Are we heading into a major recession?

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Things are already tough in my industry - I’m a contractor and this past year is my worst in over two decades - but should I be expecting things to get worse not better?

and I sound stupid, but what are the main economic indicators?

But really it goes back to 2008 and the poor wage growth we’ve suffered since then

This, people talk about cycles but we never recovered from 08. Low interest rates boosted assets & there wasn't any investment in services.

• Yes we have a predictable Labour shit show. They have no idea whatsoever how to create growth.*

Tories did a great job!

Not true - migration during that period was a net positive (and minimum wage actually raised wage growth). The biggest factors by far in keeping wages low were monetary policy and globalisation of East Asian production of consumer goods.

What strangled wages after 2001 was super-low interest rates/ZIRP, massive credit easing and QE, that encouraged asset price inflation rather than wage inflation. At the same time, the importing of consumer goods from Asia was a massive downwards pressure on wage growth here. This was a deliberate choice post-2001 across several central banks (there are interviews with Alan Greenspan and Eddie George where they discuss doing this deliberately to avoid a recession after 9/11).

These factors started to unwind post-2008 after the financial crash, but Tory policies after 2010 then deliberately targeted wage inflation to keep it low, whilst allowing asset price inflation to run rampant.

Fire up the economy and cut the benefits bill in half by making healthy people work for longer.

You have completely forgot the demographic changes. We don't have enough young people.

The whole economy is still blighted by having allowed the housing bubble to inflate well beyond sustainable fundamentals — ever since 2001, but particularly after 2010. There was a chance to allow it to continue to deflate after the financial crash; but instead the Coalition/Tory governments not only restarted the housing boom and pumped cash into keeping house prices high, but inflated them even further.

Yes and people thought this was a good thing 🤦🏻‍♀️

Poor wage growth partly started with freedom of movement.

it started under Thatcher but QE fucked it.

Ukraine conflict will be settled soon so hopefully fuel prices will stabilise after that.

EU negotiations should get us picked up a bit too.

Going to be a bumpy 12 months though. Plenty of scope for farridge and his rosy-cheeked millionaire tractor chums to cause trouble in.

Well our business was doing OK until Labour came in. Thats a fact. We cannot hire, invest or grow in this climate. We are currently seeing the private sector shrinking and huge problems in the jobs market as a direct result of decisions taken by Labour. The economy may not have been going great guns before, but it sure was better than it is now.

The economy may not have been going great guns before, but it sure was better than it is now.

If you think that i'm not sure what to say. The Tories created most of this mess.

And again it's a demographic issue, we have more over 65s than under 15s. Why did the Tories not actually get tough on immigration?

Well our business was doing OK until Labour came in.

What business was that then? Fake covid tracking? Arms dealing? Gold?

Tories bust the economy and put halts on future recovery by brexiting us.

You may be correct but I do know that freedom of movement impacted British warehouse workers.
I worked in the recruitment sector and saw first hand the impact it had.

Exactly.

The demographics of this country are weighted disproportionately towards a bigger (retired) older generation, who are taking a disproportionate share of the state budget due to over-generous pensions, public service costs (healthcare, social care, transport etc.), and who also own the majority of housing assets (including second homes and buy to lets).

There simply aren’t enough younger workers to generate enough money to maintain all these three things. That’s why previous governments turned to migration (which was actually a sensible choice when it was EU migration, as the benefits were worth more to us then the costs, and young EU workers were high-skilled and also went back to their home countries afterwards - something that Brexiteers never understood).

How do we support a disproportionate demographic of older people with fewer workers in the pyramid underneath, while trying to generate sensible economic growth?

Some suggestions:

1. rejoin the EU. Incentivise EU migration and investment whilst disincentivising migration from outside the EU;

2. heavy taxes on buy to let and landlords;

3. abandon the triple lock and force older generations to release some of their assets to pay for care/healthcare;

4. a short, sharp house price crash (otherwise we’ll only get a long, strangling one), which enables a readjustment of wages to asset prices as quickly as possible;

5. public borrowing specifically to incentivise green investment, high-tech industry, science R&D and education (especially higher education). Replace tuition fees with a HEFCE-style public grant for universities.

That’s a start. Anyone else want to join in?

Find me an economist who thinks the economy has improved under Labour. Happy to wait.

@TheNuthatch I never claimed it had improved. I just said Tories didn't do a good job.

My intenion was not to be nasty and i actually have sympathy for your situation.

My post was intended to demonstrate that comments like 'I might as well go on benefits' reinforce prejudice and the belief that it is a lifestyle choice and an easy life. It was an unnecessary comment based in fallacy and discrimination.

And no, I am in the situation I described. I am disabled and reliant on an increasingly hostile government, a landlord who could chuck me out at any time and keeps me in damp cold, unhealthy conditions and an NHS that doesn't have the funding to treat me. So personally, I find your comment rather more nasty than my fact based rebuke.

Well which ever dumb fucks voted for, and pushed for Brexit, told us we would have to put up with some pain. But it's apparently worth it for all the wonderful freedoms we have.
Farage should be publicly humiliated but instead for some reason people can't see through him and what he, and his ilk, have done to us.
This is made us much more vulnerable to the impacts of rising fuel costs as a result of Ukraine. However if we had properly invested in green energy decades before we wouldn't be in this mess but of course idiots like Farage actually fight against this. The reason being because they and their friends make a significant amount of money as the rest of us being poorer.

The tories just kicked the can down the road & we've now run out of road...

Well which ever dumb fucks voted for and pushed for Brexit told us we would have to put up with some pain but it's worth it for all the wonderful freedoms we have.

the tragic thing is Reform are getting more popular.

Yes - essentially our economy has become progressively ever more biased towards assets/capital at the expense of incomes/labour for the last twenty years.

Money that could have been invested productively in our manufacturing base, in improving our infrastructure, skills and education, housing stock, hospitals and living standards, instead all went into puffing up the prices of the exact same houses by five times their value, and speculating in financial products.

That’s basically what happened; and now we have: not enough workers, low productivity, old infrastructure, a low-skill population, crumbling healthcare — but houses five times the price and very rich financial speculators.

Those responsible for Brexit aren’t going to tell you this, because they own assets and are financial speculators.

Of course the UK is going to go into recession.

People's disposable incomes are in the toilet due to tax rises, inflation, interest rates and high energy costs. Several of these issues are created by our politicians.

The government decided to scare all the investors (millionaires) to move overseas and stop investing in the UK. Large numbers of high earners who pay the most amounts of tax are emigrating.

They have damaged our universities and attacked our schools, want to change tax policy to reduce innovation and have already taxed jobs.

Politicians say they want to make the UK more competitive with lots of AI and then create green energy policies which Google and other AI companies complain about because energy costs in the UK are the highest in the developed world.

It's only going one way - downhill.

It's inevitable Reform win, Labour are even more clueless than the last lot who were useless.

@neverthelastone and the unbelievable thing is so many thought the fact their house had doubled in value was a good thing.

we're already in one - the longest period of wage stagnation and reduction since WWII - at least.

It's inevitable Reform win, Labour are even more clueless than the last lot who were useless.

@Dorisbonson how will reform fix it? 😆

Yes you got me, I'm an arms dealer.
Shame Jeremy Corbyn didn't support remain isn't it.