Up To A Million Companies Are Hit By The Biggest Global Ransomware Attack

The biggest ransomware attack on record has hit the IT systems of up to 1 million companies on practically every continent as Russian linked hackers demand $70 million in cryptocurrency to fix it.

Swedish grocery stores, schools in New Zealand, and two major Dutch IT firms were amongst the victims of hacking group REvil which began its attack on Friday after breaching the systems of US-based software firm Kaseya.

Kaseya says only several dozen of its customers were directly affected by the attack, but that knock-on effects had taken down firms in 17 countries, with one expert saying the attack was unprecedented in its scale and sophistication.

REvil, which was behind the recent hack of meat processor JBS which saw an $11 million ransom paid, has been negotiating ransoms of up to $5 million with specific firms, but now says for $70 million it will unlock all affected networks.

Joe Biden, who last month urged President Putin to take action against hacking groups targeting the US from Russia, said the FBI is investigating the latest hack and he will take action if Moscow was believed to be responsible.

Analysts said it’s no fluke that the attack coincided with the July 4 holiday weekend, when companies would be understaffed and less able to respond.

Ciaran Martin, the founder of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, told Radio 4 that the scale and sophistication of this global crime was unusual, if not unprecedented and that it was a very serious, global operation.

Swedish grocery chain Coop was forced to close all 800 of its stores on Sunday and said they would remain shut on Monday after its tills were affected.

The country’s national rail operator and public broadcaster SVT were also affected.

In Germany, an unnamed IT services company told authorities several thousand of its customers were compromised.

Also amongst reported victims were two big Dutch IT services companies, VelzArt and Hoppenbrouwer Techniek, but most victims are thought to be small to medium-sized firms that are unlikely to openly declare they’ve been infected, car dealerships, hair salons and accounting firms, amongst others.

Cybersecurity teams worked feverishly on Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details surfacing about how the Russia linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.

Cybersecurity researchers said that an affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, mostly through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers.

The thing is, hackers, look for businesses with antiquated, bargain basement, security software for these attacks. This is why you never see them hacking into Banking systems because the Banks recognise the importance of having top quality software security, and if we blame the hackers, it will only make them proud.

And it’s not only about antiquated software that creates the problem. It takes time to run backups and large companies can lose many times the ransom demand in the time it takes to get back up and running, not to mention the loss of customer confidence.

But I guess the days of people using their brains, a biro and a calculator are gone, to serve customers, and all empires rise and fall, sadly, America is falling very quickly.

On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln spoke before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, about the continuation of their political institutions.

During that address, he said: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction is our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Prince William’s Staff Planted Stories About His Brother’s Mental Health

It’s been claimed that the bitter war of words between William and Harry was sparked by the Duke of Cambridge’s office planting stories about Prince Harry’s state of mind.

In a new documentary about the brothers’ feud, Prince Harry’s biographer Omid Scobie claims it was no fluke that William’s aides at Kensington Palace began a briefing campaign against him the day after he appeared to sensationally confirm longstanding rumours of a disagreement.

It was in 2019, at the end of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tour of South Africa, that Harry told ITV’s Tom Bradby that he and his brother were on divergent pathways.

In the same programme, Meghan revealed to Tom Bradby that she was surviving, not thriving and suggested the Royal Family had been remiss, adding that not many people had asked her if she was okay.

But in the aftermath of the interview, which made headlines throughout the world, Mr Scobie claims that rumours saying William was concerned about Harry’s mental health were intentionally planted by his staff, and sowed the seeds for further division between the pair.

Mr Scobie didn’t present proof to substantiate his allegations that palace aides or anyone connected to William was accountable for the alleged briefings.

Mr Scobie, the co-author of Finding Freedom, told the documentary that he would say that it was no fluke that it was soon after it aired, even the next day, there were source quotes that came from a senior aide at Kensington Palace saying that William was concerned about his brother’s mental health.

He said that they fed off such an ugly thing for Harry and it didn’t go unnoticed, but whether William directed that or not, no one will ever know, but it came from his household that he’s the boss of.

In the ITV documentary, Harry & William: What Went Wrong?, Scobie, who’s been an outspoken supporter of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, added that Meghan came in motivated and set to work and that quickly dishevelled feathers, and that she was a woman well into her 30s, and that he believed she’d proven to herself and the people she worked with up until that point that she knew what she was doing.

She was unquestionably not someone who was going to transform herself just to satisfy the people around her but he felt that they also had to be reminded that they weren’t the stars of the show and that there was a hierarchy and they didn’t come very high on it.

But all of this doesn’t surprise me. Prince Charles’ staff did the same thing with Princess Diana, calling her a loose cannon, amongst other things, and it should never be forgotten how they turned on her, but then this is the establishment at work, but Royal family courtiers have for a long time briefed against other members of the family in support of their own member, and Prince Charle’s team is the best at undercutting other members of the family, particularly if they appear more popular than he is.

And let’s face it, we probably will never know the full story because everyone appears to have their own truth and their own spin on the truth, and so it begins, just like it did with Diana.

People might not believe that William would do such a thing to his brother Harry, but who would have believed that the Queen would have denied her sister Margaret to marry the man that she loved when the Queen herself was allowed to marry the man that she loved.

Sajid Javid Goes Full Speed Ahead Towards Lifting All Lockdown Restrictions

Sajid Javid said the best way to protect the nation’s well-being was to lift the remaining coronavirus restrictions and writing exclusively for a newspaper outlet, the new Health Secretary said that the economic arguments for opening up were well known, but for him, the health arguments were equally compelling.

His comments mark a sharp shift in tone from that of his forerunner Matt Hancock, who was forced to resign last weekend after his relationship with an aide was exposed.

They came as Boris Johnson plans to announce a catamaran of measures to come into force from July 19 which will make Britain the most open country in Europe, and a newspaper outlet can reveal that under Freedom Day plans expected to be signed off by the Cabinet tomorrow, that the Prime Minister is determined that fully vaccinated Britons will be able to travel to amber list countries including Spain and Greece without having to self isolate when they return.

That wearing face masks will become optional everywhere, including public transport, except hospitals and other healthcare settings.

Those who have received two shots of a vaccine won’t be asked to self isolate or take COVID 19 tests if they’re alerted that they’ve come into contact with someone with the virus, but tests will still be available for all those who need them.

The school bubble system that has seen hundreds of thousands of pupils being made to self isolate themselves at home will be axed and replaced with daily testing.

Restaurants, pubs and shops will no longer have to demand that customers give their personal data or sign in with a QR code, and a No 10 source told a newspaper outlet that this was a huge injection of freedom that will make us the most open country in Europe.

Boris Johnson is expected to set out the findings of a social distancing review, before confirming details of the greatly relaxed rules on July 12.

The developments came as Britain’s world-beating vaccination programme continued apace. The latest numbers revealed 85.7 per cent of adults have now had their first jab, with 63.4 per cent getting both doses of the vaccine.

Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom was on course to escape virtually every trace of lockdown on July 19, adding that they will have a country that isn’t just freer, but healthier as well, and Boris Johnson must be backing this because he didn’t appear to be supporting Matt Hancock.

This, of course, is great news, if it happens, but it’s all words right now, and this all seems to have developed because we have a new Health Secretary, so why on earth do we need a Prime Minister? And if Boris Johnson didn’t want lives and livelihoods ruined, death and mental health ruined, jobs ruined, then he should have overruled despicable Matt Hancock, or was he keeping him as the fall guy, the one to blame because he allowed Matt Hancock to lie to us, and intimidate us, which makes Boris Johnson just as blameworthy.

And this is great news if it’s just more than words, but what use is it having a Prime Minister if the policy is determined by the Health Secretary? But this has been classic gaslighting all the way along, and abusers do that, they play nicely-nice and let the public repose for a moment or two, then they put the squeeze on again, and this is just intermittent reinforcement, as they’ve done all along.

Nearly £10 Billion Paid Out In Student Loans In 2020 Will Be Written Off

More than half of the £19.1 billion paid out in student loans last year will be written off, with the taxpayer picking up the tab.

Official Department for Education figures estimate only 47 per cent of the money lent to university students in 2020-21 to meet their yearly £9.250 tuition fees and living costs will be repaid, leaving a shortfall of approximately £10 billion.

Graduates need to make at least £27,295 a year before they’re eligible to start repaying their debt, with some never reaching it.

Any outstanding loans are written off after 30 years and only a quarter of students who started full-time degrees last year are expected to repay their loans in full.

The huge taxpayer subsidy has raised questions about the number of youngsters heading to university, the value of courses where graduates end up in low paid ‘McJobs’ and the shortage of skilled workers in key sectors of the economy, such as IT and engineering.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said that student loans have become a fiscal black hole, absorbing more and more of taxpayers’ money and offering too many young people no more than underemployment, disappointment and a mountain of debt in return.

The level of student debt write off is driving a Government rethink, and options include decreasing tuition expenses to £7,500 or the salary threshold so more graduates can begin paying back sooner and increasing the repayment period from 30 to 35 years would also save an extra £1 billion.

Graduate Sorcha Ingram, who has a degree in publishing with English from Kingston University, said she’d applied for more than 25 publishing and media jobs or internships within the past three months but in most cases hadn’t even got a rejection letter.

She said that tuition fees were brutally steep, particularly given how difficult it was to get a job right now.

A Department for Education spokesperson said that recent changes to the system were at the heart of their plans to build back better, ensuring it was financially sustainable for the taxpayer, while also driving quality and standards so students could be confident that their course would help improve their life outcomes, and that they’re geared to actual jobs and employers’ requirements.

And the interest rate is so high on these loans that mist repayments hardly cover the interest, so the amount owed grows and grows, and no doubt the student loan company is doing very nicely on the interest it gets but the government isn’t getting its capital back.

But it’s a lot worse than that. The government for years has been writing off the capital, which is taxpayers money and selling the debt at a huge loss to recovery companies.

The Student Loan Company has repeatedly been described as a ticking time bomb.

Currently, more than 17 billion is loaned to about 1.3 million students in England each year, and the value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2021 reached 141 billion.

The Government calculates the value of outstanding loans to be about 560 billion (2019-20) by the middle of this century, and if there’s even a 10 per cent failure on the debts it will be massive.

But why should English students have to pay a penny back, when Scottish students don’t pay a thing. Maybe it’s because Scotland values education for all, and England believes that education should only be given to the vested.

University is free in Scotland, but only if you’ve been a student from Scotland or the EU, and started in the 2020-21 academic year or earlier. And if that’s you, then you won’t pay a penny towards tuition fees at Scottish universities – the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) will cover the £1,820 a year for you.

Immigration Judges Tell How They’re Living On A Diet Of Baked Beans And Pot Noodles

Immigration judges are living on a diet of baked beans and pot noodles, and maintain they would manage better if they worked at McDonald’s.

Six judges who spoke to a newspaper outlet claimed they and their co-workers had been pushed into debt, or have had to sell or remortgage their homes as a result of their contracts.

The problem has been made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of numerous court appointments during lockdown before the service moved online, and the pandemic was blamed for a record-breaking backlog in cases.

One judge said they knew of two others who’d claimed universal credit, while another said the situation had contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

Another said they were forced to remortgage their home and live on a diet of baked beans and instant noodles to make ends meet.

In a normal year, a judge would expect to sit at least 120 days.

They said that between March and December 2020, they’d had one hearing and had assembled just 11 times.

The judges claim that part-time, fee paid immigration judges are discriminated against in their terms and conditions, and as described in their contracts, part-time judges don’t earn unless they hear cases and get £500 each day that they assemble.

But, they allege that the payment doesn’t cover preparing for cases, which can involve reading long court documents, and said they get less money if a case is adjourned or doesn’t go ahead.

They also miss out on the benefits that their full-time colleagues enjoy including sick and annual leave.

As a result of the pandemic, they also say they’ve had to buy their own equipment to download documents and hear cases virtually, leaving them out of pocket.

In an additional blow, judges who fall into financial problems can find themselves the subject of disciplinary proceedings due to anti-corruption laws, and one told a newspaper outlet that they’re in terrible debt, and that they should all be reporting themselves, and that they’re worried sick about being taken to court for debt by the Ministry of Justice and losing their judicial position, and equally embarrassed to claim welfare benefits, and who would have thought that a judge has to claim welfare benefits?

But should we be feeling sorry for them? Now they know how it feels like for the rest of the common people that have to claim subsistence, and now they know what it’s like to live off beans and noodles, and some people would have to work a month for that sort of money, yet some people wouldn’t get out of bed unless they got that kind of money.

And sometimes these judges inflict more harm by their fluffy judgments, than the immigrants themselves. After all, immigrants wouldn’t come to the United Kingdom unless they knew these weak judges permitted them to stay, and the man from Delmonte, he say yes to everyone who comes to the United Kingdom!

And if these judges are not getting enough working hours, then perhaps they should go and find another job fitting their qualifications. As the Government keep telling us, jobs are abundant out there!

These judges were getting £500 a day, and before the pandemic, they were sitting 11 times, that’s £5,500 a year in the years before the pandemic, and if they were stupid enough not to save, then whose responsibility is that? And it’s not like the pandemic hasn’t hit millions of other people, but they don’t bleat on about it.

People Over 60 Might Be Charged For Prescriptions Under New Plan

Under the new proposals, people will only be able to get free prescriptions when they’re 66, and people over 60 could soon have to pay for their prescriptions under new proposals from ministers.

Over 60s are currently able to avoid prescription charges in England, with exemption also applying to anyone under 16 or teenagers in higher education.

A newspaper outlet has announced that the Government has begun a consultation on whether to raise the cut off point to 66 years old in line with the state pension age.

However, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said it was very concerned by the plan and warned it could leave people without the medication they need.

RPS chair in England Thorrun Govind said that the plan to increase the age at which people can obtain free prescriptions from 60 to 66 means that countless more people will be hit by this tax on the sick at precisely the time at which they may be needing more medications.

She said it was unacceptable to increase the cost of prescriptions in the current economic situation when many have been disadvantaged by the pandemic, and that every day pharmacists are asked by patients who are unable to afford all the things on their prescription which ones they could do without.

She continued that patients shouldn’t have to make decisions that involve rationing their medicines and that no one should be faced with a financial barrier to getting the medicines they need.

Ministers are considering a grace period for older people aged between 60 and 65 when the changes come in, enabling them to continue to get free prescriptions.

People currently have to pay £9.35 per prescription item or those who regularly need medicines can purchase a prepaid certificate for £108.10 for 12 months.

Government analysis suggests the move could cost an additional £46.75 a year for the average person without regular needs for medication.

This would rise to an extra £130.90 for people who need more than 12 prescriptions per year.

Ministers believe the move would draw in up to £300 million more for the NHS by 2026-27.

Health Minister James Bethell said that they were committed to improving patient care and helping the NHS with the funding it needs to recover from the pandemic, and he said that the upper age exemption for free prescriptions used to align with the state pension age, but that link has been lost over the years.

Sadly, we have a pretty nefarious, corrupt Government who can find £250,000,000 to have a vanity project “Royal” yacht, give the DUP £500,000,000, a bribe to remain in power and find the funds to renovate that unfit for purpose place called Parliament.

But then we’re the dimwits who continue to fall under the spell of the populist imbecile Boris Johnson and we now need to wake up and smell the coffee. The trouble is, some of us never will because they’re besotted with him, he only has to ruffle his hair and they all love it.

The NHS is supposed to be “Free at the point of use”. And Wales and Scotland are clearly financially better off than England as they don’t have prescription charges.

But this could all be because we’re heading towards privatising the NHS, but countless people rely on life-saving medications, and none of them will be able to afford the medications they need, but even more, could be recovered by taxing the super-rich and other tax evaders.

And if COVID didn’t get you, the Tories will, and as Scrooge said: “Decrease the surplus population”, and that’s precisely what our Government want by charging older people for prescriptions, and they have no shame, they’re definitely living up to their name of the Nasty Party.

Reunited For Their Mother

Prince Harry and Prince William set aside their disagreements to unveil a statue as a permanent memorial to their dear mother on what would have been her 60th birthday.

The brothers were pictured standing shoulder to shoulder before unveiling a statue erected in Princess Diana’s honour by Ian Rank-Broadley and located in the reconstructed Sunken Garden of Kensington Palace, a site of solace and refuge for her before she died in 1997.

They put their animosity to one side at the private ceremony, which began at 2 pm, and saw Diana’s sons gather along with the princess’ siblings, Earl Spencer, The Lady Sarah McCorquodale and The Lady Jane Fellows, in addition to the Statue Committee, the sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, garden designer Pip Morrison and Chair of Historic Royal Palaces, Rupert Gavin.

Hundreds of mourners assembled outside from dawn with Diana’s followers travelling from all over the United Kingdom to west London for the emotional commemorative event, with Harry appearing at 1.45 pm, only 15 minutes before the grand unveiling.

The brothers, who’ve been split by Harry’s decision to leave the United Kingdom, were observed conversing on the grounds of Kensington Palace minutes before the grand unveiling, but what had originally been planned as a grand celebration to mark her life has now been classed as a private event, mainly due to bad blood between the brothers and Harry’s determination to control media coverage.

The brothers are said to have hardly spoken and have an especially strained relationship after two years of rows over Harry’s wife and her alleged treatment of staff and the couple’s decision to emigrate to America and the tonnes of truth bombs the Sussexes have dropped in TV interviews watched by tens of millions of people throughout the globe.

Harry and Meghan believe they were abandoned by the Royal Family, even accusing them of racism towards Archie and disregarding their cries for help when the Duchess of Sussex felt alone and suicidal while pregnant in London.

But as if beating Germany wasn’t astounding enough, the England football team seems to have achieved the near unbelievable. For it appears the remarkable 2-0 victory helped bring about a thaw to the icy relations between Princes William and Harry, sparking a flurry of messages between them after the match.

Sources close to their uncle Earl Spencer, who was at the statue unveiling, said that there’s hope that the celebration of their mother’s life and legacy would bring them together again. Prince Charles and the Queen, who were in Scotland, did not attend the Spencer dominated event.

Diana would have been extremely disappointed in both her sons, but then if Diana had still been alive, I don’t suppose this would have all happened and I don’t believe that Harry and Meghan would have gone to the US because Diana was a truly compassionate woman and would have made Meghan feel extremely welcome, and probably would have instructed Meghan in ways that the Royal Family couldn’t do because they have no feeling.

Diana did her own interview and leaked information secretly, there was even a book.

She hated Royal life and she felt unsupported like her son, and she felt stifled, unable to live as she wanted, but she also hated the media, and perhaps she would have been proud of Harry for walking away, for speaking out, and for living the life that he wanted.

And like she said so many times, she’d been quelled and also felt trapped, and everyone’s so conveniently forgotten how she was also seen as a loose cannon, so let’s be real here, she would have been the most supportive of Harry being free, then William having to live the way that he does, and we all know the truth of the matter when it comes to Diana and how she would have seen this.

No Self-Isolation For Double-Jabbed, No COVID Passports And No School Bubbles

Chris Whitty has backed Freedom Day going ahead on July 19 as he told the Cabinet it should strive to get as much open this summer as possible before winter.

The Chief Medical Officer reportedly indicated his support for lifting the remaining coronavirus restraints next month as he prepared Cabinet ministers on Monday.

Chris Whitty said the winter period was likely to be much more complex, but sources alleged he’d been cautiously optimistic.

The scientist’s backing for easing restrictions represents a huge boost to Boris Johnson ahead of the final stage in his lockdown exit roadmap and comes after ministers had struck a significantly more bullish tone in recent days on reopening.

Senior Government figures have accentuated that the country must now learn to live with coronavirus amid growing hopes of a return to something close to normal.

These hopes have further increased after it was revealed that ministers were set to shelve plans for the compulsory use of COVID certification after July 19.

In the meantime, it’s been claimed that fully vaccinated Brits will no longer have to self isolate for 10 days after contact with a positive COVID case, with the quarantine requirement replaced with daily testing.

And in a third piece of good news, school bubbles are to be scrapped in a bid to prevent a surge in COVID related pupil absences.

However, the change isn’t expected to come into force until the commencement of the next school year in September.

According to a newspaper outlet, Chris Whitty told a Cabinet briefing at the start of the week that the Government is on track to push ahead with lifting the remaining coronavirus restrictions on July 19.

Coronavirus case numbers continue to grow, but there’s not been a similar leap in hospitalisations, prompting increasing confidence that vaccinations have broken the link between infections and serious illness, paving the way for life to get back to normal.

A Cabinet source told the newspaper that the view amongst the scientists was that we should get as much open this summer as possible before winter, which will be much more complex – it was reassuring.

Another source said that the Chief Medical Officer had been cautiously optimistic.

It comes after several ministers had said the country would have to learn to live with the virus in the coming months and years in a marked change in Government tone.

The Prime Minister’s Official spokesman yesterday likened the strategy to living with the flu which killed 22,000 people in England in 2017-18.

The key phrase is before winter, then they’re going to slap restrictions on the people of Britain until the people of Britain stand up to this oppression.

Maybe they’re getting ready to save Christmas, and of course, they’ll get away with it, and they’ll give people a small taste of freedom before locking down hard again come the winter, it’s all so predictable, and this will only end when enough people say NO!

And surely, now, the government will realise that the lockdown, and keeping people inside their homes, self-distancing and mask-wearing has drastically diminished our natural immunity.

And all that can be said is that if the government renege on removing lockdown on July 19, there will be some serious social trouble coming, but you just know that there will be more of this hogwash coming in the winter. So, the reset continues with only a little break, how considerate of them!

Gas Pumps Run Low On Fuel Ahead Of July 4th Weekend

Gas services across the country were running out of gasoline just as 43 million Americans were planning to hit the road for the July 4th holiday weekend.

Those that do manage to obtain gas are expected to discover some of the highest prices in almost seven years, with gas now averaging $3.10 a gallon across the US, the highest since October 2014.

Demand has skyrocketed since last summer as COVID weary Americans hit the road again, although the prevailing shortages are being caused by a shortage of available truckers to deliver fuel.

According to CNN, it means numerous services will not be able to get gasoline delivered at all.

The prices are also up 42 per cent compared to a year ago when the pandemic sent gas prices plunging following a huge drop off in demand.

Currently, the outages are not concentrated in one place with services running bare in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, Colorado and Iowa as well as Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio.

Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service said it used to be an afterthought for station owners to schedule truck deliveries – now it’s job No 1, and he was concerned because July had an increased demand, which worked out to approximately 2,500 to 3,000 more deliveries needed every day, and there were just not enough drivers to do that.

Although a deficit of drivers is a problem throughout the trucking industry, and specific qualifications are required to drive a gas tank and finding new drivers is no easy task, and the pandemic saw several tank drivers retiring with others moving to other trucking jobs after the demand in gasoline dropped so abruptly.

National Tank Truck Carriers estimates 20 per cent to 25 per cent of tank trucks across the country are currently parked up, and Ryan Streblow said to CNN, the executive vice president of the NTTC, that it had certainly grown exponentially.

Although the gasoline demand was comparable to the 2019 pre-pandemic, and that demand was up 16 per cent compared to the end of last year.

AAA is forecasting more than 43 million people to hit the road this Fourth of July weekend with the 2019 record, which saw 41.4 million Americans hit the road, likely to be broken.

There’s a serious deficit of all truck drivers in the US and the United Kingdom, and not every truck driver can drive gas tankers, they need additional qualifications, and it affects everything.

How much fuel do you think that FedEx and UPS use in a week? How many big rigs are moving food around the country every day, or airlines? And big rig trucks transport everything, and gasoline is skyrocketing, and the cost of delivery is climbing, and everything that the trucks carry will go up in price.

This isn’t about equating the increasing price of gas with any governmental party, this is COVID driven and it will take several years to right itself, and things are spread out in the US and they don’t have sufficient public transit everywhere, so Americans must drive a lot more miles than a lot of countries, so need a lot more gas, which gets pretty pricey.

Of course, the situation has been caused because of the COVID pandemic, which has been allowed to spread all over the US, and now they’re just having a meltdown, and I believe it’s going to get a whole lot more expensive, and next will be the lack of consumables.

And inflation due to scarcity is the direct consequence of a post-COVID world, and now there’s not enough stock coming in, with loads of bare shelves in stores, but it’s a great way to keep people from their July 4 celebrations, and is this all about control yet again?

Are We Heading For A Buy-To-Let Exodus?

The number of homes for rent in Britain could fall dramatically, as landlords leave the market thanks to higher taxes and more stringent rules.

About a million landlords, more than a third of the total, will review their property holdings in the next year, according to the Nottingham Building Society, and the amount planning to sell homes outnumbers those planning to purchase new ones.

A fifth plan to sell some or all of their portfolio, it said, while 16 per cent plan to purchase more.

While those homes going to first time buyers or families would benefit more people to climb onto or up the property ladder, it could also lead to a deficit of property to rent, and in some popular parts of the country, a shortage of rental homes has lately led to bidding wars.

Meanwhile, a new report by the University of York and the Nationwide Foundation noticed that a huge group of baby boomer landlords were now ageing out of the market and were not being replaced at the same rate by younger landlords due to diminishing returns and more rigorous regulations.

This, it said, could suggest that there will not be enough rental homes to go around in future, particularly for those renters on lower wages or who receive benefits.

It added that across the whole sector, there was a decline of 30 per cent in the amount of buy to let mortgages between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

Both reports noted that tax changes have been one of the principal factors making buy to let less attractive for some.

Previously landlords got tax relief on mortgage interest, but this stopped in April 2020.

There are also new constraints on private residence relief, which decreases the capital gains tax due on homes which people rent out after living in them.

Dr Julie Rugg, the lead author of the report, said that letting property looks altogether different to landlords now and that it seems like a much more precarious proposition, delivering a lower level of return and with a lot more hassle, and as one landlord said to her, stocks and shares may not deliver the same level of return, but they don’t phone her on a Sunday morning because the boiler’s bust.

Julie Rugg also mentioned the regulatory burden which landlords felt they were confronted with thanks to more stringent Government rules on how they managed their tenancies.

Not everyone can afford to buy a house, and now they will be faced with fewer rentals and the price will go up, and it was obvious this was going to happen, and it’s all very well people moaning about landlords purchasing properties, but changing the taxation rules to make it profitless and was always going to cause many of them to sell up, and the people will suffer won’t be the landlords, they’ll put their money into something else. It’s the lower-paid people who can’t get a mortgage who will end up having to pay inflated rents for the properties that are left.

And everything the government does just makes the problem worse, and even the help to buy has stopped the house prices from falling to affordable levels, and it just puts young people in even more debt.

And many landlords are selling their rental properties and putting the proceeds with corporate landlords who are buying into buy to let properties, and of course, they’re charging higher rents to the tenants, but their return on their investment is as good as buy to rent, so why should they worry?

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