An independent (financial adviser's) view

I’ve been out and about seeing actual people this week, so can confirm the hot topics of conversation are, in order of discussion: Covid (still), have you and yours had it, how often, no, wasn’t too bad but we (all) know someone for whom it was bad. Followed by Rishi vs Truss, it’ll be Truss, oh dear. And the cost of everything, will we be OK? Yes, your investments will go up again. So that’s saved everyone a lot of time. Anyway, the kids (defined in our household as anyone aged 30 and under) have the right idea and have escaped to a (WOMAD) festival, leaving us to empty-nest and watch Top of the Pops 1978. Bliss/Sad? I’ll let you decide; but no feedback required, thank you.

“‘INSULT TO MILLIONS’: CENTRICA PROFITS CAUSE OUTRAGE AS ENERGY BILLS SOAR”

The theory behind re-privatising the utilities was that the efficiencies of the commercial world would sweep away the bureaucracy of public ownership and deliver cheaper everything for everyone. Anyone who’s worked in a big corporate knows that they have as many useless meetings and layers of middle management and as much profligate waste as the very worst of government. Apparently, Centrica’s huge profits come, not from the part which sells you energy, but that which makes it, so they can’t reduce your fuel bill. What utter tosh. If we can’t renationalise them, we should regulate all of these companies to the nth degree until they’re of no interest to foreign investors and private equity companies. I’d say. Come The Revolution.

“NHS WAITS FORCE PATIENTS TO PAY FOR PRIVATE OPS”

Years ago when I worked in Greece, families used to fly their poorly relatives to London to get better medical treatment. Now it’s cheaper, even with the cost of flights and hotels, to go to Lithuania for a hip replacement and Hungary or Turkey for a bit of dental work. ‘Health tourism’ is a big thing for all sorts of ailments, not just facelifts and boob jobs as used to be the case. And good business, I guess, for the medics and dentists who might once have hoped to come and work over here. I’m not, believe it or not, a qualified doctor, but my guess is that you get what you pay for, and various horror stories are already emerging of things going wrong without any chance of correction or redress. But that’s not really the point, is it. Noone should need to go in the first place.

“US MAKES HUGE INTEREST RATE RISE TO TAME SOARING PRICES”

It is different over there, of course. No fuel crisis, as they grow their own. Most of those with mortgages fix their rates for the whole term, for better or worse, so the Joe on the Street isn’t hit so hard. And they only have 3.6% unemployed, with lots of vacancies. So in theory, more reason to think that interest rates might bring down inflation and not cause a recession. Their stockmarkets seem to think so as they’ve gone up, which should be good news for our investors, most of whom have maybe a third of their funds in US shares. The truth is, however, that most economic policy is little more than a finger in the air and hope for the best. So who knows?

“CRYPTO CRISIS: HOW DIGITAL CURRENCIES WENT FROM BOOM TO COLLAPSE”

There were so many signs, huge banners even, pointing to the fortunes that might be lost by investing in crypto bitcoins and the like. In a totally unregulated world, there were many scams from even the earliest days of this new currency’s invention (listen to the BBC’s ‘The Missing Crypto Queen’). Bitcoin was made legal tender by the Central African Republic, El Salvador and Panama, places in which you’d be unlikely to make an entirely legal investment. Then in lockdown, lots of bored amateurs jumped on what they thought was an easy-money bandwagon and the bubble expanded to bursting point. And now it’s burst. Although it’s highly likely that someone will reinflate it in some form, it’ll be too late for most.

This will grip you from the start but you’ll be thinking it’s another 'Thursday Murder Club’, a whodunnit in a care-for-the-elderly setting. Then you’ll realise it came before that mega-seller, perhaps the ‘He’s So Fine’ to Richard Osman's ‘My Sweet Lord’; but it’s actually so much more. It’s a gentle psychological thriller, more of a Hitchcock ‘is it all in her mind?' than the more straightforward amateur detective story you might at first assume. The awful events that shaped Florence and Elsie’s lives come back to them, whether really or through growing dementia is for you to decide and unravel. Its cast of characters and spot-on observations of those of a certain age make it very funny. But it's a page-turner, rather tragic and with a strong, final-denouement mascara-warning. Loved it.