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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

#41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regained control of borders Can you elaborate on how that has changed since Brexit? The UK was never part of Schengen and African migrants are not EU-citizens so would not benefit from freedom of movement laws.

EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK. While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments ari…

> While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak.

I feel like I am still missing the legal context on how Brexit solves such an issue.

You mention issues in the English Channel still exist; just last week there were reports on how there are thousands of Albanians (similarly non-EU citizens) who migrated to the UK illegally. But this is post-Brexit, which sort of indicates that Brexit has not solved the border issues.

I can see the argument that Brexit reduces migration from EU nationals (whether that is a good or bad thing is another question), but I have yet to see any indication that it changed non-EU migration in any way.

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

#42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK. While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments ari…

Would the Syrian refugee crisis have been as bad if Britain hadn't hopped in with the US to destabilize the area? You could easily lay that blame on George Bush more than anyone else

Pretty sure civilians flee war wether or not the West gets involved.

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

#43
As bad as this was for the UK, I suspect the rest of Europe is about to go through far worse as their energy and chemical inputs from Russia haven't even been completely severed yet. Once that happens, I fear that their economy might completely collapse.

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

#44
post #18

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…

You can't think of anything that might've happened between 2015 and 2022 that would have required healthcare spending to go up?

And how does it compare as a percentage of the national budget between then and now? Government spending as a whole went up in the past 2 years.

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

#45
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean?

Small base growth is easier (that’s the example you give), but catch-up growth in large economies is damn near impossible.

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

#46

As bad as this was for the UK, I suspect the rest of Europe is about to go through far worse as their energy and chemical inputs from Russia haven't even been completely severed yet. Once that happens, I fear that their economy might completely collapse.

No post body was provided.

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

#47
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I obviously do t think the UK should try to rejoin for the same reason I think you shouldn’t reverse a vasectomy (you made a decision you knew was meaningful for a reason).

But that doesn’t mean the original decision has benefits.

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

#48
post #22

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…

>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

Why do they need to get back to even? Why is this assumed to be a realistic goal in the first place? This seems to assume the rest of the EU is going to be just fine.

The only things that matter are if the UK will do better or worse than it would have if Brexit hadn't happened, and how they'll do compared to the EU.

Before, Brexit looked pretty stupid, and the rest of the EU looked like they were in a much better position. This is no longer true; maybe the Brexiteers will turn out to have been correct after all. Only time will tell.

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

#49
post #26
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Part of the reason London received so much investment was because it was a major source of income. If other parts of the country ramp up economic activity relative to london, they should get more attention.

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

#50

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 kicking out migrant workers (which is effectively what's happened, and what "taking back control" was sold as) is we have major industries unable to hire.

Construction is steeply overpaying low-skilled jobs when it can find people. Care is unable to hire, quickly extinguishing hospitals' ability to discharge and admit. Agriculture has seen a massive seasonal pinch; crops have spoiled because the traditional seasonal workers have been unable (and then unwilling) to deign themselves to the increased bureaucracy.

I know we didn't actually kick people out and we [now] have exceptions for most of the jobs I've mentioned… but that's the effect when you limit movement. Long-term planning and COVID conspired to force people towards certainty. Even the immediate aftermath of the vote saw a massive drop in migrant carers and seasonal workers.

And we still have painfully little control over who crosses our borders. So this "control" you claim we have is both ineffective and smothering this country. It's far from "just" the halving of our financial sector.

Being a member of the EU guaranteed some level of freedom for migrant workers. It was a selling point for migrating in the first place. It's imperative we understand that just offering specific job exceptions isn't enough for lower-skilled jobs, and that our country will simply fail if we carry on letting that work go undone.

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