A few Gladwells of anecdata: our local ASDA (big but not a megastore) has had reasonably frequent empty shelves in various products. I think the medium-large Tesco down the road has also had empty shelves (but that's secondhand from people I know who shop there.) Similarly secondhand, from family up north, the major supermarkets up there have been missing products.
Honest question: wasn't this whole debacle considered as a possible outcome prior to Brexit? Surely someone in the government must have said "hey this whole thing could end up like this, maybe we should talk about that."
What am I missing? Did something unexpected happen with Brexit? Or is this fueled by the pandemic?
Basically every report said this would happen, the government dismissed it as 'project fear' and still refuses to admin that it has anything to do with brexit.
I'm sure it was brought up internally in the government, but they won the election by promising to deliver sunshine and rainbows brexit even though they had no way of doing so. Addressing it before it became a problem would've looked bad, so they didn't, and the pandemic provided a convenient excuse.
It's a great question. Of course it was widely considered. This should come as a surprise to nobody. And yet, here we are.
You might ask the same question about Trump. Surely someone in charge - someone with authority - should have seen the trainwreck a mile off, and done something about it?
The shocking truth is that there's no one with both common sense and overriding authority that prevents catastrophic wrong turns. This was absolutely an expected outcome of Brexit, by anyone with a clue. The trouble is that half the general population doesn't have a clue. Why did the government ask them? Because the party in charge at the time had a splinter faction led by some very radical, very loud voices, and it was beginning to cost them votes. They hoped to put the issue to bed by calling a referendum. Having done so, it was political suicide not to follow through even though it wasn't technically "binding".
Largely it's a matter of various people acting in their own selfish best interest at the expense of the interests of the country, and convincing a bunch of useful idiots to follow along.
Your example citing Trump’s trainwreck makes zero sense in this context. His record on the economy was impressively effective even if his social policies floundered.
I wasn't talking about the economy. Trump's presidency was a trainwreck, not only causing violence, social unrest, and loss of international standing, but also coming perilously close to governmental overthrow and civil war. All of this was foreseen well before he took office. But the system is beholden to the electorate, and the electorate is easily influenced by the powerful and unscrupulous.
You know, the only way someone could have “done something about it” would have been through overthrowing a duly elected president which we just don’t do here.
Which was my point. There is not always a mechanism to stop the runaway train.
Of course, it's worth noting that Trump's mob very nearly did overthrow a duly elected president on January 6th. The paradox of tolerance rears its ugly head once more.
The antifa actors that were paid by Leftists to burn cities down did their part - they forced the electorate to keep their heads down during the Big Steal.
Bush did it.
Obama did it, while slowing down economic recovery
Trump did it.
Biden is doing it, and the economy is stagnating.
Looking farther back, every president since before FDR allowed debt to increase, although it wasn't really until the welfare state kicked in the 70s and 80s that we started hockey sticking.
What record on the economy? Pointless sanctions? Ballooning deficit? The stock market going up for portions of his presidency (Which is never something you should attribute to individual presidents during their time in office anyway)?
> From what I understand people were willing to go through this for Brexit to happen.
Well, some people. And even then, this wasn't brought up by the Leave campaign - they were all sun-lit uplands, etc. Nothing negative would come from Brexit! etc.etc.
Poles are returning back home quicker than than expected post-Brexit because Poland doesn't have a vaccine mandate and was quicker to return to post-virus normal.
Part of the solution to fixing this is abandoning all COVID measures (including masks) and treating the virus just like any other seasonal illness - just as has been done by Norway, Denmark, Sweden etc. recently. People will be more comfortable moving to the UK, and working.
yeah bro only eastern europeans can drive trucks we totally can't increase wages now or before brexit came into effect to get more supply the only option is mass immigration
Politics and economy don't always agree. The government promised higher wages for domestic work force, but the companies aren't willing to pay for that promise. That's why we have these "shortages" of things. It's a game between the economy and the politics to see who caves first.
Although I want to see higher wages for the bottom of the economy I personally dislike minimum wages because politicians basically promise something that they have no control over and they don't have any long term solutions to problems in the labor market.
Yeah the $7.50 minimum wage is laughably small but the next minimum wage has to be laughably small as well. If it was $50 then it would wreck the economy.
Except they are willing, since fruit pickers and truck drivers were being offered £60k+ even a few weeks ago. So it's just a time lag until all the jobs are filled next.
I’m not familiar with the UK, but were the people formerly doing these jobs from somewhere outside of England? Id that’s the case I’m assuming they were being paid sub par wages and no one else would do it for that wage.
Now, if it comes to a choice between sharply increasing wages plus a crash training programme for HGV drivers, or doing nothing and letting the shelves empty, guess which one is going to happen ..
The really odd thing about this is how little anger there is about these issues. Isolated outbreaks of fighting over fuel at petrol stations but little directed at those in charge.
My only theory is that having been told to expect disaster for five years people have actually come to expect it.
When the newspaper says "unable to buy essential food items", they just mean that there was some items out of stock, not that there was no food in the shop.
If there's no beef today, you can still buy something else.
People were willing to accept this for Brexit happening. It has been made clear shortages were going to happen, it's been made clear voters expect it. It's no surprise there is no anger it has been expected.
It's all manipulated...there is no reason for an oil or gas "crisis". Same as the artificially created port crisis in California...or the so-called chip "shortage"...part of the plan to CREATE shortages, in order to CREATE crises, raise prices and CREATE a reason for govt overreach and takeover. Australia decided not to wait, openly punishing its citizens for no reason...
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 82.6 ms ] threadYet I cycled past a closed petrol station yesterday and couldn't buy everything on my shopping list last week.
Neither your point nor the article are correct of course and a lot depends on where you live in the country.
Meanwhile my parents had to eat cupboard food for dinner because their local Co-op looked like this: https://imgur.com/a/a2aEaxG
https://snackfever.com/blogs/magazine/beef-why-in-korea-it-i...
What am I missing? Did something unexpected happen with Brexit? Or is this fueled by the pandemic?
I'm sure it was brought up internally in the government, but they won the election by promising to deliver sunshine and rainbows brexit even though they had no way of doing so. Addressing it before it became a problem would've looked bad, so they didn't, and the pandemic provided a convenient excuse.
You might ask the same question about Trump. Surely someone in charge - someone with authority - should have seen the trainwreck a mile off, and done something about it?
The shocking truth is that there's no one with both common sense and overriding authority that prevents catastrophic wrong turns. This was absolutely an expected outcome of Brexit, by anyone with a clue. The trouble is that half the general population doesn't have a clue. Why did the government ask them? Because the party in charge at the time had a splinter faction led by some very radical, very loud voices, and it was beginning to cost them votes. They hoped to put the issue to bed by calling a referendum. Having done so, it was political suicide not to follow through even though it wasn't technically "binding".
Largely it's a matter of various people acting in their own selfish best interest at the expense of the interests of the country, and convincing a bunch of useful idiots to follow along.
Of course, it's worth noting that Trump's mob very nearly did overthrow a duly elected president on January 6th. The paradox of tolerance rears its ugly head once more.
The antifa actors that were paid by Leftists to burn cities down did their part - they forced the electorate to keep their heads down during the Big Steal.
Is that really considered "impressively effective" these days? I don't think so. It's bad governance.
Bush did it. Obama did it, while slowing down economic recovery Trump did it. Biden is doing it, and the economy is stagnating.
Looking farther back, every president since before FDR allowed debt to increase, although it wasn't really until the welfare state kicked in the 70s and 80s that we started hockey sticking.
It's hilarious to pin _all_ of that on Trump.
Well, some people. And even then, this wasn't brought up by the Leave campaign - they were all sun-lit uplands, etc. Nothing negative would come from Brexit! etc.etc.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isol...
Poles are returning back home quicker than than expected post-Brexit because Poland doesn't have a vaccine mandate and was quicker to return to post-virus normal.
Part of the solution to fixing this is abandoning all COVID measures (including masks) and treating the virus just like any other seasonal illness - just as has been done by Norway, Denmark, Sweden etc. recently. People will be more comfortable moving to the UK, and working.
On what visa (be specific)? A big part of Brexit has been making it harder for people to come to the UK and work.
Not if they have been vaccinated.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isol...
Yeah the $7.50 minimum wage is laughably small but the next minimum wage has to be laughably small as well. If it was $50 then it would wreck the economy.
Now, if it comes to a choice between sharply increasing wages plus a crash training programme for HGV drivers, or doing nothing and letting the shelves empty, guess which one is going to happen ..
My only theory is that having been told to expect disaster for five years people have actually come to expect it.
- media remain in favour of the government (and will do all the way down)
- incredibly weak opposition
- no organizing locus outside of media and opposition
- no tradition of mainland political violence
- not actually that bad
- if the UK can shrug off 138k deaths from COVID, and the ongoing crisis of foodbanks, we can shrug this off too
If there's no beef today, you can still buy something else.
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