Sadly, the convenors of APE are old enough to have lived through many types of inflation including the dreaded stagflation. The 1980s, arguably our prime years, practically invented stagflation. Stagflation sounds kind of fun until you figure out that the “stag” bit did not refer to Triumph sports cars, deers with huge antlers or other memes for youthful lustiness. What stagflation did mean was significant unemployment and inflation, mitigated by punk music.
Back in the day, we got pretty good at gaming the stagflating economy by not having cash (easy at that age), delaying fixed payments for as long as possible and trying (but usually failing) to negotiate pay that would match the future declining value of a dollar.
Lots of pundits today are suggesting we are heading into a similar period. If they are right, we need to get our lives and businesses tuned to anticipate this. At APE we are moving proactively by:
- Opening registrations for 2023 now thereby allowing you to lock in rates before inflation takes hold, and in this financial year to accelerate any available deductions
- Offering early bird discounts to recognise that future payments will be of lesser value in real money terms than current payments
- Trying to lock in our costs, such as flights and venue hire, well ahead of January.
I’d encourage you to do the same. None of us want to be run over by raging stagflation…