Rachael McKelvey

• That’s going straight in the CPI basket
• Not quite what they meant when the task was “boring budget”
• Elder millennial midlife crisis
• Credit Suisse might exit the chat
• A change is not as good as a rest

That’s going straight in the CPI basket
The current CPI basket of goods and services is a whopping 743 items long, with 26 items added and 16 items removed in this update.

Apparently e-bikes are in, surveillance cameras, frozen berries and infants dresses, the new additions reflect categories where there has been significant growth in consumer spend, most people have a ring door bell, e-bikes are on the rise and frozen fruit is a real money saving alternative to fresh…I can’t comment on infants dresses!

The WHOOO’s leaving the basket are digital cameras, alcopops and non chart CDs and DVDs bought in store probably because our camera’s are now in our phones, alcohol is better represented by other items in the basket and well non chart music and film are all on streaming services.

The categories expand and contract based on nuances in the market, “postal charges” as a whole have been dropped and replaced with new items for letter and parcel handling services, which probably better help the impact of inflation faced by consumers.

As always, all the data is available for you to peruse and if you’re anything like me go ‘whose buying that’ but each to their own. I’ve just realised quite how excited I get about ONS data…which considering I spent years attempting to dodge completing ONS returns and failing spectacularly for a decade!

Not quite what they meant when they said “boring budget”
Well, there are ways to have the required pre election budget budget, that typically involve the routine announcements and keeping the status quo, but kudos to Jeremy Hunt there is also basically telling all your favourite newspapers in advance and well just being Jeremy Hunt at the despatch box.

Which admittedly in this case had its advantages, talking with peers and colleagues around the budget I was astounded how few had realised that not only was it a weird budget, some carrots but most predominantly sticks and some massive glaringly empty holes, but that it was also predicated on accepting the biggest fall in living standards since records began.

Six percent! I am not down with that, for such little return in investment in public sector services, potholes have no place of being mentioned in the house of commons, childcare reform and support is well overdue but unlikely to succeed without going further and growth in investment isn’t going to happen with a 3 year capital allowance expansion on the table, it’s just not long enough to generate anything sustainable.

Elder Millennials midlife crisis
No great surprise that millennials are now approaching middle age and it’s not what we expected, the NY Times isn’t wrong. For the avoidance of doubt nothing is as expected, it has all be a con. We grew up in a time of relative abundance and naively assumed that this might continue for our benefit. Wrong.

People joke about wanting to live in precedented times again, AGAIN? When where we as a generation ever conscious for some precedented times? We are hitting our mid lives with early adult money with parents who ultimately wanted for very little and I have no doubt my parents worked very hard but when your Dad texts you pensions advice after the budget the gist of which was all your spare money should go into your pension so you can retire early…Early? A change to retire would be nice, I don’t think there is anyone under the age of about 45 who thinks we’re actually going to get to retire much before our mid 70’s and to make matters worse the liberal in us probably on balance don’t think that’s unreasonable if we’re all now going to be living till 100, who wants to retire at 55 and still have 45 years to wait out if you don’t have the money.

I do genuinely believe that no generation has ever had it together and knows what they are doing, but I do feel our need to have a more adultier adult around is because we face a greater amount of uncertainty than our parents generation, which ironically says quite a lot about the state of everything.

Credit Suisse might exit the chat
167 year old Credit Suisse has asked SVB to hold its beer. Bank runs really are a tale as old as time…but you know what is, for want of a better phrase, more erratic than venture capitalist backed Tech companies? Billionaires.

Credit Suisse shares have plummeted and it is no enemy of a scandal, or two or three and while the UK had its eyes firmly on Jeremy Hunt, the markets had already expressed their negative opinion of the bank by coffee time by pricing in its probability of default at 38%, and while it looked like the $54bn lifeline loan from the Swiss National Banks might be enough, it is now being looked at Switzerland’s biggest bank for UBS for a takeover.

Is this the start of a run on the banks…I think we can take heart in that the dominoes are falling slowly that this isn’t a banking crisis like we’ve seen before, but I do think this will flush out some potential crisis, probably from bad decisions, in some banks.

A change is not as good as a rest
I want a rest! It has been all change, the boy is on holiday (skiing) and the chickens are on holiday at the boarding orchard for a week, where they get to be surrounded by boarding cats, green grass and fallen apples and then there is me, still doing everything as normal except without having to feed and put the chickens to bed twice a day and having anyone to talk too.

Once again I have romanticised these breaks as responsibility free, doing what I like, absolute nonsense of times…and in reality it just isn’t that. I don’t take a holiday so why would it be like a holiday? The last time I did take a holiday, I ended up in hospital and the boy had to fly home from skiing early, so that doesn’t appeal much to me either.

I have done approximately no things on my to do list, I have tried quite miserably to succeed in some things I thought would be easier without distraction, it was not. Honestly, I do not know what is wrong with me!

Current watch:  Comic Relief – The Traitors for Comic Relief – Oh my days, it may have only been 11 minutes, but it was amazing. If you even vaguely enjoyed the Traitors this parody is hilarious. Dawn French is sublime and that alone was worth a donation to Red Nose Day.

Current read: Culture is Everything: The Story And System Of A Start-Up That Became Australia’s Best Place To Work by Tristan White – The awkward first audiobook I couldn’t decided if I liked or not. This is part origin story, part handbook on how to build culture, Tristan shares the blueprint of how he super charged average performing The Physio Co into 2014’s best place to work in Australia list.

Tristan’s passion in this book is obvious, but he admits he realised his purpose was not what he thought it was when he first started out, the book is everything he has learnt on his journey, with useful references and resources (tristanwhite.com.au) so you can take what you need and implement what you can. It’s a quick read, or listen that could really make some impact.

Most Impactful Listen: Nudge – Five Ads that changed the world – I flipping love this podcast, but this episode…chefs kiss, no notes. With the tagline behavioural science made simple this episode does not disappoint. From toothpaste, to leaders and even Santa Claus, the ad’s in this show are over 50 years old and just show how advertisement has changed the world, dare to imagine the impact of some of the current adverts will have in 50 years time!