Discussion on UK, Economics, and Finance.

 Ghost jobs are an issue that has been exacerbated by the advent of the internet, particularly on sites like LinkedIn and job searching sites. For those curious about what a ghost job is (it's not a spooky job position), it's where a company will post an open position for a job that doesn't exist. The reason for such posts being advertised for companies is various; to resume farm, regulatory compliance (even if they are hiring internally, they have to post it to be open for external potential employees), and to prop up investor optics (a company hiring highlights its growing). What are the implications of this? Well, it distorts labour market price mechanisms. A key indicator for labour statistics is the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio; these fake jobs inflate the numerator and make the job market feel tighter than it actually is. This has created a vast resentment among job seekers who are now applying to a record number of positions to even land a single job, with stories o...

The aim of this post is to provide a brief history of the UK's central bank, including its role, the groups it has served, and the key targets it has implemented. Then, we will talk about the trajectory it is currently on and highlight how this can be malign for the many countries that are facing this issue. It all began in 1694, with a lack of funding and the pressure from the French destroying our Royal Navy, William III needed a way to fund his war expenses, despite the government's low credit at the time. The initial idea was to pay its subscribers interest, which would be paid through tonnage (taxes levied on imports and exports). There was a subscription cost of £4000, but it would pay a generous 8% per annum. These funds made the bank act as a lender of last resort, which is a key point that we will discuss later. Not long later, the UK saw itself in another war and the world's first financial crash. It started with a company that was jointly owned by the public and ...

Year after year, the public services we rely on,  from healthcare to transport, seem to be in a state of decline. Yet, government spending remains high, consistently hovering around 45% of GDP, aside from crisis-related spikes. On the surface, this should mean improved services or at least stability, as capital is invested or replaced. But reality tells a different story. Despite the heavy fiscal footprint, the UK government has recently had a negative net worth — meaning it now owes more than it owns. In this mini blog, we explore how Britain arrived at this paradox of high spending but low delivery, the policies that hollowed out public capital, and what it might take to turn the ship around. source: https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-data-item/uk-government-spending-over-time A glance at government expenditure as a percentage of GDP might suggest a robust, active state, one committed to supporting its citizens. But this is an illusion. As the first chart shows, the UK ha...

In this post we are going to discuss how increased fare costs have had a malign impact on labour markets and worsened the housing market for the average worker in the UK, what going back to the relatively low fares would do and how the government caused and can improve the position we are in. I'm writing this post after booking travel between Southampton and Nottingham, which outraged me just how expensive it was to go see my friends up north. With the cost to grab the train there above £100, it would be cheaper to fly there,  but being a student with not much funds to my name, I was forced to grab a coach at the expense of it being 4 hours longer. It got me thinking there is no way other developed nations experience the same issue, is there? Well on my trip to Japan, I was amazed, I could travel just as far in a bullet train at a fraction of the cost. Now, of course this was massively supported by their currency being insanely cheap, but even looking into Europe, it is evident tha...