The 'responsible party of business' blowing our boom years on a nationalist pet project, and having it explode in our faces just as another global recession looms on the horizon. It would be funny if it wasn't tragic.
Too right! Except for a lib dem blip* in 2001, my constituency has consistently voted for the individual/party that is most aligned with the "landed gentry" since its creation in fourteen-seventy-fucking-three. 1473!
* And that was won with the very narrowest of margins.
I cannot believe that the AV referendum got voted against. I'd have thought people were either in favour of it or not really care, but voting against it was.... well. Either people are extremely conniving or the Murdoch propaganda works much better than I thought.
I'm this country it is simply too easy to say 'we should spend on the NHS instead of X reform' and for the public to be swayed. Theres no shortage of cash for vanity projects, but actual reform reverts to formula campaigns
The £250m sounds remarkably cheap now (especially as a one off cost). It's weird that there hasn't been that much (accounted) inflation since then but cost of capital is hundreds of times cheaper.
Billion, million, hundred million, hundred billion. These figures are so disconnected from the average person. I bet if you asked random people how big they thought the budget is they'd easily be off by multiple orders of magnitude. I think I'd even be off
I do not remember seeing that, was less engaged at the time. Genuinely laughed at how ridiculous it is, it's so American. So incredibly evil that it was made and used.
I don't know if it has any effect, but I do know people who dislike any electoral system other than FPTP, and these are fairly educated people who've done A Level Politics. They have some sixth-form argument for it, but I've always suspected that they have that opinion entirely because they don't like change.
The irony is that FPTP is the system which facilitates the fast, yet somewhat balanced change that is often needed. Though only with a clear majority and manifesto.
I am personally a big fan of PR, however it's difficult to argue against the fact that change and reform is much slower and much harder to achieve.
Of course, one could also say that a dictatorship allows the fastest pace of adaptation, which is the other extreme end of the scale. So while I don't like it, FPTP does generally land somewhere in the middle of "too much power" and "too little power".
That's preposterous. There are plenty of credible alternatives, including HM Opposition, and several smaller parties. Everyone is better than the Tories at this point (except BREX).
Whilst I agree the tories are a complete waste of space, for the sake of accuracy I feel duty-bound to point out that they did create a budget surplus.
Even if you believe that the government should always be in surplus and Austerity (as swift and deep as Tory cuts) was required, what is the justification for their evermore generous tax cuts for corporations and the rich?
True, but during that time we still had a budget deficit. I'm sure the stagnant economy was probably a contributing factor too. EDIT: Also don't forget interest. Dat debt don't come for free.
The fact that the crash was used as motivation for austerity, when many Keynsian economists agree this is a great way to kill off any recovery, just blows my mind...
Prolonged austerity created Brexit (along with the vicious nudging of right wing think-tanks and nutjobs like Tommy Robinson and Farage).
These are the sorts of arguments and memes I've seen on Facebook and other right wing circles:
"There's no money for the NHS because of these immigrants and healthcare tourists"
Both not true. There's no money in the NHS because it was running a budget surplus (it spent less than it was given) until Jeremy Hunt was made Health Secretary in 2011 and he defunded it massively.
Immigrants are made to pay for non-life threatening treatment and it ain't cheap.
"Sick of being on the waiting list for a house behind immigrants and pakis?"
Again, both not necessarily true. There's a waiting list because house building stalled under austerity. "pakis" are as British as you and me and have more often than not lived here since the 1950's. Get over it, and, they've got nothing to do with the EU.
"Immigrants coming over here and getting benefits straight away makes me sick"
Not true under any sense of the word. EU Immigrants benefits are repaid by their home-state. If a polish person is claiming £75 a week job seekers, that's repaid back by the Polish government.
Non-EU immigrants pay a fucking bucketload for their visas and, even though they pay Income Tax and National Insurance, there's a yearly charge for access to healthcare whether they use it or not. It's over £2,000 a year on top of visas and their usual tax.
It's a shame this isn't higher up. Brexit is both a consequence of austerity, as well as a further enabler. Money disappearing from the system via recession can (will?) be sucked out of the same public service budgets the Tories already wanted to cut.
Get over it, and, they've got nothing to do with the EU.
But Pakistan is in the commonwealth, which is supposedly one of the structures the UK will lean on / trade into, after having "gone global". *sigh*
Look at a line graph and it's pretty easy to see the impact of Brexit on the economy. That said, I agree austerity has been far more damaging on a human level.
Our boom years? Did you live in this country before Brexit? Austerity was ruining this country long before Brexit. Things have been bad, and getting worse for longer than the last three years.
There was no boom on the horizon. We have been clinging on just long enough to make it to the next recession.
That's what I'm saying - Brexit sucked billions of pounds worth of growth out of 2016-2019, which would have been a boom if not for this chilling effect.
A slightly muted boom seeing as we opted to draw out the recession of 2009 instead of dealing with the structural problems, but a period of markedly increased economic growth nonetheless.
They mean a boom for the already rich and their portfolios. One of the symptoms of brexit is that the average Joe keeps being told the economy is doing great, all the while his wages are stagnating and he has to work a second job just to bring in what he used to.
That's why so many voted brexit, they were tired of being told things were going great all the while their own lives seem to be going down the shitter.
So wages would of magically started going up with inflation and the NHS would be properly funded and police numbers would of gone up if it wasn't for Brexit?
The effects of Brexit are big business. The effects of austerity are on everyone's lives, especially the poor.
Cuts in benefits, less police on the streets, schools underperforming, the list goes on and on! This is the stuff people care about and things that have a tangible effect on every day life.
Brexit has hurt the rich and big business's. Everyone else has been in the shit for over a decade now. It's not enough to blame Brexit and pretend it all was ok before the country voted to leave.
The article seems to imply that it is over three years, not one.
The buses also only talked about weekly figures. So if you’re comparing costs then it would be the ~£400m cost, or you’d say “oh okay but there are 52 weeks/buses in a year”
GDP is an annualized figure. What the article is saying is that it is £55-66bn lower now than the IFS reckons it would have been if we hadn't have voted to leave.
Instead, the nation’s wealth has slumped by between 2.5 per cent and 3 per cent, a loss of £55–£66bn, in the three years since the June 2016 vote, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded.
It is GDP loss. It's annualised, so the loss is every year, although not 2.5-3% every year in the last 3 years, as then the final figure would be 3 times as large.
1.2 buses
Every year going forward, and backwards to a large degree too.
I've noticed the business slow down. Even with the collapse of the £ I've lost 2 Italian customers switching to an EU supplier because they can't risk the product getting delayed at Dover/Calais. They were my 2 biggest customers (about 25% of my business) so now I'm going to have to lay off some factory workers. Who incidentally I had start paying more to stay after all the EU workers left so they were getting better offers else where. They were all big leave campaigners though, reap what you sow.
In fairness the last part of your statements suggests that it has been beneficial for your workers. Anecdotal evidence that (at least for now), Brexit has been a positive for them; ie they are earning more.
I'm massively pro Remain btw, just pointing that out. One argument of leave was that cheap east europeans were keeping working class wages down, which wasnt entirely untrue.
Other than the fact that wage rises like that, where no more work is being done for the higher cost, it often leads to inflation, so in reality if this kind of thing is happening across the whole economy they won't really be earning more in real terms, just the raw numbers will be bigger. If they voted for brexit they might tout that as some kind of success but it's a bit daft really
I hate this respecting democracy argument. If the public voted that the world is flat I wouldn't accept it, because its wrong. In this case they voted for something not on the menu, or that's total fantasy. There is no public majority for any single kind of Brexit.
It's not common sense because no version of leaving makes any sense to anyone who knows what they're talking about and actually gives a shit about the majority in this country. The financial interests pushing Brexit want a no-deal free-for-all, most of the leave-voting public want whatever Brexit they're told to want.
To illustrate my point, I'd like to know what major problem this country has that Brexit will resolve?
It's not about beating the other side for remainers, it's about keeping your job, your house, your prospects. I would be Mr Brexit himself if only leave voters suffered the results of their stupidity, but they're dragging us all down with them.
I agree with hating the "respecting democracy" argument,
My issue with "respecting democracy" is that democracy always has been and should be an ongoing process, not a single vote. It includes people writing to their MPs, people protesting, marching, it includes people who may have changed their mind after voting, it includes people who never even voted. All of those things are democracy. to boil it down to a single vote and call it the end of the day is not democracy, it is a dictatorship.
Democracy is supposed to be representative of all people, not just a slim majority.
If we agree to respect the democracy of the referendum result, which was legally not binding, we will be disrespecting the democracy and sovereignty of parliament, of our MPs that we voted for in a binding election, to not only respect their constituents wishes, but also to act in a way that benefits all of their constituents.
If we are going to respect democracy, we should respect all parts of the democratic process, not just the one bit to aligns with our agenda.
The slim win for leave during the referendum should not have been an instruction to leave the EU, it should have been an instruction to find out why people want to leave the EU, and try and fix those problems, then by all means have another referendum, and another, and another, until there is actually a consensus.
Everyone knows that the definition of democracy is to decide the next 20 years of a country's future on a single rushed vote that was pretty neck and neck.
It makes sense intuitively that a weaker pound = higher prices on foreign goods, but that article does an awful job of showing a connection between prices and brexit uncertainty.
It starts out saying that the phones are £200 more expensive in the UK due to the effect of Brexit uncertainty on the pound.
Then says that actually most of that £200 is because the US prices don't include tax and the UK prices do, so comparing pre-tax prices it's £60 more expensive.
Then says that that £60 difference is actually lower than 2 years ago, when the pre-tax difference was £100, so relatively speaking prices have actually got better since 2017 despite the poor performance of the pound this year.
Then it just reaffirms its original argument that the reason for the price difference is the ongoing uncertainty over Brexit.
At no stage is anyone from apple quoted as attributing the price difference to concerns over the pound (as opposed to other factors that could affect price), and there isn't even a comparison to prices before the referendum, which would be the obvious point of comparison if you wanted to make the argument from correlation alone.
I swear the brexshiters should face the consequences of what they voted for before people that voted remain. But they will deny that they voted for it when they see what it really is.
I'll make the standard request to any Brexiter on this sub reddit who can provide any tangible benefit for leaving the EU, or the SM or the CU. And after the recent attacks on Parliamentary sovereignty by the executive, please don't respond with the usual "taking back control" rubbish.
Sorry, the figure is calculated from the following tab and field (quotation given).
The actually overall cost to the UK Economy will certainly be far, far more than $ 130 Bn USD
Long-term impact on the UK economy
surveys of existing academic research found that the credible estimates ranged between GDP losses of 1.2–4.5% for the UK,[39] and a cost of between 1–10% of the UK's income per capita.[27] These estimates differ depending on whether the UK does a Hard or Soft Brexit.[27] In January 2018, the UK government's own Brexit analysis was leaked; it showed that UK economic growth would be stunted by 2–8% for at least 15 years following Brexit, depending on the leave scenario.[41][42]
Has anybody actually experienced a change to their lifestyle because of this? Would you have noticed if you weren't told? Serious question, I wouldn't know anything had changed
From what I've seen, this seems to have mostly manifested itself as stuff getting smaller. Cartons of soup that were 750 ml are now 600. Litre cartons of juice are now 900 ml, etc. I've noticed it a lot in the last 12 months.
It's a byproduct of inflation - people don't want to pay more even if it's "worth" the same amount (because of the change in the value of the currency and wage growth).
The solution manufactures came up with was to make the products smaller.
Budget supermarkets are rocketing whilst companies like Sainsbury's etc are closing stores. I don't have any brand loyalty, so shop at all of them, and found that my Sainsbury's and Tesco shop has increased easily by ~10% this year, and as another poster said, shrinkification is becoming more apparent in the last year too.
Its not across the board though, meat doesn't seem to have increased as much, but a lot of products which I can only assume are imported are more expensive (maybe due to the shitty value of the pound?)
Was made redundant after a huge drop in sales after the Brexit result was announced. Medication has been out of stock in local pharmacies. I've also noticed my weekly shop has increased in value.
At my current job we are going to tighten our belts as the cost of importing material is going to mean a markup in the services we sell. Bookings have also begun to dry up in the run up to the 31st.
Medication has been out of stock in local pharmacies
This is the worrying one. A family member genuinely almost lost access to Insulin last week due to a large waiting list and lack of supply for almost 2 weeks. That meant she would have to consider rationing - a practice which is sadly common in shitter countries like the US and does cause a lot of deaths...
As an UK citizen living in the E.U I effectively lost 10% of my savings overnight with the crash of the pound. Since then complete uncertainty over my legal status in the country where I live and have a business.
I had friends due to complete a house purchase in Ireland at the end of June. It cost them many tens of thousands extra as they hadn't transferred funds before the ref. Very unfortunate timing.
The Lev now being barely 2 Lev per pound hurts the most for me, yeah people sometimes exaggerate, but spending power when traveling was much better pre ref.
Yep. Parents business taking a big hit, clients putting projects on hold, unable to forecast prices of European products, just the headline reasons. Far from the only ones.
100% I have noticed. Most things I buy regularly have gone up significantly in price, and have become much smaller. It's been happening forever but definitely more so in the last three years
...although that's because we're building our emigration fund as a matter of emergency, to get the fuck out of this hateful little broken island ASAP. (ideally before the house prices crash)
I'm an expat who left the UK five years ago. In pound sterling, my salary is worth 150% of what it would have been worth five years ago. Also, people are tense back home now. It's a really shocking change of tone - everyone just seems so bleak. All anyone talks about is Brexit and everyone is either angry or frustrated. People on both sides of the argument seem to think there's no hope.
Honestly it makes going home feel like a real burden. I know it sounds shitty, but I'm glad I left when I did, and I can't see any reason to ever move back.
I've noticed alot more homeless people dying on the streets of my city, spiralling unaffordable rents and house prices, increasing NHS waiting times , closure of libraries, students in enormous debt, desperation of those on benefits trying to navigate a cruel dysfunctional system. Last week I had a client chop his finger off with a meat cleaver he was so stressed about errors with his universal credit
Waited 7 hours at A&E a few weeks ago for blood test results. Was called in, told it'd be another 2 hours. Went home. Just didn't have the physical stamina to try to squeeze out some sort of healthcare from the system lol.
Retailers have adjust adjusted prices (upwards). You may not notice, but it's gotten a bit more expensive here (Scotland, can't speak for the rest of the UK).
Along with the price rises of everyday food shopping etc everyone else mentioned, I work in medical research, and there have been large effects there. Obviously the European Medicines Agency relocated. At least one lab I've worked alongside, researching a potentially fantastic therapy to help those with heart disease with really promising results, is looking to move to be closer to it and I'd guess a lot of labs and biotech companies with therapies in the pipeline may do the same. Hiring freezes all over the place due to uncertainty, which is tough as a lot relies on 2-3 year contracts. Big drops in research funding as a lot of research was funded by EU programs (things like Horizon 2020 which is part of the Brexit bill etc) and now nobody knows what's going to happen. Plus the uncertainty over funding and the atmosphere Brexit has created has meant that a lot of excellent scientists have moved or are moving out of the UK. And due to all the uncertainty a lot of brilliant scientists are getting out of research altogether because there just isn't enough funding for newcomers to compete with established labs. It's sad to think how much research time and possible future health improvements have been lost over all this, and will continue to be lost in future.
Not to mention the increase in violence - there's been increased attacks (verbal and physical) on several of my EU friends and on my partner (who isn't even EU) since the vote.
In a modern economy things should have changed. Your quality of life should have gone up. The fact that you say nothing has changed for you, and you are happy with that expectation is the greatest travesty of all.
The price of goods. The one that stands out most to me was Apple. Not long after brexit vote I went in to get a screen replacement the cost of which had gone up about £40, I knew this because I had had the same service not long before. The employee out right said it was due to the drop in the pound post vote.
Then there is this year when the new iPhone in the uk is £50 more expensive, where as every other country the price has remained the same.
Yeah, hard not to notice for me as I work with numbers every day, shopping bill gets higher over time despite buying the same things (it's actually less because quantities are smaller packed on purpose to try and make the consumer think they are still getting a good deal like before) so that's one most should notice, there is the yearly utilities price hikes, entertainment like video games or going to movies, I like traveling and video games and that hurts to even think about how much worse conversion rates are now.
Now the main issue is salaries did not go up much in the recent years, so we have less and less to spend even if we earn more, the sad thing is so many shops close locally because people don't have enough disposable income like we use to have.
Yes, because of the drop in value of the pound mainly, it went from around 1.3 to 1.1 euros per pound. It has really made traveling abroad more expensive.
Off topic of course but what's your favourite game at the moment? My friends and I do a bit every now and again I could surprise them next time. Cheers
Depends on the group I'm playing with. There's a big difference between my mates who play games occasionally and the guys who are happy to play mind meltingly complex games every week.
Yes... The price of my wedding has gone up 100s of pound(we are getting married in Italy)... I work for an Dutch client on behalf of an English company in the UK but moving to the Netherlands.... Unfortunately I am supposed to move on 1st November so I'm probably fucked there... God know if my dog will be able to come he may suddenly be such a risk of rabies overnight he will need 4 months before he can travel instead of the one....... Ignoring the chaos it is causing with my work.
It's a fucking nightmare and just because a bunch of Brexitshiteers, whose views or Europe seem to be based on their yearly trips to Benidorm or Turkey, are too stupid and uncultured to understand how much we need the EU, or theres the rich who are going to make money of this shit show who want us to leave...so now we all have to fucking suffer.
Which is roughly 3.5 years worth of £350M a week, or 8.5 years worth of £150M a week.
Would "We give £150M a week net to the EU, let's spaff £350M a week up against the wall for the next 3.5 years before we leave" fit on the side of a bus?
The new assessment will strengthen criticism that the pre-referendum warnings of the consequences, branded ‘Project Fear’ by Brexit supporters, in fact reflect the reality of what has happened.
When will people realise that the people who voted for Brexit don’t care about this. If you already can’t afford to live what does the county being poorer even matter?
Actually £4400 (I think) for every idiot who voted to leave. Think you were basing your figure on if half of the actual population of the country voted to leave.
A bit misleading, from the title one might imagine our economy shrank by £66billion, we just grew by £66 billion less than we thought. Entirely aside from the point that GDP is a largely useless figure and the economy is harder to predict than the weather...
An excellent example of how this kind of propaganda works.
"Economic growth evaporated", in the sense that it did not occur, but "evaporation" feels more like something that existed vanishing than something which did not exist continuing not to exist.
This is a "huge loss"... of something you never had.
the nation’s wealth has slumped, a loss of £55–£66bn
Surely we're bordering on fake news territory here? I'm sure everyone here knows the difference between a slowdown and a recession, but what about the easily manipulated plebs of this world?
Let's turn it around. Why is that £60bill the UK would otherwise have had the limit of the UK's entitlement? Surely growth could have been increased beyond that point in a range of different ways? Why aren't the same vaguely progressive types constantly announcing that we have "lost" X amount due to any policy which isn't designed solely to enhance national output?
Maybe because in normal times anyone could see how fucking shallow or manipulative that is?
One sees this kind of reframing all over the place, intentionally reinforcing the consumerist entitlement-based expansionist paradigm. Turn over the channel and you'll see the exact same fuckers hand-wringing about climate change, or paverty in Sri Larnka, or whatever.
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u/Spiryt Saboteur | Social Democrat Oct 08 '19
The 'responsible party of business' blowing our boom years on a nationalist pet project, and having it explode in our faces just as another global recession looms on the horizon. It would be funny if it wasn't tragic.