UK as an "Emerging Economy"?

[woodhutt]

I think I need to explain my reason for starting this post as it seems to have scratched a few sores.
I effectively ceased to reside in the UK in the mid 70's, travelling back only once or twice a year to visit my elderly parents in the North-East. It was noticeable then that things were deteriorating with the loss of shipbuilding, heavy industry and eventually pit closures.
In the mid 80's I took my family to NZ and ceased to have even that intermittent contact with the UK and being pre-internet days, news was essentially gleaned from main stream media.
Given the broad spectrum of backgrounds of the Forum's members, my hope was to try and get a picture of how UK residents see the future (post Brexit/ Covid) rather than rely on MSM for opinion. Quoting the opinion piece from CNN was only to spark comment.
I am less interested in how the US views the UK/Europe (sorry D_W ) nor are one line dismissive comments particularly helpful.
If some members of the forum find the subject of the post uncomfortable, then I suggest they simply ignore it and let it stand or fall as it will. Any other members comments on how they perceive the UK's future will be gratefully read.
Pete

 

[Rorschach]

Ok well I foresee a tricky few years post Brexit, some of that is brexit itself but I think it will be harder and longer due to C19 (not that the MSM will spin it that way). Once trade deals and a new immigration policy have had a couple of years to settle though I think there is a positive future for the UK.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

"Predictions are hard, especially about the future".

The world economy was falling over before pandemic (hence a significant number of conspiracy theorists positing that it is a "plandemic"). Banking liquidity hit a wall last September, and major deckchair-rearranging was required to stop the system grinding a halt. The recession we ought to have had 5 years ago has been constantly put off, which just means it will be bigger and deeper when finally allowed to happen.

That's where we were, and then "they" stopped all trade worldwide because of a virus. What comes next is anyone's guess, but none of it is good. Fiat currency has come to the end of its useful life, as it now requires almost infinite, exponential debt to continue. This may happen by just ignoring all the rules and ignoring reality, but at some point Wiley Coyote always realises that gravity still works...

Other possibilities: complete failure of fiat currencies, and a return to a commodity-backed currency (Gold would be the obvious choice). Unlikely, because it will limit bankers' ability to create money out of thin air. A new non-petrodollar but still fiat reserve currency, possibly a basket of currencies (the Special Drawing Rights SDR basket is being pushed by the BIS, for example). Also a world, digital currency, which would be a total loss of sovereignty for every individual: fail to comply, and your access to funds will be withdrawn. Good luck relying on the charity of friends and family, when they also risk being cut off for helping you. Social credit scores and all that.

A good war to flush the system and start again is also an option . Creative destruction of wealth, in other words. Instead of turning raw materials into landfill as fast as possible, we could turn raw materials into exploding chaos and dead civilians. Obviously "we the people" would rather not, but "we" never seem to be given a choice.

Until interest rates go up, the value of money is zero. Until capital is better off being used in the economy, it will stay in financialised pretend assets, to the detriment of everyone except the few closest to the source of new money.

With all of the above, the UK is a trivial blip on the world economy. Take the banking sector away, and life looks a bit tricky. However, the brits, being a nation of shopkeepers, will keep on working, trading and doing business. You just can't stop them. Other countries might give up, but not the plucky brits.

So, my prediction for the world, and the UK, is a good, long depression, which will be fought tooth and nail by central banks. Colossal money printing, which eventually will lead to significant inflation. Whether this causes failures of currencies depends on the agility of the central bank's, and whether there is a conspiracy to bring in a single world currency.

Short term, asset deflation, which makes rich people poor - hence print to infinity to save the rich. Stock market crash before Christmas (September is traditional).

How's that for a prediction? I am probably wrong about everything.

 

[doctor Bob]

I think I need to explain my reason for starting this post as it seems to have scratched a few sores.
I effectively ceased to reside in the UK in the mid 70's, travelling back only once or twice a year to visit my elderly parents in the North-East. It was noticeable then that things were deteriorating with the loss of shipbuilding, heavy industry and eventually pit closures.
In the mid 80's I took my family to NZ and ceased to have even that intermittent contact with the UK and being pre-internet days, news was essentially gleaned from main stream media.
Given the broad spectrum of backgrounds of the Forum's members, my hope was to try and get a picture of how UK residents see the future (post Brexit/ Covid) rather than rely on MSM for opinion. Quoting the opinion piece from CNN was only to spark comment.
I am less interested in how the US views the UK/Europe (sorry D_W ) nor are one line dismissive comments particularly helpful.
If some members of the forum find the subject of the post uncomfortable, then I suggest they simply ignore it and let it stand or fall as it will. Any other members comments on how they perceive the UK's future will be gratefully read.
Pete

So a bit like looking up how the ex wife is doing and hoping you're doing better
I think the UK's future is as good or better than the majority of countries. A lot of it is what you make of it.
The young make the future, something is going terribly wrong in New zealand on that front. Highest youth suicide rate in the world. Nice views are not enough. I think a lot of New Zealands problems are swept under the carpet because its a pretty country with a nice young lady PM and the darling of the press for the last 10 years.

 

[Blackswanwood]

What a depressing thread ...

I predict hand cut dovetails will still be only accomplished successfully after much practice and the question of whether diamond stones are better than waterstones will not be resolved.

 

[CHJ]

Going back to the rose tinted memories of someone who grew up in the late 1940's through the -50's and took on the responsibilities of family life at the very start of the 60's I can only remember a spirit of 'Glass Half Full' from all around us, be they post war itinerant workers looking for survival, decimated family groups or the wealthier land and business owners.

To me the the overwhelming social media propensity to project and publicise a 'Glass half Empty' in many instances a hindsight fuelled critical view on the situation, is the biggest disservice and unnecessarily disheartening face to the current generation and the country as a whole.

In war, in business, in day to day emergency situations and time critical events, the important thing is for someone to make a decision, inevitably the person who stands up and makes those decisions at a critical time errs, mistakes are made, not always the most efficient solution is chosen, get over it, move on, ideally someone will know better next time if the same or similar problem occurs.

We don't have time for procrastination and solution solving by committee at this time.

 

[Rorschach]

I think a lot of New Zealands problems are swept under the carpet because its a pretty country with a nice young lady PM and the darling of the press for the last 10 years.

It is also a country that makes more than 25% of it's GDP from tourism, a lot of that foreign.

I said it quite a while back now, what does NZ do about that, they are determined to keep C19 out of the country but they are now isolated. We may have suffered in Europe but already tourism is getting back going, there is even time for a summer holiday abroad if you want it.

 

[woodhutt]

So a bit like looking up how the ex wife is doing and hoping you're doing better
I think the UK's future is as good or better than the majority of countries. A lot of it is what you make of it.
The young make the future, something is going terribly wrong in New zealand on that front. Highest youth suicide rate in the world. Nice views are not enough. I think a lot of New Zealands problems are swept under the carpet because its a pretty country with a nice young lady PM and the darling of the press for the last 10 years.

My motives for starting this thread seem to have been (willfully?) misconstrued.
Your opinions on NZ, while accurate, are not what I was after. I do, after all, live here and am more than aware of its failings (and successes). At least your dismissive post stretched from an earlier single sentence to eight lines.
I had thought that I could get an insight into the way a diverse range of people, as there are on the Forum, see the future of the UK. Getting it 'from the horse's mouth'as it were.
Unfortunately, I seem to have addressed the wrong end of the animal.
I think I will leave it there except to thank those who at least attempted to reply to the post in the spirit in which it was intended.
Pete

 

[D_W]

Otherwise yes seems you are right about pretty much everything else and this CNN headline being little more than clickbait - my father said as much, he did go on to say more and go into quite some detail as to the intricacies and the WHY the UK won't be seen as an "Emerging Market" EVEN with brexit looming, and an interesting fact that the doomsayers screaming of the loss to the UK economy have already revised thier predicted 8% overall loss over 15 year period down to 4%, which makes it essentially negligable and lost in the general noise of fluctuating markets on a daily basis; aka a non event.

All of this has (and should have been in the article) to be taken in relative terms against all the other countries suffering from the effect of the pandemic as well.

Quite a lot of the above that I posted (and really never should've gone into) is based on how we are culturally (like whether or not we care what the world sees of us. I'm not into politics, I think politics is a system to use problems to manipulate people, and not a system to solve problems to help people - so sometimes that gets confused because many here are more into politics than religion. It drives our scottish friend bonkers when he comes here and he's more concerned about the image of the government here than we are, or what's on our news - he never seems to notice that we don't really watch it). He LOVES the actual experience on the ground here, if you know what I mean. He expects from the news to hear gunshots on the ground, but is almost disappointed when I tell him that in 43 years (and I walk through the city every day for work), I've never heard one except at the state game lands shooting range that I used to go to north. Hate to disappoint. I'm sure you could find areas to hear them, but that would be bad policy.

At any rate, there are many things missing from the UK ever being an emerging economy - there is too much uniform education there, too much social structure, too much safety net. Our economy here is going through some of the same pains, but slightly differently, but I live in pittsburgh, which is a region that sort of did the transformation earlier. If an area or currency weakens enough, but the educated populace is there, people will do business.

The crisis here being that folks could work for the current equivalent of about $50k in the mills (which was often miserable, but it was a level of misery they were willing to accept). That went away, and there is more stratification of the population, but engineering firms, financials, health care and education took over and the region is more wealthy than it was when it was in steel. Not all regions have done that, but I think that's where the UK is headed.

In my view (not getting into the pros and cons of brexit, this is about the news manipulation of people), you don't know what's going to happen until it does, but you (not you specifically, everyone) probably have some things that you should be taking care of today or right now. The job of the news is to separate you from those things and pose the classic question of anxiety - pose a problem in the future while you're in the present. You cannot solve problems in the future while you're in the present because you can only define what ifs, and the solution set doesn't exist until you're in the context of the problem.

What if I lose my job, what if i look stupid, what if I go broke, what if I lose my home? That's what all of this is intended to push people toward, a cognitive trick. The first trigger (in the news story) is always something out of your control, or it wouldn't be scary enough.

What if nothing bad happens and I was dumb enough to worry that it could and not appreciate that life is easier now than it has ever been...

 

[Terry - Somerset]

A longer term view of the economy shows that material goods production needs ever less human input. The service sector is now over 80% of UK GDP. Ultimately, if production of material goods requires no human input, the production has no £££ value The resources used in manufacture do have a value driven by scarcity of supply and the desirability of the product.

Oft said than you can only wear one set of clothes at a time or eat only three meals a day. We are already obese and overfed (in the UK), and need no additonal material goods (generally).

The rise of automation and robots means food and material goods will cost ever less to produce. The real risks in the future relate to environmental degradation due to individual over consumption and population growth.

The traditional aspirations of economic growth which underpinned our society for several centuries become less important. The proposition that labour was necessary to fulfill basic material needs is increasingly irrelevant.

There are two alternative futures. One in which personal fulfillment comes through intellectual, craft, societal engagement etc. The other is that the competitive urge manifests itself in ever more bizarre and ostentatious ways to support over consumption enjoyed by a few.

The former is a far more comfortable place for most of us. The latter ensures that the competitive urges of the few dominate the needs of the majority.

Concepts of universal income are likely to become more common. Normal working hours decline as demand for labour reduces. In some ways this will just be a continuation of the welfare state which has seen (generally) lower working hours, better working conditions, public provision of key services (NHS, education etc), income for those unable to earn (universal credit??).

Brexit (to some extent) and CV-19 may be the events that initiate fundamental changes to society and the economy. It also means that traditional concepts like "emerging economy" are not worthy of discussion - why waste time discussing that which may now be obselete.

 

[Freddyjersey2016]

I saw a similar article in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago; I agree with some of it; that the UK faces a drift towards irrelevance unless Govt & UK business get a grip. The no-deal brexit which seems ever closer to me will wreak most havoc on the car industry, which in a year of almost zero car sales seems foolish (remember when Stalin was faced with German invasion in WW2 he moved all manufacturing in a matter of weeks; the car manufacturers have had plenty of time to plan) . In practise we will still have to adopt most EU rules on manufactured goods otherwise shipping to the EU (our biggest market) will not be possible. Replacing sales to say Italy with possible sales to say West Africa for example seems unlikely to make the UK rich.
The US / China phony war will probably get worse whatever the US do as China is no longer afraid of the US; and the whole of Asia know it; especially as the US has handles the CV19 crisis so badly, death rates going up again due to pathetic federal leadership (and many State Governors will pay the price accordingly come election time).

 

[HappyHacker]

I have little faith in forecasts by people who failed to forecast any of the stock market crashes or the various recessions we have suffered until after they have happened.

My skepticism is also fuelled by the predictions in the 60's and 70's when I was a wet behind the ears youngster:

• We are heading for a global ice age;
  Electricity will so cheap as a result of nuclear power it will not be worth metering it;
  By the 80's we will all be working less than 25 hours a week and finally
  The computer will lead to the paperless office!

The last one hurts, as in my home office I have three four drawer filing cabinets full of files and another 10 boxes on the floor full of paper and that is after I have spent a week shredding unwanted stuff.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The world, its cousin, its cousin's dogs and its cousin's dog's puppies could have foreseen the crash of 2008. The only ones not foreseeing it were the people whose income depended on their not foreseeing it.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

15 years ago the large company I worked for relocated from a "traditional" 1960s office environment to a new building designed to be open plan throughout - meeting rooms and pods excepted.

In my office I had 2 or 3 full filing cabinets + a 6ft tambour unit. Having been told that at the new location storage would be far more limited and that a clear desk policy was to be adopted, I set to reviewing individual files and disposing of the unnecessary.

Boredom set in very quickly so I turned to an alternative strategy - keep only that which I knew I would need, rather than throw that which I knew I didn't.

It took just 2 hours to fill a dozen black sacks leaving a pile about 18 inches high:

- none of the paper trashed was missed
- most could be reprinted if needed - emails, word docs and spreadsheets
- demonstrates that keeping things "just in case" "just creates clutter"

 

[MikeG.]

........- demonstrates that keeping things "just in case" "just creates clutter"

Except wood. Then it's just sensible stockpiling.

 

[lurker]

15 years ago the large company I worked for relocated from a "traditional" 1960s office environment to a new building designed to be open plan throughout - meeting rooms and pods excepted.

In my office I had 2 or 3 full filing cabinets + a 6ft tambour unit. Having been told that at the new location storage would be far more limited and that a clear desk policy was to be adopted, I set to reviewing individual files and disposing of the "

This happened to me too.
However I have a bit of a thing about reading from hard copy.
20 years previously when I joined the company the first big job I worked on resulted in a report to a client.
Fast forward to after a office relocation: the job done years ago, sprang a major leak and the client wanted us to cough up for the repairs, couple of million !!
I remembered the report and a warning a colleague had made about how it was joined to the main plant. The colleague had died and the client had undergone two takeovers.
I had kept the report for sentimental reasons ( having spent two years on it plus the subsequent work). That one document saved the company quite a few quid.

 

[AES]

Agree 100% with lurker. Not everything has to be kept in paper form (external hard drive, etc, will do for a lot of stuff) but I too have had several times when stuff I had hung on to "just in case" (complete project files, often part paper, part electronic) have dug me/the company I was representing out of the manure.

Completely disagree that saving stuff "just in case" is a waste of time/space, but then I guess that attitude depends to a large extent on what sort industry you're in and/or how many noughts you're likely to find in a typical Invoice for that industry.

In some industries (aviation certainly, and I think Nuclear too) there are legal requirements to maintain some documents for a specified number of years, and as of when I retired from aviation (5 years ago now) hard copies were a must, no electronic copies permitted (though there were discussions about relaxing that ruling re electronic copies). Dunno what, if anything, has happened since.

In at least some industries there is no such thing as a paperless office, sorry.

Old saying in aviation "the jobs not done until the weight of paperwork exceeds the max Take Off weight of the aircraft". That's only half tongue in cheek.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

In the new open plan almost paperless environment it was quicker to search for an electronic document and print it if required - I agree there are times when hard copy is easier to assimilate, cross reference etc.

Meeting rooms were equipped with projector and screen so that any documents could be shown online. Saved having to print off documents pre-meeting. And being online the documents accessed would be the latest versions - particularly important with engineering and building plans etc.

The only issue was marrying increasingly rare snail mail with electronic records.

There is some satisfaction in having the last 5 years monthly reports filed sequentially by month. It is possible to get upset if one is missing - even when the preceding 59 months have never been referred to since their creation.

I do agree with an earlier poster about the desirability of retaining even the smallest piece of wood - even though we al know it will never be sufficient to complete a project in the future.

 

[RogerS]

15 years ago the large company I worked for relocated from a "traditional" 1960s office environment to a new building designed to be open plan throughout - meeting rooms and pods excepted.

In my office I had 2 or 3 full filing cabinets + a 6ft tambour unit. Having been told that at the new location storage would be far more limited and that a clear desk policy was to be adopted, I set to reviewing individual files and disposing of the unnecessary.

Boredom set in very quickly so I turned to an alternative strategy - keep only that which I knew I would need, rather than throw that which I knew I didn't.

It took just 2 hours to fill a dozen black sacks leaving a pile about 18 inches high:

- none of the paper trashed was missed
- most could be reprinted if needed - emails, word docs and spreadsheets
- demonstrates that keeping things "just in case" "just creates clutter"

Yup. When I had an 'office' to myself, I had a three-shelf cabinet. Top shelf - last month. Middle-shelf - month before that. Bottom shelf - month before that one. My desk ? This month. End of each month, bin the bottom shelf and move everything 'on' one. Why bother to file ?

 

[rafezetter]

The world, its cousin, its cousin's dogs and its cousin's dog's puppies could have foreseen the crash of 2008. The only ones not foreseeing it were the people whose income depended on their not foreseeing it.

Not entirely true - many had blind faith "it can't happen" or abjectly refused to beleive how badly the sub-prime mortgages had been missold and just assumed because of the triple A ratings given, that thier misgivings were from a lack of knowledge.

The film "The big short" while a dramatisation is nonetheless pretty accurate of the mentalites, surrounding the companies and moreover, countries not directly linked to the perpeptration of the fraud, but who had bought the fraudlent products in good faith.

As to the thread I'd like to think the UK isn't quite a basket case yet, and that some of the spirit that helped us through WW I and WWII still exists.