[HN Gopher] Bank of England expects UK to fall into longest ever...
___________________________________________________________________
Bank of England expects UK to fall into longest ever recession
Author : belter
Score : 176 points
Date : 2022-11-03 18:54 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Dupe of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450980
| olivermarks wrote:
| bergenty wrote:
| Yes, the force that has basically uplifted half the world
| population out of serfdom into the middle class is the bad guy.
| olivermarks wrote:
| The UK is essentially three entities: the city of London (a
| wormhole to a giant offshore tax exile trusts network) and a
| quasi sovereign state, the Crown corporation and the actual
| sovereign state.
|
| The money being siphoned off by the first two entities are
| largely immune to the oncoming UK nation state recession and
| are heavily invested in increased stateless globalization.
| shadowfoxx wrote:
| I mean... it _can_ be tho? The case can be made that
| Capitalism creates horrible problems which cannot be solved
| by capitalism. The statement that Capitalism has created some
| of the most prosperous nations in the history of the world is
| also a true statement?
| weakfish wrote:
| What does this comment contribute?
| hu3 wrote:
| For what is worth, it's a reference to the infamous: "The
| beatings will continue until morale improves".
| [deleted]
| grammers wrote:
| The worst part of this, politically I mean, is that the Tories
| can blame inflation/general recession. But Brexit surely plays a
| huge part in this.
| 10g1k wrote:
| Recession and growth are most directly affected by central bank
| interest rates. When they say they "predict" such things, they
| mean they will make it so.
| digianarchist wrote:
| The illusion of a soft-landing by the Fed, and the Bank of
| Canada, has never been archived. All central banks are pushing
| their respective economies into recession.
| throwyawayyyy wrote:
| It's a crisis of productivity that Brexit has made worse.
|
| Question for software engineers in the UK: how good are companies
| these days at training up junior engineers? One of the starkest
| differences I saw on leaving London for Silicon Valley was how
| much better SV is at training up young engineers. But I left a
| decade ago (in what was, in retrospect, a high watermark for the
| UK); perhaps matters have improved?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The Tories had better hand over government to Starmer quickly,
| because there's no possible way they can blame Labour for this
| one. Blaming Brown and Blair for everything has already gotten
| extremely long in the tooth; in a few years, there will be voters
| that will have never lived under a Labour government.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| They'll do it. And plenty of people will eat it up. Because
| they don't mind losing, as long as others lose more.
| duxup wrote:
| Are they brave enough to take the immediate loss for what might
| be a longer term strategy ... that may or may not pay off?
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| This would be like the turkeys voting for Christmas. And
| we're talking about a party that consists mostly of extremely
| self serving members.
|
| The drunk at the wheel is here to stay until the next natural
| GE.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's Labour, and it's Starmer. The Tories will have
| government back in no time, with a clean slate.
| raverbashing wrote:
| "Chaos with Ed Milliband" was their catchphrase, now they don't
| even have Bounty chocolate in Celebration boxes anymore.
| Disgraceful
| gbrown_ wrote:
| The banishing of the Bounty is one of the few purely good
| pieces of news we've had! I mean I'll cave a few days after
| Christmas and eat them but I'm not happy about it.
| Guthur wrote:
| The world economy died in 2008, it's just been on QE life support
| ever since.
|
| This life support has spawned zombie companies everywhere that
| produce nothing that anyone really wants or needs and amount to
| nothing more than adult day care centres.
|
| Chickens are coming home to roost on this one.
| orblivion wrote:
| I bought into that for a while (having followed that variety of
| economic opinion). The idea was that the whole system was
| hanging by a thread. A moderate shock would make it all fall
| over. Well, we got a hell of a shock in 2020, and we're doing
| economically kinda bad, as one would expect regardless after
| such a shock, but not catastrophically. I don't know what the
| right model is, but I no longer think that this is the one.
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| Isn't that just because of more non-conventional intervention
| though?
| Magnets wrote:
| Governments used QE to soften the shock from covid lockdowns
| and basically subsidise the economy. We are now seeing the
| consequences of that decision.
| orblivion wrote:
| I perhaps could have specified that part of the prediction
| was that if QE was used substantially more to deal with
| said shock, it would lead to hyperinflation. What we have
| now looks (to me) like bad inflation but not
| hyperinflation.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I don't know if you mean to be serious, but in case someone
| takes this seriously..
|
| - China GDP is 3x 2007
|
| - USA GDP 1.5x 2007
|
| - New products since 2008: iPhone, Tesla Sedans, Uber, most
| video streaming services, all commercial VR, wearables. etc.
|
| And probably someone was saying the world economy stopped in
| 2000, or other doom and gloom.
| digianarchist wrote:
| Exactly. The idea that this is the result of QE is wrong.
| ravirajx7 wrote:
| Btw what do you all think of global recession? Will it happen? If
| yes, who'll suffer the most?
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Developing markets (starved for dollars to pay back loans) and
| and Europe (starved for energy) will suffer the most imo. The
| US will be infuriatingly fine (given the warmongering they are
| doing). It is most likely the FED will be able to pull of the
| soft landing (even if there is a small recession it will
| probably not be too deep and long)
| iammjm wrote:
| The poor will suffer the most, as has always been the case
| since the beginning of times.
| [deleted]
| testemailfordg2 wrote:
| I am suddenly seeing articles about multiple US tech companies
| doing layoffs / pausing hiring on HN as well, not sure why and
| how all this relates....Has global recession started???
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| The US economy != tech meme stocks.
|
| Small cap tech stocks were literally worth 10-20x their present
| values. They hired like crazy (chasing more of that funny-money
| growth). Now they'll need to cut back some since the funny-
| money valuations are gone.
|
| I wouldn't try to connect the dots and come to the conclusion
| that doom & gloom lies ahead.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| It's elections season and there is about to be a shift in
| power. Those currently in power have been resisting labeling
| the current environment a recession. Expect this to change in
| Q1 2023 as they gaslight you into believing we're in a
| recession because of the new team in charge.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| The recession is driven both by an economic slowdown in China
| and the war in the Ukraine.
|
| The economic slowdown in China is caused by the endless Covid
| lockdowns.
|
| The war in the Ukraine is resulting in a shortage of natural
| gas in Europe, sharply driving up energy prices resulting in
| double digits inflation and people naturally tightening their
| spending.
|
| The USA has mostly been protected as they have their own gas
| and oil supplies, however, they are not immune to what
| happens in the world.
| [deleted]
| nluken wrote:
| While I won't object to the notion that a global recession may
| be on the way, the UK's particular situation is greatly
| exacerbated by Brexit and so might not be universal.
| _puk wrote:
| Don't forget the recent "mini budget" also had quite an
| impact on the current and future state of the UK economy!
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The minibudget was horrible. The immediate economic
| consequences will take a while to resolve still.
| irrational wrote:
| Suddenly? I've been noticing the layoff announcements for more
| than a month. I work for a Fortune 100 company that has frozen
| hiring. That has only happened when layoffs are imminent.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| > Suddenly? I've been noticing the layoff announcements for
| more than a month
|
| Layoffs have been happening since ~April
| irrational wrote:
| Yep, that is more than a month ;-)
| ren_engineer wrote:
| who could have guessed that governments forcing economies to
| shut down for months would have long term ramifications? It's
| not like tons of people warned about the cure potentially being
| worse than the disease when you factored in the long term
| economic damage of lockdowns
| JshWright wrote:
| The global economic situation is certainly complicated, but at
| least in the US growth seems healthy at the moment. My take is
| that most companies are taking advantage of the impression that
| we're in hard economic times to perform layoffs that they
| wanted to do anyway. There are certainly cases where companies
| were too optimistic (expecting a bigger post-pandemic "bounce")
| and over hired.
|
| As far as the UK goes though, this is just result of multiple
| terrible decisions and incompetence on the part of the
| government (Brexit, Truss's proposed tax cuts for the rich,
| etc). It is almost entirely self-inflicted, and the incredibly
| predictable outcome of the government's actions.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| >As far as the UK goes though, this is just result of
| multiple terrible decisions and incompetence on the part of
| the government.
|
| What is your evidence for this? It seems most countries in
| the euro zone are identically situated.
| sph wrote:
| EU has its economical problems, but nothing like Britain.
|
| AFAIR the United Kingdom is the only country whose economy
| still has to reach pre-pandemic levels. Our political
| system has been fighting over that thorny issue for 6
| bloody years, and everything else has been put on hold.
| riffraff wrote:
| GDP Q2 was +0.7% in EU, 0.8% in euro zone[0], 0.2% in
| UK[1].
|
| It's not a huge difference, but it's sizable.
|
| [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php... [1]
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The government was planning to do tax cuts (further
| increasing demand during a period of already-high
| inflation) when the central bank was trying to get
| inflation under control. The market saw the writing on the
| wall and people began selling off UK currency, causing the
| value of the pound to plummet. The central bank had to
| reverse course and decrease rates to prop up the pound in
| the short term to stabilize the economy. Ultimately the PM
| fired her economic minister and then she was ultimately
| forced to resign herself. This situation was unprecedented
| anywhere globally as far as I'm aware.
| pdpi wrote:
| Most countries in the Euro zone aren't on their third
| government since the summer, and didn't have one of those
| governments collapse in the fallout of introducing a tax
| cut for the rich, funded entirely through borrowing, which
| made their bond yields shoot through the roof.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Political turnover doesn't really substantiate the idea
| that Britain is entering a recession because of bad
| economic choices. Again, the rest of the eurozone is in
| the same boat. To me, it only substantiates political
| discontent and a system of government where that kind of
| turnover is possible. I see little evidence that
| Britain's current state of affairs is because of Brexit.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| Most countries in the world didn't stick up a middle
| finger to their largest trading partner, and then failed
| to replace it, in a timely fashion, with alternative
| trade deals.
|
| Most countries in Europe aren't also selling gas's to
| other countries, knowing full well they will have to buy
| it back at a higher price in the winter. The UK has very
| little gas storage compared to other EU countries.
| yoshamano wrote:
| The UK isn't part of the Euro Zone anymore. That's the
| simplest reason. The fallout from that decision will
| continue to drag the UK down as they continue the process
| of not being a Euro Zone economy. At some point things will
| steady, but they're not there yet.
| zabzonk wrote:
| uk never was part of the euro zone
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| UK seems to be in a different boat due to Brexit. While
| definitely suffering from the same issues as the EU,
| they're not in a place to bounce back. Even before the
| current crisis, it was looking increasingly gloom.
|
| See also the wikipedia page on the economic effects of
| Brexit for reference:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit
| kmerroll wrote:
| All respect, but regarding the UK economic situation I think
| you meant (Freedom and national autonomy, and Truss's job
| builders empowerment). Yes, self inflicted but also
| incredibly awesome -- just depends on your view.
|
| I'll see myself out.
| unsui wrote:
| > I'll see myself out.
|
| yes, please do
| fny wrote:
| > My take is that most companies are taking advantage of the
| impression that we're in hard economic times to perform
| layoffs that they wanted to do anyway.
|
| And convince people to take a wage cut or
| outsource/"insource" labor.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| The lay offs are driven directly by the cost of borrowing
| that has gone up this year. We had a decade where money was
| pretty much free. Now money is no longer free, companies
| are looking at cutting costs.
| fny wrote:
| No it's not. I know this is the narrative being pushed,
| but this is not a real problem. Remember, the US
| government pumped out $3T that's still circulating, and
| there was record borrowing at ZIRP for bonds with 30 year
| duration. The Fed's hikes are an attempt to slow that
| down, but money is still on average cheap.
| iammjm wrote:
| But hey, THEY GOT BREXIT DONE! Poor dumb mfs... But to keep
| things in perspective, they fear 6,4% unemployment by 2025. Spain
| is currently at around 13%.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| To be fair, the 'done' part was the actual leaving-
| notwithstanding the issues that continue like the NI border.
|
| I voted to remain and would vote to rejoin. But I think in
| fairness the getting it "done" part was to leave the EU. NI
| border is pretty much unsolvable outside a common market
| anyway.
| hatsubishi wrote:
| Spain has little real unemployment, those numbers are the
| people working without paying taxes or collecting unemployment.
| Look up employment rate instead, it's on par with other OECD
| nations, I.e. Belgium, Italy, some US states, etc
| ravirajx7 wrote:
| which country have the most employment btw?
| iammjm wrote:
| Globally I think its South Africa (~30%); in the EU it is
| Greece (~15%).
| sz4kerto wrote:
| Spanish unemployment numbers are less reliable due to the
| larger grey/black economy.
| hristov wrote:
| The craziest thing is that this recession was mostly self
| inflicted.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Not just self-inflicted, self-inflicted by the BoE, in the
| process of fighting the inflation the BoE itself created by
| printing money irresponsibly, in response to moronic lockdown
| policies.
| ericd wrote:
| Yes, it's self inflicted, but not due to recent events any more
| than a recession is the fault of whoever the sitting president
| is. There are deep, long-standing structural reasons for the
| stuff we find ourselves in, and the cycle is as old as
| civilization, because it's just human nature. The politicians
| who advocate for austerity and fiscal discipline don't tend to
| do as well as those who let the credit run like water.
| kichimi wrote:
| The UK has been under austerity since 2008.
| kayamon wrote:
| Why make the right choice when you can simply make the
| popular choice and then print more money to paper over the
| cost?
| cliftonk wrote:
| the ironic thing is that the US did tons of direct check-type
| helicopter money and yet our growth is healthier and more
| robust than anyone else in the world (and the dollar has also
| outperformed).
|
| given other countries did _not_ undergo similar fiscal programs
| and have faced similar levels of inflation, i would argue that
| the larger component of inflation was the sudden global start-
| stop supply-chain shock from the pandemic rather than purely
| excess demand from the too-large fiscal programs. and i do not
| consider that shock to be self-inflicted (tho the excessive
| fiscal spending certainly was).
| czbond wrote:
| You're confusing having THE reserve currency (for now) with
| having a healthy & robust economic economy or program.
|
| U.S. debt situation is just the least ugly of all the ugly.
| You have to pick something, so for now, the $USD is it.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yea I was commenting here on HN in late 2020 about possible
| inflation because of all this money printing. Was repeatedly
| flagged for speaking up.
|
| You guys don't remember, 2020 was an utter shitshow in terms of
| ability to disagree with the mob. We are better now but it was
| quite telling.
| vkou wrote:
| > Was repeatedly flagged for speaking up
|
| You weren't downvoted for saying that money printing ->
| inflation[1], everyone with a basic grasp of arithmetic can
| understand this.
|
| You were probably downvoted for thinking that letting the
| economy completely implode was preferable to inflation. Or,
| alternatively, that piling a few million bodies onto the
| altar of economic growth[2] in a pre-vaccine world was a good
| idea.
|
| [1] Also, there's a difference between Wall St. inflation and
| Main St. inflation, _and the latter is as much caused by the
| war and supply chain disruptions as it is by the printing
| press_.
|
| [2] Growth which wouldn't have even materialized, because
| everyone with an ounce of self-preservation dramatically
| changed their spending and travel habits.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| No, I am not presenting the full arguments here so don't go
| after what I just put here. Similar comments were upvoted
| later this year.
|
| Reminds me of the pandemic 180 degree turns we made with
| respect to origins. At first, it was unacceptable to
| discuss lab leak theory. After Lancet post, it was then
| suddently acceptable. But, now it is uncool again.
|
| The mob is absolutely ruthless and disgraceful. We need a
| north star to follow that's based on reason and logic, not
| what others are thinking.
| andybak wrote:
| I've followed HN through the pandemic and I found it
| pretty balanced on the lab leak theory. I've personally
| always been open to the idea and I've not noticed a huge
| wave of "mob" behaviour either way.
| munk-a wrote:
| The other craziest thing is that the Bank of England isn't just
| saying "We'll have a recession" but they're specifically
| selling it as the longest recession ever.
|
| If you ever want to have the longest recession ever a great
| first step is for your central bank to say "Hey - this one is
| going to be a lot worse than most of them". One of the
| responsibilities of central banks (which the Fed has taken
| quite seriously) is to carefully control messaging - if you're
| overly optimistic when things are clearly bad you'll cause a
| loss of faith and it'll make things worse... but there's also
| never a reason to go above and beyond expectations in how bad
| you think things will be because that causes people to batten
| down even more hatches and prolong the recession.
|
| Markets are weird and they're essentially gigantic tabloids -
| the image of what's going on counts much more than tangible
| things like a shortage of widgets.
| yakak wrote:
| The US is still entirely driven by its own consumers and the
| way its behavior reflects off the international economy,
| driving all that voodoo noise, but the UK?
|
| I think they should kill zombie businesses quicker (yay,
| interest rates!) and try to pick up as many international
| worker positions from companies least likely to be zombies.
| Their downward slope locally is pretty inevitable but puts
| them in a good position like a weak currency for exports.
|
| Giving up on a shoot the moon strategy that has gone this far
| usually means shooting yourself.
| c7b wrote:
| > One of the responsibilities of central banks is to
| carefully control messaging
|
| That might be exactly what they're doing. The article says
| that their forward guidance for interest rate hikes is
| substantially below market expectations. Maybe they are
| hoping that a bit of gloomy talking will do some the work of
| slowing down price dynamics, reducing the need for them to
| take more drastic measures.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| Yeah when they were talking about all the red tape that will be
| gone and then introducing the ukca marking to replace the ce
| marking... (facepalm)
|
| The annoying British exceptionalism is for once coming to bite
| hard.
| rwmj wrote:
| No one who does a days work in Britain thinks any of this is
| a good thing. It's largely generated by a far right party
| through a voting system that allows pensioners (a minority)
| to control who gets into power.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Wouldn't inflation (and thus tax cuts) hit pensioners the
| hardest? Presumably inflation hits pensioners harder than
| those who are still working? I'm not sure how the UK
| pension system works, but I wouldn't want to sell off my
| retirement investments at low prices for currency with
| sharply reduced buying power. Is the idea that they voted
| in this government which then betrayed them (either through
| incompetence or malfeasance)?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I think it's not even an act of betrayal - they did
| exactly what they said they were going to do. It also
| wasn't like there was nobody saying how bad of an idea it
| was - basically anyone who had any kind of knowledge of
| economics was screaming that it was a horrible idea and
| people still voted for it because they saw it as a
| rejection of the outgroup social exercise which is,
| unfortunately, one of the most egregious bugs in the
| human firmware.
| misnome wrote:
| > I'm not sure how the UK pension system works,
|
| In principle, unless the Government reverses it (which
| they are semi-consistently somewhat threatening to do),
| UK pensions are supposed to be protected by a "Triple
| lock". They increase each year by whatever is the highest
| out of inflation, average wage, or 2.5%. So if the
| country tanks and inflation skyrockets, they are supposed
| to get an increase to match it.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
| makomk wrote:
| The triple lock only applies to the state pension, which
| is not generous - it's basically about the bare minimum
| to live on I think. That's part of the reason why the
| government is willing to increase it so aggressively.
| [deleted]
| rjsw wrote:
| Not sure that is completely true. People working in
| construction or hospitality are probably happy for now that
| there are fewer people competing with them for jobs.
| kergonath wrote:
| There has been a labour shortage for years now in these
| sectors. It hasn't helped their situation and both pubs
| and shops keep closing. These people have few reasons to
| be happy.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Even if that were true - and it isn't - countless export-
| oriented businesses have been shutting down because it is
| now insanely bureaucratic and uneconomically expensive to
| trade with a bloc that is just over 20 miles away.
|
| The lies told to get Brexit over the line normalised a
| period of exceptionalist reality-denying insanity which
| has spilled over into Covid policy, economic policy,
| climate policy, health policy, energy policy, immigration
| policy [1], transport and logistics, media credibility,
| and political stability.
|
| It is - without any exaggeration at all - an absolute
| shit show.
|
| No one earning less than a few million a year has
| benefited in any lasting or significant way. Certainly
| not big-picture economically.
|
| [1] Pandemic aside, Brexit has had no impact on
| immigration numbers.
|
| https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings
| /lo...
| jayceedenton wrote:
| Far right? Come on now.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Right is relative. The Tories are currently way to the
| right of where they have been, historically speaking.
| This came from the absorption/takeover when all the
| "Britain First" <redacted>'s joined up.
| Veen wrote:
| That is fiction.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Hardly.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/paul-
| golding-...
| Veen wrote:
| Golding didn't join the Tories. He tried to join and was
| rejected. The Tories have not been taken over or absorbed
| by Britain First.To say so is an absurd lie. Any fool
| with PS20 can join a political party but that doesn't
| mean they determine policy or have any control. Do you
| really think Rishi Sunak or Suella Braverman take their
| orders from Britain First nutcases?
| LightG wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| England has been captured by far-right think-tanks,
| dressed up in nice suits and dresses. There are pockets
| of resistence within the ruling party, but that doesn't
| change the last 10 years of madness.
|
| If you are unaware of this, your personal Overton window
| is all over the place. I'd get that checked out at the
| local mechanics.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| >" England has been captured by far-right think-tanks."
|
| What are the top three most far-right policies the UK
| government is now pursuing since it was captured by these
| think tanks?
| kergonath wrote:
| The Brexit isolationism thing? The immigration policy and
| the way they deal with refugees crossing the Channel? The
| Rwanda thing? I mean, it's really not that difficult.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| The only reason that seems far right to you is that the
| Overton window has radically shifted. Not being beholden
| to the EU and controlling your borders was perfectly
| normal 30 years ago.
|
| Hell, the whole "not letting anyone in just because they
| claim to be a refugee" aspect was normal in Europe...10
| years ago?
| jayceedenton wrote:
| Yes, I think my personal Overton window is around 3 years
| behind. It hasn't caught up with what we're now happy to
| call 'Far right'.
|
| As far as I can tell, anything remotely right wing is now
| 'Far right' amongst a growing band of idiotic and
| insufferable liberal moralisers, so the moniker has
| effectively lost all meaning.
|
| It's a lost cause us discussing this. I think if you
| describe how the UK has been governed in the last 10
| years as 'far right', you're an idealogue and completely
| irrational. You're convinced I'm blissfully ignorant with
| an unintentionally warped political compass, or I'm a
| crypto right-winger. Oh well.
| shagie wrote:
| With the mess of England's prime minster, a number of
| Brexit videos showed up in my feed on Youtube... some of
| the ones that I've watched that are interesting.
|
| A German documentary (it has English subtitles for the
| German narration)): British Fishermen and Brexit | ARTE.tv
| Documentary https://youtu.be/gUKywFazdDo
|
| A financial times article on Brexit - The Brexit effect:
| how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film
| https://youtu.be/wO2lWmgEK1Y
|
| A TLDR from earlier this week: No-one Likes Brexit Anymore:
| What Happens Next? https://youtu.be/kLZOlHhumq8 (the main
| part on this relevant is the polling and the corresponding
| events)
|
| ---
|
| There's a fair bit of Brexit-regret going on now and some
| people apparently still think its a good idea. At the time
| of the referendum, it appears that quite a few people who
| did a day's work in Britain thought that it was a good
| idea, but have since come to realize that it wasn't.
| cirrus-clouds wrote:
| Your comment is perfectly reasonable and doesn't deserve
| downvote. I have seen the FT report on YouTube - it is
| excellent and worth a watch.
|
| I can also recommended this short video (3 min): _Brexit
| update (August 2022)_
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUiJxH2pclM
|
| (As an aside, our national newspapers, mostly right-wing
| and Conservative-supporting, have poisoned political
| discourse for decades in the UK. The FT is the only
| national newspaper with a higher standard of journalism
| than the others.)
| shagie wrote:
| That was a nice short clip, and looking into it, the
| voice of Anna Ford was initially lost on me (not being
| British).
|
| I found the German one to be the interesting too in that
| it was more "regular person" interview content (which was
| all in English) and the thoughts that they had about the
| Brexit, the promises that they were given and what
| they're seeing now. The FT video had a much more business
| orientation, which while informative on the, well,
| financial side of it didn't capture the common person's
| experience as much.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Even better: there are two UKCA marks. UKCA for the Uk and
| UKNI for Northern Ireland.
| hanoz wrote:
| _> mostly self inflicted_
|
| ...by the Bank of England stoking a multi decade house price
| bubble.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| we had to save the people from a 99.98% survivable
| virus..........
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The main self-inflicted cause here is the energy crisis, which
| is by and large a result of bad policy recently and over the
| past decades. The second self-inflicted cause is public
| spending during Covid, bearing in mind that the UK has always
| been more exposed because it is not 'shielded' behind the euro.
|
| If you are thinking of Brexit, I don't think it is a major
| cause although it obviously does not help.
| w14 wrote:
| Indeed - it was set up long before Ukraine or Liz Truss. But
| aside from bad long term energy policy, the incompetence of
| Andrew Bailey can't be ignored in my view.
|
| In July 2021, Andrew Bailey said "Our forecast at the moment
| is that we do expect inflation to pick up in the next month
| or so really ... At the moment we don't see that evidence [of
| long term inflation] but we will watch it, of course we must
| do, very carefully."
|
| So he took no action.
|
| By October 2021 his colleague Hugh Pill said "The magnitude
| and duration of the UK's inflation spike is proving greater
| than expected ..."
|
| And yet they continued to do nothing. They continued to claim
| inflation would rise to a few percent and then drop back.
|
| It may be reasonable to say that they couldn't foresee
| Ukraine, but the inflationary pressure was already there, as
| you say partly because of Covid bailout money printing, but
| also from the supply side because of China's zero Covid
| policy, which was already recognised by many, but not by the
| Bank of England apparently, as being a fairly major
| contributor of inflationary pressure [1].
|
| [1] - https://www.asiapacific.ca/publication/china-has-hit-
| inflect...
| brookst wrote:
| And since recessions are partly a product of mass psychology,
| announcing that this will be the worstest recession ever makes
| it more likely to be the worstest recession ever. Even now they
| can't stop punching themselves in the face.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Did they punch themselves in the face or was it Cambridge
| Analytica type meddling from groups with a vested interest in
| Brexit happening stomping them in the face with a boot?
|
| From my brief reading about the matter it seems that the same
| villains showed up over there for that manipulation campaign.
| jfengel wrote:
| Mostly column A, a little column B.
|
| There's also a big chunk of column C: the leading
| opposition party did a terrible job of opposing it. There
| was a chunk of the Labour party, including its leader, who
| also favor Brexit, albeit a very different kind of Brexit
| from the Tories. For them, it's more about anti-globalism
| and anti-corporate-control.
|
| That leader eventually resigned, but by that point the
| damage was done.
|
| I can't predict what would have happened if the Labour
| party had chosen to unify on a pro-Europe platform, but
| they were soundly defeated. The Tory party won
| resoundingly, and they had run on a pro-Brexit platform.
|
| There is always skullduggery, but it's really just
| something the UK did to itself.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| This is not true. There _were_ a small number Labour MPs
| who wanted to leave, including Gisela Stuart, Kate Hoey,
| and Graham Stringer, but by the time of the referendum,
| Jeremy Corbyn had long changed his mind, accepted we
| should remain in the EU, and campaigned for that:
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/22/corbyn-
| fina...
| jfengel wrote:
| The problem wasn't just the referendum itself, but again
| in 2019. Corbyn said he had "a neutral stance on Brexit".
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50530163
|
| The actual referendum was very close, and there was a lot
| of room for Labour to argue that it wasn't intended to be
| binding, or at least a Brexit In Name Only. The result
| was that Labour was creamed and the Tories got a real
| majority, whereas previously they'd been saddled with
| UKIP.
|
| Corbyn also failed at the referendum, arriving at a
| belated and wishy-washy stance, and without compelling
| Labour to follow it. Had he resigned then, things might
| have been very different. Instead, he continued to lead
| Labour in a way that left people confused about where
| they stood on Brexit when put in the form of a
| Parliamentary election. Nobody could read the results as
| anything but "The nation voted strongly for Brexit."
|
| I don't believe that really reflects what voters wanted,
| but elections are poor tools for sending messages. What
| they do is put people in office, and the people in office
| were people strongly for Brexit.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| Labour offered another referendum on membership, which
| none of other parties offered or were in a position to
| deliver, so the decision to leave could have been
| overturned if enough people wanted it to. A Labour
| victory would have given them the chance, regardless of
| Corbyn's stance.
| _puk wrote:
| "While it will not be the UK's deepest downturn, it will be
| the longest since records began in the 1920s, the Bank said."
|
| They didn't say it would be the worst, just the longest.
|
| They've also indicated that they aren't going to just keep
| madly raising interest rates, but expect to top out by next
| autumn:
|
| "The Bank has done something it doesn't normally do in the
| published minutes of its decisions - it has given guidance
| that seems to suggest a peak in interest rates of about 4.5%
| next autumn.".
|
| So it's far from scare mongering (on the bank's part, can't
| control how the media portray it), and more "this is not
| going to be a quick fix, we have some idea of how bad it'll
| get, and it's not as bad as the 80s. Please don't panic".
|
| Quite a measured response in reaction to some bad news IMO.
| brookst wrote:
| I fail to see any upside from the bank forecasting a long
| recession. It's hard to believe it's a high accuracy
| forecast; the central tenant of economies is that they
| usually do what you don't expect.
|
| Agreed with everything else you said. "This is not going to
| be a quick fix, we have some idea of how bad it'll get, and
| it's not as bad as the 80s. Please don't panic" is perfect
| phrasing. But saying it will be the longest recorded
| absolutely is fear mongering, and partly self-fulfilling.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| That's unfortunately not true (it would be nice if it was,
| because that would imply that fixing it would be easier than it
| actually is). The idiotic decisions of the government did play
| a minor role, but the UK economy was already on the road to
| ruin before that happened.
| substation13 wrote:
| > that would imply that fixing it would be easier than it
| actually is
|
| I assume the self-inflicted part is leaving the common market
| / customs union... and rejoining this is not easy at all. I
| think it might be politically impossible for at least 10
| years.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I wonder if EU would let UK join without adopting the Euro.
| The UK seems to have lost a lot of its negotiating power
| that let them keep the GBP the first time.
| kcartlidge wrote:
| > _I wonder if EU would let UK join without adopting the
| Euro. The UK seems to have lost a lot of its negotiating
| power that let them keep the GBP the first time._
|
| If the UK rejoined (assuming it was welcome after the
| last few years) I find myself wondering if forcing us
| (I'm British) to go all the way - into the Euro and
| onwards to full participation in everything - might
| actually be a good idea.
|
| There are some aspects which taken in isolation may not
| be that great an idea (eg a Euro which includes such a
| variety of economies), but contrast that with the last
| approx half century where we've been the wall-fly. The
| one who goes to the dance, but hangs around the edges and
| never really joins in.
|
| Half-hearted commitment can often be worse than none at
| all, and being forced to commit fully in order to be able
| to rejoin may well be the making of a better UK that
| takes it seriously and helps drive things forward.
|
| Possibly.
| substation13 wrote:
| What the UK had before was pretty much "EU membership the
| good parts" - and (a slim majority of) the public
| rejected that. Is full membership really possible?
| gort19 wrote:
| That was a slim majority of who voted at the time. Leave
| voters heavily skewed older. Even just taking out the
| people who have died since the vote would result in a
| remain vote. 15 years worth of younger voters would
| overwhelmingly vote for remain.
|
| Unless they change their minds in the meantime.
| the_why_of_y wrote:
| Half the countries in the EU don't use the Euro. Many
| economists recommend against a currency union without
| possibility of fiscal transfers to deal with asymmetric
| shocks, predicting what happened in the years after 2008.
| jsemrau wrote:
| I'd agree after watching this YT video by the Financial
| Times. Suddenly having to pay import taxes led many
| companies to move operations to mainland Europe.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO2lWmgEK1Y
| marvindanig wrote:
| Apparently the evangelical jehadis and MAGAts are likely
| gonna succeed towards a similar outcome here in the US. These
| people forget how much better western economies were before
| BREXIT and MAGA nuisance took over.
| frereubu wrote:
| The way I look at it, there are many issues facing many
| economies at the moment. What Brexit did was remove any
| contingency that might have been available to ride out the
| storm.
| bluepizza wrote:
| I think OP means all of the idiotic decisions, from Brexit to
| all of the delusional politics that have achieved no actual
| economical advantages to the UK ever since.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Yes, I think those have contributed, but I think they play
| a minor role compared with some fundamental problems with
| both the global economy (Ukraine, most obviously) and the
| UK economy (low productivity).
| bluepizza wrote:
| You are correct. But it's not unfair to expect that one
| of the richest and most developed countries in the world
| would find ways around those issues.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| The whole world is going through a down turn, however,
| the UK will likely impacted harder and longer. We gave up
| a trade deal with a very large trading block, the EU, and
| haven't been able to make up for this by having trade
| deals with the USA, China or India so far. The few wins,
| trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, are mostly
| symbolic as the impact on the GDP is expected to be
| small.
|
| A trade deal with China looks unlikely given the current
| political climate. Trade deals with both the USA and
| India are fraught with political risk. The USA wants to
| be able to export GM food to the UK, out pricing UK
| farmers that were reliant on EU subsidies until recently.
| India is after a deal on immigration and this is even
| more contentious.
|
| Trade deals will eventually be signed, however, almost
| certainly won't help to shorten or lessen the impact of
| the current recession.
| kcartlidge wrote:
| > _the UK economy (low productivity)_
|
| (Not directing this at you, as I have no knowledge of
| what you consider low productivity to mean.)
|
| What is often missed in the talk of low productivity is
| that the general assumption on hearing the phrase is that
| the problem is a lazy and unproductive workforce, which
| leads to the workers being an obvious target of blame.
|
| In economics terms MFP is the more important view of
| productivity, and it's the amount of output that can be
| generated for a given set of inputs including not just
| labour but also capital/investment. And in general terms
| the largest issue here is not lazy workers but extractive
| management and asset-owners who take out the profits (as
| dividends, salaries, share buy-backs, etc) rather than
| reinvest them in the companies and the infrastructure.
| Without that investment the organisation remains below
| par for productivity as the inputs remain stagnant.
|
| And that understanding shifts both the blame (and the
| required direction of travel to tackle the issue) to
| where it should be focused. Not pay, workers rights, etc,
| but addressing the inequality that allows that extraction
| which is the real cause of the productivity gap.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > mostly self inflicted
|
| So self inflicted that all the world is heading in the same
| direction? The EU and USA are suffering from pretty much the
| same issues.
| mywittyname wrote:
| World: If you jump off the cliff, it's going to hurt really
| badly.
|
| England: Nah, everything will be so much better at that bottom
| of this cliff.
|
| World: But that's a really high cliff, and you're talking about
| jumping off of it.
|
| England: YOLOooooOOOOooo
|
| Also England: These broken legs really hurt. I probably won't
| be able to walk for a while.
|
| World: <Jackie Chan face>
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's weird to see this stuff posted so much without anyone
| bothering to make a case for how Brexit caused this. Somebody
| just posts a "told you not to do brexit," which begins a
| thread of mutual congratulations and praise.
|
| How did Brexit affect the US economy so badly at the same
| time?
| mywittyname wrote:
| Numerous economists spent years informing everyone the
| downsides of the UK leaving the EU. And pointing out that
| there was no way the the EU would allow the UK to keep the
| benefits of open trade with the bloc while not having to
| accept the "downsides" the UK was seeking to avoid.
|
| So when Brexit happened, and all those predictions
| happened, the only thing really to say is, "we told you
| so."
|
| The British economy has been hurting so much worse than the
| rest of the world. The British pound has fallen 14% against
| the dollar compared to the Euro, which only fell by 10%.
|
| They are completely unable to sell bonds now. At this
| point, they are being forced to buy their bonds in order to
| keep the market for their bonds from total collapse. This
| is only going ot further erode the value of the pound and
| continue to make inflation in England the worst in the
| developed world.
|
| The UK is going through everything the EU is, plus a bunch
| of self-imposed issues. They are in a leadership crisis and
| an economic crisis, and their near-to-mid term economic
| prospects are bleak.
| sph wrote:
| Brexit was an idiotic idea, but the criminal part was the
| Tory government deciding to listen to the far-right
| Brexit version of "fuck off Europe, we'll leave and won't
| even try to negotiate some kind of trade agreement."
|
| Remember when they were considering a Norway-like
| agreement? Or perhaps like Switzerland?
|
| There were many ways of adapting to this new life outside
| the EU, and they've decided to go for the hardest,
| stupidest imaginable version, just to appease an extreme
| fringe of ultra nationalist pillocks that took over the
| entire Conservative party.
|
| And to appear a reasonable alternative to these
| imbeciles, Labour is adopting the same party line,
| because anything apart from the hardest Brexit imaginable
| is politically toxic.
|
| No one even dares to build a pragmatic platform trying to
| make the best out of a terrible situation. 48% voted to
| Leave and only a smaller subset of that wanted to
| completely burn all bridges. If you wanted to stay or
| wanted a softer Brexit, good luck, no big party is
| representing you right now.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| "Remember when they were considering a Norway-like
| agreement? Or perhaps like Switzerland? "
|
| The self-interested groups who were trying to deny that
| the vote had happened were some of the loudest voices
| against any sort of soft Brexit. therefore all but
| guaranteeing chaotic Brexit.
|
| Look at the indicative votes in early 2019 at a time when
| the government was paralysed and desperate to get any way
| out. Those voting against single market / customs union
| were nationalists, green, change uk and right wing labour
| MPs.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > So when Brexit happened, and all those predictions
| happened
|
| _None_ of them happened. There weren 't rampant food,
| fuel, and medicine shortages and mass deportations, and
| Britain didn't become a Mad Max wasteland.
|
| The pound lost a few cents, and then a couple of years
| later, when _everything_ was dropping against the dollar
| (because of US interest rate decisions) and _all_ of
| Europe is having fuel problems for obvious reasons, these
| things also happened to Britain. What part of not doing
| Brexit would have prevented this, and how did Brexit also
| cause these problems in the EU?
|
| This doesn't make all of the Tory/UKIP lies about the
| benefits of Brexit more truthful, but time shows Remoaner
| statements about the consequences of Brexit were at least
| wild exaggerations, if not outright lies themselves.
|
| I would say that Corbyn's 70/30 Remain/Brexit evaluation
| turned out to be the most realistic assessment, but he
| was hated and destroyed for it by both the Remoaners and
| Brexiteers.
| tim333 wrote:
| Some of the bad stuff predicted for Brexit happened -
| lower economic growth, businesses exporting to Europe
| having problems, queues down the M20, extra paperwork,
| difficulty getting fruit and veg picked for example. On
| the other hand some didn't like a house price crash
| (yet).
|
| An odd side effect I didn't expect is that we got a worse
| class of politicians as the smart honest ones who were
| prepared to admit it was a mess didn't get in power and
| instead we got Boris and Liz who were quite prepared to
| say any old nonsense to get the job.
|
| Still, onwards and upwards! Maybe.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The UK economy is doing much worse than the US economy. The
| recovery looks like it'll take much longer too.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The UK made a lot more mistakes than Brexit. It would be
| interesting to see any of the specifics discussed,
| instead of these weird mutual reinforcement circles. It's
| why Brexiters thought remoaners were condescending and
| snooty. IMO (and the O of many) it's why Brexit won: it
| was a referendum on public remoaners.
| sph wrote:
| In face of what's going on, repeatedly calling people
| "remoaners" to this day just proves there can be had no
| intelligent discussion with you.
|
| But sure, keep insulting people and crying "no one
| listens to our reasons." Because all we can hear now is
| the Brexit voting areas collectively feeling duped. Not
| by the Remoaners, but by those that promised to take back
| your bloody borders they so much cared about and now are
| poorer than they were before.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| To play devil's advocate, I'm not sure (the rest of) Europe
| is much better off.
| origin_path wrote:
| Sshhh, you're not supposed to point out that inflation and
| recession are happening in many countries. The unwritten
| rule here is that if anything bad happens anywhere in the
| UK, it's always because of leaving the EU.
|
| Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the
| UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU
| was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and
| catch up; the unique performance of the UK in this area was
| due to it ignoring the EU joint acquisition programme.
| That's all been memory holed a long time ago, of course.
| The EU is best at everything.
| ginko wrote:
| >Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago
| the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the
| EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try
| and catch up; the unique performance of the UK in this
| area was due to it ignoring the EU joint acquisition
| programme.
|
| It's only you guys that made this a competition in the
| first place. If anything it's good for you this whole
| episode has been memory holed since it made the UK look
| like a bunch of selfish pricks. Meanwhile the UK had the
| highest number of total COVID deaths per capita in
| Western Europe.
| the_why_of_y wrote:
| > Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago
| the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the
| EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try
| and catch up
|
| Actually, the issue was that AstraZeneca had
| simultaneously signed a contract with the UK with a
| clause that it would give them priority access to
| vaccines, and with the EU with a clause that it doesn't
| have any other contract that would prevent it from
| fulfilling its requirements.
|
| Naturally this eventually went to court.
|
| https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/eu-v-astrazeneca-
| les...
| pasabagi wrote:
| Eh, you're overthinking the vaccine story. It's
| unsurprising that the UK had better access to vaccines:
| the UK is one of the world's biggest medical industry
| centers.
|
| The point about inflation and recession is not that it
| isn't happening elsewhere: it's just that it's _worse_ in
| the UK. It 's also kind of obvious that putting a tariff
| on all your exports (leaving the common market) is bad
| for the economy.
|
| I suspect brexit is more a symptom than a cause. The UK
| has had horrible economic growth for over a decade now,
| largely driven by a political system that concentrates
| power in the hands of not particularly competent people.
| makomk wrote:
| UK inflation in September: 10.1%
|
| Eurozone inflation in September: 9.9%
|
| I've seen some wild claims circulating that, for example,
| 80% of the UK's inflation is caused by Brexit but those
| don't seem at all plausible. No EU member has inflation
| that low, France's is about the lowest at 6.2% and that's
| with some fairly substantial and expensive energy price
| subsidies keeping it down. In fact I don't think there's
| any country in the developed world with inflation as low
| as that would imply the UK's should be if not for Brexit.
| kergonath wrote:
| > UK inflation in September: 10.1%
|
| Inflation is only part of the problem. The economy is not
| in a great shape overall. And the forecasts are terrible.
| If you read a bit more on what the BoE says, you'll see
| there is more to it than the sound bites you get from
| politicians. Also, Labour is lucky not to be in power
| right now, but they will still have to do the thankless,
| dirty work when they get their majority. Expect some
| vocal disappointment in the near future.
|
| For context, whilst the BoE forecasts the longest
| recession ever in the UK, the ECB adjusted its forecasts
| for 2022 to 4% and 2023 to 2.7%. The British economy
| really is not behaving like the EU's.
| pasabagi wrote:
| It's a bit of a misleading stat - the EU's avg. inflation
| is brought up by the poorer countries. If you compare the
| UK to France, Germany, Italy (the normal points of
| comparison, in other words), it's obviously doing fairly
| badly[0].
|
| It's also not the only stat that looks bad. Foreign
| direct investment, for instance, fell off a cliff.
| Exports have basically plateaued, probably because it's
| actually really difficult to get things in and out of the
| EU now.
|
| On a more fundamental level, leaving the single market is
| essentially declaring a trade war on your own economy.
| It's never going to be a good economic proposition, and
| the hard brexit we've ended up makes it pretty onerous to
| do anything over EU/UK borders.
|
| [0]: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-inflation-compare-
| european-coun...
| makomk wrote:
| No, it really is only France and a couple of smaller
| countries which have that comparatively low inflation -
| Germany was 10.9%, Italy 9.4%. That headline average
| inflation figure is pretty representative. (Also, it
| looks like one of the countries bringing up the average
| was the Netherlands which is definitely not considered
| one of the poorer countries.)
|
| What people do often point to is the interest rates
| Germany's government pays to borrow money, which are
| rather lower than the UK (and lower than the rest of the
| Eurozone). Basically, the only comparisons that get made
| are the ones that make the UK look worse.
| kergonath wrote:
| The UK is in a very, very bad situation. Just look at the
| crisis management being done at the Bank of England
| compared to the ECB. Inflation affects the whole of Europe,
| yes, but other countries do not have anything like the cost
| of living crisis in the UK. And the recession is also much
| worse in the UK in general (some specific EU countries fare
| better or worse on some specific aspects, of course). None
| of these countries are talking about austerity right now.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I would reserve judgment for a couple of years. I would
| not bet on the EU as faring any better in the long run.
| kergonath wrote:
| I hope so, and I don't wish any harm to my British
| friends (well, I hope everyone will be ok, I certainly
| don't wish any harm to my fellow Europeans on the
| continent either).
|
| But there are many reasons why the EU could fare better
| over the long term. More people (and a bigger unified
| internal market), more land (and natural resources), more
| industry, for a start. The thing with the UK is that a
| lot of that is self inflicted and mind bogglingly stupid.
| Why are the conservatives still in power? The whole
| political system is holding the country back.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| The interest rate in Hungary is 13%.
| pojzon wrote:
| Thank you for explaining it for younger audience, but I dont
| think many of them visit hackernews.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The YOLO crowd have to be in their mid to late 20's at
| least, now, right? That seems like prime HN demographics.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| What _are_ the hn demographics? Is there a regular survey
| or anything? Would people be interested in a survey?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| You can roughly tell by the prevalence of Twitter
| compared to Snap/IG/Facebook. 30s is definitely highest
| proportion, not 20s by a longshot.
| kergonath wrote:
| That would actually be very interesting. There's a bunch
| of young idealists, but also a bunch of old geezers, and
| I assume everything in between.
| sph wrote:
| The younger ones are not the one that need an explanation,
| as the distribution of votes in favour of Brexit was
| strongly correlated with older age.
|
| Brexit reinforces my very controversial belief that
| pensioners should not be able to vote. The future is not
| theirs. Elderly wisdom is a terrible cultural meme. People
| grow wiser as they age, but are not wiser in the absolute.
| Also, a young mind ingests many orders of magnitude more
| information about the world than a person with declining
| mental faculties and ossified beliefs.
|
| /rant
| sacrosancty wrote:
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Hmm. I am going to oversimplify a little bit.
|
| On average, young people see the world, see that it does
| not work, and want to change it. Hence, they chant:
| "Change things!"
|
| On average, old people see the world, they already
| settled on a routine that mostly works for them ( genuine
| survivor bias ) and do not want to change one thing for
| fear of losing what little they have. Hence, they chant:
| "Stop changing things!"
|
| It is a question of balance. I always said that the
| biggest problem with democracy is its weakest link as it
| depends on a well informed voter. Fear is not a great
| advisor, but it is a great motivator.
| sph wrote:
| The other huge problem of democracy is that it doesn't
| account for human biases, such as the Donning-Kruger
| effect: people with high expertise tend to see flaws in
| one party or the other and will tend to not vote for
| anybody, while people with low expertise and knowledge
| buy any politician's lies wholesale and thus can be
| easily swayed by the best liar. So on average more liars
| get to govern us than good politicians.
|
| Additionally, the other issue is that the best people
| with the expertise to solve a country's issues are
| exactly those that couldn't be bothered to get into
| politics. Likewise, career politicians tends to be
| absolutely inept and unqualified to run a country.
|
| Democracy is the least worse form of government, but it
| still is very very bad.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| My grandfather is 98 years old.
|
| Despite family protestations he still drives.
|
| There is no law in my state which demands he undergo
| yearly driving tests to ensure he still has the capacity
| and mental faculties to do so.
|
| This is not going to end well for him or more importantly
| someone else.
|
| It is crazy.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| He presumably remembers how to drive a car. Private
| pilots don't have to resit their flying tests annually
| beyond a certain age, but they _do_ have to prove they
| 're medically fit to fly. If you're allowed to fly a
| light aircraft after passing a regular medical
| examination which checks things like eyesight, chronic
| illnesses which would affect their ability to drive, and
| reaction times, a similar arrangement should be adequate
| for driving a car.
| tim333 wrote:
| The oldies go slowly and tend to end up with some low
| speed impacts giving dented cars rather than injury.
| Maybe if you get 2 or 3 of those in a year it's time to
| stop.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| People often blame England, but it was the whole of the UK,
| there were enclaves of opposition in all of the home nations.
|
| Also, there were plenty of opposing voices in the UK (I
| realise we're party of the World, still!). Financial experts
| unanimously agreed it would damage our financial system; they
| only differed in whether it was worth it. Those for Brexit
| agreed that there would be up to a decade of economic damage.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Those for Brexit agreed that there would be up to a
| decade of economic damage.
|
| Those for Brexit never argued such a thing before it was
| obvious things were going to be bad. The day before the
| referendum you had Farage on the radio saying that leaving
| the single market would be stupid and that the EU would
| just fold and let the UK in with its own rules. Remember
| the "pro cake and pro eating it"?
| tim333 wrote:
| Which is the kind of stuff that makes me think there
| should have been or maybe be a second vote now people
| know what the actual deal is. Still I went on the 2nd
| vote marches but the MPs weren't having it. Dunno where
| it goes now.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Nicked.
| unity1001 wrote:
| You described the process as something that was quite polite.
| It was more like they screamed, yelled at, smeared and
| insulted everyone who warned them. And when people informed
| them that the warnings started visibly coming true, they
| doubled down and declared everyone as an enemy.
|
| Brexit process and its aftermath was a crazy, crazy case
| study, once in a lifetime observation opportunity for social
| sciences.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| its not Brexit. They spent 700 billion on covid.
| eloff wrote:
| Yeah, that about sums it up. I ended up holding a bunch of
| GBP, in an company in admistration (bankruptcy.) I'm getting
| a haircut on my haircut. If you made an inverse ETF taking
| the opposite side of my lifetime investment decisions, the
| performance would be stellar.
| olivermarks wrote:
| The UK is essentially three entities: the city of London (a
| wormhole to a giant offshore tax exile trusts network) and a
| quasi sovereign state, the Crown corporation and the actual
| sovereign state. The money being siphoned off by the first two
| entities are largely immune to the oncoming UK nation state
| recession and are heavily invested in increased stateless
| globalization.
| olivermarks wrote:
| A great article by Labour peer Lord Glasman
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feab...
| olivermarks wrote:
| Adam Curtis Uk 'oh dearism' 5 minute piece after the 2008
| shakedown
|
| https://youtu.be/wcy8uLjRHPM
| olivermarks wrote:
| If you have the time this is 120 minute documentary THE
| SPIDER'S WEB reveals how Britain transformed from a
| colonial power into a global financial power
|
| At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests
| created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that
| captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind
| obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands.
| Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden
| in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its
| offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in
| the world of international finance. How did this come
| about, and what impact does it have on the world today?
|
| Directed by Michael Oswald
|
| https://youtu.be/4n3txSCoKn0
|
| also contains some pro EU commentaries about tax avoidance
| WanderPanda wrote:
| What are the exact mechanisms and quantities that the mentioned
| entities are ,,siphoning" from the other one?
| [deleted]
| pedalpete wrote:
| Does anybody else think that the media has been wrong so many
| times about growth and recessions that everything is always
| overblown.
|
| 2000 - technology forever 2001 - it's over, go home. 2006 -
| everything will go up forever! 2008 - RIP good times 2010 - we're
| going to be ok 2018 - boy were we wrong about 2008 - nothing can
| go wrong 2020 - oh crap, it's over 2021 - nope, we're fine, go
| all the things! 2022 - worst recession ever!
|
| I even feel like I'm missing some things in there.
|
| I'm not saying there isn't a downturn, there obviously is, but
| that's a downturn from the peak, and everyone being scared.
|
| As Buffett says, be greedy when others are fearful, and I'd say
| everyone is more fearful now than they've ever been.
|
| Looking at stock markets, the 2008 recession, S&P 500 showed the
| biggest drop from May 2008 - Jan 2009, with recovery from then.
| 2000 saw a slower descent from July 2000 to Sept 2002, but also
| slower growth on the back.
|
| This time we've seen a a sharp decline, and I think there is a
| bit more of a decline, but how much of the decline is already
| priced in?
|
| From 2000 to 2007 we really lost faith in growth and technology.
| Did much happen in the technology sector from 2000 to 2006? The
| iPod, media was going digital, but at the time that was mostly a
| loss of revenue to labels, not a lot of growth. Social was being
| figured out, etc etc.
|
| Then came iPhone, mobile, social, SaaS (AWS began in 2006). These
| things converged for huge growth and really brought the internet
| and technology to the promise it initially aimed for.
|
| This time, we're at the early stages of AI, clean-tech, bio &
| neurotech (my field).
|
| My current belief is that yes, we've hit a wall, what do you do
| when you hit a wall? You don't stop. You go and beat the hell out
| of that wall. It will come down.
|
| I see a bright future, but maybe I'm delusional.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Maybe this explains why major publications have been calling for
| a "pandemic amnesty" lately about what was done and said about
| Covid.
| ls15 wrote:
| "I am sorry for destroying your life, so let's move on."
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-03 23:03 UTC)