State of the economy under the Tories

[BillyStubbsTears]

Inflation is a good measure.

Too high: that means the economy is booming unsustainably and will inevitably crash.

Too low: that means the economy is not firing anywhere near as well as it should do.

We have a target level of inflation of 2% per year. Under the last Labour Govt, it ran pretty much millpond smooth around 2% for a decade until it bounced around during the Global Financial Crash.

This is what's happened under the Tories.




Flatlined at zero percent due to the economy struggling because of Austerity. Then surged in 16/17, for once NOT because of the economy booming, but because the Pound collapsed after the Brexit vote, making all our imports a lot more expensive. That's the very worst kind of inflation - stuff costs more but we're not making more money to pay for it. Now that surge is working its way out of the system, we are head back towards zero inflation because the economy is doing so awfully.

You lot who voted Leave and Tory. You own this. You were warned. It has happened.

[Ldr]

BST in the past you have posted coherently. More recently you sound like someone who has been dumped by their bird

[BillyStubbsTears]

Very good Ldr.

I think that's called playing the man, not the ball. A lot of that about these days.

All I'm doing is pointing out the facts of where this last decade has taken us.
What's your take on that? Anything? Nothing?

[Herbert Anchovy]

Very good Ldr.

I think that's called playing the man, not the ball. A lot of that about these days.

All I'm doing is pointing out the facts of where this last decade has taken us.
What's your take on that? Anything? Nothing?

He needs to wait until tomorrow’s Daily Mail tells him what to think...

[Ldr]

I can only speak for myself and my family, I find my life better off than 10 years ago (not just in monetary terms but in terms of employment opportunities and access to social / health facilities), but then I had the sense to leave Doncaster. HA beneath you I thought, you can feel the venom in your post 😉

[Herbert Anchovy]

I can only speak for myself and my family, I find my life better off than 10 years ago (not just in monetary terms but in terms of employment opportunities and access to social / health facilities), but then I had the sense to leave Doncaster. HA beneath you I thought, you can feel the venom in your post 😉

Bad day at the coal face LDR...I apologise.

[Ldr]

We all have them, me more than most

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm doing much better personally too Ldr.

But that's not the point.

The country as a whole had just gone through the worst decade of economic growth since the 1800s.

Sajid Javid recently was crowing about the fact that we had economic growth in every year of the 2010s. Which is true in itself. But what he didn't say was that the average growth was about 0.8% lower than the long term average growth we had from the War until 2010. That is appalling. It means that, overall, our economy is producing something like £150bn PER YEAR less than it would be doing if we'd continued in the trend of the previous 65 years. Sum it up and we have lost something like £800bn of potential income.

That's a terrifying number. And the projections are that we are going to continue this below par growth into the foreseeable future.

So yes, some people do ok. You and me perhaps. But most don't do anywhere near as well as they should have done. And the country locks into a long term relative decline relative to many comparable countries.

You might not worry about that. I think it's a tragedy. And moreso because it is down to deliberate choices of policy.

You might not want to be reminded about it. I think it's crucial that we all understand this, if we are going to avoid more choices like this in the future.

[Ldr]

See here is a fundamental difference, I dont worry about what I cant control, its gonna happen anyway. Dont stress

[Herbert Anchovy]

See here is a fundamental difference, I dont worry about what I cant control, its gonna happen anyway. Dont stress

But we can control it by having a more empathetic government?

[Ldr]

Not for 5 years as it stands HA

[wilts rover]

I think it is also worth mentioning that the economy is not one thing, nor does it affect/benefit everyone equally.

The UK is one of the most economically unequal countries in Europe. Through the 20th century until 1984 inequality in the UK fell drastically - so everyone was benefitting from the economy.

Since 1984 inequality has begun to rise again - even more so under austerity. In the past 5 years (to 2018) the income of the richest 5th rose by 4.7%. In the same period that of the poorest 5th fell by 1.6%.

Nor is the wealth distributed equally across the country. London and the south-east have about twice the wealth of the north.

There are some nice graphs illustrating all this here:

https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

[BillyStubbsTears]

See here is a fundamental difference, I dont worry about what I cant control, its gonna happen anyway. Dont stress

I'm not worrying about it. I'm pointing it out.

You can have whatever attitude towards it that you wish. I don't understand your need to tell me you don't have any interest in what I'm posting though.

[Ldr]

I always have interest in your posts BST, one of the more normal posters on here, just pointed out, in an admittedly poor way, your style has changed

[BillyStubbsTears]

In what way has it changed? I've been wasting my time on here for a decade pointing out the likely consequences of the political direction the country has been heading in.

[Ldr]

All the you lot own this, I guess it helps to keep divides there rather than bringing people together. Maybe I’m wrong but I never expected that from you. That’s what’s I was getting at in my original reply. I never had you as the bitter sniping type at all

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's not sniping. It's wanting folk to be responsible for their decisions.

I am tired of seeing people either ignore the evidence in front of them, or invent other reasons for our chronic underperformance.

And it's also an acceptance of the fact that the side I support HAS lost consistently. The country that we now inhabit and the trajectory we have followed for a decade IS the result of other people's choices.

I'm a big believer in responsibility. I think the side that chose this approach should at least be grown up enough to reflect on what these choices are resulting in. And stop blaming other people.

The other side HAS won hands down. I'm fully accepting of that. But responsibility cones with that. They DO now own the consequences.

[selby]

  Are you ready for the Brexit Bounce Billy. That's what a senior economist was predicting today on Talk Radio.
 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Who was that Selby?

[SydneyRover]

still waiting for the first one Selby 

[selby]

  Didn't catch his name Billy,But it is on a podcast on facebook of the Mike Graham show.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thanks for that Selby.

I've just listened to the Mike Graham podcast.

It comprised:
1) A Tory justice minister saying how great Brexit was going to be.
2) A read out of listeners comments, including "You're not allowed to be patriotic anymore. It's illegal." To which, Mike Graham replied "Well you would think that sometimes wouldn't you." Then another listener saying "Great Britain has always been a great country, but a handful of political parties don't like Great Britain and are doing their best to crush it." To which Graham replied, "There IS a group of people who want to talk Britain down all the time, that we're all racists, that we're doing the wrong thing, etc, etc".

3) That was followed by a gun lobby campaigner rabbiting on about political correctness for 10 minutes.
4)Then the programme finished with someone complaining that Millennials are trying to destroy the Great British Breakfast.

So. Nowt from any economist. But a fascinating insight into how your opinions get formed if you listen to that shite every day.

[SydneyRover]

I admire your fortitude Billy first listening to the drivel then examining what was said then following up with facts and you still get brickbats, happy new year.

[selby]

 Well Billy I agree with you about the content, it sounds like the pod cast from the day before's programme. must admit I found it boring and turned over to listen to Jim White.

[foxbat]

An heroic effort BST . I find listening to that sort of sh1te for more than a couple of minutes starts to get depressing.

There was some Brexit Party idiot on previously trying to campaign to ban continental breakfast
being served in hotels and saying they should be 'forced' to serve English breakfast only.

Not very healthy , but I do enjoy an English style breakfast , now and again , but never again if
it is being enforced by Brexit stormtroopers

We really are the laughing stock of the world right now , sad.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's a long, drawn-out End of Empire thing.

Dean Acheson, the old American Secretary of State who was brought out of retirement to guide Kennedy through the Cuban Missile Crisis summed it up in the 1960s. He said:

"Britain has lost an Empire but not yet found a role". He strongly believed that role should be as one of a group of strong equals in Europe. Hey-ho...

The history of our post-Empire period has been one of swinging between taking up that role or being apart from Europe and seeing ourselves as something different. Brexit is just another chapter in that story.

I suppose we should be glad in a way. Most empires end in tragedy and defeat. Ours is just ending in the farce of people feeling threatened by "continental" breakfasts! It's frustrating though when that sort of pathetic attitude is egged on by the likes of Mike Graham.

[selby]

  The likes of Mike Graham Billy, you are a sad sod, and he is an ex employee of the Scotish Mirror paper.
   Brexit bounce Billy, new car sales up this month, in the last twelve month 1240 British firms have been acquired by foreign owned firms, in the same period 1200 foreign owned firms have been acquired by British owned firms, mainly in India and the far East, the value of the British firms being slightly more in value than the foreign acquisitions being mainly in high tech and financial companies.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Piers Morgan used to edit The Mirror.

Doesn't change the fact that he's a t**t.

That half hour of listening to Graham yesterday was soul destroying. It's not news. It's propaganda. Absolute tosh spouted by the guests and not a word of challenge from him. And the listeners who wrote in...Jesus!

Anyway. Where's the source of that claim that car sales are up?

[selby]

  BBC radio 5 last night between 9 to ten Billy, try and get the right day this time.
  Don't know the presenters name, you will just have to do what you do well and trawl through it until you get to something you can call sh**e or something resembling something you think left enough and politically correct enough so you can S***k all over it.
 

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm just interested because there's nothing on any news feed today. If there was a significant increase, you'd think that would be big news.