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186

Liz Truss leaves stage in Beccles as 'lettuce' banner unfurls (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[–] cRazi_man@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CswZ8Fbl80

Here's a short video summary if you're interested in some hilariously fucked up UK politics.

The first 45 sec of the video will set the stage for you.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So, this minibudget included tax cuts, coupled with a massive increase in government spending, which then caused the currency to devalue. Still don't fully understand how it got this bad, though.

[–] cRazi_man@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The tax cuts were huge (billions). She didn't increase spending, but didn't decrease it either; so it would leave a huge hole in government finance that would require massive government loans. The "market" freaked out. The pound and UKs credit rating plunged. The main crisis became the gilt market crisis (which was a catastrophe for almost all pension funds and the economy as a whole). This itself is well explained here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-FdX0djxAE

(In case you haven't noticed, I think TLDR news make absolutely fantastic videos and would recommend checking out their videos if you are interested in high quality news).

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks. I'll check it out in the evening.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, but how did the pension funds hedge against interest rates in a way that they had to pay up when the interest rate went up?

[–] cRazi_man@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I have no idea man. My knowledge extends as far as that video. After watching "The Big Short", I've learned that there are a lot of ways that finance bros play the economy in ways that we cannot comprehend.

[–] Theme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

Good movie

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

My hypothesis is that they put the gilts up as collateral so that they could borrow money to invest. So, interest rate goes up, and the value of existing gilts goes down, because why buy a gilt with 1% interest when you can get a new one with 2% interest? Pension funds need to add more collateral to their accounts, because the gilts became less valuable.