[Will Hunt]

It was staringly obvious that there would be a huge amount of work for the civil service to do to untangle our system of government from the EU, however that in itself is not a reason not to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Remain and personally think it's a terrible investment of time and resource to have to go about re-legislating. However, if I was a Leave voter being told that we couldn't leave a political union that a majority of the populace was dissatisfied with simply because "it's too much work", then I'd be wondering where the CS' ambition was.

[Oldmanmatt]

If you have a quiet few moments, this is worth a read:

http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/out-of-shape_pages_Nov2016.pdf?noredirect=1

The IPPR report ahead of the budget makes a strong case for the great challenges ahead and why we are completely unprepared for what's coming; it also looks as though the Blairite years might bear the blame for much of that...

Summed, I think, in these two plates:







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[i.munro]

While I think there's little point in playing the blame game - where are where we are, I do find your summing up a little strange. Looking at the graph of investment, that you emphasise, this seems to fall steadily from (roughly) 1974-1984 and then very sharply in the periods 1990-1995 and 2008-2011.

[Oldmanmatt]

Well, it was a trite summary; rather than an analysis and more than happy to be corrected. It is a character flaw of mine to posit as a statement.
However, I read the first graph as follows.
The early decline was consistent across Europe and the OECD and represents the Post Industrial decline common to most Western nations as they shifted to service economies. The global crash of 90/91 hit the UK particularly hard because we had shifted (under Thatcher) to a home owner/highly leveraged society and our housing market collapsed (the house I bought for £75k in 1990 was worth £40k by Aug 92. Sold for £78k in 2000).
What struck me was the steady decline during Labour's term, where the OECD saw small but steady growth, and I now see why the crisis of '08 hit the UK so hard.
Hard enough that despite almost a decade of QE and infinitesimal interest rates, we have hardly moved.


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[erm]

It was staringly obvious that there would be a huge amount of work for the civil service to do to untangle our system of government from the EU, however that in itself is not a reason not to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Remain and personally think it's a terrible investment of time and resource to have to go about re-legislating. However, if I was a Leave voter being told that we couldn't leave a political union that a majority of the populace was dissatisfied with simply because "it's too much work", then I'd be wondering where the CS' ambition was.

Absolutely, but it does make a strong argument, at the very least, for taking a moment to prepare for time limited negotiations.

[i.munro]

What struck me was the steady decline during Labour's term, where the OECD saw small but steady growth,
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I'm sorry. are we looking at the same graph? I see a small fall of perhaps 2% over this pariod roughly matching the performance of the OECD and the US (Europe admittedly doing rather better).  The period where we fell hopelessly behind looks like  the fall of around 10% from roughly 88-93.

[Oldmanmatt]

Well, it looks like a mildly positive move in OECD from 2001/2 until the crash in '08, with a similarly negative move in the UK over the same period (albeit with a dip and hook of mild recovery  immediately prior to the crash).
Fairly sure I mentioned the crash of 1990 and posited my opinion for a partial reason for it's massive impact on the UK ?
I hadn't intended to lay the blame wholeheartedly upon Labour, far from it. I feel, as an Engineer (to whit, unqualified to make sound analysis) that Thatcher's great plan to "modernise" our economy seems to have left us woefully vulnerable to the vagaries of the financial markets (far more so than most Western nations) and was surprised to see the lack of recovery under Labour.
I'd lived overseas throughout that period and had viewed it as one of growth and prosperity, from a distance.
What I see in that graph is a lack of investment, leading to a vulnerability and a rather nasty hit. A hit that leaves us today below 1970 levels of investment, admittedly a Europe wide trend but far more pronounced in the UK. I also see an OECD level which has broadly retained investment over the same period.
 Am viewing an illustrative graph as a PDF on an iPad without reasonable ability to scale or source figures to compare, mind you.

So, my question, does that look like a great position to be in, as we embark upon our great upheaval?

 


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[i.munro]

Fairy nuff. There's a lot of areas where Labour should have done much better & IMO could have if they weren't so wedded to this neo-liberal economic bollocks, but  given the utter shambles they inherited, collapsing health service, chronic underinvestment etc etc I don't think they could have fixed it all in such a short period. It's a lot easier/quicker to break things than it is to fix them, sadly.
Anyway no it's a disastrous place to be but I doubt even an economy like Germany's could pull this stunt without massive hardship.

[slackline]

Brexit Britain May Not Have the Clout When It Comes to New Trade Deals

Not clear whether the UKs contribution has been extracted from the EUs...

[Oldmanmatt]

Chris Riddell is one of my favourite artists and  I love the way he brings things to life.
I'd guess everyone has seen the Telegraph letter this is taken from but this (I hope) renders it less snarky and more Monty Python:










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[Yossarian]

It was the FT, not the Telegraph. The FT comments are vastly more well-thought out than the latter...

[Oldmanmatt]

It was the FT, not the Telegraph. The FT comments are vastly more well-thought out than the latter...

Oops, my bad.

Seriously though, you seem to be implying that the Telegraph is some sort of polar opposite to, say, The Guardian; surely you jest?
It's almost as if you are describing them as thinly veiled, oversized, pompous, Tabloids for slightly posh people (possibly, not as posh as they think they are, people) of an unwavering political bent?


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[Yossarian]

The Telegraph does seem to attract comments (and letters, more seriously) written by complete nutters. The Guardian attracts a different kind of nutter. The Mail's comments are in another league, of course. They did a piece online about a dinosaur poster I designed, and the comments descended into a massive American creationism argument.

I did quite enjoy bits of the Telegraph from time to time, but they've since sacked nearly everyone involved with those - Harry Wallop, Tim Walker, etc...

[Oldmanmatt]

Not surprising. I am becoming a tad jaded to both "wings" of politics and their respective media mouth pieces.
And religion just plain grips my shit (because magic is just so much more believable than f&#€ing simple logic).

Bah Humbug! Bring on the AI apocalypse!
I'd settle for alien-overlords if they're at least scientifically literate (interstellar travellers? Seems probable).

Is designing your thing or dinosaurs?


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[Yossarian]

I forget who said it, but in many respects if you stick to the FT and Vice, you are pretty much covered…

Designing and writing - I'm doing a kids book about bugs at the moment. Some of them are on here - simontyler.co.uk

[tomtom]

Designing Dinosaurs? Hope they come with valid passports.

[tomtom]

(I missed a on that)

[Yossarian]

Yeah, because animals just suddenly grow wings. Have you never read the bible?

Dinosaurs just dont spring up from nowhere. Someone would have to create the first pair that could then produce offspring. Consider yourself on a desert island with no ducks...... no ducks are just going to "evolve" from a crocodile.... its totally stupid.

ok so this is the same as your post on the main topic.... Again.....just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that some higher power created life...it's just that you don't understand it. Not many people do so don't feel bad.

And to think creationists would have us believe dinosaurs evolved from God!

I think most say that God put the fossils there for some reason, not that they evolved from God. Either way it's idiotic. I don't believe that this Rae.s guy believes what he is saying, I think he is provoking reaction.

I love the "consider a desert island with no ducks" bit...

[Oldmanmatt]

I'd settle for one with no duck-wits...


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[tomtom]

Brilliant Yossarian. That made me smile

[Oldmanmatt]

And excellent work there too. [emoji1]


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[i.munro]

Oldmanmatt might be interested in this piece http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/like-those-before-him-philip-hammond-is-stuck-in-a-productivity-paradox-a3403971.html form yesterday's Standard. Bear in mind how rabidly pro-tory this paper is but it makes  some interesting points about investment & wages.

[Oldmanmatt]

Yep, and all of this ignores the reality of impending automation of huge swathes of the labour market...

We're doomed, I tell you, DOOOOOMMEDD!

It's one of those things, I guess. If you're a reader of the likes of New Scientist, The Economist et al; you know that all those jobs at Nissan are likely to vanish within a decade. You also realise that even massive investment and a whole raft new factories constructed here, still wouldn't bring the jobs people imagine. Who's going to build a new factory without the latest automation?
Some people think that's what they've voted for, I've heard it repeatedly "more factories, more jobs!" As if it's EU regs that closed the mines, caused production to move East and brought all that automation.

How do you explain to people that coal isn't coming back?
There's no point digging Tin from a Cornish hard rock mine, when some South American can scoop it up with a JCB?

All around, academics, futurists and economists are talking about the urgency of redesigning our society for the very real prospect of advanced AI and automation making most of us, frankly, surplus to requirements.




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[tomtom]

In my next appraisal at work, I might say I've been practicing being surplus to requirements - as part of a social science study into the impacts..

[Fultonius]

How long until Automation and AI replace the political class... Imagine,  decisions based on fact and logic.  Hahaha ha.

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