[Oldmanmatt]

Who's got the Irony klaxon?

Give this Tit a blast in the earhole, please.




All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[seankenny]

Beggars can't be choosers, that cliché so obviously applies now - and was always going to. It's not like we took a principled stand re Saudi when fully a part of the EU did we?

No, but I always felt it was something most people were a bit ashamed of, like Britannia was a woman who struggled to make it through the month and ended up doing blow jobs behind the pub to make ends meet.

Making the point that we're going to have to do blow jobs at the start of the month rather than to bridge the gap is to try and combat the Leavers' sense of nobility about their decision, the framing of their narrative around freedom, self-determination, striking a blow. Nah, it's no such thing. It's going to make us a bit crappy and desperate - and that's out of choice. We've got to hammer it home.

[Oldmanmatt]

Any in Academia care to comment on this?

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/01/26/no-longer-welcome-the-eu-academics-in-britain-told-to-make-arrangements-to-leave/


All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[slackline]

Too busy to read in full, so won't comment on it.

<anecdote>
A colleague from Italy who has been working here for two years handed in his resignation in December.  He's got a job in Germany and cited uncertainty about Brexit as a major factor in his decision to leave.
</anecdote>

[i.munro]

FWIW the majority of my colleagues of whatever nationality have already gone. There are 6 desks in my office. For years we have been under pressure to add  a seventh.  Now only 3 are occupied,  2 part-time until  June.

[Offwidth]

Any in Academia care to comment on this?

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/01/26/no-longer-welcome-the-eu-academics-in-britain-told-to-make-arrangements-to-leave/

That's a very odd blog headline issue. The home office letter, as he says, is clearly a mistake. The UK has in the last decade had a sudden surge of high quality EU research academics in a highly competitive staffing 'market' under REF (the main non-grant-based University research funding assessment), This is partly as things were bad in some EU states and partly as we don't train anything like enough UK research staff in shortage areas (notably STEM) to meet the current demographic bulge in retirements and partly as the junior research staff can be ruthlessly exploited (ie those we do train can get treated like shit on rolling fixed term researcher contracts often with risk of contracts being ended long after the 4 years in law when they should become full time (one at my place after 21 years of rolling contracts). If you like we have been cherry picking in someone else's garden whilst letting our own cherry trees wither.

The UCU survey evidence and talking to such staff shows clearly that many EU staff do feel worried about living in an increasingly xenophobic UK, especially those with families here. They are worried that their immigration status medium term is uncertain. Many staff (EU or UK)  with EU resaerch collaborations have had problems (despite rules that says they shouldn't have unitl 2021).  In my area we have lost two staff recently who cited brexit as a real issue in their decision (one Italian left for a job he might not have taken before, in Italy, one Brit working overseas declined an offer after interview).  Yet the most important impact by far is going to be the stubborn inclusion by St Teresa of overseas students in the immigration figures, at a time the government desperately want to reduce immigration. This is a multi billion UK export market and the University profits from this prop-up for the underfunding of UK research (hardly anything in research grants is fully costed) and STEM teaching (the subject top ups to £9k fees don't meet the infrastructure investment requirements and things are getting worse in the funding model). We dont just cherry pick from the EU: have many newish high quality staff from non EU countries on tier 2 or similar visas who are a more worried about their futures than EU staff.

In contrast to EU citizens, the impact of the home office on non-EU citizens is severe. As an example, one of my PhD student, who is Libyan, had to find £35k for a 9 month visa extension for himself and immediate family in summer 2016, with only a months notice  (he had major extenuating circumstances and missed his submission deadline by weeks under the old visa ...his home city is in a war zone...several family members have been hospitalised and nearly died ). The head of student support at the University said to me that it was impossible to help financially, directly due to anti money laundering legislation, and from emercency student hardship funds due to strict rules on those funds. Its pretty much impossible to transfer funds from that part of Libya, for obvious reasons, and although teaching part-time, at the limits allowed, his income and savings was way off meeting such a sudden need: the genoricity of the Muslim community in the UK that allowed him to acheive this without the help offered by his academic staff colleaques is impressive.

[jfdm]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/01/i-had-a-screw-it-moment-says-mep-who-held-sign-up-behind-nigel-farage 

[slackline]

The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union White Paper

May is deluded and arrogant if she thinks she has "The essential ingredient of our success. The strength and support of 65 million people willing us to make it happen"

EDIT :

Shit never realised I was entitled to 14 weeks annual leave...



Could this be a little rushed? 

[petejh]

Who's going to try to spin a negative slant on the latest quarterly growth forecast from the Bank of England then.....?

'Economic disaster' Matt? Keep that tin hat on soldier (sailor, sorry  )

The variance in forecasts within just 9 months is startling.

Pre-referendum forecast in May 2016 - assuming a 'remain' vote: forecasting 2017 growth of 2.3%
Post-referedum forecast in August: 0.8%! Dire warning of recession
November forecast: up to 1.4% (almost a doubling of previous forecast)
February's forecast: up again to 2.0%! How is this possible, given a forecast of 0.8% just last August post-'leave'?!

Gaurdian take:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-uk-growth-forecast-economy-brexit


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-forecasts-mark-carney-brexit-vote

The Bank of England’s inflation report was supposed to be a dull affair. The City thought the quarterly health check of the UK economy would be a bit of a yawn.

Big misjudgment, as it happens.

The Bank dropped a bombshell by announcing rosy new forecasts showing that it expected the economy to grow by 2% in 2017. A growth upgrade by the Bank from November’s 1.4% forecast was anticipated following the strong performance of the economy in the second half of 2016. Such a big one was not.

The new forecasts are the latest embarrassment for the Bank. In August, it said the economy was likely to show virtually no growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2016. In fact, activity expanded by 0.6% in both and the momentum will carry over into the first half of 2017.

Last August, Threadneedle Street was pencilling in growth of just 0.8% in 2017 even after taking into account the impact of its emergency post-referendum cut in interest rates and the £60bn boost to quantitative easing. Now it says 2017’s growth will be only slightly slower than the 2.3% it was forecasting last May, when it assumed the referendum vote would go the other way.

[slackline]

The variance in forecasts within just 9 months is startling.

It would be useful if rather than just providing point estimates the also provided a measure of the variance (i.e. uncertainty) around it when making such forecasts.

[petejh]

They do. It's on or around page 37 of each quarterly growth forecast.

[slackline]

Got a link please?

Any harm in including them when posting them?

[petejh]

I would normally but was short of time befor had to leave the office. On phone. It's on the BofE website, downloadable pdfs for each quarterly inflation report.

[Teaboy]

Who's going to try to spin a negative slant on the latest quarterly growth forecast from the Bank of England then.....?

'Economic disaster' Matt? Keep that tin hat on soldier (sailor, sorry  )

The variance in forecasts within just 9 months is startling.

Pre-referendum forecast in May 2016 - assuming a 'remain' vote: forecasting 2017 growth of 2.3%
Post-referedum forecast in August: 0.8%! Dire warning of recession
November forecast: up to 1.4% (almost a doubling of previous forecast)
February's forecast: up again to 2.0%! How is this possible, given a forecast of 0.8% just last August post-'leave'?!

Gaurdian take:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-uk-growth-forecast-economy-brexit


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-forecasts-mark-carney-brexit-vote

The Bank of England’s inflation report was supposed to be a dull affair. The City thought the quarterly health check of the UK economy would be a bit of a yawn.

Big misjudgment, as it happens.

The Bank dropped a bombshell by announcing rosy new forecasts showing that it expected the economy to grow by 2% in 2017. A growth upgrade by the Bank from November’s 1.4% forecast was anticipated following the strong performance of the economy in the second half of 2016. Such a big one was not.

The new forecasts are the latest embarrassment for the Bank. In August, it said the economy was likely to show virtually no growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2016. In fact, activity expanded by 0.6% in both and the momentum will carry over into the first half of 2017.

Last August, Threadneedle Street was pencilling in growth of just 0.8% in 2017 even after taking into account the impact of its emergency post-referendum cut in interest rates and the £60bn boost to quantitative easing. Now it says 2017’s growth will be only slightly slower than the 2.3% it was forecasting last May, when it assumed the referendum vote would go the other way.

The growth forecasts are good, back to what they were estimating for 2017 pre referendum when they thought the country was going to remain. So the only negative thing you can say for Brexit so far is the collapse of the pound and the massive QE but they are positives anyway. Well not QE,  obviously, nobody wants to spend billions to devalue their assets.

[Oldmanmatt]

God Pete, if Brexit turns out to be the best thing ever, I shall be buying you a pint or 6 and grinning like a fucking loon.

But is that what this forecast means?

Is that what you're saying?

\_[emoji53]_/ maybe?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[slackline]

I would normally but was short of time befor had to leave the office. On phone. It's on the BofE website, downloadable pdfs for each quarterly inflation report.

Thanks.

February 2017
November 2016
August 2016
May 2016
February 2016

February 2016 CPI

February 2016 GDP



May 2016 CPI

May 2016 GDP



August 2016 CPI

August 2016 GDP



Quite a high degree of uncertainty in those predictions, I'm not surprised by the fluctuation in the quarterly revised point estimates.

[dave k]

Who's going to try to spin a negative slant on the latest quarterly growth forecast from the Bank of England then.....?

'Economic disaster' Matt? Keep that tin hat on soldier (sailor, sorry  )

The variance in forecasts within just 9 months is startling.

Pre-referendum forecast in May 2016 - assuming a 'remain' vote: forecasting 2017 growth of 2.3%
Post-referedum forecast in August: 0.8%! Dire warning of recession
November forecast: up to 1.4% (almost a doubling of previous forecast)
February's forecast: up again to 2.0%! How is this possible, given a forecast of 0.8% just last August post-'leave'?!

Gaurdian take:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-uk-growth-forecast-economy-brexit


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-forecasts-mark-carney-brexit-vote

The Bank of England’s inflation report was supposed to be a dull affair. The City thought the quarterly health check of the UK economy would be a bit of a yawn.

Big misjudgment, as it happens.

The Bank dropped a bombshell by announcing rosy new forecasts showing that it expected the economy to grow by 2% in 2017. A growth upgrade by the Bank from November’s 1.4% forecast was anticipated following the strong performance of the economy in the second half of 2016. Such a big one was not.

The new forecasts are the latest embarrassment for the Bank. In August, it said the economy was likely to show virtually no growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2016. In fact, activity expanded by 0.6% in both and the momentum will carry over into the first half of 2017.

Last August, Threadneedle Street was pencilling in growth of just 0.8% in 2017 even after taking into account the impact of its emergency post-referendum cut in interest rates and the £60bn boost to quantitative easing. Now it says 2017’s growth will be only slightly slower than the 2.3% it was forecasting last May, when it assumed the referendum vote would go the other way.

Go on then I will try to!

The strong growth forecasts are excellent and very welcome. It is pretty amazing that a rate rise is now possible (although unlikely) at some point later this year.

A negative slant or more precisely a possible issue worth noting is the extent to which the current growth is being fueled by cuts in savings and credit fueled consumer spending.

The BoE said that the savings ratio is expected to hit 4% (currently 5.6%), which would be the lowest in half a century. It appears that households are optimistic about the future, and are spending away.

This optimism is somewhat surprising to most economists, but given that alot of people got their wish to leave the EU, it is not surprising that they are feeling positive.

I assume while remainers are battoning down the hatches, the Brexiteers are out swimming in a storm, hence the strong consumer spending and borrowing figures.

Personally I didn't vote remain for economic reasons, but because I felt a responsibility to an EU which was founded in an effort to keep peace in Europe. The possibility of the UK leaving the EU somehow contributing to the disintegration of the EU was I felt too great a risk.

[petejh]

Slackers - perhaps unsurprising but the last two forecasts are unprecedented in their sharp rise from August's 0.8% forecast for 2017.

I'm not trying to gloat here, but it shouldn't be forgotten how much weight was placed on experts' forecasts of economic doom should we vote to leave the EU.
Then, when this event failed to materialise immediately, the consensus among a certain group was 'we haven't triggered article 50 yet, obviously'. Well it's as good as triggered now..
And, this 'wait for article 50' argument also convieniently used the leave vote, alone and without article 50 triggered, as being responsible for the fall in the pound, whilst saying we 'had to wait for the triggering of article 50' when the economy didn't struggle in the way forecasted. Double standards, moving of goalposts, and a fair amount of hypocrisy in my opinion.
It'll be telling to see now - with experts forecasting strong performance - whether people who used the BofE predictions as irrefutable proof of the economic folly of brexit will also accept it when the landscape doesn't fit their own mental map of how things should be.

[Teaboy]

Slackers - perhaps unsurprising but the last two forecasts are unprecedented in their sharp rise from August's 0.8% forecast for 2017.

I'm not trying to gloat here, but it shouldn't be forgotten how much weight was placed on experts' forecasts of economic doom should we vote to leave the EU.
Then, when this event failed to materialise immediately, the consensus among a certain group was 'we haven't triggered article 50 yet, obviously'. Well it's as good as triggered now..
And, this 'wait for article 50' argument also convieniently used the leave vote, alone and without article 50 triggered, as being responsible for the fall in the pound, whilst saying we 'had to wait for the triggering of article 50' when the economy didn't struggle in the way forecasted. Double standards, moving of goalposts, and a fair amount of hypocrisy in my opinion.
It'll be telling to see now - with experts forecasting strong performance - whether people who used the BofE predictions as irrefutable proof of the economic folly of brexit will also accept it when the landscape doesn't fit their own mental map of how things should be.

Whilst it's inevitably the case that growth is better than Brexiters will have expected and that Armageddon is a good way off it's disingenuous to try and claim that the fall in pound was not almost entirely down to the Brexit vote. The mechanics by which currencies and GDP move are so different that expecting them to be in lockstep is wrong. It's also worth bearing in mind that we're only back to where we where before. This doesn't prove that Brexit has been good, just that it hasn't had an immediate negative effect on the economy (and the Bank of England used tools at its disposal which may have helped counter any problems). A consumer led boom rarely ends well but I gues us merchants of gloom will have to keep our council for a while!

[petejh]

Well, I wasn't suggesting the fall in the pound wasn't linked.
 I'm suggesting it's double standards to link sterling's fall to brexit (which was the trigger), but when the economy didn't also weaken as predicted the goalposts then moved to 'ah but wait, art 50 etc etc'. Conveniently forgetting that the vote result, without article 50, had clearly affected Stirling - so why wouldn't it also affect the economy? Saying 'wait for art 50'  was a case of altering the landscape to make it fit the map people had drawn up.
It's academic now - the dire economic forecasts were quite clearly far of the mark, although I doubt that will reassure those who believe their Facebook feeds are the most accurate source of information.

[slackline]

Slackers - perhaps unsurprising but the last two forecasts are unprecedented in their sharp rise from August's 0.8% forecast for 2017.

First and foremost...I'm presuming the Bank of England revise their forecasts every three months because they know they are volatile in the short term and unlikely to be accurate and change a couple of months later, if not why not save yourself the hassle and just do it annually, or bi-annually or every five years?

I'm not particularly familiar with these forecasts and don't track them but is two consecutive forecast of +0.6%* really unprecedented?

<pedant>
I've spent 15 minutes (admittedly not long but I've got to work tomorrow) searching for historical datasets as the Bank of England helpfully only have the last year available (perhaps because its convenient to forget?) and couldn't find anything in that time.  Search terms such as "uk historical bank of england inflation forecast" and several variations thereof led to nothing**.  Nowcasting.com is subscription only and the majority of what I've found is only about what actually happened (i.e. actual inflation rates of CPI, RPI, GDP etc.) there seems little record of the predictions that were made.

Are you familiar with where to find such records?  I'd be interested to see if your claim of the rarity of such an event is backed up by the historical data (I'm guessing it is otherwise you wouldn't have written it, but data clears that up).
</pedant>




* 0.8% > 0.14% > 0.2%


** Did come across this assessment of the Bank of England Quarterley Model but a quick scan didn't actually list a historical record of the forecasts, rather a comparison of them to what happened.

[chris j]

First and foremost...I'm presuming the Bank of England revise their forecasts every three months because they know they are volatile in the short term and unlikely to be accurate and change a couple of months later, if not why not save yourself the hassle and just do it annually, or bi-annually or every five years?

They produce it quarterly because they were asked to provide a regular update by the Chancellor in 1992... They are also now a precis of the data the MPC bases it's interest rate decisions on. The MPC meets 8x a year so they publish every 2nd set of information.

I'm not particularly familiar with these forecasts and don't track them but is two consecutive forecast of +0.6%* really unprecedented?

It's not 2 consecutive forecasts of 0.6%, it's 2 consecutive upgrades to the forecasts of 0.6%, ie from 0.8% to 1.4% and then to 2%. Given the newspaper financial editors use phrases like "dropped a bombshell" when describing the BoE's upgrade of growth forecast by 0.6% (Larry Elliott, Guardian) I think you can accept it is not normal.

I've spent 15 minutes (admittedly not long but I've got to work tomorrow) searching for historical datasets as the Bank of England helpfully only have the last year available (perhaps because its convenient to forget?) and couldn't find anything in that time.

Adjusting the filter on the BoE page found the inflation reports back to 2006 (45 documents), alternatively, googling bank of England inflation report with the required year brought up the individual pdfs on the BoE site.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/inflationreport/default.aspx

The reports back to 1993 are available here, also on the BoE site, oddly found by googling "bank of england inflation report 2004":

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Pages/digitalcontent/historicpubs/inflationreport.aspx

[petejh]

Slackers - perhaps unsurprising but the last two forecasts are unprecedented in their sharp rise from August's 0.8% forecast for 2017.

First and foremost...I'm presuming the Bank of England revise their forecasts every three months because they know they are volatile in the short term and unlikely to be accurate and change a couple of months later, if not why not save yourself the hassle and just do it annually, or bi-annually or every five years?

I'm not particularly familiar with these forecasts and don't track them but is two consecutive forecast of +0.6%* really unprecedented?

<pedant>
I've spent 15 minutes (admittedly not long but I've got to work tomorrow) searching for historical datasets as the Bank of England helpfully only have the last year available (perhaps because its convenient to forget?) and couldn't find anything in that time.  Search terms such as "uk historical bank of england inflation forecast" and several variations thereof led to nothing**.  Nowcasting.com is subscription only and the majority of what I've found is only about what actually happened (i.e. actual inflation rates of CPI, RPI, GDP etc.) there seems little record of the predictions that were made.

Are you familiar with where to find such records?  I'd be interested to see if your claim of the rarity of such an event is backed up by the historical data (I'm guessing it is otherwise you wouldn't have written it, but data clears that up).
</pedant>




* 0.8% > 0.14% > 0.2%


** Did come across this assessment of the Bank of England Quarterley Model but a quick scan didn't actually list a historical record of the forecasts, rather a comparison of them to what happened.

I was going off the language being used in the media reporting. The BBC's economic editor says the rise is 'one of the most substantial increases it [the bank] has ever published'.

Here.  The BBC, so unlikely to be pro-brexit hyperbole.
''Another upgrade like today's and the Bank of England will be more positive than it was about the British economy in May last year - its final Inflation Report before the referendum.
At that point it forecast growth for 2016 would be 2% (which turned out to be right), rising to 2.3% for 2017 and staying there for 2018.
It assumed that Britain would remain in the EU as that was official government policy.
Then came the referendum, Brexit and the Bank's August Inflation Report - which will go down in history as the point of maximum exit fear at Threadneedle Street, the Gloomflation Report.
The Bank slashed growth projections to 0.8% for 2017 and 1.8% for 2018, a huge downgrade which would have resulted - if the forecasts came to pass - in an economy billions of pounds smaller than previously projected.

Substantial

Since then, Mark Carney and the members of the Monetary Policy Committee have become much more chipper.
In November, the Bank upgraded its growth forecasts by 0.6% for 2017, one of the most substantial increases it has ever published.
Today that tone has continued, another substantial upgrade for this year and - as importantly - a small upgrade for next year which many believe will be the moment any negative Brexit effects actually start to crystallise as Britain enters the hard yards of the exit process.''

[chris j]

* 0.8% > 0.14% > 0.2%

Sorry, only noticed your footnote after typing, but the financial news normally seems to make a reasonable fuss over changes of ~0.2% in individual forecasts, so to have 2 consecutive revisions of 0.6% is, as the guardian puts it, embarrassing for the BoE.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-forecasts-mark-carney-brexit-vote

[galpinos]

It's academic now - the dire economic forecasts were quite clearly far of the mark, although I doubt that will reassure those who believe their Facebook feeds are the most accurate source of information.

Surely we (The Remainians) can now all worry about the optimistic economic forecast being based on consumer spending which is just us buying shit we don't need with money don't have, probably because all the bastard Brexiteers have pushed us off this cliff and we need something to cheer us up?