Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Hamilcar]

Part of Brits accepting that they are poor is that they start behaving more civilized in tourist locations in Europe. Drunk fat gammon yelling at people in a pub at the Costa del Sol? Believe it or not, straight to jail. Then deported and banned from the EU forever.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, the new ETIAS system will be very useful for that.

[Josquius]

Part of Brits accepting that they are poor is that they start behaving more civilized in tourist locations in Europe. Drunk fat gammon yelling at people in a pub at the Costa del Sol? Believe it or not, straight to jail. Then deported and banned from the EU forever.

Its funny how many still have this conception of Spain as it was in the 70s and 80s when holidays in the sun started becoming a mainstream thing.
It'll be quite ironic for the roles to be reversed there... But then Spain has been performing crap since pre brexit.

[celedhring]

We're still quite noticeably poorer than Brits.

We were catching up pre-2008 housing bubble, but Spain still hasn't ever recovered from that.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The income and wealth inequality is getting more and more prominent in the UK. There are many well-off people, it feels like far more than there used to be, there are far more poor as well.

[Hamilcar]

Recruiter offers for UK based positions sometimes cross my inbox and I have to lol at them. Stuff like "data science team lead" at GBP 80k.

Someone I know started calling them British pesos. She's in the US and apparently Brits seem to think this would entice her to move to London.

[Hamilcar]

Is there some weird historical anchoring at play where Brits still think the pound is like 3:1 to the USD?

[Sheilbh]

Michelle O'Neill, First Minister designate of Northern Ireland and deputy leader of Sinn Fein, will attend the coronation - which feels like a fairly big gesture to the unionist community.

[Gups]

I agree with the chief economist, leaving the EU and the energy cost increase has made us much poorer. He didn't express his preferences as to who should bear the brunt of that hit; that will be decided by government, the current government seems to think that the slightly less poor should take the hit (they did uprate benefits by 10% after all).

There is quite a lot of socialism as well as nationalism in the Daily Mail economic coverage these days. £190k is not that great a salary for the BoE chief economist imo. The DM increasingly seems to hate the poor as well as anyone with a successful career; everyone should earn £30k and live in a 3-bed-semi in bloody Wokingham or Guildford seems to be their mantra 

£190K is a terrible salary for an editor of the Daily Mail (presumably included in "the rest of us"). Paul Dacre was on well over £1m and got a £2m bonus in 2021 (the chairman got £11m and CEO nearly £10m)

[Sheilbh]

The income and wealth inequality is getting more and more prominent in the UK. There are many well-off people, it feels like far more than there used to be, there are far more poor as well.

There aren't to be honest. Instead think it is that it is more prominent/notable, it feels like there's more inequality.

Statistically looking at gini or the share of the top 10%, then wealth and income inequality increased a lot in the 80s and 90s but have basically just bobbed around the same level since then largely (things got a little out of hand immediately before the crash). I think it is that it's more visible because we're all poorer relatively and - as in the 90s - it feels particularly the case in the public realm.

There is quite a lot of socialism as well as nationalism in the Daily Mail economic coverage these days. £190k is not that great a salary for the BoE chief economist imo. The DM increasingly seems to hate the poor as well as anyone with a successful career; everyone should earn £30k and live in a 3-bed-semi in bloody Wokingham or Guildford seems to be their mantra 

Tribunes of Middle England. The poor scrounge from them, the rich sneer at them

Just to challenge the "well it's gas prices innit'" take - I guess if I were a BOE guy I'd also like to single that thing out, but natural gas prices reached their peak in August last year, have been in a freefall since December, and since beginning of March they have been lower than February 2021 levels.

The relevant section is about 7 minutes long (starting at about 6.30). You could just listen to it and see what you think

And I understand the uproar at his comment. It is not populism -and if it was Sheilbh should like it - to think and say that the system as in financial regulators and the government rallies to the support of big money when they get negatively affected by their own screwups, but always seem ready to channel Yi and resign to the un-influencable nature of the market when it hits only the unwashed masses.

We've had a Tory government introduce price controls on energy at a cost of somewhere between £40-70 billion (for comparison the education budget is about £60 billion pa). We've just come out of the UK (and most other governments) basically paying the wages of a huge chunk of the country. It doesn't sound like letting the markets go wild or capitalism red in tooth and claw.

I think it's entirely fair to query those choices or whether it's enough, or have alternatives, or even say they shouldn't have done it at all. But I'm not sure we can castigate government for doing nothing when we've had the two of the biggest peacetime economic interventions ever by government in the last three years alone.

[Josquius]

I think the thing with there's more rich these days could be that conspicuous consumption is in vogue.
If you've got some money then you do splash it about on highly visible things. The traditional idea that it's vulgar to be too overt about this has fallen away.
This has always been a bit of a thing with the poor, oddly, but these days you find it higher up the wealth scale too.

Also perhaps playing a role is that social mobity has fell off a cliff. There's just as many rich people but it's far more certain than it has been for a while you'll never be one.

[Sheilbh]

I think the thing with there's more rich these days could be that conspicuous consumption is in vogue.
If you've got some money then you do splash it about on highly visible things. The traditional idea that it's vulgar to be too overt about this has fallen away.
This has always been a bit of a thing with the poor, oddly, but these days you find it higher up the wealth scale too.

Also perhaps playing a role is that social mobity has fell off a cliff. There's just as many rich people but it's far more certain than it has been for a while you'll never be one.

Yeah - although I don't think it's like there's ever been a golden age for social mobility in the UK

I think a big factor is just the relatively low growth. We have similar levels of inequality as in the 2000s. But then there was very strong growth and cheap credit - the growth's gone and, increasingly, so is the cheap credit.

[Tamas]

The relevant section is about 7 minutes long (starting at about 6.30). You could just listen to it and see what you think

I listened to the BBC excerpt - he was effectively saying that somebody need to accept real income cuts to stop inflation. Which true or not is very distasteful from one of the very few people who are charged with keeping inflation under control. The only reason he is kept around so people wouldn't have to do that.

[Gups]

He's only been in the job for six months I think. And isn't that what he's trying to do?

[Jacob]

The relevant section is about 7 minutes long (starting at about 6.30). You could just listen to it and see what you think

I listened to the BBC excerpt - he was effectively saying that somebody need to accept real income cuts to stop inflation. Which true or not is very distasteful from one of the very few people who are charged with keeping inflation under control. The only reason he is kept around so people wouldn't have to do that.

I don't think being the head of the central bank has only one purpose - to keep inflation under control?