All in this together - really?

A new blog post from DU Member, Digital Business Coach!

The start of lockdown week 3 and it arrived with a sense of some hopelessness; first, the images around the country over the weekend – mainly in and around London – of people blatantly disregarding the instructions the vast majority are following, could see this present situation extended for quite a while. Second, news stories which rarely appear on the news channels, continue to disappoint.

Sky online reported Friday last that the Office for National Statistics [ONS] issued its weekly report on retailers online prices to the week ending 29 March. Not surprisingly, cough and cold medicine prices up by 10.7% in a week.

Under normal conditions today – being the first day of the new tax year – would herald some unsavoury new measures. The property market being on ice for the duration means investment property owners are “saved” from the new tax rules coming into operation today. However, the sting in the tail is for residential property owners who have “sold” their homes but are still looking for the new one. Prior to today, they had 18 months to complete the search to avoid a capital gains tax charge. From today, it is 9 months. Unless our friends at Revenue and Customs show some sympathy, I fear many will be stung.

I’ll not mention the banks attempts to hijack the Government’s support packages to boost their profits. Oops.

As a student of the last financial crash I have been on watch for the next, for a few years now. In a previous post I outlined the deeply worrying statistic regarding the printing of money by the US central bank. Why worrying? Well, printing on this scale has always led to hyper inflation. The only, seemingly, tried and tested tactic to fight inflation is to raise the cost of borrowing, currently at an unbelievable 0.1% in the UK. With many commentators predicting an outcome potentially similar to or worse than the great depression of 1930s USA this does not bode well. The housing market on both sides of the pond is on ice just now and there are further worrying news stories coming out from the other side.

That great, recent success story AirBnB is in trouble; the US reports many thousands of “super-hosts” who bought 10, or 20, sometimes 30 properties, are heavily leveraged. Many, if not all may be about to default due to no paying customers. Might this news bring down – again – the US housing market?

If not AirBnB, what about massive unemployment. With over 1m in the UK applying for universal credit in the last 3 weeks, how many borrowers are about to go into arrears? The FCA has encouraged its regulated members – the banks – to be sympathetic and offer – when asked – a 3 month payment holiday. Of course, even if you can get through to your lender AND they say yes, it is not a holiday but a deferment. How many of us really believe all of this will be over by the end of June?

In the US, naturally being bigger, the problem is more serious. Jay Bay, CEO of mortgage broker Mr Cooper was quoted as saying that if the estimated job losses of between 25% and 50% led to these people being unable to maintain mortgage payments, the industry would need $40 billion to survive just 3 months.

The much vaulted US stimulus package [the $2.2 trillion] does NOT include relief for the mortgage industry.

Here in the UK, accessing the various support packages has been far from smooth and there is still the issue [seemingly now forgotten about] of an estimated 4m self employed people who only took up their roles since 2018/19. Their reward for keeping the unemployment figures low? Universal credit.

So, whether you are on furlough, or unable to wait until June [fingers crossed] for your self employed package, or awaiting on UC which will not make a huge difference, what else can you do? How can you reduce the financial stress? Other than finding another paying job [unlikely] how can you bring in more money?

63%, 39%, 32%, 30%, 18%, 15% – what do these numbers represent?

These are the growth rates of the 6 leading digital currencies for the period 1 January to 31 March this year. Surprised? Shocked, even? After all, your financial adviser will tell you stay well clear of digital currency. The media only ever talk about it when something truly massive happens. Like, in December 2017 when the very first digital currency achieved a value in excess of $20,000. Or when FaceBook announced last June its intention to launch its own digital currency.

I have covered previously why this is; remember the 1% owning 90% of the world’s wealth? These are the people who enjoy effective control of the banks and who have a seat at the table of most Governments. These people will be largely unaffected by the next crash – which according to the IMF last week, has already started. They don’t want the masses to know about digital money. They want us to continue relying on fiat currency – our pounds and dollars. Currency which is not backed by ANYTHING. Currency which is being printed in the billions right now. Just bits of paper which eventually may become worthless. Research the Weimar Republic [1920s Germany] Dig in to what has been happening in Paraguay since December 2018.

Remember “fractional reserve banking”? If not, look it up – could be very important in the next few months or so. My point is that the banks use our money to invest into various things like foreign exchange arbitrage [$5.1 trillion traded DAILY] The buy in minimum is such that only the banks and the 1% can get involved.

Until now.

The story of digital currency is inspiring and begins in the ashes of the last financial crash. Whatever you might have heard before, or been told by “experts” please try to disregard and revisit with an open mind. The fact is that we can all benefit from the combined collaboration of artificial intelligence and digital currency. To what end? To benefit from a weekly income we do not have to earn. That requires no input from us. That is averaging around 15% each and every month. Income that can be spent anywhere online [and in the shops, if any survive]

Nobody knows how long this pandemic will last. Nobody really knows what our world will look like when it is finally over. The “duration” could be quite a long time. Why not mark 2020 as the year you learned how to insulate yourself from the centralised system. The year you learned about digital money and how it compares with fiat. The year you discovered how to create a number of streams of passive income, potentially resulting in your actually not needing to return to the rat race at all. The year you realised the significant importance of lifestyle.

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All in this together – really?