Price Hikes in the UK

[dead.cell]

Alright so I'm not very caught up on the whole situation regarding the UK and the EU, but despite that, I wanted to ask those of you who reside in the UK your thoughts on prices and the economy in the UK right now.  Are you or others anticipating price hikes from all the recent events?  I understand what Dell does to not be representative of what to expect from local businesses there, but it got me thinking at least.

 

I'll be visiting England on business in the next 4-6 weeks, and want to be prepared with everything that is going on. Any recommendations for a first time visitor of the UK are welcome as well!

[ZakO]

The exchange rate of GBP/USD is 1.28 (previously 1.48) with GBP/EUR at 1.16 (previously 1.30) and both continue to fall daily. So yes, most people will be expecting price hikes across the board for anything not produced in the UK (i.e. almost everything). It shouldn't effect you too much though because you'll get more £ for your $. 

[Skiver Veteran]

I think both the remain and leave camp were fully aware this would happen if the vote went leave so yes this is expected, I guess the hope is that given time we'll find some way to recover.

 

We used to be a great nation on our own, hopefully we can get back there.

[restroom]

11 minutes ago, Skiver said:

I think both the remain and leave camp were fully aware this would happen if the vote went leave so yes this is expected, I guess the hope is that given time we'll find some way to recover.

 

We used to be a great nation on our own, hopefully we can get back there.

I cant see that happening for at LEAST a good 5 - 10 years, if it happens at all. The only quick fire way to ensure it happens would be a second referendum and a vote to remain winning. That's unlikely to happen either.

[Skiver Veteran]

Just now, restroom said:

I cant see that happening for at LEAST a good 5 - 10 years, if it happens at all. The only quick fire way to ensure it happens would be a second referendum and a vote to remain winning. That's unlikely to happen either.

Completely agree, it's not going to be a short term thing, I see the whole leave campaign dragging out for around 2 years minimum, another 3-5 years of hard times and then over the next few years it will hopefully start to get better.

 

For those in the leave campaign, those that I've spoken to at least all know we will have some hard times, they do however have the belief we'll come out of this stronger. I think it's possible, I just worry about how hard those hard times will be.

 

 

[boo_star]

10 hours ago, ZakO said:

The exchange rate of GBP/USD is 1.28 (previously 1.48) with GBP/EUR at 1.16 (previously 1.30) and both continue to fall daily. So yes, most people will be expecting price hikes across the board for anything not produced in the UK (i.e. almost everything). It shouldn't effect you too much though because you'll get more £ for your $. 

The EUR rate doesn't particularly matter, I mean we were at the same level only 3 years ago and I don't think anyone was claiming the sky was falling back then.

 

The USD rate is more concerning and many companies are putting prices up because of this.  I personally consider it to be an excuse, they wouldn't be dropping the prices anywhere near as quickly if we'd hit $1.70 instead.

 

I seem to recall energy companies being questioned over their reluctance to pass on savings to the consumer and to paraphrase them "people want stability in their energy prices."  Err, what?  Maybe they do but I'll bet money that they'll happily trade stability for lower prices.

[Skiver Veteran]

2 minutes ago, boo_star said:

The EUR rate doesn't particularly matter, I mean we were at the same level only 3 years ago and I don't think anyone was claiming the sky was falling back then.

 

The USD rate is more concerning and many companies are putting prices up because of this.  I personally consider it to be an excuse, they wouldn't be dropping the prices anywhere near as quickly if we'd hit $1.70 instead.

 

I seem to recall energy companies being questioned over their reluctance to pass on savings to the consumer and to paraphrase them "people want stability in their energy prices."  Err, what?  Maybe they do but I'll bet money that they'll happily trade stability for lower prices.

Yep, given that all that has happened so far is that the UK public has by a majority voted to leave, nothing has actually changed. Right now we're no more leaving the EU then we were few months ago. No deals have been discussed, for all we know (I doubt it) we could walk away from this with exactly the same EU trade deals as we have today. 

[restroom]

52 minutes ago, Skiver said:

Completely agree, it's not going to be a short term thing, I see the whole leave campaign dragging out for around 2 years minimum, another 3-5 years of hard times and then over the next few years it will hopefully start to get better.

 

For those in the leave campaign, those that I've spoken to at least all know we will have some hard times, they do however have the belief we'll come out of this stronger. I think it's possible, I just worry about how hard those hard times will be.

 

 

Yep. All good in the end, but a lot of casualties along the way. Personally, it looks like ill be jumping ship in the coming months IF I can sell my house at its current rate, before the prices start to drop dramatically and before the pound possibly stagnates below the euro rate.

[game_over]

It's insane to think the UK won't come out of this a thriving country that the world wants to do business with.

 

We survived before the EU and survived after it.

 

I won't have it that if you're not in the EU you're doomed, and if thats the case then the whole project needs disbanding ASAP, it's a scary amount of control one organisation has over our small planet. 

 

Of course we have a tough time ahead, bring it on - lets pull together and show the world we mean business.

[restroom]

40 minutes ago, Skiver said:

Yep, given that all that has happened so far is that the UK public has by a majority voted to leave, nothing has actually changed. Right now we're no more leaving the EU then we were few months ago. No deals have been discussed, for all we know (I doubt it) we could walk away from this with exactly the same EU trade deals as we have today. 

EXACTLY!

 

What is irritating me is the doom talkers. BoE boss comes out and says, "oh well the economy is screwed". Suddenly the market drops dramatically.

 

Why even say that when NOTHING HAS HAPPENED and nothing is certain yet? He must know that by saying that; that it will have a negative affect on our economy. He could just as easily declare, "you know what, this could be amazing for the British economy" and the market would sky rocket.

 

They really need to reign in all these doom and gloom statements and save them for when they actually know 100% whats happening. They are essentially killing our economy slowly by words.

[restroom]

19 minutes ago, game_over said:

It's insane to think the UK won't come out of this a thriving country that the world wants to do business with.

 

We survived before the EU and survived after it.

 

I won't have it that if you're not in the EU you're doomed, and if thats the case then the whole project needs disbanding ASAP, it's a scary amount of control one organisation has over our small planet. 

 

Of course we have a tough time ahead, bring it on - lets pull together and show the world we mean business.

The world trade was in a totally different place when we where not a part of the EU. You have the political side of the other EU member states to also consider. They where unwilling to listen to us when we where in the EU, so you really think they are going to go easy on us and give us fantastic deals OUTSIDE the EU, unless we confirm with pretty much every aspect of what the EU treaty demands for a member anyway? We have gone from having a voice (even if we where not really listened to), to having no voice and little to bargain with, other than the freedom of movement of EU nationals in and out of the UK.

 

That brings me on to my own personal situation. My wife is from the EU and is not a British citizen and now there is a good chance she could be removed from the country. Forget the fact we are married, apparently that actually doesn't guarantee her the right to remain. My children are British, so are they going to be motherless in the years ahead? Who knows!?

[Skiver Veteran]

6 minutes ago, restroom said:

The world trade was in a totally different place when we where not a part of the EU. You have the political side of the other EU member states to also consider. They where unwilling to listen to us when we where in the EU, so you really think they are going to go easy on us and give us fantastic deals OUTSIDE the EU, unless we confirm with pretty much every aspect of what the EU treaty demands for a member anyway? We have gone from having a voice (even if we where not really listened to), to having no voice and little to bargain with, other than the freedom of movement of EU nationals in and out of the UK.

 

That brings me on to my own personal situation. My wife is from the EU and is not a British citizen and now there is a good chance she could be removed from the country. Forget the fact we are married, apparently that actually doesn't guarantee her the right to remain. My children are British, so are they going to be motherless in the years ahead? Who knows!?

I'm pretty sure through all of this everyone has always stated we won't start deporting people if the vote is leave, Yep things can change but I honestly don't see this happening. We can't deport illegal immigrants, we're never going to be able to deport those who did get here legally. Obviously this is just my opinion, I sympathise with your concerns as I can't imagine what it must feel like but I honestly do believe you and your family will be perfectly safe in terms of deportation. 

 

Whilst I agree to an extent, don't forget one of our biggest strengths when it comes to trade.... we buy near everything. Like the Dell announcement of prices increasing, if you were considering buying a Dell today and found out it was going to be 10% more expensive you'd just look elsewhere. If the EU aren't careful then we could end up taking our money elsewhere  (or even better producing locally). When you have situations where companies like BMW export around 25% of their cars to the UK suddenly finding they are being priced out then we're going to have some pretty large enterprises kicking up a fuss and looking at their local governments to find a solution.

 

 

[restroom]

12 minutes ago, Skiver said:

I'm pretty sure through all of this everyone has always stated we won't start deporting people if the vote is leave, Yep things can change but I honestly don't see this happening. We can't deport illegal immigrants, we're never going to be able to deport those who did get here legally. Obviously this is just my opinion, I sympathise with your concerns as I can't imagine what it must feel like but I honestly do believe you and your family will be perfectly safe in terms of deportation. 

 

Whilst I agree to an extent, don't forget one of our biggest strengths when it comes to trade.... we buy near everything. Like the Dell announcement of prices increasing, if you were considering buying a Dell today and found out it was going to be 10% more expensive you'd just look elsewhere. If the EU aren't careful then we could end up taking our money elsewhere  (or even better producing locally). When you have situations where companies like BMW export around 25% of their cars to the UK suddenly finding they are being priced out then we're going to have some pretty large enterprises kicking up a fuss and looking at their local governments to find a solution.

 

 

Totally agree. Its all swings and roundabouts. I just wish they could make a decision quickly, rather than keep us all waiting around whilst our economy stagnates.

[MikeChipshop Member]

We were told over and over again that price hikes, the pound crashing and pretty much everything else that has happened would happen, by experts long before the actual vote. Unfortunately one of the leave side decided to go ahead and tell the public we were bored of hearing from "Experts", when listening to them is exactly what everyone should have been doing.

 

Once Brexit kicks in (If?), we're in for a massive slump of epic proportions, the current slump is based on "what if's" and thus is smaller, the real slump will be an absolute killer for our economy, house prices, the pound, trade, prices... everything. It'll easily last a decade why we try to sort ###### out. All why doling out large amounts of money to the EU to access the benefits we already had as one of the countries in charge of the EU.

 

The best we can hope for is this sorry excuse for a Tory party screw up is for the whole thing to be brushed under the carpet and to take a place firmly at the EU head table again. The minute we announce that the economy will start to recover, and we need to do it soon before any more business and financial institutions bugger off to Europe.

[MikeChipshop Member]

30 minutes ago, Skiver said:

I'm pretty sure through all of this everyone has always stated we won't start deporting people if the vote is leave, Yep things can change but I honestly don't see this happening. We can't deport illegal immigrants, we're never going to be able to deport those who did get here legally. Obviously this is just my opinion, I sympathise with your concerns as I can't imagine what it must feel like but I honestly do believe you and your family will be perfectly safe in terms of deportation. 

Agreed.

The chances of any immigrant being repatriated is pretty much non-existent. It would be the final nail in our coffin, not to mention you can't pick and choose which ones you want to get rid of, many not even being from the EU.

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

Just want to say that in support of our friends in the UK (both remains and leaves), my wife lowered the price of her book at Amazon UK this morning.    

 

For those with signatures disabled, here is the UK Link Situation Z

[FloatingFatMan]

30 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

The best we can hope for is this sorry excuse for a Tory party screw up is for the whole thing to be brushed under the carpet and to take a place firmly at the EU head table again.

It's hardly fair to blame the Tories for this when most of them voted to remain, is it?  Sure, they can be blamed for giving us a referendum, but it's the idiot people of the UK who caused this, not the Tories. No one really thought this result would happen, not even Boris (as you can tell from his body language and not running for the job everyone knows he wants).

 

 

23 minutes ago, Zag L. said:

Just want to say that in support of our friends in the UK (both remains and leaves), my wife lowered the price of her book at Amazon UK this morning.    

Nice of her... Only.. what book?

 

[restroom]

28 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

We were told over and over again that price hikes, the pound crashing and pretty much everything else that has happened would happen, by experts long before the actual vote. Unfortunately one of the leave side decided to go ahead and tell the public we were bored of hearing from "Experts", when listening to them is exactly what everyone should have been doing.

 

Once Brexit kicks in (If?), we're in for a massive slump of epic proportions, the current slump is based on "what if's" and thus is smaller, the real slump will be an absolute killer for our economy, house prices, the pound, trade, prices... everything. It'll easily last a decade why we try to sort ###### out. All why doling out large amounts of money to the EU to access the benefits we already had as one of the countries in charge of the EU.

 

The best we can hope for is this sorry excuse for a Tory party screw up is for the whole thing to be brushed under the carpet and to take a place firmly at the EU head table again. The minute we announce that the economy will start to recover, and we need to do it soon before any more business and financial institutions bugger off to Europe.

I seriously agree with you on this. We are far better off negotiating better terms. We can use the vote as symbolic leverage that the British public really are unhappy and its not just a game of harsh words any more. The EU, I'm sure, would listen more now they have had their hands slapped by the British public and will see it as a near miss. A win win all round!

 

However, in the political world, the next prime minister will play up to what the "public want". Those who secretly voted stay will now be "avid supporters of leave" in order to get the majority on side, instead of actually making a proper decision on what's best for the UK.

[restroom]

7 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

It's hardly fair to blame the Tories for this when most of them voted to remain, is it?  Sure, they can be blamed for giving us a referendum, but it's the idiot people of the UK who caused this, not the Tories. No one really thought this result would happen, not even Boris (as you can tell from his body language and not running for the job everyone knows he wants).

 

 

Nice of her... Only.. what book?

 

Agree here too. People blame the Tories for the economic problems prior to Brexit, however the problems where there and getting worse in successive governments too.

 

Absolutely. Boris even "joked" that he had lost with a commuter on the underground. My bet is that he woke up on the Friday, saw the news and quickly phoned his mate Dave with an, "oh ######! What the ###### happened!? This wasn't part of the plan!".

[anthdci]

If i hear one more person say we were better before, or we are a great country we will be fine, then i swear I will scream.

 

It was over 40 years ago. People were still using a toilet outside then. It is a completely different world now.

We are not a great country, the British Empire is long long gone, we don't even have aircraft to put on our aircraft carriers, we are a small island that imports a hell of a lot more than export and make a lot of money and jobs from the financial sector, which this vote has screwed over.

 

This whole thing about it'll be hard now but it might get better, well yes it might, but it was fine the way it was, the economy was growing, jobs were being made and the 17million who voted leave have screwed the country over.

[dead.cell]

1 hour ago, MikeChipshop said:

We were told over and over again that price hikes, the pound crashing and pretty much everything else that has happened would happen, by experts long before the actual vote. Unfortunately one of the leave side decided to go ahead and tell the public we were bored of hearing from "Experts", when listening to them is exactly what everyone should have been doing.

 

Once Brexit kicks in (If?), we're in for a massive slump of epic proportions, the current slump is based on "what if's" and thus is smaller, the real slump will be an absolute killer for our economy, house prices, the pound, trade, prices... everything. It'll easily last a decade why we try to sort ###### out. All why doling out large amounts of money to the EU to access the benefits we already had as one of the countries in charge of the EU.

 

The best we can hope for is this sorry excuse for a Tory party screw up is for the whole thing to be brushed under the carpet and to take a place firmly at the EU head table again. The minute we announce that the economy will start to recover, and we need to do it soon before any more business and financial institutions bugger off to Europe.

It's refreshing and possibly disturbing to see everyone here in general agreement for what is to come. I wouldn't want to imagine the UK in a state where businesses/financial institutions leave, especially given the population density. I feel the country would feel it a lot more than say, the US would where we have diversity among states/regions, where people at least have options of leaving the state more easily (e.g. Californians migrating to Texas/Houston). I say this as traveling through my city scares me enough when you see certain sectors in ruin or numerous commercial buildings sit for lease, while the neighborhoods turn ugly.

 

3 hours ago, restroom said:

Yep. All good in the end, but a lot of casualties along the way. Personally, it looks like ill be jumping ship in the coming months IF I can sell my house at its current rate, before the prices start to drop dramatically and before the pound possibly stagnates below the euro rate.

Given your concern for financial stability, what options look enticing for you as far as moving your family to another country?

[Mando]

from your perspective Dead.cell youll get more £ for your USD this trip, more bang for your buck  

 

And yes, we are so dependent on imports for almost everything, i can see almost every item increasing in price, due to higher import costs, transport, fuel...all adds to the price of your loaf of bread.

My company are already seeing a drop of up to 15% profit and increase in export costs, on our products as we export heavily to USA (40% of our customers), EU (40%) and Asia (20% and rising), due to being paid in Euro & USD. Its hurting us but we make more than 15% per order so still turning a profit, but nowhere near as much, hurting our top line and our annual pay bonus  boo!

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Mando

[MikeChipshop Member]

2 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

It's hardly fair to blame the Tories for this when most of them voted to remain, is it?  Sure, they can be blamed for giving us a referendum, but it's the idiot people of the UK who caused this, not the Tories. No one really thought this result would happen, not even Boris (as you can tell from his body language and not running for the job everyone knows he wants).

Both agree and disagree with you here, which is confusing.

 

This was all engineered by the Tories, it just didn't go the way they hoped, so yep, i do blame them. However i also put an equal amount of blame on the voters also!

[restroom]

1 hour ago, anthdci said:

If i hear one more person say we were better before, or we are a great country we will be fine, then i swear I will scream.

 

It was over 40 years ago. People were still using a toilet outside then. It is a completely different world now.

We are not a great country, the British Empire is long long gone, we don't even have aircraft to put on our aircraft carriers, we are a small island that imports a hell of a lot more than export and make a lot of money and jobs from the financial sector, which this vote has screwed over.

 

This whole thing about it'll be hard now but it might get better, well yes it might, but it was fine the way it was, the economy was growing, jobs were being made and the 17million who voted leave have screwed the country over.

We worked the following out:

 

Currently I pay for a mortgage on a TINY 2 bed house in London and bills etc. about £1600 a month. We earn between us a comfortable amount, but it will take MANY years to clear our mortgage and the country is no longer stable, so my job could be at risk, thus making mortgage payments difficult.

 

We worked out that with the current price of our house, we can walk away with £190,000 in our pocket. This, as it stands today (but not what we would expect to get in the future), would equal to about 220,000 euro.

 

In her country we can get a 5 bed house that's 5 times larger than our current London 2 bed and comes with enough land on the back to build our own small community if we wanted! The one we have seen that we like now (but wouldn't expect to get) backs on to a river at the end of the garden, with the garden being a good 5 minute walk across!

 

The next nearest house is about 2 minutes walk down the road and generally the country is well spaced out, quiet and peaceful to live. Crime rate is ridiculously low and schooling, whilst not well funded, is actually very good.

 

The place we want to live is about 15 minutes walk in to the capital city, or a short bike ride and there are plenty of jobs going that require English speaking people. The average wage is about 500 to 600 Euro a month and about 200 euro on rent\mortgage and bills etc., but working in even a low end IT job, the base salary is about 1500 euro. So without a mortgage we would only have to bills at, lets say 200 euro for arguments sake. That then would leave about 1300 euro to do what ever with.

 

On top of that, my wife would get work as either an interpreter (she can speak several languages) or language tutor, which makes a small amount. So that would add to our income and mean we can live well, but save a lot too.

 

I already had a skype interview after putting my CV out there for one day!

 

However - the risks involved are:

 

I don't end up finding the job market quite as luxurious as I believe

The language barrier is larger than I thought it would be living in their capital city (id expect to be fluent within a couple of years)

Brexit results in me being booted out for being British and her not being able to return to life in the UK because she moved away

 

So its not clean sailing, but if it works out, then it will work out really well.

[Mando]

1 hour ago, anthdci said:

If i hear one more person say we were better before, or we are a great country we will be fine, then i swear I will scream.

 

It was over 40 years ago. People were still using a toilet outside then. It is a completely different world now.

We are not a great country, the British Empire is long long gone, we don't even have aircraft to put on our aircraft carriers, we are a small island that imports a hell of a lot more than export and make a lot of money and jobs from the financial sector, which this vote has screwed over.

 

This whole thing about it'll be hard now but it might get better, well yes it might, but it was fine the way it was, the economy was growing, jobs were being made and the 17million who voted leave have screwed the country over.

and we still had heavy industry, a coal industry, a steel industry, a self sufficient farming industry, an avionics industry, a ship building industry, a massive motor industry, all of them at one time the best in the modern world.....now?

Pfft we depend on imports from EU and China and US...........we cant just set all those industries back up, it all costs money and our exports would end up dearer than chinas, nobody cares anymore if your tefal frying pan will last 20years at a cost of £40, theyd rather buy a Chinese imported one at Tesco/Lidl/aldi/Walmart for £3.99 and replace it every 3 months.