beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,404
surprising large effect of Test and Trace, though maybe not when we see how much was being spent. -0.5 directly attributed to Health and Social work activities.
[News] UK economy shrinks in April
- Thread starter TomandJerry
- Start date
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surprising large effect of Test and Trace, though maybe not when we see how much was being spent. -0.5 directly attributed to Health and Social work activities.
It's not a comfort at all. Been looking back through the monthly reports for last year. It's stark: Test & Trace, Vaccines, and recovery in GP face-to-face visits were big components of the economy last year. Between them, they did a lot to disguise that the underlying economy wasn't anywhere near as healthy as the government want us to believe and as a result I fully expect the trend of the last several months to continue. We'll be technically in recession by the end of July IMO (but probably not declared officially by the press until after we see Q2 and Q3 2022 economic results announced).
I wouldn’t say it was unexpected personally…..personal spending is being reigned in all over the place.
Greg Bobkin
Silver Seagull
- May 22, 2012
- 15,038
It's lucky we've got a coherent and united political party in charge to guide us through whatever lies ahead.
Oh...
Oh...
vegster
Sanity Clause
- May 5, 2008
- 27,933
I'm starting to think that its not worth worrying about the economy and its just part of our nations slide in to obscurity.
Once the " Empire " started to break up we started to run out of cheap labour and materials to prop our economy up with. Now all we have is a de-unionised gig economy working for low wages and I'm stuck in that whatever happens....I don't anticipate any wage increases from my job as " Times are Tough " and when things return to more normal I will be told that " The company is still getting over when Times were Tough " ....
Once the " Empire " started to break up we started to run out of cheap labour and materials to prop our economy up with. Now all we have is a de-unionised gig economy working for low wages and I'm stuck in that whatever happens....I don't anticipate any wage increases from my job as " Times are Tough " and when things return to more normal I will be told that " The company is still getting over when Times were Tough " ....
Modern economies are built on a silent collective agreement that your money is worth something.
There's no connection to the amount of gold in your reserves, or even the amount of money printed. Just this agreement - "money is and will remain useful", meaning that any modern economy is really just a confidence crisis away from system failure (or re-wiring).
If there is very high inflation there is a fair chance your average billionaire might start questioning the chances of recovery and only accept crypto or foreign currencies (if this inflation wave isn't global, which it may well be). In time this will make the pound/krona/whatever useless everywhere - if the important British/Swedes/whatever doesn't believe in their currency, someone like mr Xi Jinping probably won't either.
Good thing in high inflation that you might not want to export all your shit because you can't import shit so you might want your state to force (...if possible, as they might not want it) companies to produce some necessities to keep your citizens alive despite the ancient, malfunctioned economic system saying a sudden farewell.
Unfortunate that both you and me live in service economies without food/energy/tech self-sufficiency. It is unimaginable to think of the potential consequences. Yet with debt, inflation and degrowth - the situation looks a bit cornered. Got bailed out last time around through Chinese investment, might not happen again.
Or it will all resolve itself and nothing will change... just not very likely as historically speaking everything has always been changing.
There's no connection to the amount of gold in your reserves, or even the amount of money printed. Just this agreement - "money is and will remain useful", meaning that any modern economy is really just a confidence crisis away from system failure (or re-wiring).
If there is very high inflation there is a fair chance your average billionaire might start questioning the chances of recovery and only accept crypto or foreign currencies (if this inflation wave isn't global, which it may well be). In time this will make the pound/krona/whatever useless everywhere - if the important British/Swedes/whatever doesn't believe in their currency, someone like mr Xi Jinping probably won't either.
Good thing in high inflation that you might not want to export all your shit because you can't import shit so you might want your state to force (...if possible, as they might not want it) companies to produce some necessities to keep your citizens alive despite the ancient, malfunctioned economic system saying a sudden farewell.
Unfortunate that both you and me live in service economies without food/energy/tech self-sufficiency. It is unimaginable to think of the potential consequences. Yet with debt, inflation and degrowth - the situation looks a bit cornered. Got bailed out last time around through Chinese investment, might not happen again.
Or it will all resolve itself and nothing will change... just not very likely as historically speaking everything has always been changing.
The contraction of the economy is obviously terrible news but I'm not sure it was entirely preventable given the situation in Ukraine, rising fuel and food costs and the unnecessary spiralling cost of an appallingly implemented Brexit.
What does upset me is how out of touch this government are, and that they will do nothing to help the people worst affected by this. Had anyone even heard of a foodbank before the Tories came in? No. And now we have working people needing them just to stay afloat. There are people on the largest family-orientated Facebook group desperately asking for advice because they have less than a fiver to survive for 5 days after their bills are paid. There are people on Radio 2 shows from Rotherham explaining that they have to pawn stuff in order to raise the bus fair in order to collect benefits because if they miss their appointment they forgo the money.
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak didn't want to charge a windfall tax in case it "discouraged investment", by which he meant he might feel a little bit awkward at some of his Tory donor dinner parties. He did eventually of course, to cover yet another government misdemeanour, and just the THREE MONTHS after all the other major parties had been calling for it.
And now it turns out he's wasted £11bn in debt interest payments. For comparison, that's twice the amount what Tories accused Gordon Brown of wasting by selling our gold stock at the wrong time, but I doubt we'll hear a peep from Tory apologists.
I don't mind people being Tories but this lot are just f*cking dreadful. Without doubt the least competent, most out of touch morons we've ever had running the country in my living memory.
What does upset me is how out of touch this government are, and that they will do nothing to help the people worst affected by this. Had anyone even heard of a foodbank before the Tories came in? No. And now we have working people needing them just to stay afloat. There are people on the largest family-orientated Facebook group desperately asking for advice because they have less than a fiver to survive for 5 days after their bills are paid. There are people on Radio 2 shows from Rotherham explaining that they have to pawn stuff in order to raise the bus fair in order to collect benefits because if they miss their appointment they forgo the money.
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak didn't want to charge a windfall tax in case it "discouraged investment", by which he meant he might feel a little bit awkward at some of his Tory donor dinner parties. He did eventually of course, to cover yet another government misdemeanour, and just the THREE MONTHS after all the other major parties had been calling for it.
And now it turns out he's wasted £11bn in debt interest payments. For comparison, that's twice the amount what Tories accused Gordon Brown of wasting by selling our gold stock at the wrong time, but I doubt we'll hear a peep from Tory apologists.
I don't mind people being Tories but this lot are just f*cking dreadful. Without doubt the least competent, most out of touch morons we've ever had running the country in my living memory.
I'm not a Tory apologist (Boris and his party need removing as soon as possible), but this one doesn't feel like one that should be pushed. I did a bit of reading around it, and from what I found it's a very problematic headline that hides a lot of detail. Within that detail, it turns out that while it's *possible* Sunak could have acted differently and saved us £11bn, the reality is that the circumstances to make that happen were not exactly straight forward and the level of risk that taking the proposed approach would have entailed could probably have been described as "irresponsible to pursue".
There's plenty for us to attack the Tories over, but this one feels like a dangerous one as it's easily defended.
- Apr 19, 2018
- 1,902
While our economy is definitely in trouble it looks like markets globally are taking a dive. I've got a mate who leans towards conspiracy theories and has been saying for a long time the dollar is going to have a massive collapse in value soon causing hyperinflation for most of the world. I always take it with a pinch of salt, partly because of what he extrapolates this into, but it's one of the few views he's got that's starting to have echoes, if slightly diluted at times, among more mainstream commentators.
Yup, because Bitcoin (down another 8.94% today to 24k btw) is the absolute epitome of a reliable, risk-free asset that UHNWIs will be falling over themselves to invest their wealth in.
Fair enough, but the Tories used a similar fiscal decision to attack Gordon Brown, and his "mistake" cost about half as much. The fact that you not unreasonably suggest this is left alone by any sane person who despises this government just serves to highlight the huge amount of incompetence and corruption that the ignorant seem happy to excuse.
I wouldn't be so sure. David Davies is this morning insisting that the Brexit mess is entirely down to Brexit being "a remainers Brexit". I think that's the new narrative for the hard of thinking.
The UK has the fifteenth highest amount of disposeable income person when compared internationally?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
The UK has the fifteenth highest amount of disposeable income person when compared internationally?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
It pays to read the whole page when linking a reference
This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2017)
You’ve got the power to know…..
Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the Brown situation. I hadn't been in the UK long enough at the time to be paying much attention to UK politics. I was pretty much head-down concentrating on establishing my career here.
Certainly does ... if you read deeper in the article, you can see that the fact quoted is using data from 2020. So the article has been updated. Probably needs further updating, but the stat quoted is pretty recent - recent enough to be relevant.
Not actually that bothered, as it was meant as a flippant remark. Even so, it may be a year or two out of date (documents like this are never actually current) but if gives the gist. Probably better to be part of the UK economy right now than maybe Ukraine, Russia, Yemen or Peru perhaps.
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
Still we’ve got a inspirational opposition ready to be voted in…….oh
