Why are we on a steady downward decline

[Neverknowno]

What is the root cause of the UK’s downward slide? What is behind the low productivity?

Is it because we do not tax high earners enough to fund public services? Or are our taxes too high?

Is it because of the increasing number of the workforce going permanently off ill?

To much stuff is in private ownership.Powerstations, train and bus companies.
We import far too much stuff.

Too many people are caught in the benefits trap.
Employers want flexibility but nobody can really cope without regular hours and shifts.

The UK is a small overcrowded island, nobody who isn't a full time resident should be allowed to buy property. And we have a shortage of affordable housing.

A combination of Tory mismanagement coupled with a public who now expect everything for free, and to never take responsibility for their own actions. Plus an obsession with introspection which has ruined the public’s mental health and therefore productivity. Our approach to mental health is almost obsessive and it’s had the reverse effect.

Brexit and austerity

Omg I was speaking to lady in shop the other day she said food in Italy has fine through the roof etc ect

I’m 63 and I’ve lived through many many of these ups and downs. It’s not terminal. It’ll bounce back (and then down again etc etc).

@HeddaGarbled 56 here I don’t think I’ve seen it as bad as this there seemed to be so much more fun and optimism in the 80s even under Thatcher maybe I was younger now I’m just disillusioned and fed up

We had the benefit of the opening of the North Sea oil and gas fields then. That paid dividends that carried on until New Labour’s tenure when it started drying up. We basically squandered the last major resources this nation had instead of use them wisely, and all we got was this dumb financial industry that makes and achieves nothing beyond shifting numbers about (kinda like Ireland does now for the EU).

@Chatillon don’t stop - really interesting, thank you!

This is one of the most interesting intelligent threads I’ve seen on here for ages

@Chatillon agree with this.

I think too that all of that has put us on a worse footing in the context of what money means/how it functions in an international economy with QE in play.

Also China looks set to overtake the USA especially as together with Russia it is targeting partnerships across the global south - those are the areas that will rise through sheer demographics if nothing else. Over here in Europe we won't be able to compete long term with places whose average age is 18-20 when ours is early 40s and rising. Once BRICS gets properly up and running the pendulum will really start to swing. And unlike other countries in Northern Europe we don't have a trading bloc to buffer us plus we are not set up socially flat so ordinary workers won't be protected in that way.

Well you used to have an empire and now you don't. An empire means taking quite a lot of resources from other places and putting them in the UK. I think a lot of people think the empire stuff was imposing excellent british values and laws on the poor natives - it wasn't. It was an economic booster for UK (otherwise you'd never have done it)

Margaret Thatcher deprioritised production and industry and prioritised the financial industry in London - leaving you highly vulnerable.

Brexit - how on earth did that actually happen? Not just the actual brexit but the ill-thought-out, barely researched, phone it in referendum?

Oxford Tory Chums leading you for decades and decades - none of whom have any interest in the concerns of the average briton or indeed in leading (see David Cameron re Brexit and Boris Johnson re anything).

This is closest to my view.

And we have it because the majority of the UK population are shortsighted, complacent, self centred and ill-educated. Why else have we had a Tory government for 13 years?

Conservatives
Capitalism
Brexit
Climate change crisis

The above factors means everyone is just trying to save themselves. No thoughts for others. Covid was a brief reprieve where there seemed to be some appreciation of core workers - then it all went to shit again.
Business is terrified of the future that climate change brings - none of them seem to want to face up to it. It's just a land/money grab right now. When the shit hits the fan they'll pull up the drawbridges and leave the minions to fight it out battle royale style.

Has anyone mentioned how people were duped intp voting for Brexit so some rich blokes could trade off it whilst the UK sank?

@Loria wgat is BRICS and socially flat mean sorry if stupid questions

Is there any positive spin on any of it it’s such a shit outlook I would never say it to my son but it’s pretty bleak I’m pushing him out of the UK

@Liebig but we completely wasted the North Sea Oil dividends. We sold the fields to private companies and used the sales monies to cut income tax . FFS. Now those same private companies are gouging us for fuel prices and people used the extra they had in their paycheck to play silly beggars buying council houses, buying extra houses to rent out to the then newly-created class of private sector tenants ripe for repeated dispossession under the 1988 housing Act. And now here we are, instead of living high on the interest that we would now be enjoying had we invested that money (like Norway did) we're funding billions in housing benefit for landlords of the impecunious.

Capitalism
Selling off all our assets (see above)
Brexit
Tories in general.
Lack of response to climate change

There’s such a total lack of joined up thinking a lack of intelligent thought and an appetite for change. Quite depressing on all aspects

Better than them stuck in the UK for the next 50 years.

We might move with them, we can all get EU passports so that helps a bit and we are working on having self sufficient pension income so yeah we are not totally stuck just a bit stuck for now.

We invest in nothing. We cut our education funding to the bone so young people aren't given the skills they need. We don't fund healthcare properly so people are off sick for longer or leave the workforce entirely. We have no long term infrastructure planning or funding for R&D and green technology.ost of our wealth is tied up in property.

As well as the huge trade impact, Brexit also led to a lack of participation in international research projects and lost funding for poorer areas which the UK government has not replaced.

The current government are only interested in getting what they can for them and their pals and lining up their personal opportunities on the after-dinner speech circuit. They have no interest in the future of the country.

Have you seen living conditions in Japan?

Do we stop UK folk not residents buying property elsewhere or would you like all the freedom rules for "us" but none for people coming "here"?

@Parsley1234 BRICS is a group of emerging economies who are in the process of setting up their own investing and lending banking mechanism. Similar to G7. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were the first countries in it hence the title - it's the first letters of their names.

By "socially flat" I meant more socially equal societies eg Norway, Germany, Finland - economic hard times are comparatively easier to bear for workers in places where the wealth/income is spread more evenly.

Working as the neoliberal god intended. What a wonderful system.

We have low productivity because of a lack of industrial investment. Look at the sheer panic from uk car manufacturers about electric vehicles. This is not new, they knew it was coming and have failed to invest.