Rachael McKelvey

• (Un)Equal Pay Day
• It’s been a week for Sam Altman
• What’s in the price of sugar?
• The outlook is grim
• Black Friday like its 2022

(Un)Equal Pay Day
Wednesday 22^nd November 2023 marked #EqualPayDay, the day based on the gender pay gap that women in the UK stop getting paid compared to men for the rest of the year, so between now and the women, if a man offers to pay for something just let him.

Jemima Olchawski, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “Fawcett runs the Equal Pay Day campaign on behalf of women across the country – but we shouldn’t have to. The UK’s gender pay gap has hardly moved on in recent years and this isn’t good enough.”

The data is calculated using the mean, full time, hourly gender pay gap and the gap has closed by 48 hours from last year and represents 0.2% reduction, based on this rate of annual growth the pay gap will close by 2051…delightful.

On average women taken home £6,888 less per year than men and lets be honest this is most representative of white women, obviously. The race equality think tank Runnymede Trust dug a little more into the data and found that that date is quite considerably back in the summer for women of colour.

It’s been a week for Sam Altman
Imagine being connected to Sam Altman on LinkedIn this week, it would read like a Craig David song, I’m almost hesitant to finish this up and schedule the post, who knows what could happen.

Tell me the world of AI is mad without telling me the world of AI is mad, I’ll go first. Sam Altman was fired as the Chief Exec of OpenAI last Friday over a failure to be “candid in his communications”. The Board took a weird unilateral decision to replace him with Twitch’s ex CEO Emmett Shear. So, Sam was gone, but not unemployed for long. Microsoft, who are significant investors in OpenAI, snapped both Sam and Greg Brockman who quit OpenAI not long after Sam was let go to head up their new in-house AI development team.

But by Wednesday Altman was rumoured to be returning to his role as Chief Exec at OpenAI after nearly the entire workforce threatened to resign unless the board bought Sam back and then all resigned themselves! 

So, it’s all change for the board of OpenAI, with the former co-chief exec of Salesforce Bret Taylor on board and former US treasury secretary Larry Summers. Adam D’Angelo stays, despite his role in Atlmans firing. As it stands, Altman is back, Brockman is back and all is the same at OpenAI. Altman returns without his seat on the board as Chief Exec, the fourth is five days for OpenAI

What’s in the price of sugar?
Another commodity price to watch (other than cucumbers – still keep watching the price of cucumbers guys) is sugar which this week has risen to its highest price worldwide since 2011. Increasing 55% in just the past two months, driven by low global supplies following the devasting dry weather in India and Thailand meaning the world now has less than 68 days of sugar in its stockpile to meet needs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that sugar production will be down 2% this year against last year which amounts to a loss of 3.8 million tons, which is A LOT of sugar. Food insecurity is on the rise, sugar is vital to feeding developing nations that are already facing shortages in other staples including rice.

The outlook is grim
With inflation expected to fall quite dramatically below 5% and the Chancellor Autumn Statement tax cuts he hopes will “boost growth” the official growth forecast has been slashed. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has once again cut its forecast, down to 0.7% for 2024 and 1.4% in 2025.  It also predicts that living standards will not return to that of pre pandemic levels till 2028, reflecting a 3.5% drop, by their own words the largest reduction in living standards since records began…in 1950. How lucky we are. 

The OBRs summary was that the economy is more resilient than expected than back in March, but that growth will slow and interest rates will stay higher for longer to control inflation and I feel like this isn’t news and we hear this all the time these days. Public spending is just a disaster. Why can’t things just be nice again for everyone? Why are millions of people turning off their fridges to survive please? 

Black Friday like its 2022
The advice across the board was take deals this Black Friday “with a pinch of salt” but especially according to Which? Who found that just 2% of the deals available were the cheapest price in last years event. Which? analysed 208 of the deals available last year and found only 5 were the cheapest the products had been. The industry hit back saying that they make no promises that Black Friday deals are the cheapest price of the products all year, which given that there are January Sales, and summers sales and then winter sales is fair I suppose. 

Early indications of both online traffic and town centre footfall indicate that the deals have not been enough to entice shoppers to part with their money. Many retailers had predicted sales to be on par with 2022, but Fridays lunchtime view saw 5% less footfall in retail destinations off set only by a slight increase in online sales. John Lewis reported a 31% rise in sales of small electrical goods with air fryers and earphones leading the charge! 

Current watch:  Louis Theroux Interviews…Pete Doherty – Never a fan of the Libertines or Babyshambles or Pete Doherty in the early 2000’s but addiction fascinates me and there has been discussion of this documentary in the office and then I sort of knew I had to watch it. Pete is living the quiet life in Normandy and since the Pandemic interrupted his access to drugs, he has been endeavouring to change his life, now clean from crack and heroin and married to his long-term partner with a new baby, it feels like Louis has met him at a real turning point in his life. I found the whole documentary oddly captivating, the way he talks about everything that happened, the odd juxtaposition of the man in front of you today versus the man in the headlines and you can’t get much more rock and roll these days than starting your one off reunion gig with an ice bath and tequila!

Current read: Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing – Matthew Perry – It’s safe to say I didn’t quite know what to do when I heard about the death of Matthew Perry, Friends is still a massive part of my life and Chandler Bing is arguably the longest crush I’ve ever had. I’d held off reading Matthew’s autobiography because I knew it would be everything and I wasn’t ready. Well, the time was right. It was perfect, a lovely companion from the week. I didn’t want to put it down, for all the reasons. It’s honest and without barrier, he talks about his family, his pursuit of fame, and of course Friends. Both the onscreen and off-screen parts of that time in his life, his addiction and the paralyzing loneliness that strung it all together, but actually what struck me most about this book was the hope throughout it all, in his own words. I’m so glad I waited, it seemed a fitting way for me to honour one of the best Friends.

Most Impactful Listen: Money Clinic with Clear Barrett: Understanding economics: why it matters for your money – Every wanted to understand economics a little more, especially now in the current context? Then this podcast is well worth 30 minutes of your time, Clear hosts a panel with Sarah O’Connor FT columnist and associate editor currently on book break (which sounds amazing) and Susannah Streeter head of Money & Markets at Hargreaves Lansdown and they talk all things inflation, growth (the dreaded pie analogy explained), interest rates, mortgage rates, student debt, investing and taxes with some really interesting questions from the audience at Bristol Economics Festival.