Government spending without a credible increase in government revenue creates inflation. It’s astounding how many people don’t see this. You can’t print money/credit and expect to maintain purchasing power. The UK needs to supply low cost energy, not print money to buy energy.
It does tend to create inflationary pressures via an increase in the borrowing cost of government (often expressed as the government bond rate), which in turn makes the entire cost of many other forms of borrowing more expensive, which in turn changes the expectation of what a dollar or Euro or pound is worth today as compared to what it will be worth in a year's time.
Would be funny if you're an American. The UK has almost half the debt-to-GDP of the US thanks to years of austerity.
> The UK needs to supply low cost energy, not print money to buy energy.
Sure, but you can't do that over night and not temporarily backstopping consumers until that supply comes online risks bankrupting businesses and putting even more strain on the economy. So long as it's temporary it's probably the best thing we can realistically do.
85% vs 125%? What are you on about? That's a long way from half. And the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the moment interest rates started to rise everyone moved into USD.
The US is also energy almost independent. The UK has increasing energy prices, and refuses to do anything about it.
No country especially the ones with decelerating economies should compare themselves with USA. The rules apply to US differently. I m not going to list them, Brits should realize this is not 1921.
It's not the debt that matters but the change in debt, aka the deficit / surplus. If the debt stays constant, so does the money supply. The absolute level of the debt doesn't matter with regards to inflation, it's the change in the levels of debt that matter.
A larger debt means more interest payments which makes a significant deficit more likely, but it's that deficit, aka change in money supply, that affects inflation not the absolute size of the debt.
Dunno, seems like Japan has been trying that strategy for going on 20 years without any significant changes in inflation. Even though the explicit goal was to increase it.
Hey man, if people would stop buying their mocha lattes, internet, phones, computers, and netflix, they could save so much money that they could upgrade their carboard box in the park to a carboard box mansion! /s
You've not gone far enough, they need to give up the Avocado on toast for any chance of that happing. /s
In all seriousness though, I think the current generation of 20-30 yo are increasingly giving up on any plan to buy a house, ever. They are making the decision that even with sacrifices it's unattainable, and so they just want to enjoy themselves. And eat the avocado on toast.
This is such a simplified viewpoint. The UK has never been able to collect more than 39%-40% of GDP in taxes. And that's what the level is at now. Already everyone is paying as much tax as in history. (and the "rich" pay a lot of that, remember you pay £0 tax under £15,000 income per year).
You can try and tax more, but it's highly unlikely to work based on past experience. And in these cases, like with corporation tax, usually the government actually collects more tax revenue at 20% than at 30%. So again, I'd prefer factual taxation, not virtue signalling.
I was aware of the biscuit thing, but think it should just be rolled out more widely. We sort of have that with luxury cars, but an across the board increase of VAT to 30% on high-end goods is really what going for - defining luxury goods is left as an exercise for the reader.
If only there was some form of large market close by that the UK could be a member of so that the UK could trade with them in a frictionless manner and expand the economies of both areas through trade. That would increase the GDP and hence the amount of money the government could have available to it through taxation.
But I don't think there is anything like that around. I mean, if there was, why the hell wouldn't they be lining up to become a member of it? There's only upside there.
Very nice, but the EU is probably going to decline in GDP more than the UK, and the euro could potentially collapse due to the Italy situation in the next few years.
Thinking the UKs issues are because of brexit are about as simplistic as saying “tax the rich will solve all the worlds issues”
It doesn't follow, but history post 2016 wasn't written in gold if the UK had stayed in. The north of England, the central belt of Scotland and the south of Wales were in a terrible state. Brexit has failed to help, but remaining almost certainly wouldn't have either. The biggest issue the UK has experienced since leaving is Covid-19. Remaining wouldn't have helped us in that contingency.
The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this - we have to start to look to ourselves. Being in or out of Europe is not at issue; working to build a sustainable national economy and polity is.
South of Wales benefitted greatly from EU funds. From renovating coal tips to employment schemes. I don't understand your point here, it was the EUs fault that the UK had run down regions... even though the EU gave them money????
>The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this
This makes no sense at all
>we have to start to look to ourselves.
Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have international trade?
>South of Wales benefitted greatly from EU funds. From renovating coal tips to employment schemes. I don't understand your point here, it was the EUs fault that the UK had run down regions... even though the EU gave them money????
yes - in the same way that it's the EU's fault that Italy and Greece and Spain have run down regions. The Euro is sucking capital from the periphery of the EU to the core... and because the EU has monetary union but not federal union there are only very small fiscal transfers in the opposite direction. This is in contrast to the monetary union in the USA where there are considerable federal transfers.
>This makes no sense at all
I will try and better explain. I think that the UK must stop blaming it's ills on its position relative to the EU; instead it must take the arrangements of other European states as a fact and make its own policy and direction. The obsession with the EU will change nothing - only internal reform of the EU to a fully federal state will change the current dynamic. The only real path for the UK in the EU is to fully join a fully federal state - I wouldn't mind too much about that if the commission was abolished, a proper civil service developed and the EU parliament had the final say over the civil service and the president (I would like a president who could propose legislation and dissolve the parliament for elections if legislation could not be passed).
However, I see precisely 0 chance of this happening in the next 50 years. After that I will be dead...
> Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have international trade?
No, of course not. I am suggesting that we see reforms and changes to our economy that enable us to have balanced trade with the rest of the world. The arrangement where we import vastly more than we export is not sustainable (in so many ways). The Brexit devaluation should have been helpful, but has been rendered moot by the very bad post Brexit trading setup. The end of the current pathway (and the pre-Brexit path) is a comprehensive economic meltdown a-la Greece in 2011; there is still sometime to avoid this - but Trussonomics showed that there is not as much as our establishment would like to think. This is the UK's fault and the UK needs to fix it.
In a way the Truss debacle has been a good wake up call - but there's still time for it to be swept under the carpet...
But the UK has run a trade deficit of $60bn with the EU for the last 10 years or so. Leaving hasn't helped that, but staying wouldn't have either.
Something has to change in the relationship - something deep and real. The fundamental is the competitive advantage that the Euro confers on the German economy. Brexit is a way it can change overtime, there won't be an advantage for the UK, just an emergent state that is sustainable. The UK will be poorer in the present - but may avoid a Greece style implosion.
I fail to see which advantage is conferred by the Euro to the German economy, at least in the relationship with UK.
Unlike Germany, UK has always been free to establish any exchange rate they desired, between GBP and EUR. So only UK could have any advantages from the manipulation of the currencies.
Within the countries that use EUR, it can be claimed that Germany has the advantage that the other countries cannot cheat and compensate other economic problems by playing with the exchange rate. In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
The only reason Germany become such an export powerhouse is because their currency was lower than what it would have been naturally as a country. Because countries like Greece and Italy pulled the euro down.
This was very convenient for Germany as they could build exports cheaply.
If you don’t understand this, which is a very basic part of how the eu ended up as what it is, I would just question the rest of your commenting.
I don't blame Germans and Germany for taking advantage, but the political maturity to use this to create security and prosperity for everyone in Europe is completely lacking. I suppose unification and the problems afterwards are somewhat to blame.
If the Euro was a currency backed by the economies of Germany, Holland and Denmark it would be valued much more highly than it is now. Because of this these economies have a relative competitive advantage compared to other similar economies.
If the Euro was part of a federal system with federal transfers - like the US$ then this advantage would be mitigated because the budget positions of the rich parts of the EU would be relatively weaker (due to transfers) and the periphery of the EU would have stronger fiscal positions.
>In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
Fair opinion - but what is the solution? Do you agree that federalisation with fiscal transfer would be correct?
Very important for people to understand this. For high earners (100-200k), marginal tax rates can already pass 60%. That is an income which is locally considered very high but compared to our Atlantic cousins is somewhat more normal.
I will be thousands of pounds worse off per year under the new tax plans, but I'm OK with that because I understand that it is necessary. However, we are rapidly approaching most people's tolerance limit in this regard; unless the next government does a very good job of tackling economic injustice it feels like people will just give up - at which point the only way is down.
Now, what "give up" really looks like is key - I feel like widespread civil unrest is far closer than most people realize, but before that there will be a further decline in social cohesion. Right now it feels like this story is being masked by the Ukraine situation.
Becaus of the “high income child tax” and student loan repayments marginal tax rates at just 50k hit 70%. They drop again at 60k, but it’s tricky to justify working extra hard for a £5k pay rise when you only keep £2k of it.
Doesn’t help that you can’t file jointly in the U.K. either.
If that’s true, why isn’t that the party line? Every tax-reductionist I’ve heard from talks to the moral crime of high taxation, and the necessity to cut reliance on the government. I have not heard (as a regular person outside of academic circles) any politician argue that reducing taxes will increase revenue. Given how trivial this concept is to validate (cut taxes and see revenue go up) why hasn’t it been implemented?
Honestly, because since Blair the conservatives have been playing politics in labour's court, and labour's language and labour's politics. There hasn't been a clear and good communicator in the conservative party since... I want to say Thatcher?
The facts of this are true. When corp tax decreased from 28% to 20% tax take actually increased. But the conservatives seem unable to communicate this properly. It's sad to be honest. The "science" is there. But blaming the "Tories who want to reduce taxes on the rich and screw you" seems to be the talking point, not facts.
> This is such a simplified viewpoint. The UK has never been able to collect more than 39%-40% of GDP in taxes. And that's what the level is at now. Already everyone is paying as much tax as in history.
This has a double meaning: (1) “everybody” meaning the whole body, and (2) “everybody” meaning each tax-paying individual.
The two are not the same: it can be true that the whole body of taxpayers is paying the same amount (proportionately) into the GDP as always, while more of that proportion comes from the lower and middle classes than it historically has.
Because they effectively pay 85% tax on the income already. Look up the Crown Estate. The UK government taking it over would result in it being sold off at bargain basement prices to fund a voter winning 5 min fix and there'd be nothing to show for it in 50 years.
There was a tax measure on the ballot here in California and the argument against was "taxes are theft from people who probably have better use for that money"
The thing with that is corporations can defer profits until the rate falls again, while in the mean time you encourage people to open new premises elsewhere. So the take is not remotely linear in the percentage.
The same as usually: increase the taxable base, not the tax percentage. Tax a larger base moderately than trying to out-tax the last dribbles of a dwindling, current economy.
To do this, work politically to make it easy and lucrative to do business and increase overall wealth, and make it productive and worthwhile for individuals to get more by working more.
I'm not so sure, there are more "shy" conservatives than people realise. Moving towards the centre will stabilise the party, and if they do loose the next election there is an inherent culling of the current crop of right wind MPs.
The likely hood is that, if Labour win, they will be faced with such a mess that they will struggle to make the necessary improvements. The conservatives, will move towards the centre, and with the right leader could regain power after a single term out.
The left is fragmented (party wise), the right is not. Labour will always have an uphill battle unless we have electoral reform.
Consider yourself lucky you're not across the sea in the Netherlands. Inflation is 14%+ and household purchasing power is below the level it was 20 years ago.
I don't really understand the perspective your are saying. The UK was basically the ONLY country that helped Ukraine straight away when the war started, it was the UK that dragged the US along, and Germany is still dragging its feet on arms supplies. And I'm not saying that as someone who thinks Ukraine should be supported at all costs, but what the UK did was admirable.
If you mean Brexit, yes, there is some blame here, but it's one of the MANY issues the UK has been kicking down the road.
The UK has almost no manufacturing, its all financial services and service industries. There is less and less local energy production, and the cost is way more than the EU. Yet all attempts at starting fracking is failing.
On top of that 2008 then covid bought massive money printing.
At some point, you just can't fight physics. I'm sorry. There is so much wrong with the UK economy now it's insane. You can't print money to make cheap energy, while interest rates rise on 100%+ debt, while everyone moves into US dollars for the safe haven. Something has to give.
The UK either makes some tough choices now, on par with what Thatcher did, which will be extremely painful, or this slow decline will continue.
> I don't really understand the perspective your are saying.
He thinks that helping Ukraine defend themselves against a foreign invasion qualifies as "warmongering", obviously he's a Russia-aligned troll. Don't waste too much time trying to unravel his thought processes.
This is 100% caused by the anti-Russian sanctions policy, yet not a single comment on this thread so far has even mentioned the sanctions and tried to engage in a reasoned debate about whether the economic costs paid by Europe (and especially the energy insecure nations within the EU) were worth whatever moral good boy points the sanctions buy us.
Some have suggested the sanctions help Ukraine, but haven't articulated a plausible mechanism by which this happens. I can see how sending weapons to Ukraine helps their war effort. I can see how sending money to Ukraine helps their war effort. But I fail to see how Europe de-industrializing and being plunged into a low standard of living helps Ukraine. Weakening Europe doesn't seem to be a pro-Ukraine policy position. And it's hard to think of another geopolitical tool that has a near 100% failure rate yet which is everyone's favorite tool. It's Alice in wonderland.
Meanwhile, the Russians are laughing, they have record trade surpluses and budget surpluses (in the middle of prosecuting a war) and their economy is growing again. They are not finding it hard to find buyers for their fertilizer, wheat, oil, gas, coal, etc. These are things that everyone needs, not just Europe. China and India are both backing Russia and massively ramping up trade with them. A massive trade deal with Iran is being signed. OPEC is backing them and increasing trade. Latin America is increasing trade. Africa is increasing trade, as are the central asian republics and southeast Asia. All of this should put an end to the idea that Russia needs to trade with Europe or that Europe matters a whole lot to Russia's future.
But back in Europe, which is forced to pay premiums for Russian LNG laundered through China and Russian Oil laundered through India and Malaysia, there is complete silence on the foolishness of sanctions, as article after article comes out about UK standard of living declines and German de-industrialization, with no one discussing why energy costs so much more in Europe than in the rest of the world. Instead, people are talking about Brexit, corporate greed, etc -- all the usual talking points, without a single mention of what is causing this dramatic economic decline.
I expect more people will vote far right or far left as a consequence. I'm a moderate, but the centre parties that created this mess won't get my vote again.
You're noticing the depth of the indoctrination and just how little people actually think for themselves. Even thinking about an unpopular explanation is enough to cause intense cognitive dissonance.
There were only three top-level comments when you posted this. You could have opened this discussion calmly, but you came in running with resentment towards the community. Why did you choose to do that?
The ~100,000 Russian families who just had their son thrown into a meat grinder aren’t laughing.
War is hell.
People have been warning for years that Russia would continue attacking neighboring countries every other year or so, since it has been going on for years.
Can’t blame the world for finally starting to fight back.
If the UK government had war gamed this scenario, they would have realized many preparatory actions that could have been taken to protect their economy.
I mean, if, by "fighting back", you mean destroying its own economy, then yes, The West is "fighting back". But not the world, as the vast majority of nations - 7 Billion people -- are not imposing any sanctions because they have more rational leadership than in the 1 Billion people that are destroying their own economy in the name of "fighting back".
The main reason why the West is in rapid decline at the moment is because it is adopting policies based on their therapeutic value to the administrative class, rather than their effectiveness. That's a recipe for failure, and if you want to succeed rather than fail, then you need to choose your actions carefully and strategically rather than slamming your head against a granite wall because you think this means you are "fighting back".
The sanctions have driven Russia and China together to being strong allies, which is a strategic defeat for the U.S.
But you are right, they do send a "message", which is that the West is an irrational actor that undermines its own interests, and is thus an untrustworthy ally. This is why Saudi Arabia and Turkey are moving away from the U.S. towards the emerging Axis of Sanity
I just can't help but think there's some truth in the conspiracy theory I read on twitter from Kim Dotcom... this Ukraine war is an awfully convenient way for the US to completely decouple and destroy Europe and Russia. Which is a massive win for... the US. Who definitely didn't do much to PREVENT this war at any point.
I don't think this was necessarily 100% intentional, but it definitely seems like an energy independent, moderately industrial, innovative USA is THE biggest beneficiary of this war on the relative scale.
> this Ukraine war is an awfully convenient way for the US to completely decouple and destroy Europe and Russia
Its amazing how that needs to be said and how that is a conspiracy theory even as US foreign policy think tanks have been advocating for that and even laid out many published, well thought out plans that are being implemented to the letter now.
That's CIA's PR arm. It published that in 2019. Every single policy that it outlined is being carried out now.
The propensity of the Angloamerican public to ignore what is inconvenient and see what they like is amazing. The Brexit process and the Ukraine war has been literal sociology cases in which one could finally understand how the nonexistent Iraqi WMDs and the ensuing war was sold to the Angloamerican public.
> I don't think this was necessarily 100% intentional
Well what happened was that sanctions created a sharp, fast, contraction -- maybe 5% or so. Russia measures GDP year over year, so there are still declines. But the standard way of measuring GDP is continuously -- e.g. quarter over quarter, annualized. So according to more realtime data, the contraction lasted a couple of months and they are now in expansion, but it will probably be around 2Q 2023 before the year over year data turns positive.
A reference is here, using Goldman-Sachs faster frequency data.
I'll get downvoted for this, but this isn't true if you're one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Both will see their income rise with inflation.
If you're working then, sure, you're getting screwed as always because after just spending billions locking down the economy to saving boomers from Covid, this year we decided to spend billions bailing out boomers pensions, paying for boomers energy bills and ensuring that boomers can see their pensions rise inline with inflation.
Everyone in my family is either a pensioner or on benefits and they are having a great time in their £500k government provided homes, driving their government provided cars, heating their homes with money the government gave them.
And I'm all for pensions and welfare, but the wealth divide between those on benefits and those who work is insane in this country. If we were all doing fine then whatever, but the fact all my friends who work full-time can't afford anything and consider themselves lucky if they can afford to rent a 2 bed flat while those who don't work are living in £500k houses drives me up the wall.
If we we were all doing well then whatever, but I'm sat here freezing and wondering how I'm going to pay for my mortgage that's going through the roof because of all the money we've borrowed for the boomers.
I am disgusted every time I see a protest of pensioners or civil servants asking for even more money. It's practically buying votes. They truly are the privileged class.
Average is 1279€ as of 2021. Most of them won't have a rent/loan to pay or kids to feed and, hopefully, they will have some savings to complement this amount with.
It's truly all the fault of the powerful and influential welfare scroungers, just like the Telegraph says. Thank you for being so brave to speak your truth.
I'm from a working class family, and when I say working class, I mean so working class that most my family doesn't even work. I'm not making this up, I'm simply telling you about something that's unfair that I've been experiencing for years, but because it's not aligning with your narrative you're assuming this is some talking point I've got from the Telegraph...
But what's your point? Are you suggesting I'm lying, or are you suggesting that what I'm describing isn't a problem?
Why is it okay that everyone on benefits in my family has more than those who work? How is that at all reasonable?
Obviously I agree welfare scroungers aren't root cause of the problem. The issue is that we tax income and not wealth, and redistribute wealth from the have-nots (millennials, etc) to boomers (the wealthiest generation in the country). If your a boomer with 10 houses you don't pay any tax on that wealth. You just pay taxes on any income you might decide to take from renting them. This is a large part of the problem. The government tax you when you're trying to work your way up, but if you're already rich you don't have to worry about things like income tax.
Then on top of the broken tax system if you're working class or lower-middle class trying to work your way up you're not even paying for decent things like health care and education you're paying for economic policies that only benefit boomers and a nice standard of living for those abusing the welfare system.
I'm not your enemy here. I want fairer system. I want people in my family to stop seeing having kids and not working as the best path to independence. The suffering I see daily from this is heart-breaking. Drug abuse, prison, damaged kids. And I'm not blaming those on welfare because if you're working class welfare is literally the only way you can ever hope to have your own home. It just drives me insane when the job centre is recommending my family not to work because they'll never make as much as they're getting by being on benefits and not working.
We need to incentivise work by lowering income tax and tightening up the welfare system so it can't be abused as a source of tax-free income. At the same time we should more aggressively tax wealth. Higher stamp duty on second home purchases, higher capital gains tax, higher inheritance taxes, higher taxes on luxury goods etc.
We wouldn't need all this welfare in a economy that prioritises and rewards those who work.
The houses were originally bought 30ish years ago for around £40.000. It’s not like the current owners can retrieve any of that value increase. All the other houses around have increased by the same amount, so moving isn’t really realistic.
Workers have to pay rent. Retirees don’t. To have the same post housing income as a pensioner with a 20k pension a workers needs to be earning nearer 60k.
This could be solved by large amounts of house building, but wealthy retirees don’t want that.
If you’re part of party A and worried that party B is getting votes from people you previously counted among your supporters due to UBI the only rational thing to do is also support UBI. Because even if you’re a fiscal conservative surely having UBI and an otherwise tight fiscal policy is better than UBI and a loose one, right?
It’s crazy that politics seems completely unable to adapt to the will of the people changing over time.
It think about this a lot with the Republican party in the US. If the Republicans did a 180 on a few key social issues they would be able to win easily with a margin that Democrats couldn’t easily close the gap on.
Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money.
Pumping money to boomers, the poor, disabled and the underprivileged is the easiest way to stimulate an economy. Not giving more money to the rich.
> all the money we've borrowed for the boomers
Those boomers have worked for 40+ years and PAID that money that they are taking now into the treasury. Its THEIR money. For decades, your government used that money in its own affairs to fund many things. Those boomers literally facilitated those governments' policies and the economy.
It needs to be said again - its THEIR money. You are not giving them something out of goodwill as a charity. You are paying back the money that they LOANED to the society.
Its debt. They are your debtors. You have to pay back your debtors.
The boomers are the rich. They are the wealthiest generation ever in the U.K, the generation who typically retired with final salary pensions and a couple of BTLs, and they lay far less tax on their income than workers
>Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money.
Let's break some windows to create more economic activity, amirite?
>Its THEIR money.
They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations.
They're not getting back their money. The contributions they paid were drastically lower than what current generation pays, and the payout is way higher than projected.
> The contributions they paid were drastically lower than what current generation pays
It doesn't work like that. At the time they paid, their contributions were significant. Inflation and the destruction of the economy through privatization do not change the fact that their money did its impact when it was impactful.
Its just a loan. At the time it was borrowed by the society, that money meant something. Today it wouldnt. But at the time, it did. They are entitled to getting that money back.
The criticism that can be raised against them is not receiving their own money back. Its them having voted for profiteering sociopaths one after another and having destroyed the society for the current generations.
While there an element of truth in that workers are subsidising pensioners - mainly though paying their entire economic output in rent, your rant about welfare is somewhat off.
The lack of housing is the single biggest drain on U.K. economic output, as when demand outstrips supply rents rise to a point that all economic activity is captured by land owners. The only way around that is a land value tax, but that would really hit the wealthy.
brexit. Everyone in the media try to ignore the elephant in the room. But, brexit.
I know several companies who are winding down, because they can't export. Just too much trouble and money. It is everywhere, and nobody talks about it.
Poor trade relations is a big drag on the UK economy. If you can’t plan you can’t invest.
I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result.
> I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result.
This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concessions that no other country in the Union would get because the Union acknowledged that the UK was worthy enough to be in with those rather than out without them.
It'd be ludicrous to believe that coming from this sentiment the population would agree in joining the US, losing most of its sovereignty to become a 51st State under control of the USA Federal Government, like extremely ludicrous. The cherry on top would be the humiliation to the UK's nationalists in becoming a vassal of a former colony, I don't see this having any chance whatsoever to happen, not now, not in the next 50 years.
I gotta ask, what fosters this hope of yours? I haven't seen a Brit so deluded in wishful thinking as this take, it's a bit baffling, sorry to say.
Maybe not the parent commenter's take, but I have seen a few Americans around the place casually suggesting countries join the Union. I think some may be under the misapprehension that not everyone looks to America as the "greatest country" and would wish to not just be like them, but be them.
Our difference seems to be that I don’t put much weight on your view that nationalism will dominate the discussion. Standard of living will. My hope is UK citizens make decisions to benefit themselves, their family, friends, and community.
The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional options.
The EU can’t offer much energy, national security, or manufacturing support these days and U.S. is the only other reasonable option. A partnership, statehood, or something similar with the U.S. would immediately position the UK as the most powerful and desirable region in Europe IMO.
It would also not be one state, more likely 4. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They would each get a voice in the USA Federal government. Opportunity of a generation IMO.
Nationalism was the main reason why Brexit happened. The way it was sold to the people was by being more independent so the UK could limit immigration (well that didn't happen, and they could have actually done this before but chose not to) and so they didn't need to send money to the EU to build roads in foreign places the average UK pensioner would never dream of going (it's gone down from a net of around £8B to £1B).
> The EU can’t offer much energy, national security, or manufacturing support these days and U.S. is the only other reasonable option.
The UK literally relies on the EU energy market (and vice versa), with lots of imports and exports between the two. There isn't enough of it, but there's already a codependency there. National security is debatable, but as a part of the EU the UK would be leader among equals (big army and nukes), so cooperation would be on an equal footing. Manufacturing of what, specifically?
We’ve seen the result of that reliance. UK’s non-subsidized energy prices have skyrocketed and it’s unclear what the remedy will be. If you know one please tell me. I’ve been to the UK and talked to power players there and the only plan I’ve heard is “temporary” deindustrialization to maintain consumer comforts.
National security - the UK is THE leader in Europe. The EU seems unwilling to field a credible military deterrence. That’s not being equals IMO. Slowly that’s changing now… but the UK is already integrating its military industrial base with the U.S. so that ship has sailed.
Manufacturing - I used that word as a catch-all for providing goods and services.
Absolutely not! I can't think of any major economy that is more of a hell-hole than the USA. That applies over so much of the major features of the place: extreme politics, gun violence, "justice" system, policing, prison system, healthcare, gerrymandered elections, racism - loads of stuff where the problems may exist elsewhere (including the UK), but to nowhere near the same extent. The UK may have some problems, but it's nothing we haven't been through before.
Small point: but the _United Kingdom of etc._ is already a Union of 4 states (countries, whatever), it's not about to become a single state of anything.
If anything, each of those 4 states in increasingly looking to find an alliance that works for them individually. The UK exited the European Union, and that is in turn weakening the United Kingdom's Union. What a surprise.
Thanks but no thanks. Britain joining the USA would be hell on earth. Why would we want coal? We have loads of it that we don't even dig out of the ground any more.
The UK has no shortage of oil either. North Sea oil production is massive.
For example, a quick Google search revealed (I’m sure you can get newer figures) that North Sea oil provided over 60% of UK’s oil needs in 2012 and over 50% of its gas needs.
Whatever the opposite of an elephant in the room is, that's Brexit. It was talked about to death. It was the cause and reason for everything.
It was talked up by as either a glorious thing or a monumentally cataclysmic event when it hit in 2020 and in the end it was... mildly negative. It was skilfully played up as a wedge issue for 5 years.
So how is UK which is far less exposed to the war, and Russian gas and oil, doing so much worse than its continental neighbors which are way more exposed to all
Of those?
The answer is Brexit. Brexit wasn’t mildly negative. Brexit has been catastrophic.
The Bank of England estimates that Brexit has knocked off 2-5% of UK’s productivity across the board and that’s only one of the 3 impacts they’ve discovered (including an 11% drop in investment).
> The elephant in this room isnt Brexit it is war.
Confirmation bias is dangerous. As a continental European following UK media a lot Brexit is talked to "death" by some singular media personalities, it is not discussed at all in a broad sense.
It is fascinating for me to watch how a society decided collectively to "get on with it". And by that I mean: move forward pretending brexit did not happen and the present is not influenced by it. It feels like a sketch from monty python or fawlty towers where everybody pretends a clearly obvious thing does not exist.
I live in Germany and the war and energy politics have a much bigger impact here than in the UK. Sure not all of what you have going on there is attributable to Brexit and a lot of it has to do with the questionable quality of your political leadership — but pretending worse trading terms with the majority of your trading partners will somehow not inpact the economy of a nation takes a special kind of mental gymnastics.
The truth is that the UK was in a very priviledged spot within the EU before it left and it made good use of that position, both in a political and economic sense.
Agreed that confirmation bias is dangerous. Exports to the EU declined briefly after Brexit took effect but are now back to where they were before, presumably since companies adjusted to the new bureaucracy and found it's not that big of a deal. So this "special kind of mental gymnastics" doesn't seem to be gymnastics at all but rather an accurate assessment of the situation.
One may wonder how people got this so wrong?
"The truth is that the UK was in a very priviledged spot within the EU before it left and it made good use of that position, both in a political and economic sense"
Well, it's not really the case unfortunately. The UK was in a seriously under-privileged position inside the EU because its services based economy hardly benefited from the single market, which focused primarily on free movement of goods (benefiting Germany) and people (primarily benefiting eastern Europeans), but not on free provision of services (which would have benefited UK business). Instead services provisioning remained a patchwork of local regulations and barriers to entry.
As a consequence, leaving the EU single market didn't impact most British businesses to the extent predicted (by pro-EU economists, see my other comment), as they either weren't massive exporters to Europe to begin with, or were having to deal with local red tape and varying rules anyway.
This situation remained in place for decades because despite what the media may have claimed to people elsewhere in Europe the UK had essentially no influence, no ability to change anything and its "privileges" such as they were primarily consisted of opt outs of EU policies. But those opt outs were negotiated long ago, no more were in the offering and the ones that existed were under more or less permanent attack even when written into apparently watertight treaties. For example the EU was constantly attempting to force financial services out of London and the UK had to go to court, I think several times, to get these attempts blocked. Regulations were often interpreted in overtly political ways, again, specifically to damage the UK (see how "equivalence" rules aren't actually about equivalence, by universal agreement). It was often an antagonistic relationship despite being a member.
So the reason people don't talk about Brexit much in the UK is because the process was so drawn out and the eventual impact so minimal compared to COVID that there's really just not much to actually say.
Actually, I can't stand articles drawing connections to Brexit everywhere, both continental and Brit, when they're clearly told-ya-so pieces coming from long held opinions.
Let's not ignore there are known economic mechanisms governing the development of nations. How would cutting (or complicating) the trade ties with your biggest trading partners not influence a nation's economic outlook?
And if we aknowledge that fucking up your trade relations like that has an impact, maybe discussing that fuckup is what people who want the good of their own country would do?
What is the plan here? Pretending Brexit is anything else than the exceptionally horrible british tabloid media manipulating gullible people into stupid decisions for political gain? Pretending that Brexit is anything else than an embarrassment on the international stage? How is that going to help?
I cannot shake the feeling that stubbornly pretending something embarrassing does not exist is extremely british in a certain sense. While this is great fun within the fictional bounds of a monty python sketch however, it prolongs the agony in such a large scale issue. Time to sober up and aknowledge reality.
The UK didn’t lockdown as much or spend as much as neighbors on COVID. In fact, they were famously late to locking down with Boris Johnson opting for a “let her rip” strategy until much later.
And its continental neighbors are way more exposed to Russian gas than the UK is.
And yet the UK is doing significantly worse than its European neighbors. It’s the only major European country whose economy has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
What the UK is facing right now is uniquely UK. The most likely culprit is Brexit. The other possible culprit could simply be the absolutely corrupt and unstable governments it has had over the past couple of years. We know, for example, that Liz Truss’s month or so in charge cost the UK at least 50 billion dollars simply through immediate effects of the terribly I’ll-advised mini budget.
"the UK is doing significantly worse than its European neighbors"
No it isn't. This impression is created by the long stream of headlines posted here from the pro-EU part of the UK press (the pro-Brexit outlets tend to get systematically flagged), but it isn't actually true.
"The British economy expanded 2.4% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022, the lowest reading since the contraction in Q1 2021, but slightly above market expectations of 2.1%, preliminary estimates showed. Household spending slowed sharply (0.8% vs 4.3% in Q2), business investment rose less (3.5% vs 5.2%) and government expenditure stalled. Meanwhile, exports jumped 18% and imports increased at a slower 7.2%"
Growth is normal-ish for this sort of west European economy, though below the USA, both imports and exports are up but exports are up more.
"The German economy expanded 1.3% year-on-year in Q3 2022, slightly better than a 1.2% rise in the preliminary estimate, and following a downwardly revised 1.6% growth in Q2. It is the smallest annual growth rate in three quarters"
Oh. Significantly lower growth than the UK.
Just a few days ago a very similar story was posted to HN about food price inflation, and once again all the top voted comments immediately blamed Brexit and claimed the UK is in unusually dire straits, even though inflation in the UK is no different to other similar countries in western Europe. Many posts made extremely strong factual claims about the supposedly terrible performance of the UK that were just made up and when this was pointed out people started retreating to positions like "there must be something worse and it'll definitely be because of Brexit". I spent some time on that thread pointing out false claims, like here:
One of the comments in that thread asks, "Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you?". Their cited OBR report didn't contain any analysis - just an assumption that Brexit would reduce trade intensity by 15%. No working or sources were given for that number, it was just made up. This is typical for the topic. EU-related economics is just a large pile of confirmation bias.
Now take this story. It's paywalled so most people are going to be riffing on the headline. The headline is phrased as fact but it's actually just reporting on a prediction - economic modelling - once again from the OBR. This is presented as if it's unquestionable, but it's actually very questionable. The FT reports it because it's an extremely pro-EU biased outlet so it's telling their readers what they want to hear (the FT offices were literally flying the EU flag in the past, maybe still do).
Governments in general have a poor track record of economic prediction, and the UK civil service and OBR specifically have made unusually poor economic predictions for anything related to Brexit. It's not a neutral collection of dispassionate experts by any means. They keep being proven wrong by events, like when they said half million job losses would occur immediately after the referendum if Leave won, yet they don't engage in any kind of public post-mortem or learning processes. Nor, sadly, do too many HN commenters. If you're reading about the UK economy on HN at the moment then lots of the comments will be factually wrong. There are many people who are ideol...
Sure, I and many others were just paid for almost a year not to work. And now electric bills are double due to the war. But of course it will all be Brexit for many years to come
Quote: "... and higher unemployment are battering household finances..."
But but wasn't Brexit suppose to fix unemployment? Wasn't the entire idea that once the foreigners are no longer welcoming the rising market will start employ the local population and drive down unemployment? And yet, almost 3 years later (Jan 1st is around the corner) the unemployment is still rising. Who would've thought that isolating yourself is not actually a benefit for a capitalist market.
I mean history is a forgettable science after all, none thought that past lessons of isolation of Japan or China from centuries ago would still be applicable to today's situation /s
That's not what the person I'm responding to said, nor what the article says. The person I'm responding to clearly didn't read the article, it actually says due to a tight labour market unemployment will rise only slightly during the predicted recession.
You clearly didn't read the comment I replied to who said for 3 years unemployment has increased, when it has not.
This is a perfect example of why politics is now a tribal mud flinging fest.
2 general elections and a referendum all returns clear mandates for a poorer weaker more isolated country. People are finally getting what they voted for. Yey democracy.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 237 ms ] threadAlso: spending without revenue creates a deficit, not necessarily inflation.
And Sunak just cancelled all fracking that Truss wanted to start. So the UK has basically decided to NOT have any form of cheap energy.
You reap what you sow.
> The UK needs to supply low cost energy, not print money to buy energy.
Sure, but you can't do that over night and not temporarily backstopping consumers until that supply comes online risks bankrupting businesses and putting even more strain on the economy. So long as it's temporary it's probably the best thing we can realistically do.
The US is also energy almost independent. The UK has increasing energy prices, and refuses to do anything about it.
Heh, well stated. The sun set on the British empire a long time ago. Expectations need to be adjusted accordingly.
A larger debt means more interest payments which makes a significant deficit more likely, but it's that deficit, aka change in money supply, that affects inflation not the absolute size of the debt.
In all seriousness though, I think the current generation of 20-30 yo are increasingly giving up on any plan to buy a house, ever. They are making the decision that even with sacrifices it's unattainable, and so they just want to enjoy themselves. And eat the avocado on toast.
You can try and tax more, but it's highly unlikely to work based on past experience. And in these cases, like with corporation tax, usually the government actually collects more tax revenue at 20% than at 30%. So again, I'd prefer factual taxation, not virtue signalling.
What's the solution here to get more in taxes?
It's definitely not that difficult to do.
Food Rent Public transport
No vat on those
Electricity is only 5%
A few quid a year on vat on toothpaste hardly makes a difference.
But I don't think there is anything like that around. I mean, if there was, why the hell wouldn't they be lining up to become a member of it? There's only upside there.
Thinking the UKs issues are because of brexit are about as simplistic as saying “tax the rich will solve all the worlds issues”
Even if that does happen, it doesn't necessarily follow that the UK couldn't also have a higher GDP by trading with the EU
>Thinking the UKs issues are because of brexit
... could make you the governor of the Bank of England
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/16/brexit-and-...
The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this - we have to start to look to ourselves. Being in or out of Europe is not at issue; working to build a sustainable national economy and polity is.
South of Wales benefitted greatly from EU funds. From renovating coal tips to employment schemes. I don't understand your point here, it was the EUs fault that the UK had run down regions... even though the EU gave them money????
>The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this
This makes no sense at all
>we have to start to look to ourselves.
Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have international trade?
yes - in the same way that it's the EU's fault that Italy and Greece and Spain have run down regions. The Euro is sucking capital from the periphery of the EU to the core... and because the EU has monetary union but not federal union there are only very small fiscal transfers in the opposite direction. This is in contrast to the monetary union in the USA where there are considerable federal transfers.
>This makes no sense at all
I will try and better explain. I think that the UK must stop blaming it's ills on its position relative to the EU; instead it must take the arrangements of other European states as a fact and make its own policy and direction. The obsession with the EU will change nothing - only internal reform of the EU to a fully federal state will change the current dynamic. The only real path for the UK in the EU is to fully join a fully federal state - I wouldn't mind too much about that if the commission was abolished, a proper civil service developed and the EU parliament had the final say over the civil service and the president (I would like a president who could propose legislation and dissolve the parliament for elections if legislation could not be passed).
However, I see precisely 0 chance of this happening in the next 50 years. After that I will be dead...
> Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have international trade?
No, of course not. I am suggesting that we see reforms and changes to our economy that enable us to have balanced trade with the rest of the world. The arrangement where we import vastly more than we export is not sustainable (in so many ways). The Brexit devaluation should have been helpful, but has been rendered moot by the very bad post Brexit trading setup. The end of the current pathway (and the pre-Brexit path) is a comprehensive economic meltdown a-la Greece in 2011; there is still sometime to avoid this - but Trussonomics showed that there is not as much as our establishment would like to think. This is the UK's fault and the UK needs to fix it.
In a way the Truss debacle has been a good wake up call - but there's still time for it to be swept under the carpet...
But the UK has run a trade deficit of $60bn with the EU for the last 10 years or so. Leaving hasn't helped that, but staying wouldn't have either.
Something has to change in the relationship - something deep and real. The fundamental is the competitive advantage that the Euro confers on the German economy. Brexit is a way it can change overtime, there won't be an advantage for the UK, just an emergent state that is sustainable. The UK will be poorer in the present - but may avoid a Greece style implosion.
Truss showed that may is important here.
Unlike Germany, UK has always been free to establish any exchange rate they desired, between GBP and EUR. So only UK could have any advantages from the manipulation of the currencies.
Within the countries that use EUR, it can be claimed that Germany has the advantage that the other countries cannot cheat and compensate other economic problems by playing with the exchange rate. In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
This was very convenient for Germany as they could build exports cheaply.
If you don’t understand this, which is a very basic part of how the eu ended up as what it is, I would just question the rest of your commenting.
If the Euro was part of a federal system with federal transfers - like the US$ then this advantage would be mitigated because the budget positions of the rich parts of the EU would be relatively weaker (due to transfers) and the periphery of the EU would have stronger fiscal positions.
>In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
Fair opinion - but what is the solution? Do you agree that federalisation with fiscal transfer would be correct?
I will be thousands of pounds worse off per year under the new tax plans, but I'm OK with that because I understand that it is necessary. However, we are rapidly approaching most people's tolerance limit in this regard; unless the next government does a very good job of tackling economic injustice it feels like people will just give up - at which point the only way is down.
Now, what "give up" really looks like is key - I feel like widespread civil unrest is far closer than most people realize, but before that there will be a further decline in social cohesion. Right now it feels like this story is being masked by the Ukraine situation.
Doesn’t help that you can’t file jointly in the U.K. either.
https://www.conservatives.com/our-plan/economy
The facts of this are true. When corp tax decreased from 28% to 20% tax take actually increased. But the conservatives seem unable to communicate this properly. It's sad to be honest. The "science" is there. But blaming the "Tories who want to reduce taxes on the rich and screw you" seems to be the talking point, not facts.
This has a double meaning: (1) “everybody” meaning the whole body, and (2) “everybody” meaning each tax-paying individual.
The two are not the same: it can be true that the whole body of taxpayers is paying the same amount (proportionately) into the GDP as always, while more of that proportion comes from the lower and middle classes than it historically has.
That should be popular...
Or at least taxing them the same rates as the peasants instead of letting them freeload.
Nothing stops the UK seizing crown lands. In fact it sort of does. This is where the sovereign grant comes from.
Land however is not generally taxed in the UK so in that sense they do pay the same.
The measure passed easily.
Easy - increase corporation tax. The main rate has been literally halved over the last 30 years.
The same as usually: increase the taxable base, not the tax percentage. Tax a larger base moderately than trying to out-tax the last dribbles of a dwindling, current economy.
To do this, work politically to make it easy and lucrative to do business and increase overall wealth, and make it productive and worthwhile for individuals to get more by working more.
The likely hood is that, if Labour win, they will be faced with such a mess that they will struggle to make the necessary improvements. The conservatives, will move towards the centre, and with the right leader could regain power after a single term out.
The left is fragmented (party wise), the right is not. Labour will always have an uphill battle unless we have electoral reform.
Poland GDP per capita PPP is twice the amount 20 year ago. Most neighboring EU countries have similar results.
If you mean Brexit, yes, there is some blame here, but it's one of the MANY issues the UK has been kicking down the road.
The UK has almost no manufacturing, its all financial services and service industries. There is less and less local energy production, and the cost is way more than the EU. Yet all attempts at starting fracking is failing.
On top of that 2008 then covid bought massive money printing.
At some point, you just can't fight physics. I'm sorry. There is so much wrong with the UK economy now it's insane. You can't print money to make cheap energy, while interest rates rise on 100%+ debt, while everyone moves into US dollars for the safe haven. Something has to give.
The UK either makes some tough choices now, on par with what Thatcher did, which will be extremely painful, or this slow decline will continue.
He thinks that helping Ukraine defend themselves against a foreign invasion qualifies as "warmongering", obviously he's a Russia-aligned troll. Don't waste too much time trying to unravel his thought processes.
Some have suggested the sanctions help Ukraine, but haven't articulated a plausible mechanism by which this happens. I can see how sending weapons to Ukraine helps their war effort. I can see how sending money to Ukraine helps their war effort. But I fail to see how Europe de-industrializing and being plunged into a low standard of living helps Ukraine. Weakening Europe doesn't seem to be a pro-Ukraine policy position. And it's hard to think of another geopolitical tool that has a near 100% failure rate yet which is everyone's favorite tool. It's Alice in wonderland.
Meanwhile, the Russians are laughing, they have record trade surpluses and budget surpluses (in the middle of prosecuting a war) and their economy is growing again. They are not finding it hard to find buyers for their fertilizer, wheat, oil, gas, coal, etc. These are things that everyone needs, not just Europe. China and India are both backing Russia and massively ramping up trade with them. A massive trade deal with Iran is being signed. OPEC is backing them and increasing trade. Latin America is increasing trade. Africa is increasing trade, as are the central asian republics and southeast Asia. All of this should put an end to the idea that Russia needs to trade with Europe or that Europe matters a whole lot to Russia's future.
But back in Europe, which is forced to pay premiums for Russian LNG laundered through China and Russian Oil laundered through India and Malaysia, there is complete silence on the foolishness of sanctions, as article after article comes out about UK standard of living declines and German de-industrialization, with no one discussing why energy costs so much more in Europe than in the rest of the world. Instead, people are talking about Brexit, corporate greed, etc -- all the usual talking points, without a single mention of what is causing this dramatic economic decline.
Truly a bizarre state of public discourse.
There were only three top-level comments when you posted this. You could have opened this discussion calmly, but you came in running with resentment towards the community. Why did you choose to do that?
War is hell.
People have been warning for years that Russia would continue attacking neighboring countries every other year or so, since it has been going on for years.
Can’t blame the world for finally starting to fight back.
If the UK government had war gamed this scenario, they would have realized many preparatory actions that could have been taken to protect their economy.
The main reason why the West is in rapid decline at the moment is because it is adopting policies based on their therapeutic value to the administrative class, rather than their effectiveness. That's a recipe for failure, and if you want to succeed rather than fail, then you need to choose your actions carefully and strategically rather than slamming your head against a granite wall because you think this means you are "fighting back".
The idea that we must perform an ineffective and self-destructive measure just because it's the only one we can think of doing is not good statecraft.
The Ukraine situation is also a message to China, which makes it more worthwhile.
But you are right, they do send a "message", which is that the West is an irrational actor that undermines its own interests, and is thus an untrustworthy ally. This is why Saudi Arabia and Turkey are moving away from the U.S. towards the emerging Axis of Sanity
I don't think this was necessarily 100% intentional, but it definitely seems like an energy independent, moderately industrial, innovative USA is THE biggest beneficiary of this war on the relative scale.
Its amazing how that needs to be said and how that is a conspiracy theory even as US foreign policy think tanks have been advocating for that and even laid out many published, well thought out plans that are being implemented to the letter now.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
That's CIA's PR arm. It published that in 2019. Every single policy that it outlined is being carried out now.
The propensity of the Angloamerican public to ignore what is inconvenient and see what they like is amazing. The Brexit process and the Ukraine war has been literal sociology cases in which one could finally understand how the nonexistent Iraqi WMDs and the ensuing war was sold to the Angloamerican public.
> I don't think this was necessarily 100% intentional
Oh boy, it was 100% intentional.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-09/european-...
The Eu is removing itself as a competitor to the US as of this very moment. The UK had destroyed itself before that with Brexit.
In the end when Putin told us our sanctions were stupid and would hurt ourselves more than Russia it turned out that the bluster was on our side.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/e4f0cb9b-695c-4cc3-92c8-f8371de2a...
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/08/23/w...
A reference is here, using Goldman-Sachs faster frequency data.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/10/11/a...
If you're working then, sure, you're getting screwed as always because after just spending billions locking down the economy to saving boomers from Covid, this year we decided to spend billions bailing out boomers pensions, paying for boomers energy bills and ensuring that boomers can see their pensions rise inline with inflation.
Everyone in my family is either a pensioner or on benefits and they are having a great time in their £500k government provided homes, driving their government provided cars, heating their homes with money the government gave them.
And I'm all for pensions and welfare, but the wealth divide between those on benefits and those who work is insane in this country. If we were all doing fine then whatever, but the fact all my friends who work full-time can't afford anything and consider themselves lucky if they can afford to rent a 2 bed flat while those who don't work are living in £500k houses drives me up the wall.
If we we were all doing well then whatever, but I'm sat here freezing and wondering how I'm going to pay for my mortgage that's going through the roof because of all the money we've borrowed for the boomers.
Average is 1279€ as of 2021. Most of them won't have a rent/loan to pay or kids to feed and, hopefully, they will have some savings to complement this amount with.
But what's your point? Are you suggesting I'm lying, or are you suggesting that what I'm describing isn't a problem?
Why is it okay that everyone on benefits in my family has more than those who work? How is that at all reasonable?
Obviously I agree welfare scroungers aren't root cause of the problem. The issue is that we tax income and not wealth, and redistribute wealth from the have-nots (millennials, etc) to boomers (the wealthiest generation in the country). If your a boomer with 10 houses you don't pay any tax on that wealth. You just pay taxes on any income you might decide to take from renting them. This is a large part of the problem. The government tax you when you're trying to work your way up, but if you're already rich you don't have to worry about things like income tax.
Then on top of the broken tax system if you're working class or lower-middle class trying to work your way up you're not even paying for decent things like health care and education you're paying for economic policies that only benefit boomers and a nice standard of living for those abusing the welfare system.
I'm not your enemy here. I want fairer system. I want people in my family to stop seeing having kids and not working as the best path to independence. The suffering I see daily from this is heart-breaking. Drug abuse, prison, damaged kids. And I'm not blaming those on welfare because if you're working class welfare is literally the only way you can ever hope to have your own home. It just drives me insane when the job centre is recommending my family not to work because they'll never make as much as they're getting by being on benefits and not working.
We need to incentivise work by lowering income tax and tightening up the welfare system so it can't be abused as a source of tax-free income. At the same time we should more aggressively tax wealth. Higher stamp duty on second home purchases, higher capital gains tax, higher inheritance taxes, higher taxes on luxury goods etc.
We wouldn't need all this welfare in a economy that prioritises and rewards those who work.
This could be solved by large amounts of house building, but wealthy retirees don’t want that.
It’s crazy that politics seems completely unable to adapt to the will of the people changing over time.
It think about this a lot with the Republican party in the US. If the Republicans did a 180 on a few key social issues they would be able to win easily with a margin that Democrats couldn’t easily close the gap on.
Landowners and shareholders are the two protected classes.
Pensioners are more protected but they are likely to lose triple lock at some point. Dividend taxes will NEVER be as high as income tax.
Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money.
Pumping money to boomers, the poor, disabled and the underprivileged is the easiest way to stimulate an economy. Not giving more money to the rich.
> all the money we've borrowed for the boomers
Those boomers have worked for 40+ years and PAID that money that they are taking now into the treasury. Its THEIR money. For decades, your government used that money in its own affairs to fund many things. Those boomers literally facilitated those governments' policies and the economy.
It needs to be said again - its THEIR money. You are not giving them something out of goodwill as a charity. You are paying back the money that they LOANED to the society.
Its debt. They are your debtors. You have to pay back your debtors.
Let's break some windows to create more economic activity, amirite?
>Its THEIR money.
They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations.
Them voting to scuttle social democracy does not change the fact that the money they are getting back is their money.
It doesn't work like that. At the time they paid, their contributions were significant. Inflation and the destruction of the economy through privatization do not change the fact that their money did its impact when it was impactful.
Its just a loan. At the time it was borrowed by the society, that money meant something. Today it wouldnt. But at the time, it did. They are entitled to getting that money back.
The criticism that can be raised against them is not receiving their own money back. Its them having voted for profiteering sociopaths one after another and having destroyed the society for the current generations.
> one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients.
What an absurd and false statement which justifies disregarding the rest of your comment
But pensioners get a 10% pay rise.
The lack of housing is the single biggest drain on U.K. economic output, as when demand outstrips supply rents rise to a point that all economic activity is captured by land owners. The only way around that is a land value tax, but that would really hit the wealthy.
brexit.
I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result.
This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concessions that no other country in the Union would get because the Union acknowledged that the UK was worthy enough to be in with those rather than out without them.
It'd be ludicrous to believe that coming from this sentiment the population would agree in joining the US, losing most of its sovereignty to become a 51st State under control of the USA Federal Government, like extremely ludicrous. The cherry on top would be the humiliation to the UK's nationalists in becoming a vassal of a former colony, I don't see this having any chance whatsoever to happen, not now, not in the next 50 years.
I gotta ask, what fosters this hope of yours? I haven't seen a Brit so deluded in wishful thinking as this take, it's a bit baffling, sorry to say.
The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional options.
The EU can’t offer much energy, national security, or manufacturing support these days and U.S. is the only other reasonable option. A partnership, statehood, or something similar with the U.S. would immediately position the UK as the most powerful and desirable region in Europe IMO.
It would also not be one state, more likely 4. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They would each get a voice in the USA Federal government. Opportunity of a generation IMO.
Nothing.
The UK literally relies on the EU energy market (and vice versa), with lots of imports and exports between the two. There isn't enough of it, but there's already a codependency there. National security is debatable, but as a part of the EU the UK would be leader among equals (big army and nukes), so cooperation would be on an equal footing. Manufacturing of what, specifically?
National security - the UK is THE leader in Europe. The EU seems unwilling to field a credible military deterrence. That’s not being equals IMO. Slowly that’s changing now… but the UK is already integrating its military industrial base with the U.S. so that ship has sailed.
Manufacturing - I used that word as a catch-all for providing goods and services.
If anything, each of those 4 states in increasingly looking to find an alliance that works for them individually. The UK exited the European Union, and that is in turn weakening the United Kingdom's Union. What a surprise.
For example, a quick Google search revealed (I’m sure you can get newer figures) that North Sea oil provided over 60% of UK’s oil needs in 2012 and over 50% of its gas needs.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26326...
It was talked up by as either a glorious thing or a monumentally cataclysmic event when it hit in 2020 and in the end it was... mildly negative. It was skilfully played up as a wedge issue for 5 years.
The elephant in this room isnt Brexit it is war.
(and idiotic energy policy)
The answer is Brexit. Brexit wasn’t mildly negative. Brexit has been catastrophic.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2019/the-impac...
The Bank of England estimates that Brexit has knocked off 2-5% of UK’s productivity across the board and that’s only one of the 3 impacts they’ve discovered (including an 11% drop in investment).
Confirmation bias is dangerous. As a continental European following UK media a lot Brexit is talked to "death" by some singular media personalities, it is not discussed at all in a broad sense.
It is fascinating for me to watch how a society decided collectively to "get on with it". And by that I mean: move forward pretending brexit did not happen and the present is not influenced by it. It feels like a sketch from monty python or fawlty towers where everybody pretends a clearly obvious thing does not exist.
I live in Germany and the war and energy politics have a much bigger impact here than in the UK. Sure not all of what you have going on there is attributable to Brexit and a lot of it has to do with the questionable quality of your political leadership — but pretending worse trading terms with the majority of your trading partners will somehow not inpact the economy of a nation takes a special kind of mental gymnastics.
The truth is that the UK was in a very priviledged spot within the EU before it left and it made good use of that position, both in a political and economic sense.
One may wonder how people got this so wrong?
"The truth is that the UK was in a very priviledged spot within the EU before it left and it made good use of that position, both in a political and economic sense"
Well, it's not really the case unfortunately. The UK was in a seriously under-privileged position inside the EU because its services based economy hardly benefited from the single market, which focused primarily on free movement of goods (benefiting Germany) and people (primarily benefiting eastern Europeans), but not on free provision of services (which would have benefited UK business). Instead services provisioning remained a patchwork of local regulations and barriers to entry.
As a consequence, leaving the EU single market didn't impact most British businesses to the extent predicted (by pro-EU economists, see my other comment), as they either weren't massive exporters to Europe to begin with, or were having to deal with local red tape and varying rules anyway.
There's a discussion of this problem here: https://euagenda.eu/upload/publications/untitled-46447-ea.pd...
This situation remained in place for decades because despite what the media may have claimed to people elsewhere in Europe the UK had essentially no influence, no ability to change anything and its "privileges" such as they were primarily consisted of opt outs of EU policies. But those opt outs were negotiated long ago, no more were in the offering and the ones that existed were under more or less permanent attack even when written into apparently watertight treaties. For example the EU was constantly attempting to force financial services out of London and the UK had to go to court, I think several times, to get these attempts blocked. Regulations were often interpreted in overtly political ways, again, specifically to damage the UK (see how "equivalence" rules aren't actually about equivalence, by universal agreement). It was often an antagonistic relationship despite being a member.
So the reason people don't talk about Brexit much in the UK is because the process was so drawn out and the eventual impact so minimal compared to COVID that there's really just not much to actually say.
And if we aknowledge that fucking up your trade relations like that has an impact, maybe discussing that fuckup is what people who want the good of their own country would do?
What is the plan here? Pretending Brexit is anything else than the exceptionally horrible british tabloid media manipulating gullible people into stupid decisions for political gain? Pretending that Brexit is anything else than an embarrassment on the international stage? How is that going to help?
I cannot shake the feeling that stubbornly pretending something embarrassing does not exist is extremely british in a certain sense. While this is great fun within the fictional bounds of a monty python sketch however, it prolongs the agony in such a large scale issue. Time to sober up and aknowledge reality.
And its continental neighbors are way more exposed to Russian gas than the UK is.
And yet the UK is doing significantly worse than its European neighbors. It’s the only major European country whose economy has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
What the UK is facing right now is uniquely UK. The most likely culprit is Brexit. The other possible culprit could simply be the absolutely corrupt and unstable governments it has had over the past couple of years. We know, for example, that Liz Truss’s month or so in charge cost the UK at least 50 billion dollars simply through immediate effects of the terribly I’ll-advised mini budget.
No it isn't. This impression is created by the long stream of headlines posted here from the pro-EU part of the UK press (the pro-Brexit outlets tend to get systematically flagged), but it isn't actually true.
UK performance last quarter: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annua...
"The British economy expanded 2.4% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022, the lowest reading since the contraction in Q1 2021, but slightly above market expectations of 2.1%, preliminary estimates showed. Household spending slowed sharply (0.8% vs 4.3% in Q2), business investment rose less (3.5% vs 5.2%) and government expenditure stalled. Meanwhile, exports jumped 18% and imports increased at a slower 7.2%"
Growth is normal-ish for this sort of west European economy, though below the USA, both imports and exports are up but exports are up more.
How about Germany, historically considered an economic power? https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth-annual
"The German economy expanded 1.3% year-on-year in Q3 2022, slightly better than a 1.2% rise in the preliminary estimate, and following a downwardly revised 1.6% growth in Q2. It is the smallest annual growth rate in three quarters"
Oh. Significantly lower growth than the UK.
Just a few days ago a very similar story was posted to HN about food price inflation, and once again all the top voted comments immediately blamed Brexit and claimed the UK is in unusually dire straits, even though inflation in the UK is no different to other similar countries in western Europe. Many posts made extremely strong factual claims about the supposedly terrible performance of the UK that were just made up and when this was pointed out people started retreating to positions like "there must be something worse and it'll definitely be because of Brexit". I spent some time on that thread pointing out false claims, like here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682546
One of the comments in that thread asks, "Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you?". Their cited OBR report didn't contain any analysis - just an assumption that Brexit would reduce trade intensity by 15%. No working or sources were given for that number, it was just made up. This is typical for the topic. EU-related economics is just a large pile of confirmation bias.
Now take this story. It's paywalled so most people are going to be riffing on the headline. The headline is phrased as fact but it's actually just reporting on a prediction - economic modelling - once again from the OBR. This is presented as if it's unquestionable, but it's actually very questionable. The FT reports it because it's an extremely pro-EU biased outlet so it's telling their readers what they want to hear (the FT offices were literally flying the EU flag in the past, maybe still do).
Governments in general have a poor track record of economic prediction, and the UK civil service and OBR specifically have made unusually poor economic predictions for anything related to Brexit. It's not a neutral collection of dispassionate experts by any means. They keep being proven wrong by events, like when they said half million job losses would occur immediately after the referendum if Leave won, yet they don't engage in any kind of public post-mortem or learning processes. Nor, sadly, do too many HN commenters. If you're reading about the UK economy on HN at the moment then lots of the comments will be factually wrong. There are many people who are ideol...
Let us make the best of it!
What a crock of shit.
But but wasn't Brexit suppose to fix unemployment? Wasn't the entire idea that once the foreigners are no longer welcoming the rising market will start employ the local population and drive down unemployment? And yet, almost 3 years later (Jan 1st is around the corner) the unemployment is still rising. Who would've thought that isolating yourself is not actually a benefit for a capitalist market.
I mean history is a forgettable science after all, none thought that past lessons of isolation of Japan or China from centuries ago would still be applicable to today's situation /s
This is a perfect example of why politics is now a tribal mud flinging fest.