Weren't things meant to get better?

[BeachTree]

2 years of pandemic - restrictions, rules, missing out, illness, misery

We're emerging from this slowly and now we are facing
*Inflation
*Incredibly high petrol and diesel prices
*Ukraine War
*Blooming Brexit ( clearly was going on pre-pandemic)
*Refuse collection strikes
*Train Strikes
*Cost of living crisis - huge increases to food and electricity
*insert various other crappy things going on right now

Weren't we meant come out of this and start living and enjoying things again.

It does make you wonder if things will ever improve. Are we on a one way street to collapse of globalisation. Or best case scenario a ten year global recession?

Brexit was self inflicted - the country voted for it. It could have been reversed hadn’t the majority voted for the conservatives in 2019 but the majority decided to double up. “Get Brexit done”. You remember?
It’s too late to complain now. People should have voted or voted for the right decision/party.
The consequences of Brexit could only be felt after the transition period ended on Jan 1 2020 but then Covid “masked” many of these consequences such as passport queues/issues (people were not travelling), staff shortages (many industries/professions in standstill…), logistic issues, congestion in Dover, finding childcare (no longer being able to rely on aupairs is a nightmare for women doing shift work eg nurses - I know a few who have had to put their career on hold because of this issue).

I agree, but I can't see how this could happen, short of some sort of mass civil uprising, and since society feels more fractured than ever before, I can't see how that will happen either.

We are similar with the health stuff here in Canada at the moment. It differs somewhat by region, but ERs are totally overwhelmed and many people have not had their own GP in years. Walk in clinics are full, online appointments which they have brought in to try and help are full. (Plus with those and walk-in clinics care is never at the same level so those doctors are in a real way being used to provide care of a poor standard.) So people have to go to the ER to get prescription refills!

There has been a lack of planning for years to deal with demographic change, including doctors who do not work the same way they did 30 years ago and don't see as many patients. And arguably there has also been a change in people's expectations of medicine.

Not the fault of any one party, it's across the board.

Is the collapse of globalism a really bad thing, in the end? More regional independence, more resilience, more local production and industry, maybe less wasteful tat from China?

I know we've build a banking system that depends on more and more growth but surely we all know that is the road to perdition?

Is the collapse of globalism a really bad thing, in the end? More regional independence, more resilience, more local production and industry, maybe less wasteful tat from China?

Its not just 'tat' that's dependent on global supply chains. It's a huge amount of the goods we consume day to day.

More local production is good given climate issues. You could take a fair chunk of what we buy away and be better for it. Just the sheer amount of disposable stuff.

On a different unrelated note re post Covid being better it is for me but overall the path all countries are on now is very different to where we’d be without the war. It is impacting heavily and for that to end the war would need to stop.

The hard part is it is likely to be protracted, worse for Ukraine but felt across the world

We aren't Canadian, try comparing us to mainland Europe (as UK is a european country)

The UK had a decent, if not great healthcare service in the 2000's, now we have 12 years of austerity (we've still got it)

Inflation has removed any benefit of the increases in Health spending.

So almost no social care, AE waits of days in some cases, ambulance times for emergencies, measured in hours.

Just 17% of UK beaches met EU bathing standards, its over 70% in France.

Rape cases take 3 years to come to trial, 18months if your mugger/burglar gets charged.

This country has been very badly run by the Tories, they've run it for the rich and for business, even Brexit was done to get Bojo into power, Truss who is now a Brexitier, says it was won on lies and immigration, incidentally, the UK is allowing 10s of 1000s of Indonesians into the UK to pick fruit and veg and are being trafficked here by criminal gangs, owing them £1000s.... its a fucking sick joke.

Its not just 'tat' that's dependent on global supply chains. It's a huge amount of the goods we consume day to day.

yep

And yet, mumsnet loved a lockdown.

I know it’s not just lockdown, but in the same vein clearly more than half the voters wanted brexit. If they didn’t understand what they were voting for, then that’s on them. People wanted to take many more refugees, they want Britain to provide more financial support, they want more spent on the nhs, schools, police. All good things, but not all feasible.

I find mumsnet a very idealistic socialist hotbed very full of doom and gloom. It’s a very condensed version of the world, in my opinion. I’m young ish but I know I laid awake worrying about northern rock, aig, weapons of mass destruction.

What wasteful tat?

The China of 20 years ago, is long gone, its mainly a high tech manufacturing economy now, from computers/chips to high end carbon fibre bicycles.

Its pie in the sky to think we could manufacture, on any significant scale, we couldn't even make decent cars or motorbikes when we had the chance.

We'll all be moaning if global supply actually did collapse :(

I've posted before on this - Maggie thatcher decided London should be a financial services to the world centre.
All ok til the bankers got greedy and the 2008 crash - then we had 10 years of austerity. To recoup the money we'd paid to the bankers presumably.
Then covid.

And yet, mumsnet loved a lockdown.

I know it’s not just lockdown, but in the same vein clearly more than half the voters wanted brexit. If they didn’t understand what they were voting for, then that’s on them.

Exactly.

And it's not that it wasn't legitimate to be behind one or both of those things, but it was blindingly obvious at the time they would have huge financial implications.

I think vast numbers of people just refused to take that on board and now they're surprised at what's unfolded.

I worked in social housing when the Conservatives came into power.

They proper fucked over social housing.

Told housing associations they would loose funding to build homes if they didn't raise rents, stop life time tenancies, introduce the bedroom tax and help roll out Universal Credit.

They have allowed long term care homes for disabled adults to be sold to private companies who then resold shares to investors. Eventually, when the lease ends, the investors will kick the tenants out and sell the land for millions.

Then the social housing system will have to provide more land, build another home etc...

More recently, Sunak's stamp duty holiday further inflated the housing market. Lots of people sold and made silly money and then had to pay through the nose for their onward purchase. In two-five years when their fixed rate deal expires, they will be fucked.

Conservatives penalise the poor and make the rich richer.

One of the early pps said: "we all get what England votes for".
Yes very true. For the last few years that has been Conservative policy. Not strictly true because the disputes within the Tories over Brexit were really hard and vicious.
Many people voted for Brexit because they told a good story. Remainers did not make a good case on the day.
Currently neither Labour and anyone else is giving me good reasons to vote for any party, any Party at all.
(ps. I am a member of Conservative & Unionist Party)

UK inflation predicted to hit 18% in early 2023.

Absolutely agree

You know that it is not great but it is not all doom and gloom. In terms of startups (particularly tech ones), the UK and London
in particular, is a global hub. Today's innovation is tomorrow's big business.

I also have big hopes for Gen Z. They seem much more focused (maybe out of necessity) than Gen X were.

I think it is easy to dwell on the bad and it is going to be very bad for the next few years but there is hope.

The reason people like Gove don't want office again is due to the fact they know they have totally sold the country down the river and all the after effects of Brexit plus covid are now becoming blindingly obvious to all but the very comfortably off. It's pointless if the low wages suddenly are earning better due to staff shortages if monthly costs are then up £300 for everyone including low earners. Also higher wages will take some low earners out the system for receiving help and they may be no better off at all- especially if single. I am all for higher wages but I think we need to look at systems in Europe where higher wages equals higher tax , but far less secondary taxes- council tax, NI and properly subsidised childcare. Taxation isn't low in the UK- it's just very split up to make it look low.

More tech (and especially fintech) in London isn’t some panacea here. London is already the hub of the UK and forcing everyone else to basically beg for table scraps.

In any case, tech startups won’t change underlying resource issues. Can’t run an economy without raw materials, and the UK is not exactly brimming with them. With a tanking sterling relative to the dollar, everything is massively more expensive as consequence.

Gen Z (god I hate those dumb arbitrary titles) are actually less likely to deal with this given the prevalence of anxiety and depression, the total loss of confidence in gov’t and capital and the quiet quitting movement. You missed out Millennials who were the hustle generation that got shit done like naïve mules working themselves to death for nothing. That gig is long over.

More tech (and especially fintech) in London isn’t some panacea here. London is already the hub of the UK and forcing everyone else to basically beg for table scraps.

Ain't that the truth. My heart sinks every time I hear yet another very obviously London centred proposal.

It helps to quote the person properly, I almost didn’t see this reply since I had to trawl through all other comments on here.

What advances are you talking of in particular? Because technical advances that no one can afford are irrelevant. We also used to be able to cross the Atlantic in 3 hours and land on the moon and have a single man’s salary support a whole family.

We used to be able to grow GDP without spending four times as much on debt. Everywhere is now spending so much on terms of energy, that global discretionary spending is down massively. You can have innovations in medicine and IT or finance all you want, but it means nothing without cheap energy.

The end of cheap energy positively murders globalisation.

The end of cheap energy may also be a death knell for capitalism. Capitalism is dependent on growth, and cheap energy is a key driver of that.

So, if capitalism breaks down hard due to high energy costs, where does that leave the economy that needs the growth to pay for health care and schools and our other public services?
Will we end up a country unable to function at all ?

I can't even contemplate how it would work

The global economy then needs to shrink and go into a degrowth phase where it reduces to match the available supply. But you basically cannot run constant debts as we have been doing to magic away the problems of today with expected future prosperity. We’ve essentially spent the last two decades stealing from the future to enable our present lifestyles.