"How the UK became one of the poorest countries in Europe"

[user1471452428]

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/uk-economy-disaster-degrowth-brexit/671847/

Article in The Atlantic. When people post about declining living standards, they're often shouted down- but I think it's pretty clear that it is real and here to stay.

That would be an ecumenical matter. 😆

To be honest I'm most worried about our debt to GDP ratio. We're barely breaking even.

I've no idea what other countries look like in that regard but we're alarmingly in debt.

@TheNosehasit - a philosophical one, not an ecumenical one!

Look, this should cheer us up.

We could be Japan! 😮

www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-national-debt-by-country/

It used to be a catchphrase of certain people in certain circles. When you didn't want to give a straight answer to something, you said that it would be an ecumenical matter (you might guess where that was used).

Debt is a man made construct. Booms and busts, bear markets and bull markets, global booms and global declines. Who will the markets bet on next? When will they decide the Emperor has no clothes after all?

Going back to this post actually, I was in Ireland during the numerous referendums relating to the EU. The Irish Constitution cannot be changed without a referendum.
The Irish didn't always get it right the first time so they had to be sent back to repeat their exams a few times. They eventually passed with flying colours 😉

The Danish appear to have similar special needs. 😆

blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/10/19/asking-the-public-twice-why-do-voters-change-their-minds-in-second-referendums-on-eu-treaties/

I'd actually love to know who we owe all this money to and in the words of my favourite comedian 'could we not just shoot him?'

Just posted this elsewhere but the data adds to the discussion about how the UK is doing, impact of Covid and an ageing population

Unemployment is low but employment levels as a percentage have not yet returned to pre pandemic levels. Meanwhile economic inactivity has increased.

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/october2022

The UK employment rate for June to August 2022 was 75.5%, 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous quarter (March to May 2022), which had a notably higher employment rate than other periods. The number of employees decreased on the quarter, while self-employed workers increased.

The employment rate is 1.0 percentage points lower than before the pandemic

The unemployment rate for June to August 2022 decreased by 0.3 percentage points on the quarter to 3.5%, the lowest rate since December to February 1974.

The economic inactivity rate increased by 0.6 percentage points to 21.7% in June to August 2022, compared with the previous quarter (March to May 2022), which had a notably lower economic inactivity rate than other periods. This increase in the latest quarter was largely driven by those aged 50 to 64 years and those aged 16 to 24 years. Looking at economic inactivity by reason, the quarterly increase was driven by people inactive because they are long-term sick or because they are students. Numbers of those economically inactive because they are long-term sick increased to a record high

Our debt ratio is only a problem if we are considered an unstable, unreliable, inwardly imploding country. Oops.

🤣🤣🤣

Unfortunately, however, this is one reason why wars and instability happen.

Governments don't like to admit it, but one reason why immigration has become so high is to generate increased tax revenue from working-age immigrants.

I can’t see the logic in going this and at the same time, subsidise low wage jobs locally via tax credits.

I too believe that there are things which are not adding up.

Who audits our accounts?

Please tell me it's not Liz Truss?

That seems to be a bit of a unique thing here.

I don't know of any country where you get your wages supplemented so to speak?

Well you do if you work part-time and are a single parent or something, but there's a thing called Tax Credits here, which appears to be an actual income? I've never been on it, so I don't know about it to be honest.

I've often seen it with women posting about leaving their husbands.

Yes, I do. Because I don’t think it’s true.

There are occasional leaks of information, of course (eg the Panama Papers)

Generally that’s about denying taxes to your country of residence, not (as PP contended) going to another country, ‘raping’ it of resources (a really crude and totally unnecessary way to put it) and leaving.

but given the parlous state of the environment and widely publicised depletion of the earth’s resources

Our resources aren’t being depleted. We have plenty of oil and gas resources, coal deposits, uranium, etc. I even heard about ‘peak copper’ in 2008 but we’ve since found many more deposits so 🤷‍♀️

I think it’s fair to say the notion that unfettered markets and low regulation will sort everything out is a self-destructive pipe dream

Considering the high standards of living achieved by the West and much of East Asia, I’d say a lot of good has been done here too.

And even within the UK itself, it’s plain to see the effects of exploiting areas industrially and then moving on without a backward glance

Somehow it would have been better to let them wallow in poverty without any industry to speak of?

It would be better to do coal mining, offshore drilling and fracking in the UK, but you and your ilk has really decided otherwise anyway.

Considering the high standards of living achieved by the West and much of East Asia, I’d say a lot of good has been done here too

not for everyone. How many people are in poverty in the UK and Singapore for example? It is getting worse and has done for the last few decades as the oil and gas industries plus financial services has concentrated wealth in the hands of the few.

Our resources aren’t being depleted. We have plenty of oil and gas resources, coal deposits, uranium, etc. I even heard about ‘peak copper’ in 2008 but we’ve since found many more deposits so 🤷‍♀️

Says who? Plus burning oil and gas is terrible for the environment…. And it makes us so dependent on other countries.

It would be better to do coal mining, offshore drilling and fracking in the UK, but you and your ilk has really decided otherwise anyway

the UK is not suited to fracking.

The National Audit Office does.

Official statistics can be difficult to pick your way through if you don’t understand how they’re derived.

How is the population of Japan doing in terms of outcomes? Are they healthy, enough wealth to go around, decent public services? Have they gone bankrupt?

Generally that’s about denying taxes to your country of residence, not (as PP contended) going to another country, ‘raping’ it of resources (a really crude and totally unnecessary way to put it) and leaving.

Pillaging and plundering are politer terms for what the UK is capable of and renowned for.

Our resources aren’t being depleted. We have plenty of oil and gas resources, coal deposits, uranium, etc. I even heard about ‘peak copper’ in 2008 but we’ve since found many more deposits so

Where have we found them? In Yorkshire? Devon? Norfolk?

Considering the high standards of living achieved by the West and much of East Asia, I’d say a lot of good has been done here too.

Oooh look - there's a really big something over there - why don't you go and look at that while we get on with our high standard of living.

How are you defining standard of living? Yours? Or mine?

Somehow it would have been better to let them wallow in poverty without any industry to speak of?

Maybe we could have made bankers, cynics, sceptics, politicians, philosophers, poets, artists, entrepreneurs, writers or arseholes out of them instead?

If I was their bank, I'd be at the point of saying - listen dudes - you need to start paying me back some of that dosh now!

I'm sure you'd know how to do that though.