UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

You should say high income earners rather than "the rich" here, to be perfectly accurate. The two are not always the same.

Very nice, but the EU is probably going to decline in GDP more than the UK, and the euro could potentially collapse due to the Italy situation in the next few years.

Thinking the UKs issues are because of brexit are about as simplistic as saying “tax the rich will solve all the worlds issues”

This is 100% caused by the anti-Russian sanctions policy, yet not a single comment on this thread so far has even mentioned the sanctions and tried to engage in a reasoned debate about whether the economic costs paid by Europe (and especially the energy insecure nations within the EU) were worth whatever moral good boy points the sanctions buy us.

Some have suggested the sanctions help Ukraine, but haven't articulated a plausible mechanism by which this happens. I can see how sending weapons to Ukraine helps their war effort. I can see how sending money to Ukraine helps their war effort. But I fail to see how Europe de-industrializing and being plunged into a low standard of living helps Ukraine. Weakening Europe doesn't seem to be a pro-Ukraine policy position. And it's hard to think of another geopolitical tool that has a near 100% failure rate yet which is everyone's favorite tool. It's Alice in wonderland.

Meanwhile, the Russians are laughing, they have record trade surpluses and budget surpluses (in the middle of prosecuting a war) and their economy is growing again. They are not finding it hard to find buyers for their fertilizer, wheat, oil, gas, coal, etc. These are things that everyone needs, not just Europe. China and India are both backing Russia and massively ramping up trade with them. A massive trade deal with Iran is being signed. OPEC is backing them and increasing trade. Latin America is increasing trade. Africa is increasing trade, as are the central asian republics and southeast Asia. All of this should put an end to the idea that Russia needs to trade with Europe or that Europe matters a whole lot to Russia's future.

But back in Europe, which is forced to pay premiums for Russian LNG laundered through China and Russian Oil laundered through India and Malaysia, there is complete silence on the foolishness of sanctions, as article after article comes out about UK standard of living declines and German de-industrialization, with no one discussing why energy costs so much more in Europe than in the rest of the world. Instead, people are talking about Brexit, corporate greed, etc -- all the usual talking points, without a single mention of what is causing this dramatic economic decline.

Truly a bizarre state of public discourse.

If that’s true, why isn’t that the party line? Every tax-reductionist I’ve heard from talks to the moral crime of high taxation, and the necessity to cut reliance on the government. I have not heard (as a regular person outside of academic circles) any politician argue that reducing taxes will increase revenue. Given how trivial this concept is to validate (cut taxes and see revenue go up) why hasn’t it been implemented?

https://www.conservatives.com/our-plan/economy

I'll get downvoted for this, but this isn't true if you're one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Both will see their income rise with inflation.

If you're working then, sure, you're getting screwed as always because after just spending billions locking down the economy to saving boomers from Covid, this year we decided to spend billions bailing out boomers pensions, paying for boomers energy bills and ensuring that boomers can see their pensions rise inline with inflation.

Everyone in my family is either a pensioner or on benefits and they are having a great time in their £500k government provided homes, driving their government provided cars, heating their homes with money the government gave them.

And I'm all for pensions and welfare, but the wealth divide between those on benefits and those who work is insane in this country. If we were all doing fine then whatever, but the fact all my friends who work full-time can't afford anything and consider themselves lucky if they can afford to rent a 2 bed flat while those who don't work are living in £500k houses drives me up the wall.

If we we were all doing well then whatever, but I'm sat here freezing and wondering how I'm going to pay for my mortgage that's going through the roof because of all the money we've borrowed for the boomers.