Interesting Links for 20-10-2016

[andrewducker]

Depression could be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs (tags: depression inflammation ) This is what eight weeks of mindfulness training does to your brain (tags: brain mindfulness meditation ) Don’t believe what you’ve read: the plummeting pound sterling is good news for Britain And vitally necessary if we're ever going to manage to be a

Comments

How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National

[cartesiandaemon]

Or another entry in "when statistical results only give means, not variances, you've no idea which are useful and which are garbage" :)

[gonzo21]

And vitally necessary if we're ever going to manage to be a country that exports things, to be honest.

Regrettably we are a country that imports vastly more than we export. So yes, a weak pound will increase exports and decrease imports by dint of them becoming more expensive.

But is it going to be good for the working poor who are already reliant on food banks? I think not. A 20% increase in the weekly food cost is going to hurt a lot of people very badly. Particularly for those who don't want to eat the limited range of foods we can produce here in the UK.

(And in fact UK food producers are already warning of crisis because they are utterly dependent on hard working low paid immigrant workforces. Hard Brexit could mean the entire UK fruit and veg sector collapses.)

[andrewducker]

Of course it's not going to be good for the poor in the short run. At least, not under a government that's not going to do much to support them.

But in the longer term, having an economy with more manufacturing in it will probably be good.

Until the robot revolution is complete, of course.

[gonzo21]

Yes, knowing how things go, we shall probably rebuild our manufacturing sector (by putting all those poor people to work for £2 an hour so that we can compete in the global marketplace) just in time for the robot revolution to render it all obsolete.

Though in truth, I simply can't see how we can increase our export markets. I think they've grown about as big as they can. We just can't compete with hard workers in China and India who are prepared to work for tiny wages. Unless UK people are prepared to accept massive pay cuts.

[andrewducker]

We can certainly compete against places like Germany, if we're willing to invest in our manufacturing capacity and technology. China is a whole different ball-game, of course.

[kalimac]

Whether the falling pound is good for the people of the UK in the long run, it will certainly pump money into the economy. It's already pumped in more of mine than I would otherwise have spent.

The autistic boy bonding with his service dog is touching, but that doesn't help autistic children who are afraid of dogs, as many of them are.

[momentsmusicaux]

PLANET NINE IS PLUTO

[andrewducker]

LOL

[drdoug]

Plan 9, OTOH, is from Bell Labs!

[momentsmusicaux]

From outer space, surely?

Don’t believe what you’ve read: the plummeting pound

[drdoug]

It's hard to take seriously an article about the fall in the value of the pound that claims that the FTSE100 doing well is a positive sign, but makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that most FTSE100 companies have significant (or the majority of their) earnings in other currencies. To spell it out, if a multinational makes US$1bn profit a year, and the pound falls 10% against the dollar, that profit will be worth 10% more in sterling terms, so the company's share price ought to rise accordingly to reflect the increasing earnings as denominated in pounds. The earnings haven't gone up, just the number representing those earnings in GBP

RE: Don’t believe what you’ve read: the plummeting pound

[andrewducker]

"but makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that most FTSE100 companies have significant (or the majority of their) earnings in other currencies."

It does. That's what it means by:
FTSE 100 index, comprising large multinationals...
The FTSE 250 - based on mid-caps deriving half their revenues from the British domestic market...
Even the FTSE “Local” index, whose companies derive 70 per cent or more of their revenues by selling their goods and services within Britain...
Which is clearly pointing out that there are three different indices, each of which has different levels of exposure to the pound.

I agree with you about the housing though.

Re: Don’t believe what you’ve read: the plummeting pound

[naath]

hahaha housing deflation lol no. 13% this year here.

Re: Don’t believe what you’ve read: the plummeting pound

[ckd]

I'd be interested in seeing those FTSE graphs scaled by the exchange rate between the GBP and a basket of major currencies (USD, EUR, JPY maybe - maybe trade-weighted by UK trade?). I bet it looks a lot less rosy then.

"The pound is down, but stocks priced in pounds have gone up! Woo!" is not as reassuring as it might seem.