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UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#21

Post by clnq »

0xy wrote: post #18
truculent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it’s quite possible for the UK to mitigate the effects of Brexit and attempt to find positives, expecting that to happen under a Conservative government is, frankly, laughable based on the last decade of evidence. The idea that reduced prosperity in London world somehow cause more attention to be given in underserved parts of the rest of the country makes little sense to me either. M

The NHS budget was 100 billion pounds in 2015 and is now 136 billion pounds, which means a 692m pound weekly increase in spending. One of the pieces of fearmongering from anti-Brexit campaigners was that the NHS would be starved of resources and would not receive adequate funding. Now that it's been proven a lie, anyone against Brexit claims they never made those statements. In fact, one of the most lambasted pro-Bre…

£100 in 2015 is equivalent to £131 today due to lost Pound Sterling value.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#22

Post by RC_ITR »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #8

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

It's amazing how hard it is for humans to understand compounding growth.

England's GDP has historically grown at 1.5-2.0%. That implies about 20% growth in a decade.

Let's say Brexit leaves GDP 2% lower than it currently is by the end of 2023. Now to grow 22% in 9 years (i.e. get back to even), they need 2.4% annual growth, which is a 20-60% acceleration sustained every year for 9 years just to get back to the baseline.

Less GDP today, in many ways, is less GDP forever.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#23

Post by MoreSEMI »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #13
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #8

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

The problem with this plan is that “the UK coming out of Brexit ‘up’” would be meaningfully bad for the EU if it encourages other countries to follow. And at the same time, the party with the greatest power to determine free trade agreements between UK/EU is the EU itself. This always struck me as the worst paradox of the whole idea: you’ve created an adversarial zero-sum environment where a much more powerful oppone…

I feel as if this is putting the cart before the horse. If a brexit is a net benefit to countries, then they should leave the EU. There is no problem unless the country is ideologically attached to the EU.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#24

Post by laurencerowe »

Andaith wrote: post #7
bsder wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this instance, you can unspill a lot of the milk by unwinding Brexit. The UK won't get back the absolutely insane, sometimes one-sided benefits that they had before Brexit--those are gone permanently. However, they would get back the unified market and probably arrest the destruction of London as a financial center.

I'm ok with London as a financial center being destroyed if it means the rest of the UK gets more resources & investment, and thus wealth spreads more equally. It's always been wild to me the difference between London & the rest of the UK.

The UK does need to lift up areas outside of London but it cannot afford to do that by bringing London down. Before the pandemic, "London had the highest net fiscal surplus per head at £4,030." [1] If London were destroyed as a financial centre the rest of the UK will necessarily get far less resources & investment.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxe...

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#25

Post by [deleted] »

0xy wrote: post #18
truculent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it’s quite possible for the UK to mitigate the effects of Brexit and attempt to find positives, expecting that to happen under a Conservative government is, frankly, laughable based on the last decade of evidence. The idea that reduced prosperity in London world somehow cause more attention to be given in underserved parts of the rest of the country makes little sense to me either. M

The NHS budget was 100 billion pounds in 2015 and is now 136 billion pounds, which means a 692m pound weekly increase in spending. One of the pieces of fearmongering from anti-Brexit campaigners was that the NHS would be starved of resources and would not receive adequate funding. Now that it's been proven a lie, anyone against Brexit claims they never made those statements. In fact, one of the most lambasted pro-Bre…

[deleted]

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#26

Post by acchow »

Andaith wrote: post #7
bsder wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this instance, you can unspill a lot of the milk by unwinding Brexit. The UK won't get back the absolutely insane, sometimes one-sided benefits that they had before Brexit--those are gone permanently. However, they would get back the unified market and probably arrest the destruction of London as a financial center.

I'm ok with London as a financial center being destroyed if it means the rest of the UK gets more resources & investment, and thus wealth spreads more equally. It's always been wild to me the difference between London & the rest of the UK.

> I'm ok with London as a financial center being destroyed if it means the rest of the UK gets more resources & investment

Wouldn't London becoming less productive mean the rest of the UK gets fewer resources and investment?

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#27

Post by TapWaterBandit »

RC_ITR wrote: post #22
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #8

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

It's amazing how hard it is for humans to understand compounding growth. England's GDP has historically grown at 1.5-2.0%. That implies about 20% growth in a decade. Let's say Brexit leaves GDP 2% lower than it currently is by the end of 2023. Now to grow 22% in 9 years (i.e. get back to even), they need 2.4% annual growth, which is a 20-60% acceleration sustained every year for 9 years just to get back to the baseli…

What makes you think I don't understand compound growth? I do.

I also understand that certain policies can lead to changes that will disturb QOL in a country outside of raw GDP (go ask Swedes how they feel about immigrant behaviour in their country in recent years). Is Swedish GDP up? Absolutely. Is it worth the price of open hang warfare and frequent shootings that have sky-rocketed since 2015? Depends how you look at it but this isn't something that shows up in GDP but has tangible impacts on people's day to day lives.

GDP growth isn't some static figure that will permanently remain low in the UK due to Brexit. There are many tangible real projects that could lead to significant improvements in GDP growth and QOL improvements that have nothing to do with Brexit (transport infrastructure improvement, housing reform, NHS reform etc).

Brexit happened. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did. The last thing the UK should do is try and rejoin now at a point of weakness especially when things aren't exactly looking wonderful in much of the EU either. Better to engage the rest of the world where possible, spend some time and effort focusing seriously on internal development (including measures to shore up the union so that Scotland won't be driven to make an incredibly self-destructive decision with independence) and then reopen negotiations when the UK is in a better spot.

Despite the doom and gloom we are still talking about a top 10 world economy with world class human capital in many industries, that speaks the global lingua franca, has extensive overseas ties, and a lot of projects that would clearly help improve QOL in the UK. Focus on that first instead of trying to call back a ship that has already sailed.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#28

Post by 0xy »

clnq wrote: post #21
0xy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NHS budget was 100 billion pounds in 2015 and is now 136 billion pounds, which means a 692m pound weekly increase in spending. One of the pieces of fearmongering from anti-Brexit campaigners was that the NHS would be starved of resources and would not receive adequate funding. Now that it's been proven a lie, anyone against Brexit claims they never made those statements. In fact, one of the most lambasted pro-Bre…

£100 in 2015 is equivalent to £131 today due to lost Pound Sterling value.

The 131 is the budget for 2021/22, which was before the massive spike in inflation. The inflation between 2015 and 2021 is only 15.7%, meaning the budget has been raised by 15 billion pounds a year above inflation figures.

It doesn't really seem like a fair comparison if 2022 alone (after the budget was already set) had more inflation than the preceding 6 years combined.

In fact, the NHS budget is rising substantially by 2023/24 to counter-act the recent inflation events -- to 160 billion. [1]

This would mean the NHS budget has risen by 60% between 2015 and 2023, outpacing inflation substantially to an increase in real terms.

Just to put this in perspective, the pro-Brexit campaign was mocked for "falsely" promising 350m pounds a week in additional spending, when the spending increase is already double that and is scheduled to quadruple by 2023.

[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2022/11/autumn-budget-2022...

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#29

Post by lotsofpulp »

0xy wrote: post #28
clnq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£100 in 2015 is equivalent to £131 today due to lost Pound Sterling value.

The 131 is the budget for 2021/22, which was before the massive spike in inflation. The inflation between 2015 and 2021 is only 15.7%, meaning the budget has been raised by 15 billion pounds a year above inflation figures. It doesn't really seem like a fair comparison if 2022 alone (after the budget was already set) had more inflation than the preceding 6 years combined. In fact, the NHS budget is rising substantiall…

What if healthcare labor supply and demand curves are moving in such ways so as to necessitate price increases that outpace overall inflation?

For example, due to an aging society with more and more healthcare receivers and proportionally fewer and fewer younger healthcare suppliers.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#30

Post by realgeniushere »

RC_ITR wrote: post #22
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #8

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

It's amazing how hard it is for humans to understand compounding growth. England's GDP has historically grown at 1.5-2.0%. That implies about 20% growth in a decade. Let's say Brexit leaves GDP 2% lower than it currently is by the end of 2023. Now to grow 22% in 9 years (i.e. get back to even), they need 2.4% annual growth, which is a 20-60% acceleration sustained every year for 9 years just to get back to the baseli…

That’s a deceptive analysis because catch-up growth is easier. That’s why the Asian Tigers could grow at breakneck speeds, right until they caught up to Western development levels and stagnated just like everyone else.
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