To think we are becoming a much poorer country?

[Felixss]

I keep seeing on threads increase taxes on the rich , increase salaries, increase nhs spending and increase benefits. People are acting like we are still hugely wealthy and everyone wants to come over. Poland is predicted to overtake us economically. I can earn twice my salary abroad and I'm thinking of leaving. Where is the money going to come from with a shrinking work force and low investment in new technology? AIBU to think the UK is hugely declining ?

YANBU were are sinking and the very rich are just trying to plunder what they can from the wreckage.

It's what a lot of people voted for. Sufficient numbers of people to elect the current government and its incarnations since 2010, and implement Brexit anyway.

One of the reasons we have become a poorer country is because the rich have not been paying their fair share.

Is Poland predicted to overtake us? Or are you repeating Starmer's statement back in February, which was that if the UK continues at .5% economic growth over the next ten years and that Poland maintains the 4% ish growth it achieved last year, for the next ten years then they would eventually overtake us?

Which is some statistical trickery. Not least because the oecd has Poland's economic growth at .7% for 2023.

You’re right. Our birth rate is declining. We have a large older generation, who are not working, require triple lock pension which is non means tested, with declining health …who are expensive. There is enough young workers paying tax to sustain it. The young workers can’t even get on the property ladder or afford childcare themselves. The NHS and all public services are a joke.

its a mess, I don’t know how to fix it. Be we are a poor country and it’s going downhill.

There has been very little investment for years and then came the economically ruinous Brexit.

Ah, I wondered where the weekly Woe is the UK thread was. Here it is, ready to do good business with the odd very peculiarly worded post making random claims about Ukrainians having very nice lives thrown in along the way.

Exactly.

this is what people voted for with Brexit

I think it has to start with better training for youngsters in growth areas and in areas crying out for labour. Our growth is hampered by a workforce that doesn't meet the employment market.

All of the UK should pay much more income tax. If you want to be a rich and prosperous country like the scandinavian countries then you need to pay like the scandinavian countries. Tax money benefits the country, benefits and exemptions benefit the rich more than the poor.

Not just income either. They need to start taxing wealth

Agree.

As I understand it falling birth rates and unsustainable numbers of economically inactive older people are a problem for most countries now?

Yes this.

Absolutely.

@Thesharkradar yep it’s not a UK only problem. I do think it feels more acute here because of brexit and the lack of public services (compared to say the US where if you can afford good healthcare you get it…for those that can’t it is obviously another story entirely).

Whether or not Poland will overtake the UK or not, I agree that for the vast majority of people in the UK, living standards are declining in real terms.

Brexit is a contributor to this.

This was voted for. Consistently. Hopefully everyone who did has lots of money to pay their way out of poor schooling and crumbling medical services.

The one fact I think the whole of the western world seems very unready to face is that our relative ‘wealth’ of cheap stuff for the past 20-30 years has been at the expense of the poor in other countries whilst we hand our existing wealth to the powerful in those countries. The next 20-40 years are going to be a shocker!

I disagree. Profit and wealth are a bookkeepers opinion. Have everyone pay more income tax, that way the rich can't bookkeep themselves "poor".

But only workers pay! You need to have tax on income + wealth. And also get rid of NI and just include it in general taxation so that everyone pays the same for the same amount, regardless of age. And also sort out council tax.

The problem is that it's the rich and Powerful who make the rules, they are also the ones who are hoarding all the money, they are not going to make rules that make them poorer.

If the UK finds a way to start taxing wealth then those who hold large amounts of wealth will sell up and invest in the Cayman Islands (or wherever their very expensive accountant advises them)
Once a certain group of people have captured wealth and power it's very difficult to wrestle it off of them... they use their wealth and power to defend maintain and entrench their wealth and power.

Once a certain group of people have captured wealth and power it's very difficult to wrestle it off of them...

It's actually quite easy once you start putting heads on spikes. But as the song goes - "meet the new boss, same as the old boss ..."