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UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

bbc.co.uk

281–290 of 364 posts

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not anywhere near where the Swiss universities are if you look at the rankings.

I just looked, US News ranked ETH Zurich as #29 globally, but Univ. of Amsterdam is #39, Univ. of Copenhagen is #42, and then ten more European[0] universities before getting to the Univ. of Zurich at #67 overall. I scrolled down a ways further but didn't see any more Swiss universities listed. [0] I excluded the UK but I'm not going to check which Nordic countries are EU members. It's well-known that the US News ran…

If you look at international research rankings rather than US college rankings (because it's about Horizon) it's very different.

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-un...

Only one EU in the top 50.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More annoying than that. Try hiring software engineers. When I started working in London 15 years ago my colleagues were from a mixture of counties across the EU, easily greater than 50%. Now it's rare to see a CV from outside the UK except for a perhaps people from India.

What's wrong with that?

What's wrong with losing access to a giant talent pool of hundreds of millions of people who can move immediately, visa free?

I think it's pretty clear.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#283
I think it’s too easy (and tempting) for other countries to sit and poke and hypothesise that a country is falling apart. That was a just a case of sensationalising and far from the truth. As someone presently living in the U.K. it is the same beautiful country full of incredible views, kind people and exciting opportunity that it has always been.

Pick any other country, America, France, Brazil, Germany, Australia etc and allow me to also tell you how it is falling apart.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#284
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you said "even Jeremy Hunt has conceded", implying his position is new. It isn't. Hunt's previous analysis of Brexit, from the original campaign: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-t... "The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union" NHS budget has dramatically grown since leaving the EU…

My point is that, as Chancellor of a government which accepts Brexit as a done deal, it is interesting for him to do anything other than shower Brexit with praise. Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides. This is the sense in which he 'conceded'. Until recently this was omerta. As I say, believe what you want, I genuinely want to be wrong as I feel ever-growi…

"Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides"

Well, the Conservatives officially campaigned to remain and Boris had to kick out dozens of MPs at the last election to even be able to implement the vote at all. Whether someone is a truly reformed Remainer or not has been a question at every leadership contest since. So there's nothing significant or new about Tories disagreeing with Brexit, it's a pretty standard position within the party.

"We are a country in decline. I'm now pretty certain of it."

I am too! We don't actually disagree on that. The GDP/capita trends are pretty clear there, especially when compared to the USA. It's not relevant to food price inflation which has different causes, however.

The difference between us is I think the issues long pre-date 2016, are mostly to do with entrenched social attitudes, were made worse/locked in place by EU membership and therefore that Brexit is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for reversing the decline. Whereas you see a decline as a recent thing and Brexit/the ruling party as the cause.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Populist nationalism is rising throughout the western world. It’s a reaction to the failings of globalist liberalism, not the cause of those problems. Was there any alternative to 6B people in the developing world offering to sell their labor and environment for less than the 1B people in the developed world? Arbitrage opportunities cannot go on forever without being outcompeted.

> Was there any alternative to 6B people in the developing world offering to sell their labor and environment for less than the 1B people in the developed world? Arbitrage opportunities cannot go on forever without being outcompeted The alternative is to make sure that you provide a mechanism to bring the best and brightest to your country instead of coddling the least productive at home. It’s not popular politically…

> The alternative is to make sure that you provide a mechanism to bring the best and brightest to your country instead of coddling the least productive at home.

Importing other countries’ elites seems like a bad thing for the proles both at home, and the country losing their best and brightest.

Seems like a better alternative would be to do the exact opposite: force elites to stay in their home country and make it better.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's happening all over the western world. 50 years ago everything of value happened in the west. Currently there are alot of block on the economy and they only grow. - people work less hours - education is slipping - lots of imports because we don't have it anymore (outsourced because of lack of cheap labour or environment laws) ...

> It's happening all over the western world. It's not really happening in the US. The US economy remains strong and may not even go into a significant recession in the next year. The US dollar remains the world reserve currency and allows unparalleled monetary and fiscal policy freedom. No-one is losing confidence in the dollar the same way they did in the pound. Inflation is coming down in the US and it's in a fanta…

True, but how long will the rest of the world accept the USD as universal currency. When they don't the US can't keep printing, so the US will do everything to keep its current position. The 'switch' will be the problem of our generation.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere. The benefit of a decent education for all and fluently speaking a global language. The situation for any young Brit is much better than for most European peers who face the same question.

Ah anywhere, the land of milk and honey

What was the question? “Where would be better?”, or “who would accept me”, or what is it? The answer would differ depending on the question. But obviously if you speak English and have a decent UK education and passport you are in a pretty privileged situation when it comes to working “anywhere”.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#288

Current top post on HN is a Raspberry Pi project: rpi is a British invention. Second is a paper from UCL, based in London. In the top few is a paper by DeepMind, also in London. Yet HN likes to go absolutely nuts about how the UK is “done” at every opportunity.

The UK is far from done, but the considerable number of good universities and good companies aren't, for whatever reason, translating into rising living standards.

The current crisis can be blamed on energy, but the post 2008 period of wage stagnation and low growth wasn't exactly great and wasn't due to energy.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which wasn’t that far from succeeding, at 44%. Since then, they were made to leave the EU, the Queen died, and the party that proposed it has done well electorally.

The party that proposed it did well electorally last time too. Apparently there are lots of people in Scotland who vote for the SNP without fully agreeing with their goals. I'm neutral on the topic of Scottish independence but from a purely tactical perspective it'd be surprising if another referendum could be won at the moment. Sturgeon appears to know that and looks a lot like she's trying to string the SNP base al…

Also, they won't have a currency to speak of.
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