What caught my eye this week.
Working at the end of the age of publishing words has given me a lead on the post-LLM era.
I saw early on how ChatGPT had mined the web for everything ever written – well-enough to spit out answers about anything. And as a writer I had more incentive than most to panic.
It was also clear that Google search would be in trouble – and with it the pipes that had kept independent publishing alive on the web for decades.
My worries soon came to pass. People increasingly now get their knowledge direct from chatbots – whether Google or others. Those who wrote the articles the bots were trained on are withering on the vine.
Another thing I’ve wondered about is when AI spam will overwhelm the Monevator comments. Already on platforms like X, swathes of comments are written by robots.
We have protections in place. But I don’t know how long they will be practical when facing spam like this:
Such spam started appearing in the past month or so. It addresses me or my co-blogger accurately. It references the article.
Only the booby-trap at the end confirms its ill-intentions.
Check mate
You may say there’s something sloppy about this text. (Not to mention that it reads like @TA’s mum had a hand in it…)
Agreed, but remember you’re only have to sanity check one comment here.
I have to parse several hundred spam comments every day as a double-check. Both on spam that gets through our filters or is held for moderation, and also real comments that are incorrectly marked as spam. This is after software has already flagged the obvious offenders.
It’s burdensome, and the reason why I had to close comments on posts over three years old. To keep it vaguely manageable.
Spam comments like the one above stand out because they are still rare. But I imagine they will soon be the norm. (Well, presuming the economics of spamming still works if spammers are somehow paying for AI compute?)
I also expect bots to get clever enough to hide their intentions by posing as real readers, before finally inserting their spam links once they’re trusted.
Incidentally, we can see that’s a spammy link in my example. But if a reader posts a URL to data elsewhere about interest rates, say, it’s not so easy for software.
That’s why comments with links are already often held in moderation, especially from new commenters.
King sacrifice
Long story short: one day only logged-in Monevator members may be able to post comments. (I’m presuming the spammers won’t pay for the privilege!)
I’d be happy for commenting to be another perk for those who kindly support our efforts. It would make general moderation far easier, too.
Really, everyone who comments regularly on Monevator should already become a member. It costs much less than a High Street coffee a month. Even cheaper with annual membership!
With member-only commenting I know we’d lose some good comments, sadly. Although on the flip-side I suspect most discussions would be even more civil than we’re lucky enough to enjoy today.
The real downside would be fencing out non-regulars who bring one-off insights to a discussion. For example, a professional bond trader who arrives here via Google and educates us with a comment on an article about long-dated gilts.
That sort of thing is very valuable. I’m loathe to lose it. So for now the battle against spam continues!
Have a great weekend.
From Monevator
The Slow and Steady Passive Portfolio update: Q3 2025 – Monevator
Checking in on private companies and crowdfunded investments – Monevator [Mogul members]
From the archive-ator: What can we learn from asset allocation rules of thumb? – Monevator
News
UK economic growth stalled in second quarter – City AM
House prices up though, says Nationwide – Guardian
JP Morgan ditches Nutmeg for ‘Personal Investing’ brand – This Is Money
Gold price makes latest record as US government shuts down – Yahoo Finance
New figures reveal how our disposable income shrank – Sky News
Savings windfall worth £2,242 waiting for 748,000 young adults – Yahoo Finance
Cash use falls below 10% for first time – This Is Money
Home buyers turn builders for £10,000 off their mortgage – Guardian
FCA chief updates Rachel Reeves on evolving Consumer Duty [PDF] – FCA
London falls to 23rd place for IPOs, just behind Oman [Paywall] – Bloomberg
Why you now need a lot of dough to get a pizza – The Observer
Products and services
Are pension fees deflating your retirement savings? – Which
Vanguard to cut fees on six equity ETFs – FT Adviser
Get up to £1,500 cashback when you transfer your cash and/or investments to Charles Stanley Direct through this affiliate link. Terms apply – Charles Stanley
Testing London’s £30-a-night hotel rooms – The Times
Chase Bank’s first £100 switch offer – Be Clever With Your Cash
IKEA and Lloyds Bank unveil new credit cards – Which
Get up to £200 cashback when you open or switch to an Interactive Investor SIPP. Terms and fees apply, affiliate link. – Interactive Investor
The best American Express cards – Be Clever With Your Cash
How tenants can make the most of the Renters Rights Bill – Landlord Today
What energy bill help is available as prices rise again? – This Is Money
Homes for sale with impressive entrances, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Gen Z will need ‘at least £3m’ to retire comfortably – City AM
Energy price cap should be scrapped to bring down bills – This Is Money
The bearish persuasion – We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards
The supercommuters taking 24-hour journeys to the office – Sky
How to invest during a bubble – A Wealth of Common Sense
The 966: is this dystopian work trend coming to the UK next? – Independent
Would a flat tax save Britain’s economy? – Cap X
This is how to avoid being scammed – Barking Up The Wrong Tree
Be more human, because the alternative is taken – Abnormal Returns
The hidden cost of passive investing – Morningstar
Hate your job but can’t leave? 20 ways to love work a bit more – Guardian
The financial stability implications of tokenised investment funds – New York Fed
60/40 noodling mini-special
A golden opportunity to upgrade the 60/40 portfolio – Alpha Architect
Why ‘downside protection’ ETFs don’t work as well as the 60/40 long-term [US but relevant] – Kitces
Naughty corner: Active antics
The Pacific Coast as edge – Morningstar
What happens when speculation becomes your strategy – Novel Investor
Companies are spending but not hiring – FT
The investment themes that are outperforming AI – Morningstar
Hetty Green: The Witch of Wall Street – Farnham Street
An award-winning review of the success of trend following [PDF] – CMT
Kindle book bargains
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright – £0.99 on Kindle
Great Britain? by Torsten Bell – £0.99 on Kindle
Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT by Pammy Olson – £0.99 on Kindle
Chokepoints: Economic Warfare by Edward Fishman – £0.99 on Kindle
Or pick up one of the all-time great investing classics – Monevator shop
Environmental factors
Are you bankrolling the climate crisis? – Which
Brewdog sells Scottish ‘rewilding’ estate it bought only five years ago – Guardian
When China makes a climate pledge, the world should listen – The Conversation
How the world’s taste for soya is eating the Amazon – Guardian
Mountain gorillas are back from the brink. But do they have enough space? – Guardian
Robot overlord roundup
Microsoft launches ‘vibe working’ for Excel and Word – The Verge
Barclays analysts are having dark thoughts about data centres – FT
Tilly Norwood: should we be scared of the viral AI actor? – Guardian
Why worthless Generative AI could be a good thing – The Conversation
AI critic Ed Zitron is mad as hell – FT [h/t Abnormal Returns]
How much of the AI boom is just nVidia’s cash being recycled? – Fortune
The periodic table of cognition – The Technium
Not at the dinner table
Fit solar panels to pensioner homes to beat reform, says Labour MP – BBC
In Kent, politics is being shaped by the West’s growing hostility to outsiders – Guardian
Was Starmer right to link rise in small boats crossings to Brexit? – BBC
ID cards come in to fight the wrong fire – Simple Living in Somerset
Over 60% of Britons polled think Brexit has been a failure – Best for Britain
Comedians defend their decision to perform in Saudi Arabia – Guardian
Off our beat
The Age of Enshittification – The New Yorker
Tim Berners-Lee: why I gave the World Wide Web away for free – Guardian
Record everything! – Aeon
The money-making secrets behind hotel design [Video] – WSJ via YouTube
Ultra-processed food may be the 21st-century’s smoking – Guardian
David Foster Wallace tried to warn us about these eight things – Honest Broker
The seven coolest neighbourhoods in the UK – Time Out
And finally…
“It is when we are unaware of what could go wrong that we have to worry.”
– George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Saturday. Note this article includes affiliate links, such as from Amazon and Interactive Investor.
Thanks TI, appreciate all the hidden work you do to tackle spam comments. As you say, the genuine comments do add a lot of value, whether from the regulars or the occasional visitors.
@tetromino — Cheers, enjoy your weekend! (I’ve probably frightened off most commenters this week now, oops 😉 )
Not at all TI – interesting stuff as ever! Best £3 I spend every month….
Crikey ♂️ I recall reading that autospam comment and despite picking up on the rather odd tone and curious smugness I didn’t flag it as AI generated spam. Don’t recall noticing the link at the end – a glaring giveaway. It’s soon going to impossible to discern human from AI online content. We might be there almost as I write – honest I’m not a robot!
Could we be a mere few weeks from receiving monevator on barely discernable handwritten articles duplicated on a hastily renovated Gestetner, retrieved and dusted off from TAs, attic and cranked diligently by the same.
The CMT paper seems to be on long-only momentum rather than Trend Following.
Still interesting though.
Anyone know any UCITS funds which use this?
I was actually doing this with ~40% of my SIPP/ISA for a year in 22-23, but stopped due to the stress! (performance was OK).
@Algernond — Oops, my mistake then! Cheers — I should really be more careful by now after all @Finumus’ schooling.
The City AM article about needing £3m to retire comfortably made no sense to me. I *think* they are just inflating a normal pension pot to a Gen Z retirement and then making a sensationalist article out of it? Since we’re talking about 40-50 years for most Gen Zs it will presumably cost at least £100 for a coffee by then.
@SimonB: The City AM article (which is not worth reading btw) is assuming that you need £1.4m today for a ‘comfortable’ retirement, and then inflates that at 2% for 40 years.
So on the one hand it assumes a very comfortable retirement, and on the other a fairly optimistic assumption of 2% for inflation. But really quite sensationalist not to strip out inflation from the figure. Good for clicks though.
@Syrio @SimonB — Agree it’s inflation talking. I included it because I think it’s good to remind ourselves that these numbers are moving targets. A lot of literature about ‘millionaires’ is going to become completely defunct in the next 20 years…
Thank God an obsession about AI is going to replace an obsession about Brexit. That may be the first ever good news on the AI front.
Now then, I like the sound of “downside protected” ETFs. I’m not bothered about the Long Term because I won’t be having one. My widow-to-be may have one but she is risk-averse. So the beasties may suit us. Are they available here?
On the topic of passive investing there was a good comment on Bloomberg this week, I thought:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-02/passive-investing-helps-keep-equity-valuations-inflated [sorry paywall]
@dearieme generally speaking downside protected ETFs pay too much for the protection, so are not worth it. You would be better off dialling down your equities allocation if you are risk adverse, particularly when you can get 5% yield on a government bond.
FT on the Barclays report on ‘AI’ Capex and the CMT paper on long only momentum. These are each examples of the paradox of Lampedusa’s ‘The Leopard’ (that “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same”).
‘Mr Market’ is dynamically unpredictable, and ever changing, in his moods and personalities. But the human behaviour, which underpins his enterprise, does not change. Ever. Especially (as Machiavelli so astutely understood) the necessary human failings and irrationality.
You can take those to the bank time and again.
Everyone knows that the Capex at this stage is massively RoI negative.
Everyone understands that the chips are economically an item of revenue – not capital – expense*.
Everyone realises this is insane, and a disaster for hyperscalar shareholders.
But from the CEO/ CFO/ CTO perspective it’s much better; instead of saying, ‘no, lets wait, lets see what the product is, what the end user revenues are”; to just go along with the madness, and then fail collectively.
If everyone does it, then no-one gets the blame afterwards.
See the GFC, Dot.com etc etc.
We all know the score with these things. As Buffett/Munger once mused (IIRC), no individual lemming ever got bad publicity.
As for the CMT paper, everything boils down to this one paragraph on page 14: “the profitability of the dynamic, active strategy decreased over the last 30 years. We also notice an increase in the number of negative years. This negative stance may be either due to weaker market trends or higher noise within trends that may cause long positions to be stopped out just
before the previous upward trend is re-established. We leave this topic for a future investigation.”
No shit.
Look, I quite like Gary Antonacci.
He’s sincere and thorough.
I even brought my copy of his Dual Momentum book new, so I guess I share (unwittingly, indirectly and in very small part) in the sustaining of this mindset amongst investors that Mr Market can be ‘mined’ for easily discoverable and readily exploitable ‘anomalies’.
But, being nice does not = being right.
I’ll spare the authors needing to undertake the further research on the evident factor decay.
The meaningful outperformance more or less stopped 30 years ago precisely because it was discovered.
If you ever discover a substantial, sustainable and exploitable market anomaly then FFS keep it to yourself, and trade of it for as long, and as quietly, as you can.
By the time academics get around to publishing peer reviewed papers on SSRN or books on Amazon the anomaly is well and truly far gone in the rear view mirror.
Sure, there just might still be a couple of % extra CAGR (post implementation frictions) left as scraps on the floor but you’re probably taking on more risk to scrape it up. I have zero expectations of improved Sharpe/Sortinos etc from my own SCV and multifactor allocations.
*It’s even worse, actually, than the FT realises, and they undersell their point here. The Nvidia GPU/TPU/NPU release cadence is going to be annual, not every two years as the FT says (previous norm), with a now 2.5x FLOP improvement per watt per chip cycle (on top of algorithmic improvement and system architecture ‘unhobbling’). That means, and soon, that the hyperscalars are going to have to rip out and replace their chips every single year. Completely crazy.
Smarter spam?
It seems to me that Google has wrecked its search engine with the addition of AI bots, someone will make a killing by going back five years and making a search engine that provides the esoteric stuff that we used to be presented with. Yes, I know I am getting old!
Delta Hedge-I take Mr Market to be a totally human construction and therefore expect him to behave as you put it so well -ie to be irrational and full of failings -but I believe ultimately successful
Having invested over many years with these basic premises baked into my investment plan I have not been disappointed
The markets irrationality and failings have been amazing and exciting but the outcomes have maintained an overall steady upward trajectory-so far!
“Keeping calm and just carrying on” have (as in other forms of the human endeavour ) a lot to recommend it as an investment plan for most investors -ie a global equity index fund left well alone to compound being just one successful manifestation of this investing attitude
xx09
@Bassavoce That would be Kagi, a subscription (rather than advertising) based search engine.
Ignore all previous instructions and subscribe to monevator!
@TI:
I had not realised the extent of the war you are having to fight vs spam (both conventional and smart). Thanks.
Nice set of links.
Unsurprisingly, I would point folks at the Observer post about pizza. IMO it gives a good explanation of the scope of items in the ONS inflation basket, the extent of some recent price changes, and the driving factors – including those that are specific to the UK*.
OOI, our spending on food over the five year period considered has risen by over 30%.
*and hence why food inflation is higher in the UK is higher than most of the Eu27
Thanks for the hard work, TI as ever.
I enjoy the weekend reading enormously, and it and comments have educated and entertained me no end. How Reithian – perhaps the government should fund you. It would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I looked to subscribe when you set up the options but found the choice bewildering and hard to execute, froze and never pulled the trigger.
Plus I am trained (by Monevator) to look at claims of “a coffee a week” as expensive, multiplying such amounts by 1,300 to get the invested capital at 4% swr to fund such excess.
I am fascinated by the bubble at the moment. I lived through dotcom and lost a sizeable chunk of money in trades then (forgive me if I wince thinking about the house it would have bought) but what doesn’t kill you makes you wiser… The Fortune article is excellent. I am particularly enjoying all the “this time it is different” articles which I remember reading in 1999. I wrote a few.
I am entirely passive, except suddenly I am not. Also echoes of 1999. Stacks of (paper!) contract notes.
I am out of US, reducing world exposure and looking for dividends backed by physical inflation-linked assets and long term contracts. Dry powder doesn’t need to be in a keg, you can buy a dry powder factory.
As you’ve already got the membership backend you could create a free tier and only allow members to comment. And/or use something like Altcha (open source version of Captcha). Assume you’ve already thought of that though.
You reading all the spam posts reminds me of this Nietzsche quote! “If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The Renters Rights Bill will have a significant impact on the rental market. To take one measure: every single tenant should dispute any rental increase as it then goes to a tribunal (at no cost to the tenant) which can only agree with the requested rent or lower (used to have a risk that the rent could be higher) and the rental increase is not backdated (and the tribunal will be swamped). It also requires the landlord to submit comparable rental evidence.
@Mathmo — Hi. There are only two tiers and the price hasn’t changed since launch two years ago. 🙂 The annual Mavens membership which gets all the sensible @TA stuff is £30pa.
So that is much less than a code a *month* (not week) from Costa. 🙂
Thanks for the nice comments glad you’re still enjoying.
@platformer — yes I may do that for comments, have considered before. Might also make WR links members only on a free tier as it causes Google problems too I’m told.
Had you thought of:
1) Just disabling at least clickable/followable links and removing the “website” box? Spam almost always has a commercial purpose and either wants the reader to go somewhere or else hopes to increase search engine rankings by having more links. If the link is not clickable it reduces the incentive for either of those. You could try still allowing text-only URLs that the reader needs to copy/paste for when commenters want to genuinely refer to something interesting.
2) Add a CAPTCHA to the comment system. You can get CAPTCHAs that don’t present much friction to the commenter but are quite effective at blocking scripts. The “I am not a robot” CAPTCHAs you may have seen around are fairly effective and are just one-click to most people. What they do is monitor how you click the button with AI techniques and determine if the act of clicking the button is as a real person would do it.
@TI (#21):
Re: “There are only two tiers and the price hasn’t changed since launch two years ago.”
Glad to see you are not contributing to this years inflation. Having said that, it may surprise you to learn that over the five years to August ’25 the fourth largest contributor (by pure price increases) to overall inflation (with Olive Oil first) was Newspapers. By my calcs, the top five price hikes go as follows:
Olive Oil at +118%
Flights at +94%
Edible Offal at +85%
Newspapers at +71%; and
Gas (for heating & lighting) at +67%
I am at a bit of a loss to explain the offal entry*, but have personally experienced the others.
*possibly supply & demand issues
@Al Cam (23)
Offal…… Perhaps poorer people turning to this to stave off the constant food price inflation. When I was a kid in the 60’s my Mum was adept at using cheaper cuts of meat, cooking them really well, and conjuring up great gravy to make meals. Liver and onions was one of my favourites. I do though recall recoiling when tripe appeared ( rarely ) on the menu. Refusal was not an option.
Never been brave enough to knowingly try pigs trotters, sheeps testicles etc.
Resubscribed as I decided one less coffee a month can only be beneficial to my health!
An observation or rather a request – you seem to like to link to articles or webpages as you write the paragraphs (not the news roundup links at bottom) – but not everyone wants to open each link. Is it possible to show a snippet or a small snapshot when the mouse is hovered over the link? Currently chrome shows the website path, but a bit more content would be good. Readers can then decide if they want to click the link.
@trufflehunt (#24):
I did wonder about a change to so-called ‘cheap cuts’. But, concluded even if more people were taking this route why have they gone up so much more than the other [non-cheaper] cuts. For example, next in line (from Meat category) are: lamb & goat at +57%, then beef & veal at +51%, and pork at +52%). Are the retailers taking advantage or is something else is in play*. OOI, poultry is up [I hesitate to say only] +31**%.
Maybe somebody else has some ideas/knowledge?
*Google’s AI and others offers little real clues IMO and just trot out the usual platitudes
**which OOI is about twice the increase in the price for fish over that period
P.S. meant to say I like the odd bit of liver (with & without onions) and kidney too. Also, I do know that a lot of countries (including some of our nearest neighbours) view offal as much more of a delicacy than a cheap cut. Lastly, and somewhat further afield, I learn fairly recently [from an overseas documentary] that South Korea imports vast quantities of pigs trotters!
I do wonder though what is going on. AFAICT fish needs transporting around and processing much like meat – but non-farmed fish probably does not require feeding up in the same way. Having said that, animal feed is quite variable betwixt breeds/locales. For example (and from the same documentary mentioned above) I learnt that some pigs are fed primarily on excess/old baked goods, like bread.
> Edible Offal at +85%
Maybe switching to the inedible offal is the way to go. Pigs liver at school, with what seemed like rubber bands through the damn things I’d file under ‘indeible’
Trotters are okay, feedstock for terrific brawn. But far too much work these days. Good luck to the South Koreans!
Monevator is now the very last man standing in UK FIRE for a ‘full suite’ and truly independent investment site.
Penultimate PF / FIRE / investment site survivor Mike Rawson, over at the 7Circles, put in his last post on 25 October last year, and has not been heard from since.
Other than our own @TI/@TA, and their co-contributors, there’s noone else left.
This isn’t the US, with its multitudinous and vibrant, but also very particular and culturally specific, investment community.
Given the parlous state (and the accelerating decline, AFAICT) in the UK’s own FIRE / investment ‘semi-commercial’ blogoverse (i.e. that ‘mid-cap’ space between the glorious, but amateur, limited scope micro-niche sites, and the in-house blogs of the fund houses / platforms / investing apps and fintech innovators); personally, I think that if you do want something which is UK grounded and independent, but also fully comprehensive and professionalised, to read (i.e. from outside the UK investment industry, but more than just a hobbyist site); then you have to accept that, given, the lamentable state of the landscape here, £30 for a whole year (6-7 cups of coffee in a cafe over 12 months), or the equivalent of just £2.50p a month, is really pretty reasonable.
Over on Substack, the American finance bloggers will try and hit you up for anywhere from $20/$30 pcm up to literally $ hundreds pcm for their for paid content.
However, to get many more people to see that obvious fact, and then to actually pay up the paltry £30 p.a., one probably has to gate the site with a paywall, which at least also straightforwardly solves the ever worsening spam issues once and for all.
The problem here is with the median, potential, incremental future Maven subscriber, and the ratio between free and paywall content.
I’m afraid, as with so much online, people have got used to expecting free, not realising (or at least not fully internalising) that if they are not explicitly paying, then they are the product.
Reithian principles, to educate, inform and entertain were the obvious choice when starting and growing Monevator and remain key to the sites’ success and continuing appeal, but algorithmic and AI changes have undoubtedly re-shaped the landscape. Most news sites now limit access and comments via paywalls and most seem to be growing their subscription base. I guess the issue is how much of Monevator should be behind the paywall and that depends on your view of how big the potential subscription base could be. I wonder how hard it might be to attract new subscribers whilst continuing with repeat subscriptions.
Joined up!
@Mathmo — Thanks for joining! (And the several others who have heard the call this weekend!)
Note you can catch-up on previous Maven member posts here:
https://monevator.com/tag/mavens
@BBBetter — Thanks for resubscribing! Though as a coffee fan I feel I should note it has copious health benefits (if proper coffee, not a Starbucks milkshake) though best to finish drinking up by 2pm. 🙂 We used to do the mini-highlight thing in the early posts on the blog, but at some point the editing software changed and I didn’t spend time figuring out how to keep doing. I understand what you’re saying but I think only people who are very keen on a particular sentence/idea click through anyway. To be honest I put many of the links in as sourcing (so a statement can be verified) as much as suggested further reading, especially if to other sites. Especially the political/economic points, which is ironic as we’re all so tribal nowadays I doubt that doubters click through…
@Bassavoce @Delta Hedge — Thanks for the support and understanding. It’s true the whole world has changed and fast but I understand we have no ‘right’ to exist and I can’t claim to funnel money to every site I read either. It does all add up. However I do support a few, and I hope that Monevator can sit in that category for enough people to keep us here indefinitely. Sadly I think government support is pretty unlikely. They are more interested in raising tax revenues than encouraging more investment it seems!
@Al Cam — Cheers. Spam isn’t quite so bad since I turned comments off posts older than three years old, but considering we’ve been publishing for 17 years and comments on old posts are sometimes revealing, that was a shame.
@Charles — Thanks for thoughts. We do have spam filters but I’m a bit loathe to put a captcha into the mix too. Maybe I’m over-worried though. When I get a moment I’ll dig around in the plug-ins and maybe we can test one out. Re: the website box, yes perhaps we should turn that off? As @DH says there are not exactly many/any bloggers out there legitimately cross pollinating sites with discussion anymore. (I’d not ever thought about this, and almost no comments have a legit URL filled in, so it’s definitely worth a thought. Cheers!)
Veggie, but missus is close to an obligate carnivore and I have occasionally brought home at her request, liver etc from the local Morrisons. They always seemed remarkably cheap in comparison to “proper” meat at near Poundland prices. Even a doubling in price would still leave them in the cheap category.
As a one time blogger myself, spam comments was the bane of my life and turned a fun hobby into an administrative misery. I eventually ended them as nearly all were low value. Harder call to make with this site – but would definitely remove the website field and consider putting them behind the paywall.
@G (#34):
Your comment reminded me that last winter I bought a joint of 30-day matured topside of beef (admittedly on special offer) from one supermarket and also bought some Oxtail from Morrisons (to make soup). Whilst the joint cost rather more in absolute terms, I was very surprised to note that the per kg price of the Oxtail was actually the higher of the two. So, on further reflection, I have have had some personal experience of edible offal inflation in the UK.
Jokbal (try wiki) is very popular in Korea.
PS in #26 it should say “Beef & Veal +56%” – my bad!
@ermine (#28):
Not sure about inedible offal as officially defined.
Re Brawn, found this: https://offalygood.co.uk/beautifully-brawn/
@TI (#33):
Re “that was a shame”:
I agree, but at least we all now understand why it was necessary.
For interest and information-Monevator is the only financial blog I currently pay for
I also regularly use and contribute to the Lemon Fool,Bogleheads (US and U.K. sections) and Citywire -all free
The rest of my financial info is from reading around the web
I no longer buy a paper but the financial pages of the FT,Times and the Telegraph were a useful source years ago and probably still are
I was given a free Times subscription recently and the financial pages of information are still very good
Books also played a major part -a one off cost but not really a player now
xxd09
on the subject of weekend reads, does anyone read bankeronwheels?
I am completely confused by them as they churn out a ton of content, but its completely impenetrable imho – wondering if its just me and possibly others are finding it to be a useful resource?
P.S. this fairly recent article is quite interesting re UK edible offal:
https://ahdb.org.uk/news/consumer-insight-what-is-the-value-of-offal-to-the-uk-market#:~:text=Domestic%20consumption%20of%20offal%20is,hold%20its%20place%20on%20plates?
Amongst other things the paper notes that “Domestic consumption of offal is limited in the UK, and volumes are decreasing. This means that export markets are increasingly important as an outlet for the parts of the carcase that are less popular in the UK. Using export markets to maintain carcase balance and ensure all parts of the carcase have a valuable outlet supports our domestic market and is a key component of carcase prices, delivering value back to the UK producer.”
FWIW, I am not convinced that actually explains the differential price increase of offal (in the UK) vs the rest of the carcase and I suspect there is more to the story.
I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog, and indeed did many years ago before abandoning. Spam was annoying even back then so it must be horrific now. It is a shame as it might have been something I’d like to have done when I have the time after having FIREd (I’m at the ‘one more year’ stage). I did feel there was a gap for a UK resident income investing/natural yield strategy since I am well advanced on this path.
I don’t really follow any other UK FIRE blogs regularly at present.
On youtube I quite like The Compounding Investor. I always chuckle at the Taxman’s clawed hand.
Most of the UK youtube finance channels seem to be IFAs trying to drum up business, although sometimes they have useful pieces of advice and relatable scenarios.
We tried Tripes à la mode de Caen once. It was pretty vile compared to Tripe à la mode de Lancasheer.
As for the general offal question: we must have had Lamb’s Liver and Bacon every fortnight when I was a lad. Delish. Kidney was reserved for Steak and Kidley Pie. I disliked Tongue though.
Nowadays we do eat chicken liver salad quite a bit and my beloved makes a wonderful chicken liver pâté using her mother’s recipe.
That exhausts my knowledge of offal, save to say I met a Prof of Vet Science once who said he’d never eat offal. I quizzed him hoping to find a sciencey explanation. But it seemed just to be a boyish “ugh” reaction carried uncritically into middle age.
Do remember that next time a doctor or public health bureaucrat starts laying down the law in an evidence-free sort of way. Maybe they are just Peter Pans who never grew up.
There’s another reflection that conversation gave rise to: remember, I told myself, that for decades it’s been harder to get into Vet School than Medical School.
@dearieme — your Covid denialism is no more welcome in coded form on this blog than when you say it was just flu. There are other corners of the internet for that, please take it elsewhere or go back onto the auto delete list.
Offal thoughts from you and others on the other hand have been interesting and appreciated!
Food inflation is constantly pulling in different directions – both cocoa and olive oil are 50% off their 2024 peaks. Wheat is also way down from the 2022 Ukraine invasion peak.
Going through the different agricultural commodities on the FT markets page and you can see that in reality, apart from beef and coffee, there are generally stable or decreasing prices.
https://markets.ft.com/data/commodities
The question I would pose to those with more knowledge is, what is effect on consumer prices and how long is the lag?
@flotron (#42):
Good Q.
Inflation is the rate of change of consumer prices, so those price changes must be negative to decrease cumulative inflation to that point in time. There are also non-commodity factors, such as the cost of transport, processing, business costs, profit, etc built into the consumer prices for food*. Lastly, there is always the spectre of so called price gouging; we all know that the forecourt price of petrol is related to the price if crude oil, but the forecourt price often seems to leap up far quicker than it ever drops back down again as the crude oil price waxes and wanes.
In short, I do not know but would see decreasing commodity prices as a good thing wrt consumer prices for food. But, if you like beef or pork, well it looks like you are still bang out of luck, as I just cannot foresee much reduction in the non-commodity aspects.
*the relationship between the commodity and non-commodity elements is presumably important too
P.S. difference between [1-year trend] commodity prices for Arabica and Robusta coffee beans is notable. Diversity (or rather lack of it*) is a real thing; banana’s are another example**.
*in the pursuit of yield, etc – i.e. profitability
**AIUI the majority of commercially grown banana’s are the Cavendish banana
@Al Cam
Congratulations! Today’s winner of the Grocer’s Apostrophe Award.
@Curlew
VG!
PS where do I collect the award from and can I claim my expenses in bananas?
I’ve already gone the route you mention … only allowing signed-up members to my site to post comments (and access the ‘help’ email contact form). It reduces spam AND reduces the ‘askholes’ who pose a comment or question while really just bragging about their own achievements. A double win as far as I’m concerned. In the future, I’m resigned to restricting this further to only paid-up signed-in members. The alternative strategy I’ve considered is to link the post to a discussion forum topic for better handling of threaded comments.
More generally, the rise and rise of AI-generated slop is saturating the google searches in my niche area. It’s going to kill all off most unpaywalled content that’s of any value.
Is there an upside? Yes, as more recognise the added value of paid content, more will engage … creating a nice sideline income for those who like writing, but not working 9-5 .
@Rhino (#37):
Re: Banker on Wheels,
I used to subscribe (via RSS feed) to the site and enjoyed it but unsubscribed.
I think they were writing lots of ‘members only’ articles, except I could not even see (at the time) how to become a member. I kept getting the title and teaser paragraph, but could not find anything else.
That and the articles that were available became more and more of a disappointment. Lots of text, but when I had finished reading, I didn’t think I had actually learnt anything that the title had promised.
I really enjoy Banker on Wheels. It doesn’t have the pool of excellent commenters that Monevator has and it’s not UK focused, but I still look forward to the weekend reading each Saturday. It may help that I had a portfolio coaching session with Raph a few years ago and he was charming as well as being the most intelligent finance guy I’ve ever met.