya más lejos, lo que queda del globo: mundo musulmán, algunos países de Oriente lejano, Iberoamérica y un África cada vez más importante.


Las líneas que siguen son una pequeña ayuda para prepararnos para una reflexión que a todos compete. Una  autoayuda. Se sale un poco de la coyuntura y trata de abordar factores importantes pero que nunca son tenidos en cuenta por muy distintas razones.

Por ejemplo, todos damos por sentado que la economía (orden en su etimología más depurada) debe ser para el ser humano. Pero convendremos con lo más granado de la exégesis económica que, puestos a definir, es necesario decir qué entendemos por ser humano.

No es lo mismo el ser humano de la "Síntesis Neoclásica" que el del "Marxismo, que el de algunos Austríacos como Röpke,  el del "Canon" de Reinert o incluso el de otras escuelas menores. No es lo mismo y esa diferencia es crucial.

Definir nunca es cuestión irrelevante y menos en un mundo en el que ya es difícil encontrar un gobernante que sepa definir un hombre o una mujer y que, además, se atreva a hacerlo.

Como ya saben ustedes mi arquetipo de ser humano es el de un ser dotado de espíritu que trasciende su vida material y del que se espera que durante dicha vida sea capaz de impulsar el progreso integral de si mismo y de otros.

Se puede no estar de acuerdo, faltaría más, pero esta definición ya no es metafísica y plantea a todo sistema social unas exigencias --derechos y deberes-- muy diferentes de las que puede plantear la economía clásica o el marxismo, ambas meramente materialistas y a merced del Poder.


Como ayuda parcial y sin irnos a grandes alturas traigo cuatro libros que, con los pies en el suelo, en el aquí y el ahora, pueden ayudarnos a todos a mejor discernir y ver más allá de la coyuntura.

Cuatro libros para una guerra.


La guerra de Ucrania ha terminado por colocar a la UE en una encrucijada de tal gravedad que nos exige una  reflexión profunda acerca de hacia dónde vamos, qué rumbo traemos y en qué condiciones se encuentra la nave para afrontar las tormentosas aguas que se avecinan. Porque, por difícil que nos parezca, la nave tendrá que cambiar de rumbo si quiere sobrevivir.

Es un hecho conocido que, después de los ciudadanos de Ucrania, los miembros de la UE somos los más perjudicados por las decisiones que el liderazgo de Occidente ha tomado para sancionar a Rusia tras su invasión de Febrero pasado.

Desde las primeras semanas de esta etapa del conflicto  supimos que, para los ciudadanos de la UE, el coste de las sanciones sería al menos de tres veces el de los rusos. No es una especulación, es un dato conocido que, por ejemplo,  expuso Javier Solana durante su intervención en la Institución Libre de Enseñanza el siete de Marzo de este año.
Así pues, quienes tomaron aquellas decisiones lo hicieron sabiendo  los costes que supondrían para nosotros. Del mismo modo que quien, más recientemente, destruyó el gaseoducto Nord Stream se aseguró de que, “quemando nuestras naves” energéticas, el deterioro económico de Alemania y de la UE quedaba sellado para muchas décadas.  Nuestros costes de miles de productos ya han aumentado a niveles inimaginables hace bien poco con el consiguiente derrumbe de nuestra competitividad global.


Pero la nave europea ya iba mal por un conjunto de circunstancias muy anteriores a esta contienda.  
Una señal de cómo de “tocada” iba la UE es el informe de la Oficina Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual de la ONU sobre generación de nuevas patentes y registros de propiedad intelectual. En dicho informe, que durante la pandemia pasó silenciosamente por nuestros medios de comunicación,  la UE, con el 5.6% de las solicitudes mundiales de registro,  aparece detrás de Corea del Sur con su notable 6.7%.  Por delante de Corea estaban Japón, 10%, los EEUU, 19.5%, y China con el 41%.  No es la única señal  de deterioro pero es muy grave que en una de nuestras históricas fortalezas –éramos líderes mundiales hace ochenta años-- nos encontremos hoy por detrás de un pequeño país como Corea con apenas cincuenta millones de habitantes. Hablando de amenazas existenciales para Europa, esta pérdida de ventaja en la producción intelectual es la más grave, duradera y difícil de revertir.

Por lo tanto dos de los resultados de las decisiones que el liderazgo comunitario ha ido adoptando durante décadas son:
1. el agravamiento de nuestra ya alta dependencia de los EEUU y
2. la aceleración del empobrecimiento de los europeos
Mientras tanto prosigue la deslocalización industrial –ahora hacia América del Norte--.

Si sumamos a lo anterior el hecho de que, por las políticas energéticas, impositivas y la fiebre regulatoria de la UE, hay una pérdida constante de competitividad, nos acercamos a la realidad. Porque cualquier producción se nos vuelve inviable por nuestra estructura de costes, también de los costes fiscales, al tiempo que tecnológicamente seguimos perdiendo relevancia mundial. Si la UE quiere algún día volver a ser una fuerza de progreso económico real, algo muy profundo tiene que cambiar en su estrategia, en sus políticas y en su gobierno.
Los cuatro libros que presentamos a continuación nos ofrecen sabias reflexiones para esta tarea.

El casi tres veces  milenario general y filósofo chino, Sun Tzu, escribió  en su “Libro de la guerra”,  que lo primero que debemos tener en cuenta antes de iniciar una contienda --física,  hibrida o cultural--,   es ver  si la Virtud –Dao-- está de nuestro lado. Para este manual de estudio obligado en todas las academias militares, los restantes factores –clima, topografía, mando y disciplina--  son secundarios con respecto a la posesión de la virtud moral.  La palabra Dao es un concepto que oscila entre la virtud metafísica taoísta y la comunión que en determinadas ocasiones se produce entre gobiernos y gobernados, jefes y subordinados, regímenes y sus ciudadanos. Justo aquello de lo que carece una  UE que promueve activamente la “cancelación” de los valores y tradiciones históricos de Europa.


Otro libro de hace pocos años, "Repensando el liderazgo estratégico", de Federico Aznar, arranca con una espléndida  referencia a escenas de la película "La Misión", que narra la epopeya paraguaya de los Jesuitas españoles. Un gran ejemplo histórico de liderazgo centrado en las exigencias prácticas de la virtud moral. La historia nos mostró cómo esta forma de liderazgo fue  objeto de los ataques inmisericordes del poder terrenal de su tiempo: las monarquías absolutas. Aquellas modélicas “reducciones” indígenas estuvieron en el origen de la gran expulsión de la Orden de toda Europa con la excepción de Prusia y Rusia donde pudieron refugiarse no pocos jesuitas. Este exilio forzado duró desde 1767 a 1814 y, a efectos docentes universitarios en España, no se les permitió reanudarlos hasta 1888.

El modelo desarrollado por Ignacio de Loyola hoy nos suena extraño al descansar en estas cuatro ideas: Discernimiento, Reflexión, Afecto y Acción. Los dos primeros, Discernimiento y Reflexión,  están íntimamente relacionados con la búsqueda de la verdad. Algo incompatible con el relativismo nihilista que hoy circula en una UE que hace todo lo posible por borrar nuestras raíces civilizatorias y que ha llegado incluso a  sugerirnos que restrinjamos el uso de los tradicionales “Christmas” navideños.

Otro gran pensador, Guglielmo Ferrero, exiliado de la Italia de Mussolini, escribió en 1942 desde la Universidad de Ginebra una obra notable: "Poder, los genios invisibles de la ciudad". En ella aborda dos conceptos: la Legitimidad Otorgada --sin la cual todas las formas de poder social terminan por degradarse y desaparecer-- y el Miedo del Poder a perderlo. Los dos factores clave íntimamente ligados a la virtud moral del liderazgo.


El cuarto libro, “The Grand Chessboard”, 1997, del gran Zbigniew Brzezinski, ilustre pensador polaco nacionalizado en los Estados Unidos, profesor, miembro de su “establishment” de Seguridad Nacional y fallecido en 2017, dice en aquella edición algo que debiera hacernos reflexionar como europeos. Se refiere a los principales objetivos de toda metrópoli en su relación con los territorios imperiales.  Son estos:
1. Impedir la colusión de los estados vasallos.
2. Mantener los flujos tributarios.
3. Asegurar su dependencia defensiva.
Seguro que no solo “nos suenan” sino que los reconocemos perfectamente en nuestras vidas.


Vivimos días amargos para una Europa muy necesitada de un alto en el camino que nos permita  discernir y reflexionar sobre nuestra ambición estratégica  para los próximos cincuenta o cien años. Como antes de todas las batallas, es crucial preguntarnos honestamente si estamos del lado de la virtud y de la verdad.  Si lo hacemos veremos que hemos renunciado a ser independientes y que hemos aceptado seguir estrategias que no son las nuestras. Al hacerlo, no solo hemos retrocedido sino que, como estamos viendo, nuestra dependencia ha aumentado dramáticamente y en contra de nuestros intereses.

De ello debemos responder todos, pero muy especialmente quienes, siendo responsables de ejercer el liderazgo moral y de representarnos, han servido a otros fines y a otros intereses. Fuera del sendero del progreso, la paz, la verdad y la justicia. Lejos de la libertad y la responsabilidad personales.

Un cordial saludo previo a la Navidad.

[Derby]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/larry-summers-says-fed-boost-005158536.html

Larry Summers Says Fed Will Need to Boost Rates More Than Markets Expect



(Bloomberg) -- Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned that the Federal Reserve will probably need to raise interest rates more than markets are currently expecting, thanks to stubbornly high inflationary pressures.

“We have a long way to go to get inflation down” to the Fed’s target, Summers told Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin. As for Fed policymakers, “I suspect they’re going to need more increases in interest rates than the market is now judging or than they’re now saying.”

Interest-rate futures suggest traders expect the Fed to raise rates to about 5% by May 2023, compared with the current target range of 3.75% to 4%. Economists expect a 50-basis point increase at the Dec. 13-14 policy meeting, when Fed officials are also scheduled to release fresh projections for the key rate.

“Six is certainly a scenario we can write,” Summers said with regard to the peak percentage rate for the Fed’s benchmark. “And that tells me that five is not a good best-guess.”

Summers was speaking hours after the latest US monthly jobs report showed an unexpected jump in average hourly earnings gains. He said those figures showcased continuing strong price pressures in the economy.

“For my money, the best single measure of core underlying inflation is to look at wages,” said Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg Television. “My sense is that inflation is going to be a little more sustained than what people are looking for.”

Average hourly earnings rose 0.6% in November in a broad-based gain that was the biggest since January, and were up 5.1% from a year earlier. Wages for production and nonsupervisory workers climbed 0.7% from the prior month, the most in almost a year.

While a number of US indicators have suggested limited impact so far from the Fed’s tightening campaign, Summers cautioned that change tends to occur suddenly.

“There are all these mechanisms that kick in,” he said. “At a certain point, consumers run out of their savings and then you have a Wile E. Coyote kind of moment,” he said in reference to the cartoon character that falls off a cliff.

In the housing market, there tends to be a sudden rush of sellers putting their properties on the market when prices start to drop, he said. And “at a certain point, you see credit drying up,” forcing repayment problems, he added.

“Once you get into a negative situation, there’s an avalanche aspect-- and I think we have a real risk that that’s going to happen at some point” for the US economy, Summers said. “I don’t know when it’s going to come,” he said of a downturn. “But when it kicks in, I suspect it’ll be fairly forceful.”

Inflation Target

The former Treasury chief also warned that “this is going to be a relatively high-interest-rate recession, not like the low-interest-rate recessions we’ve seen in the past.”

Summers reiterated that he didn’t think the Fed ought to change its inflation target to, say, 3%, from the current 2% -- in part because of potential credibility issues after having allowed inflation to surge so high the past two years.

[AbiertoPorDemolicion]

Pero la nave europea ya iba mal por un conjunto de circunstancias muy anteriores a esta contienda.  
Una señal de cómo de “tocada” iba la UE es el informe de la Oficina Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual de la ONU sobre generación de nuevas patentes y registros de propiedad intelectual. En dicho informe, que durante la pandemia pasó silenciosamente por nuestros medios de comunicación,  la UE, con el 5.6% de las solicitudes mundiales de registro,  aparece detrás de Corea del Sur con su notable 6.7%.  Por delante de Corea estaban Japón, 10%, los EEUU, 19.5%, y China con el 41%.  No es la única señal  de deterioro pero es muy grave que en una de nuestras históricas fortalezas –éramos líderes mundiales hace ochenta años-- nos encontremos hoy por detrás de un pequeño país como Corea con apenas cincuenta millones de habitantes. Hablando de amenazas existenciales para Europa, esta pérdida de ventaja en la producción intelectual es la más grave, duradera y difícil de revertir.

Déjales, que inventen ellos. Ya les "sacaremos" sus plusvalías tecnólogicas alquilándoles El Pisito Español. Esos listillos que crean patentes y propiedades intelectuales, ya vendrán a España a vivir y ahí les estaremos esperando con nuestros caseros patrios para "sacarles" todo el dinero que ganen con sus inventitos.

Ellos invierten en propiedades intelectuales, y los españoles en propiedades inmobiliarias. ¿Que hay de malo? Eso está aceptado socialmente. Ahora vete a decirle a un ahorrador español que deje de meter dinero en El Pisito y lo invierta en "propiedad intelectual"; se va a descojonar de ti en tu cara. Y con razón, porque si en Corea lo sensato es invertir en "propiedad intelectual", en España se invierte en propiedad inmobiliaria.

Tu mismo lo dices:

La misma gente que ha deslocalizado nuestra industria, la misma gente que al imposibilitar la permanencia de lo que era nuestra industria, nos lleva del ronzal  a "invertir" en viviendas.

A ver donde encuentras estos titulares, pero referidos a la "propiedad intelectual":

Vivienda en España: rentabilidad del 7,5% en los últimos tres años y valor refugio ante la inflación
https://www.estrategiasdeinversion.com/analisis/bolsa-y-mercados/informes/vivienda-en-espana-rentabilidad-del-75-en-los-n-563201

¿Por qué España es un país rentable para invertir en vivienda?
https://rucapri.es/por-que-espana-es-un-pais-rentable-para-invertir-en-vivienda/

Las nuevas zonas rentables para invertir en vivienda
https://www.expansion.com/ahorro/inversion-inmobiliaria/las-nuevas-zonas-rentables-para-invertir-en-vivienda.html

La ciudad española donde se gana más dinero con un piso en alquiler tiene 75.000 habitantes
https://www.finanzas.com/inmobiliario/piso-alquiler-ciudades-para-invertir.html

Pero claro, la culpa de que España sea un desierto en "propiedad intelectual" y esté atiborrada de El Pisito esperando su mirlo blanco que les llegue de un pais rico en "propiedad intelectual", la tienen los "uropeos", el club de los gilifinders y los reptilianos que desde el planeta Reticulín nos controlan. Los Españoles somos unos benditos que metemos todo nuestro dinero en El Pisito porque no nos queda otra que explotar al prójimo con un bien de primera necesidad en un pais que si sobra algo, es suelo para construir pisitos.

En las democarias parlamentarias basadas en la formación de mayorias electorales, The Mob Rules.

Y una mayoria electoral puede ser tan HGDLP como los Gilifinders, los Reptilianos o los que se están forrando con la guerra de Ucrania. Eso de que las mayorias, por el hecho de ser mayoria, tiene como objetivo el bien común, ya no cuela. Y lo de traspasar su responsabilidad a conceptos etéreos como Las Elites o los Gilifingers, tampoco.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-03/britain-is-near-bottom-of-the-heap-for-economic-growth-potential

Britain Is Near Bottom of the Heap for Economic Growth Potential

*Former BOE official says dip explains high UK tax burden
*Labor shortages behind steep collapse in growth ‘speed limit’

Britain’s growth potential has fallen behind every large economy except Mexico due to collapsing productivity and severe labor market shortages, according to former Bank of England rate-setter Michael Saunders.

Saunders, who finished his term at the UK central bank in August and is now senior economic adviser at Oxford Economics, said his analysis of 43 country forecasts by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed the UK’s economic “speed limit” will be the second lowest in the group for the period from 2020 to 2024.

Potential output, a mixture of productivity and workforce growth, is a measure of how fast an economy can expand before generating inflation. The findings suggest little hope that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government can escape economic stagnation and inflation that are delivering the sharpest squeeze on consumers in memory.

“Low potential growth implies low growth in real living standards,” Saunders wrote in a note. “It also implies a sluggish trend in growth of tax revenues and meager growth in real public spending per head or a rising tax burden.”



Saunders said the UK will manage an expansion of only 0.5% annually over the four years to 2024. On a per person basis, the Bank of England’s recent forecasts suggest potential output will not grow at all between 2019 and 2025, he added.

The dismal picture helps explain why the UK faces a sharp squeeze on household incomes and the highest sustained tax burden since the Second World War.

Britain was “roughly in the middle of the pack” of the 43 OECD nations for potential growth between 2010 and 2019, Saunders said. But a steep decline in labor market participation since the pandemic has hit the UK hard. Alongside persistently weak productivity, the workforce is now shrinking as older workers retire early and others drop out with long term illness.

The UK workforce is 1% smaller than at the end of 2019 and 3% smaller than it would have been on past trends, the worst collapse in participation of any leading economy. Saunders warned the picture may not improve.

“Unless offset by persistently high inward migration, adverse demographics driven by population aging are likely to further limit workforce growth in the coming years,” he said.



“Even with a pickup in the next two years, we expect UK workforce growth will slow from an average of 0.8% year on year during 2010-2019 to around zero year-on-year on average in 2020-2024, among the lowest of any industrial country and well below workforce growth in the US and Euro Area.”

To help tackle the problem, he called for measures to address the rise in long-term sickness through cutting NHS waiting lists, which have risen above 5 million.

[Derby]

https://fortune.com/2022/12/01/housing-market-in-housing-bubble-says-fed-chair-powell/

Fed Chair Powell: U.S. ‘housing bubble’ formed during the pandemic and now ‘the housing market will go through the other side of that’

(...) On Tuesday, the most powerful economist in the world did just that: Speaking at a Brookings Institute event, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the audience that the run-up in home prices during the Pandemic Housing Boom qualifies a “housing bubble.”

“Coming out of the pandemic, [mortgage] rates were very low, people wanted to buy houses, they wanted to get out of the cities and buy houses in the suburbs because of COVID. So you really had a housing bubble, you had housing prices going up [at] very unsustainable levels and overheating and that kind of thing. So, now the housing market will go through the other side of that and hopefully come out in a better place between supply and demand,” Powell said.

According to past statements by Powell, that process of bringing “balance” to the U.S. housing market has already begun. In June, Powell said spiked mortgage rates would help to “reset” the U.S. housing market. Then in September, Powell told reporters that we had officially entered into a “difficult [housing] correction” that would restore “balance” to the market.

That “bubble” acknowledgment by Powell comes on the heels of an article published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas with the title “Skimming U.S. Housing Froth a Delicate, Daunting Task.” The article argued that policymakers should try to deflate the bubble rather than burst it.(...)

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/f068d13e-e604-4a5c-a3cd-ef6dff6b076f

Blackstone’s BREIT defence

They love their $145bn property trust, and think you should too

Amid all the crypto excitement we missed an update from another one of the more legitimately interesting stories out there: The Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust has published its third-quarter results.

Last month we published a big post exploring BREIT’s rampant growth, its growing importance to Blackstone, the increasingly wild divergence between its performance (up ca. 9.3 per cent this year) and publicly listed real estate trusts (down about 28 per cent in 2022) and the outlook at a time of rising rates and weakening property markets. It’s a subject that is getting more and more attention.

Unsurprisingly, Blackstone thinks all this chatter is overdone, so in addition to the 10-Q it also released a Q&A with Nadeem Meghji, the company’s head of Americas real estate, which attempts to address all these issues. The tl;dr is that Blackstone is great, they love BREIT, and so should you.

BREIT has delivered extraordinary returns to investors since inception nearly 6 years ago. We could not be more proud of the portfolio we have built. Demonstrating our conviction in BREIT, Blackstone employees have over $1 billion of their own money invested in the company, including more than $300 million invested by senior executives over the last four months.

The Q&A is worth reading to see how Blackstone’s rationale for why it is doing so much better than publicly traded real estate, its explanation for outflows (driven mostly by wealthy people in Asia, it seems) and how values its real estate.

Their emphasis below:

BREIT updates its valuations monthly to reflect what’s happening in the private real estate market and has those values reviewed by an independent third party.

Higher interest rates have led to materially higher cap rates (lower valuation multiples) which have negatively impacted valuations. BREIT’s valuations reflect this change, and we have increased our assumed rental housing and industrial exit cap rates and discount rates by 14% and 6% YTD, respectively.

At the same time, BREIT’s strong cash flow growth, stable income and value increases from our interest rate hedges have more than offset the negative valuation impact from materially higher cap rates.

Our 5.4% assumed rental housing and industrial exit cap rate is 160bps above the 10Y treasury yield of 3.8%.

So far this year, BREIT has sold $2B of real estate at an average 8% premium to the carrying value that BREIT ascribed to these assets.

Our assumed rental housing and industrial exit cap rate today is higher than many non-traded REIT peers, who have not moved their valuation assumptions as meaningfully.

For completists, in an accompanying video you can also watch Blackstone president Jonathan Gray talk up the prospects of BREIT despite a “challenging time” for markets. It’s almost as if the vehicle has become essential to Blackstone’s financial results…

The third-quarter report and a monthly portfolio update indicates that not everyone is convinced though. After a ferocious stretch of growth since being established, BREIT’s net asset value dipped to $69.5bn at the end of October, from $70.4bn at the end of September. (Its total assets were valued at $144.9bn at the time).

Outflows — in the form of repurchases of investor shares — have slowed since the summer, but will continue to be “closely watched as the fund matures in the face of a less constructive backdrop,” as Jefferies analysts noted in a report this morning.



The question is still just how sticky money in BREIT will prove if the US real estate market does crack and Blackstone is forced into marking down the value of its holdings. That could made its performance suddenly look a lot less fabulous. We suspect some people at 345 Park Avenue are praying for a Fed pivot.

[Derby]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/03/brexit-has-fuelled-surge-in-uk-food-prices-says-bank-of-england-policymaker

Brexit has fuelled surge in UK food prices, says Bank of England policymaker

Britons need to be kept aware of the cost of leaving the EU, says Swati Dhingra

Brexit is contributing to a surge in food prices as the country heads into recession, a senior Bank of England policymaker has warned.

Swati Dhingra – the newest member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), which sets interest rates – also used an interview with the Observer to suggest that the coming run of central bank rate rises should peak below 4.5%, which is the level that some City investors are expecting. “The market is probably underestimating what damage that [level of interest rates] might cause to the UK economy,” she said.

Dhingra maintains that further aggressive moves to raise the cost of borrowing from the current level of 3% would risk exacerbating Britain’s economic downturn.(...)

[pollo]

https://fortune.com/2022/12/01/housing-market-in-housing-bubble-says-fed-chair-powell/

Fed Chair Powell: U.S. ‘housing bubble’ formed during the pandemic and now ‘the housing market will go through the other side of that’

(...) On Tuesday, the most powerful economist in the world did just that: Speaking at a Brookings Institute event, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the audience that the run-up in home prices during the Pandemic Housing Boom qualifies a “housing bubble.”

“Coming out of the pandemic, [mortgage] rates were very low, people wanted to buy houses, they wanted to get out of the cities and buy houses in the suburbs because of COVID. So you really had a housing bubble, you had housing prices going up [at] very unsustainable levels and overheating and that kind of thing. So, now the housing market will go through the other side of that and hopefully come out in a better place between supply and demand,” Powell said.

According to past statements by Powell, that process of bringing “balance” to the U.S. housing market has already begun. In June, Powell said spiked mortgage rates would help to “reset” the U.S. housing market. Then in September, Powell told reporters that we had officially entered into a “difficult [housing] correction” that would restore “balance” to the market.

That “bubble” acknowledgment by Powell comes on the heels of an article published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas with the title “Skimming U.S. Housing Froth a Delicate, Daunting Task.” The article argued that policymakers should try to deflate the bubble rather than burst it.(...)

Bueno, no puede ser ya más explícito que esto.

[asustadísimos]

MUERTOS ENTERRADORES.—

Lucas 9, 57-62:
«Las zorras tienen madrigueras... Que los muertos entierren a sus propios muertos».

Siendo evidente que la vivienda no vale lo que se paga por ella (la razón) y probado, por confesión, que lo que le importa a los inmo no es qué ocurre (los hechos), ni siquiera, qué es lo que puede ocurrir (el riesgo), sino solo lo que tú sientes que puede ocurrir (la emoción), es obligatorio investigar cómo funciona la anulación de la razón por la emoción.

En cuanto a los hechos, hay que decir que, en la segunda mitad de los 2000, pinchó una burbuja popularcapitalista mundial; que venía hinchándose desde mediados de los 1980; y que, habiendo sido necesario a modo de laxante reinflarla una temporadita a mediados de los 2010, en los 2020 el sistema capitalista ya tiene su digestión vencida. Para tu vida biológica es mucho tiempo. Para la del sistema, nada.

El sistema está tranquilo. Antes de pasar página de modelo, para pasteurizar el residuo de bichos —por fin, los bichos son los inmos, no nosotros—, ha optado por inducirles un coma. Para ello está bastando con subir un poco el ínfimo nivel de tipos de interés del que gozamos y que vamos a seguir gozando porque, por mucho fogón que tengamos dentro del iglú, el iceberg deflacionario no solo está intacto, sino que es la base del nuevo modelo de sustitución. Para justificar dicha subida, no ha hecho falta nada importante: consentir una orgiita de precios en energía y alimentación, dos cosas con las que el mundo desarrollado peca de gula; y mostrar frialdad ante las acusaciones de economicidio por parte de los bichos —precisamente, lo que va a decaer es el lastre aproductivo que quiere pasteurizarse—. En la dialéctica de Estados, no hay quien no haya aprovechado para desarrollar su agenda.

En suma, en cuanto al riesgo, no solo ha pasado lo peor, sino que la transición de modelo va a las mil maravillas, razón por la que hay tanta serenidad en la calle (por cierto, en la reciente comparecencia de H. de Cos en el Senado, ya no se puso tan interesante con la supuesta incertidumbre). Lo peor de la transición estructural ha pasado, sí, pero para los bichos lo peor viene ahora. En 2019 les cortaron el acceso al mercado de capitales. Ahora, toca que se haga verdad la famosa colaboración público-privada, pero no como piensan ellos, sino justo al revés. Ni suelo finalista ni leches (*).

¿Por qué no hay día en el que no se nos bombardee con:
• lo irremediablemente carísima que será la vivienda hasta el día del juicio final y
• lo psicópata que es el usurero inmobiliario que todos llevaríamos dentro?

Se doblega nuestra razón con dos técnicas:
• el anclaje y
• la indefensión aprendida.

El anclaje consiste en estar entrenado para asociar de forma automática una emoción a determinado estímulo.

La indefensión aprendida consiste en estar entrenado para no hacer nada frente a determinado daño.

Nosotros, a lo nuestro. En lo inmobiliario, ni tenemos anclajes ni indefensión alguna.

Dejemos que los muertos se entierren entre ellos. No se nos ha perdido nada en la madriguera de zorras.

___
(*) El finalismo no hay que predicarlo del suelo sino de la vivienda.— El suelo urbano es finalista —que no es una calificación jurídica— cuando ya cuenta con todos los servicios y no hay que hacer ya ninguna gestión más. Entre los inmos se dan navajazos (conversación real —hablando de amigos de amigos de funcionarios de la Concejalía de Urbanismo—):
—Tengo más suelo que tú.
—Tu suelo no es finalista.
—Más que el tuyo.
—¿Estás seguro?
—Eres un cabrón.
Recordemos que los precios inmobiliarios no se fijan por el método del coste incrementado. No se suman los costes y, al final, se añade el margen del constructor. Son precios llamados políticos. Se fijan desde fuera y se reparten para atrás. El suelo 'vale' lo que vas a sacarle al consumidor final. Como los márgenes de la industria de la construcción no tienen por qué ser diferentes a los de las demás industrias —y la Contabilidad es estándar—, en el 'patrás' el resto que queda para justificar razonablemente el exagerado precio de la vivienda es inmenso y no hay más remedio que echar mano del suelo. No hay ningún concepto de coste en el escandallo con potencia para justificar el precio exorbitante de la vivienda. Es exactamente al revés de lo que dicen los inmos, que aquí demuestran su inmenso cinismo, porque ellos saben perfectamente que la vivienda no es cara por el suelo, sino el suelo por la vivienda; aparte de que acaparan y racionan suelo con desvergüenza. La carestía del suelo finalista no depende de su hipotética escasez (de la que habría mucho que hablar, pero no entremos en su juego), sino que es la prueba irrefutable de que los precios 'finalistas' de la vivienda están absurdamente sobrevalorados. El absurdo está en que el suelo no vale intrínsecamente casi nada, como lo prueba que dos pisitos idénticos en edificios colindantes, uno de cuatro alturas y otro de ocho, 'valen' lo mismo. Además, como el suelo es abundantísimo en un país como España y tenemos grabada a fuego la idiotez ofertademandista de que la escasez es valor (máquina de imprimir, etc.), hay que sacarse un conejo 'escasecista' de la chistera: el 'finalismo'; con el que matas dos pájaros de un tiro porque te permite echarle la culpa a 'la Administración' —no se puede echar al Estado porque las potestades están descentralizadas—. Por eso los inmos invocan colaboración público-privada, para quejarse de no-finalismo. Mero victimismo exculpatorio. En su fuero interno piensan: «¡Bendita mierda de falta de colaboración público-privada, que me permite justificar con el suelo el timo de la vivienda!». Pero tienen un problema y gordo. La colaboración público-privada puede entenderse justo al revés de lo que piensan: Cohecho o «¡Exprópiese!» o «¡Ejecútese!», esto tercero si no honran sus deudas, que son enormes porque sus negocios están subcapitalizados aposta, razón por la que el sistema los echa a patadas.

[Derby]

Esto tiene muy mala pinta, cada vez peor...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/binance-frozen-withdrawals-crypto-linked-102756697.html

Binance has frozen withdrawals of a crypto linked to its own token that looks like it's been hacked, CEO 'CZ' says

*Binance froze withdrawals of a staked Ankr protocol token Friday.

*The exchange's chief executive Changpeng Zhao said the crypto could have been targeted by hackers.

*The Ankr coin's price crashed 99.5% in the past 24 hours, sparking fears of an attack.

Binance said Friday that it will freeze withdrawals of a cryptocurrency that derives part of its value from a link to the exchange's own native Binance Coin token.

Chief executive Changpeng Zhao said withdrawals of Ankr's Reward Bearing Staked BNB coin would be paused while Binance probed a potential attack by hackers.

The token, which held around $123 million of assets and was intended to offer Binance Coin holders returns via staking, crashed 99.5% Friday to trade at $1.51.

"Initial analysis is developer private key was hacked, and the hacker updated the smart contract to a more malicious one," 'CZ' said on Twitter. "Binance paused withdrawals a few hours ago."

Binance has also frozen around $3 million that hackers moved to its centralized exchange, he added.

Hackers have relentlessly targeted digital assets in 2022 with more than $3 billion wiped from the sector this year, according to Chainalysis.

Binance's freezing of Ankr's token comes at a time when investors are worrying about contagion from the implosion of rival exchange FTX and a brutal crypto winter that has seen bitcoin's price fall 63% year-to-date, with the token trading at just under $17,000 at last check.

[pollo]

Esto tiene muy mala pinta, cada vez peor...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/binance-frozen-withdrawals-crypto-linked-102756697.html

Binance has frozen withdrawals of a crypto linked to its own token that looks like it's been hacked, CEO 'CZ' says

*Binance froze withdrawals of a staked Ankr protocol token Friday.

*The exchange's chief executive Changpeng Zhao said the crypto could have been targeted by hackers.

*The Ankr coin's price crashed 99.5% in the past 24 hours, sparking fears of an attack.

Binance said Friday that it will freeze withdrawals of a cryptocurrency that derives part of its value from a link to the exchange's own native Binance Coin token.

Chief executive Changpeng Zhao said withdrawals of Ankr's Reward Bearing Staked BNB coin would be paused while Binance probed a potential attack by hackers.

The token, which held around $123 million of assets and was intended to offer Binance Coin holders returns via staking, crashed 99.5% Friday to trade at $1.51.

"Initial analysis is developer private key was hacked, and the hacker updated the smart contract to a more malicious one," 'CZ' said on Twitter. "Binance paused withdrawals a few hours ago."

Binance has also frozen around $3 million that hackers moved to its centralized exchange, he added.

Hackers have relentlessly targeted digital assets in 2022 with more than $3 billion wiped from the sector this year, according to Chainalysis.

Binance's freezing of Ankr's token comes at a time when investors are worrying about contagion from the implosion of rival exchange FTX and a brutal crypto winter that has seen bitcoin's price fall 63% year-to-date, with the token trading at just under $17,000 at last check.

Llamadme optimista, pero esto para mí cada vez tiene mejor pinta  .

"Me los hackeó el perro... digooo, los hackers."

[Negrule]

Why inheritance is the dirty secret of the middle classes – harder to talk about than sex

Forget boomers v millennials: is the real divide between people who inherit from their parents – and those who don’t?

Isobel had a hard time getting pregnant. After several heartbreaking miscarriages and three gruelling rounds of IVF, she had begun to worry that, at 34, she was running out of time. But, miraculously, the fourth round worked, and when we speak she is weeks from giving birth. Her parents are “amazingly excited” about meeting their first grandchild, not least because they funded Isobel’s fertility treatment – as is the case for an estimated one in eight British couples needing IVF – meaning she and her partner could throw everything into trying to conceive, undergoing several treatment cycles in quick succession.

“I’m so grateful to have been able to rattle through it at the speed we did, when I know friends have taken big gaps between IVF rounds because they had to save up,” says Isobel, who works for a London-based charity. “I didn’t have to think about how much it cost, which really took the pressure off.” The pandemic had also made her acutely aware of her parents’ mortality, worrying they might not live to see any grandchildren. So she and her partner gratefully accepted their offer.

It’s not the first time family money has helped her out. Isobel’s parents inherited legacies from their own parents in their 50s, which helped them pass on “living gifts” to her. They helped her buy a house in London when she was 27, and paid off her student loan when she was 22, so she could start saving for a pension. “When I think of the money that’s gone into that pension, it just starts a whole cycle of privilege over again,” Isobel says. Although she couldn’t be more grateful for her parents’ life-changing generosity, like many recipients of family money, she isn’t comfortable discussing it publicly; Isobel isn’t her real name and she hasn’t been upfront with colleagues about how she came to buy a house so young. It was awkward, she admits, when they started holding Zoom meetings from home during the pandemic and everyone could see where she lived. “It doesn’t feel fair – and it makes you feel guilty.”

Britain is entering a golden age of inheritance, as the trillions accumulated by the postwar baby-boom generation begin trickling down to their children and grandchildren in what’s been dubbed the great wealth transfer. By 2025, £100bn – more than half the annual budget of the NHS – could be changing hands every year, according to a landmark analysis commissioned by estate administrators the Kings Court Trust. By 2047, they estimate that number could more than treble. Around £5.5tn in total could flow down through families over the next 30 years, both in conventional legacies and increasingly in living gifts like Isobel’s, which don’t attract inheritance tax if the donor survives for seven years after handing them over. In wealthy families, these can be part of a carefully crafted strategy to reduce death duties, often funnelled into property or school fees. “As a grandparent, have you considered investing in your grandchild’s education instead of paying 40% inheritance tax?” asks the website of fee-paying Bolton school, suggesting brightly that it’s one way to “leave a worthy bequest whilst avoiding giving away lifetime earnings to the taxman!”

But wealth transfers aren’t confined to the rich. Research into lifetime gifting by HMRC found nearly a quarter of over-70s had helped their children out financially in the last two years alone, with the instinct to help so strong that some were getting into debt to do it. Half of first-time buyers have financial help from family, according to the annual Bank of Mum and Dad report from financial services company Legal & General, while roughly a third of grandparents plan to help grandchildren with university costs. A generation who enjoyed free education, and could become homeowners even on relatively modest incomes, are watching in alarm as their children struggle to reach the same milestones, and stepping in if they can.

The sums involved in the great wealth transfer are so staggeringly high partly because the so-called boomers make up such a big chunk of the population – roughly a fifth – but partly because they got lucky. Historically, it’s perfectly normal for older people to be richer than younger ones, having had a lifetime to accumulate property, pensions and savings. What has happened to those assets over a generation, however, is unusual. House prices trebled in real terms between 1980 and 2020, and even a council house bought through Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy can be worth seven figures in some London postcodes. One in four pensioner households are now worth over £1m on paper, even if they’re not cash rich. Now this windfall is heading down to the next generation – or to some of them.

As the Kings Court Trust analysis warns, there is a “deep and growing divide” between younger people who expect to be left something and those painfully aware they won’t be, in a world where family money is becoming increasingly critical to life chances. Research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank last year showed that for children born in the 60s, a quarter of the difference in living standards between rich and poor was explained solely by inherited capital. For 80s children, a third of it is. And the harder it feels to make it on merit in tough economic times, the more inherited wealth may grate, making it an extraordinary wellspring of guilt, rivalry and sometimes gnawing resentment. Last summer, New York magazine rather melodramatically asked, “Will the Great Wealth Transfer trigger a millennial civil war?”, arguing that the supposed generational conflict between boomers and millennials might soon morph into conflict between the young haves and have-nots.

It’s something Isobel worries about. “Of my friends who have bought houses, most have got money from their parents,” she says. “When people talk about our generation having a terrible time, I think the divide is between people who do and don’t have inherited wealth.” No wonder inheritance has become the middle class’s dirty secret, harder to talk about than sex.

A child of Nigerian immigrant parents, the writer Otegha Uwagba did not grow up with money. But getting a full scholarship to a private school, then moving on to Oxford, brought her into contact with a very different social circle. In her bestselling memoir We Need To Talk About Money, she describes her new friends’ strange coyness about how they became homeowners in their 20s: “Few people are forthcoming in noting the often massive inheritances underwriting these purchases. Instead, we see Instagram photos of beaming twentysomethings standing proudly on the steps of their new home, or engage in polite dinner party chitchat about paint swatches and mid-century Ercol furniture, even as we silently wonder, ‘How?’” Puzzled, Uwagba once asked a friend how she’d secured a mortgage aged only 24. It turned out the woman’s parents had bought the flat outright, and she was just pretending to need a loan.

“I think people are coy about sharing the reality of any form of privilege, whether it’s racial or gender or financial. They think it diminishes them,” Uwagba says. After all, they haven’t made it on merit.

“Intergenerational gifting is sensitive,” write sociologists Liz Moor and Sam Friedman, in a research paper examining how people whose parents have helped them to buy justify their good fortune. “It can elicit feelings of guilt, embarrassment, even shame, and therefore often goes unspoken in everyday life.” Some of the heirs they interviewed felt judged by friends for not having made it on their own, while those with leftwing views struggled to reconcile personal gratitude with political conscience. Participants tended to say inheritance tax was a good thing, but mainly if it fell on people richer than them.

Moor, who set out to examine why there isn’t more social pressure to tax inherited wealth, says interviewees tended to defend themselves by citing the working-class roots of relatives who made money generations ago. “People could find a way to reconcile a belief in meritocracy with receiving unearned income by making that connection to upward social mobility over time,” she says. “It’s a bit self-serving, but it lends itself to the status quo when you can say, ‘Yes, but it was my working-class grandparents selling their bungalow that helped me buy my flat.’” What they found harder to explain away was the disparity between them and friends in similar jobs who couldn’t afford to buy. One interviewee, Alicia, simply hid the fact that she had bought her flat outright.

As Uwagba points out, this embarrassed silence just leaves those without family money to self-flagellate over why they can’t seem to get their lives together when the truth is their friends haven’t really done so either; they just have parents who did. For most of her 20s she assumed financial success was “a question of working hard, getting further up the career ladder”, but not any more: “If I can’t figure it out, I just assume it’s family money, and that’s a good rule of thumb, especially with people working in the media and publishing.”

Wealth acquired young, she points out, has a powerful multiplier effect. Get your student loan paid off and you can save for a deposit earlier. The sooner you buy property, the sooner money that would have gone on rent is building assets your own children might inherit. Wealth breeds wealth, so much so that one study tracing the descendants of wealthy Victorians found their great-great-grandchildren were still disproportionately likely to be well off five generations later. Some of Uwagba’s contemporaries had their education funded by grandparents: “So now your life trajectory is determined not even by your parents’ money but by your grandparents’ – how do you compete with that?”

Inherited money, or the expectation of it, also has less tangible advantages. It can free people to take professional risks, entering potentially lucrative fields that don’t pay well initially – from insecure gigs such as acting to professions with surprisingly low earnings for juniors, like criminal law. Uwagba herself went into advertising after graduating, worrying that writing for a living seemed too precarious. But friends from wealthier families were more confident about taking unpaid internships in creative industries: “It’s the knowledge that there’s money coming down the line eventually. You can take more risks, think more long term.”

That’s true for Beth, who works in PR, and discovered in her mid-40s she was to inherit a “life-changing” amount after her parents died in quick succession. The windfall was a surprise, as her parents are from ordinary backgrounds and she hadn’t considered them rich. But her father started a successful engineering business in her native Australia; her parents bought property, managed their money carefully, and left enough for Beth to pay off her mortgage. But she has also worked out that, if she wants to, she could now move to a hot country where overheads are cheap, and not work for a decade. She isn’t sure if that life is for her, but knowing that, for the first time in her life, she could quit has transformed her attitude to a stressful job. “If you have a bad day at work, you can think, ‘Screw this, I don’t need it.’ No wonder the confidence of rich folk!”

Yet for some, family money comes with more complex feelings attached. Philippa, a 39-year-old NHS worker, says her parents are not wealthy but stretched themselves to help her buy a small flat on the outskirts of London she couldn’t otherwise have afforded on a public sector salary. She worries whether they have left themselves enough for a comfortable retirement, and whether she invested wisely (she recently discovered some issues with the flat that may make it harder to resell). “They trusted me to make the right decisions, and I worry about letting them down,” she says. Like Isobel, Philippa views her good fortune with both gratitude and guilt that she isn’t more financially independent. “You want to be self-sufficient, but to be in a position to have help – that’s a really difficult thing to turn down.” The hopes and fears bound up with inheritance can make it an emotionally loaded issue not just in broader society, but also within families.

It was back in the early noughties, just as the baby boomers were entering their 50s, that marketing analysts first identified what became known as the “ski set”; empty nesters who had paid off their mortgages and were unashamedly out to Spend the Kids’ Inheritance on bucket-list holidays, sports cars and pleasures they had denied themselves while raising families. The ski-ers had worked hard and meant “to make the most of it while they can” instead of leaving legacies, a report by the analysts Datamonitor concluded. Hidden in the small print was the fact that many had already given their children money to buy property first. But still, the idea of hedonistic pensioners caught on. When the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted research into attitudes to legacies back in 2005, it found two-thirds of those potentially wealthy enough to leave something weren’t worried about organising their finances to do so, and more than half of adults didn’t expect to get anything. Older people wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labours, and some might even have worried about inheritance doing more harm than good: this was, after all, the era of celebrities from software billionaire Bill Gates to cookery writer Nigella Lawson declaring they wouldn’t leave fortunes to their children because (in Lawson’s words) “it ruins people not having to earn money”.

But in 2005, Britain was in the middle of a seemingly endless economic boom. Three recessions later, parents are far less confident about their children’s prospects and also potentially their own, with rocketing inflation disrupting retirement plans. The original ski-ers are now in their 70s and 80s, and worrying about this winter’s central heating bills, even as they may be fretting about their adult children growing older in rented flats.

Rachael Griffin is head of tax and trusts at the wealth management company Quilter, and specialises in inheritance advice. Some clients still worry about spoiling their children by passing money on, she says, but she senses attitudes shifting: most want to see their hard-earned wealth passed down the family, not collected by the taxman. “There’s always this sort of underlying concern that people want their children or grandchildren to achieve on their own, and understand the value of money and work. But that way of thinking is changing, just because trying to get on the housing ladder now is completely different from how it would have been for baby boomers.”

Even for those wealthy enough to need advice from a firm like hers, the cost of living crisis is making itself felt. Some clients worry about keeping back enough to pay for nursing care in their old age, given uncertainty about what the government will fund (a promise to cap care costs has just been delayed for another two years). Others are seeking advice on conserving capital, not giving it away. “We’re in a crisis, so people feel like they need their own money today,” Griffin says. “It’s that fear of running out of money during their lifetimes.”

A society that has become overly reliant on inherited money may have potentially painful consequences not just for those who don’t inherit, but also for people’s quality of life at an age when they should be free to please themselves. According to a recent report on inheritance from low-income thinktank the Resolution Foundation, some older people are now making significant sacrifices in order to leave something to their children, with 9% downsizing, 16% saving more and 4% working longer into retirement. “It’s not just about younger people missing opportunities if they don’t happen to have rich parents – it penalises older people, too,” says Jack Leslie, senior economist at the foundation and co-author of the report. This often unspoken intergenerational clash of expectations makes inheritance a sensitive subject in many families.

Fiona is a 33-year-old single parent, working in local government. Her parents chipped in for her older sister’s house deposit and promised to do the same for her, she says. But when she was ready to buy, her parents told her they had ploughed everything into a house abroad, hoping for a retirement in the sun, leaving Fiona torn between accepting that it was their hard-earned cash to do with as they wanted, and feeling privately bitter.

Even with my parents, it’s very difficult to talk about. There’s a lot of emotion attached, and a lot of shame,” she says. “They are quite prickly about it. But this is what I struggle to reconcile – I do sound entitled; my parents came from very working-class backgrounds, worked hard and ended up well off, and if they want to buy houses overseas, they can.” But she struggles not to feel short-changed, compared with her sister. What makes the passage of money down through families so emotionally loaded is that money is rarely just that. All too often, it can stir painful memories of who was the favourite child, or who felt overlooked growing up. No wonder some families end up squabbling over seemingly trivial trinkets following a bereavement, or blowing their inheritances on fighting each other in court.

“I’ve had people come to me for a legal consultation and describe incidents in their highchairs,” sighs Barbara Rich, a family law barrister specialising in high-value inheritance cases and a mediator trained to resolve family disputes over wills. Her first question to clients, she tells me over Zoom from her elegant study, is now invariably about their place in the birth order and relationships with siblings; she has never forgotten overhearing, as a young barrister, a conversation that sounded like “something out of a Larkin poem” unfolding outside court. “A middle-aged woman turned and said to [the sibling] next to her: ‘Mum never loved you, you know, and those candlesticks aren’t real pewter.’ That really sums it up.”

Perhaps surprisingly, such legal wrangling over legacies is no longer confined to families who would regard themselves as rich. Especially in London and the south-east, the property boom has created a new class of unexpected heirs. “People whose parents or grandparents were working-class Windrush arrivals and council house right-to-buy owners – their descendants are in this net now,” Rich says. “Someone who came over on the Windrush could have a secure blue-collar job and afford a mortgage on what would then have been a run-down house in Brixton or Tottenham.” She has represented clients who grew up in “really unimaginable poverty – broken windows, not enough shoes for all the children to go to school every day”, and yet found themselves in line for seven-figure inheritances.

What commonly brings them into dispute, she says, is that older people who don’t consider themselves rich may not bother making a will. In the absence of one, estates usually pass by default to surviving children or spouses – an arrangement that may suit traditional nuclear families, but not always those broken and remade by migration. “A grandfather who came on the Windrush might well have left siblings and parents in Jamaica; they might even have left children to come and work, then perhaps formed a new relationship. There are perhaps children they barely know who are entitled to inherit in the absence of a will, and someone they’ve lived with, children they’ve had from a long relationship, living in the house, who aren’t.”

Sometimes it’s only in death that the tensions and secrets beneath the surface of family life emerge. Rich has handled several disputes where the existence of a mistress or even a second family with a claim to money emerged posthumously. Another common source of tension, she says, is wealthy men divorcing, then marrying younger women, who outlive them and clash with the children of the first marriage over the inheritance. But perhaps the most painful disputes are between siblings not treated equally in a will – in some cases because parents are trying to compensate for perceived hardship in one child’s life. “Sometimes parents get an idea about their children, even when the children are quite small – who’s the pretty one, who’s the clever one – and then perhaps subconsciously mould their children’s lives to fit that pattern,” Rich says.

Sheila, a 60-year-old retired City dealer and mother of two grown-up children, inherited nothing from her father when he died. There wasn’t much to leave, she says, as she comes from a “very ordinary” family. But her father told her in advance her younger sister would get the family house, because Sheila had a successful career and didn’t need it. When I ask if being cut out was hurtful, she insists it made her proud of being self-reliant. “I feel almost aggressively righteous about not having received a penny from anybody,” she says. “As a child, my sister was always the one who was asking for stuff, she always feels hard done by, and you think: how many of these things should come easily? She had conversations with my dad saying, ‘I have nothing, she’s got everything,’ and he just thought, ‘Well, OK then.’”

Some of her friends think millennial children have it too easy and should give up luxuries rather than rely on their parents. (More than half of boomers still think overspending on things like Netflix and holidays is a key reason young people can’t buy property, according to research published in June by King’s College London.) But Sheila fervently disagrees. “My husband bought his first house in 1975 for about tuppence ha’penny. He and his first wife had very ordinary jobs – she was a manager in a shop – but they bought a three-bedroom semi in London. That would be impossible now,” she says, pointing out that her children’s generation is also burdened with student debt.

When her husband inherited from his father, the couple passed the money directly to their children – but have given their 30-year-old son more help than his older sister. “She’s very ambitious, works hard. We have given money to both of them, but he has received far more. He’s not married – he’d be living with us still if we hadn’t topped up the inheritance money he already had.” She pauses. Though she plans to even things up in her will, her daughter isn’t happy about it: “We have a strained relationship – she says, ‘Oh, he’s always the golden child.’”

Will and his wife are on the other side of a similar family divide. His mother-in-law, a wealthy widow, is generous with presents to each of her three children. Two are high earners, but Will’s wife is not. When their now teenage children were small, Will and his wife were struggling to trade up to a bigger family house and his mother-in-law offered to give them £100,000. His wife’s richer siblings objected, arguing that it was unfair not to do the same for them. “It was really clear that it was important neither my wife nor I ever referred to our relative income – that would have been a red rag to a bull,” Will recalls. “My brother-in-law is earning more in a month than my wife and I are earning in a year, which to us means they don’t need this money – and his response was, ‘You don’t need it either, you don’t have to live in a house that’s worth another £100,000.’”

To avoid ill-feeling, his wife declined the money. But years later, when they were house-hunting again, his mother-in-law quietly repeated the offer – adding that this time she wouldn’t ask the rest of the family. The money will come off his wife’s share of her inheritance, but Will still isn’t sure if the other siblings know about it.

Squabbling over money looks, he admits, a “nice problem to have” – at least there’s something to fight over. But having seen the distress it caused his in-laws, Will has encouraged his own parents to be open about their wishes. “It’s not OK to think about it at some point in the future, because it causes so much grief and misunderstanding.”

If inherited money can be a double-edged sword within families, there is arguably an easy way to relieve people of the burden, and that’s via the taxman. The Treasury is quietly anticipating a hidden windfall from the great wealth transfer, with inheritance tax receipts due to hit £7.8bn by 2027-2028 (up from £2.4bn in 2009). More and more families are being drawn into the net, thanks to the freezing of the tax-free threshold for the last 13 years, at a time of rising property prices. But still, only around 4% of British estates are liable for inheritance tax, and a married couple passing on the main family home can leave up to £1m between them tax-free. Successive governments have embraced the idea that, as David Cameron once promised, “The home that you’ve worked and saved for belongs to you and your family. We’ll help you pass it on.” (The exception was the one led by Theresa May, who nearly lost the 2017 election after suggesting more pensioners should sell their family homes to fund nursing care.) But is there scope for the left to be bolder, using the great wealth transfer to raise cash for progressive ends?

If inheritance is a deeply conservative idea, arguably its most conservative function is to underpin the status quo. Historically it’s always helped the rich make their children rich in turn, consolidating wealth and power within the same tight circle. But family money has also insulated many Britons from what would otherwise have been a more painful middle-class squeeze over the last decade. That ability to live off past glories, creating the illusion of good times still rolling even as real wages flatlined, has arguably kept an artificial lid on pressure for change. “There’s a lot of talk about Generation Rent and how millennials aren’t well off. But there are enough people who are inheriting money, so it doesn’t affect as many people as you think,” Otegha Uwagba says. “When you think about the system of power, who are the gatekeepers, who goes into media and politics – I wonder how many MPs have had to do London renting on a very average salary?”.……………

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/03/why-inheritance-is-the-dirty-secret-of-the-middle-classes-harder-to-talk-about-than-sex

[asustadísimos]

EL BODRIO DE LA AMNISTÍA MONETARIA.—

El popularcapitalismo no solo vive de la magia, 'reiki' de manos invisibles ofertademandistas.

También vive de la brujería. Bueno, más bien de conjuros a «Plutón, emperador de la corte dañada, gobernador y veedor de los tormentos y atormentadores de las pecadoras ánimas» (La Celestina), conjuros que pretenden apropiarse de la voluntad de las personas ('philocaptio').

Un bodrio es un caldo de sobras o sangre de cerdo con cebolla para morcilla. La Celestina preparaba su bodrio con sangres de murciélago y cabrón, fritas en aceite de serpiente. Las brujas de Shakspeare ('Macbeth') hacían el suyo echando al caldero:
• oculto alacrán que, en las peñas sombrías, sudó veneno por treinta y un días
• lomo de astuta culebra
• garguero de buitre
• vil renacuajo
• alas de murciélago
• pies de escarabajo
• ojos de lagarto
• lengua de mastín
• plumas de lechuza
• piel de puercoespín
• colmillos de lobo
• fauces de dragón
• humores de momia
• hiel de tiburón
• sacrílegas manos de infame judío
• infectas entrañas de macho cabrío
• raíz de cicuta de noche cogida
• abeto tronchado con luna eclipsada
• labios de tártaro
• quijada de turco
• los dedos de un niño ahogado al nacer y echado en un pozo por mala mujer
• tripas de tigre al caldero
• sangre de mono

En el caldero del bodrio de la inflación, el Índice de Precios de Consumo (se dice así, con de), echamos unos cuantos precios de los pocos bienes y servicios (221) con los que lo componemos, y que nosotros hemos agrupado así (INE, Base 2016 vigente), en el que el gran ausente es el precio-compra de vivienda (o la hipotética imputación de autoconsumo por uso de vivienda propia, que s lo que de verdad debiera estar incluido a poco que fuéramos serios y consecuentes con nuestra idiota consideración de la vivienda como producto de inversión —carne—, no de consumo —pan—):

(Nota: Lo que único que es nuestro es la reagrupación; las ponderaciones son las del INE.)

El INE los agrupa así (vean cómo va cambiando imperceptiblemente con cada base y con la clasificación intuitiva que puede hacer uno):

Cada uno de nosotros tenemos nuestro propio IPC, tanto en ponderaciones como en precios (el supermercado al que vamos es el que es, p. ej.). Les adelanto que intentar construir uno personal es inútil. Cambia permanentemente. Durante años tuve una relación con una chica brasileña (por cierto, que Gal Costa descanse en paz: te adoramos) que usaba su PC personal para llevar un IPC personal, je, je, y para hacer chistes divertidísimos sobre cómo cambiaba su vida por momentos (lo que queremos decir es que, aunque el IPC sea de dos dígitos, para ti igual hay deflación).

Gal Costa, qué pena ☩09/11/2022

El IPC del bodrio del caldero de las brujas de Macbeth estará por las nubes, digo yo, dada la e-s-c-a-s-e-z, ja, ja, ja, ofertademandista de los ingredientes:

No sé qué es más inflacionario, si el índice del bodrio de hécate o el del avío de superhipergámica [¿me cancelarán por esto?]. Conforme vayamos dejando atrás la opresión popularcapitalista, irá volviendo a coger peso el componente hada. Gal Costa lo era. En su época, el feminismo no había degenerado (Tercera Ola). Reinaba la mujer liberada y la clase obrera aún no se autoconceptuaba como obreros con clase.

Volviendo al asunto, el IPC, además, es un índice de Laspeyres (Precios nuevos X Cantidades viejas ÷ Precios viejos X Cantidades viejas), no de Paasche (Precios nuevos X Cantidades nuevas ÷ Precios viejos X Cantidades nuevas). Y, porque es un índice de Laspeyres, el IPC sobrevalora la inflación.

Cuando un servidor estudió por primera vez esto, el profesor (famoso ya entonces —luego llegaría a ser presidente del Parlamento Europeo—) dijo que «el IPC se manipulaba a golpe de carne de pollo» —lomo de astuto 'pollastre'—. Salimos de clase a tomarnos unos vinos. La inflación era la polla. El sistema, como Dios manda, nos inculcó el odio a la inflación, no como ahora, todo lleno de comunicadores popularcapitalistas antisistema haciendo risitas con la inflación.

La deflación es buena para los buenos y la mala para los malos. Por eso combatir la inflación es «el» objetivo (formal) de los bancos centrales. Y nuestro deber es evaluar la actitud que tienen hacia ella en todo momento porque ahí está toda la información. Un servidor lleva toda la vida en ello. Mentiría si dijera solo que hoy no hay preocupación por la inflación. ¡Hay complacencia!, como se prueba con el regodeo sobre la inexistencia de efectos de segunda ronda («traslación a salarios y márgenes», que dice H. de Cos, uno de los mejores gobernadores que hemos conocido por cómo habla de lo que tiene que hablar). Quizá pronto tengamos que inventarnos efectillos de 2ª ronda, porque la gente anda demasiado contenta y despreocupada. De todas formas, en lo que queda de 2022 —¡uf!, cómo pasa el tiempo—, toca bajar el índice por la indexación (poca) que hay. En el primer trimestre, volveremos a la carga hasta conseguir el verdadero objetivo, el coma inducido del popularcapitalismo, ese «go through the other side» que se ansía (Fed, Powell, 1-dic).

Los precios, hoy, tienen en común con la brujería el caldero, el bodrio, las nubes —solo visitables con escobas voladoras— y, desde luego, el engullido de miedicas crudos.

Las Autoridades Financieras, en momentos estructurales, no solo decretan amnistías fiscales, también decretan amnistías monetarias, consintiendo con escaladillas de precios. Estamos en una de estas, un episodio efímero de inflación en apariencia gruesa (con el nivel de precios muy abajo, cualquier cosa es gruesa), en el que el rerrebajón pasa inadvertido y se acepta contablemente (reequilibrio de precios relativos).

Desafortunadamente, los jugadores capitalistas de pacotilla están desaprovechando esta oportunidad que les estamos brindando. Mientras, los jugadores profesionales tienen un problema insalvable: la avaricia inmobiliaria ya no funciona —ni avaricia-compra ni avaricia-alquiler—, y el «bendito miedo», bendito para ellos, solo hace presa de ellos mismos y en donnadies (por cierto, donnadie, además de palabra identitaria, es inclusiva 'ready-made', ¿no?, ¡una joya!).

'Prima facie' todo es mentira, señores, pero te dejan escarbar para que compruebes que es una mentira piadosa de verdad, de verdad de la buena, no como el asqueante 'pity play' de trabajadores-directivos y economistillas.

«Y a vos, alma de cántaro, ¿quién os ha encajado en el cerebro que sois Caballero andante?» (Cervantes, El Quijote).

[Derby]

Crónica de una recesión anunciada...

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/an-outright-global-recession-imminent-iif

An outright global recession imminent: IIF

The global association of the financial industry assessed growth across countries and over time with a focus on “true” growth, which is annual average growth adjusted for statistical carryover from the previous year

Raising the alarm about an outright global recession 2023, the Institute of International Finance said on Sunday that worldwide growth in 2023 is expected to be weaker than the Global Financial Crisis of 2009, with weakness triggered by deep contractions in Russia and Ukraine to the rest of the world economy.

The global association of the financial industry assessed growth across countries and over time with a focus on “true” growth, which is annual average growth adjusted for statistical carryover from the previous year.

"We estimate purchasing power parity, or PPP-weighted global statistical carryover at 0.4 per cent in 2023. Coupled with our forecast for annual average global growth of 1.5 per cent, this means ‘true’ growth is 1.1 per cent,” the IIF said in its Global Macro Views.

"For perspective, annual average growth in 2009 was 0.6 per cent with a base effect of -0.7 per cent. The latter was negative as the Great Recession began in 2008, pulling down GDP levels into 2009. As a result, ‘true’ global growth in 2009 was 1.3 per cent. Seen through this lens, 2023 will be slightly weaker than 2009," Robin Brooks, managing director & chief economist of the IIF said.

At a global level, IIF's PPP-weighted aggregate shows “true” growth in 2023 to be slightly weaker than in 2009, with China and Latin America the most important growth drivers.

"The coming global recession will be more severe in “true” growth terms than the Great Recession," the Washington-based IIF said.

Jonathan Fortun, an economist at IIF said after Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine’s GDP fell sharply, so that annual average growth in 2023 will be -9.4 per cent. The same is true for Russia, although to a lesser extent.

"Assuming another contraction in Q4 2022 GDP, we estimate statistical carryover into 2023 at -3.3 per cent," Fortun said.

"Unlike Ukraine, western carve outs of Russia’s energy exports led to large hard currency inflows, which resulted in a sharp easing of financial conditions. That easing of financial conditions helped Russia avert a steeper GDP decline," Brooks noted.

The depth of the coming downturn ultimately depends on one thing: the war. Western reluctance to embargo Russian energy boosted global GDP in 2022, but at the cost of potentially turning fighting in Ukraine into a “forever war,” the IIF said.

Earlier this year, the IFF forecast a global growth of 2.2 per cent, substantially below consensus, with weakness radiating out from Europe as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took its toll.

“Since that time, economic activity has surprised on the upside. We are currently tracking global growth around 2.9 per cent. The reason for this outperformance is that we placed a high likelihood on western countries embargoing Russian energy to cut the flow of hard currency to Moscow. That didn’t happen, which buoyed activity versus our forecast,” said the report.

The severity of the coming hit to global GDP depends principally on the trajectory of the war in Ukraine.

“Our base case is that fighting drags on into 2024, given that the conflict is “existential” for Putin. Earlier this year we flagged survey-based indicators that were starting to deteriorate sharply.”

PS: Natalie Merchant encarna un concepto de feminidad con el que me identifico. Todo se ha desvirtuado mucho en estas últimas décadas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4XlzYsrH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZBfHqEmOtk