A little welcome positivity-Britain's not broken: but needs to shift up a gear

StevieJ

David Smith casts his eye over a new report from the LSE, some unusual positive vibes while acknowledging the work still to be done, here is a short excerpt.

A few days ago an unusual report was published on Britain’s economy. It set out some good ideas about how to generate growth over the medium and long-term through infrastructure, innovation, education and skills.
More striking, for me at least, the London School of Economics (LSE) Growth Commission stressed that Britain approaches the future with very conisderable advantages, and an economy that is far from broken.
I count myself an optimist but even I was surprised at some of the findings about our recent economic history. In the past 30 years or so, for example, gross domestic product per head has risen more rapidly than in advanced-country competitors.
As the Commission put it: “Despite the current gloom, the UK has many assets that can be mobilised to its advantage, including strong rule of law, generally competitive product markets, flexible labour markets, a world-class university system and strengths in key sectors, with cutting edge firms in manufacturing and services.
“These and other assets helped reverse the UK’s relative decline over the century before 1980. Over the following three decades, they supported faster growth per capita than in the UK’s main comparator countries – France, Germany and the US.”
Yes you are thinking but wasn’t this all the City? The financial services sector may not be broken but it is badly damaged and likely to remain so for some time.

Again, however, the report finds that the idea of a City-dependent Britain before the crisis is an urban economic myth. Between 1997 and 2007 market (private) sector productivity, output per hour, grew by 2.8% a year, of which only 0.4% came from financial services.
Business services contributed twice as much (0.8%) to productivity growth, industry (1.1%) almost three times. On other measures, as the report notes, growth before the crisis was no “finance-driven statistical mirage”.

http://www.economicsuk.com/blog/001821.html#more
The actual report is here.
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/units/growthCommission/documents/pdf/LSEGC-Report.pdf

Mr._Pricklepants

Probably the OP was too positive to merit any replies, so I thought i'd give it a bump

Great article. Also puts to bed the myth that our economic growth pre 2007 was an illusion fuelled by debt, as we hear on this forum so often.

Good times ahead.

GeorgeHowell

If people want to treat the utterances of the London School of Economics as politically unbiased and completely objective, then they probably think that the BBC is too.

StevieJ

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

If people want to treat the utterances of the London School of Economics as politically unbiased and completely objective, then they probably think that the BBC is too.

Can't help yourself can you? a report that is positive about the way forward (under a Tory govt) and you accuse it of left wing bias

GeorgeHowell

StevieJ wrote: »

Can't help yourself can you? a report that is positive about the way forward (under a Tory govt) and you accuse it of left wing bias

I am suspicious about its objectivity on two grounds :-

1) You posted it up

2) I know the LSE of old.

Just advising the exercise of caution in accepting it on face value.

Thrugelmir

Mr._Pricklepants wrote: »

Great article. Also puts to bed the myth that our economic growth pre 2007 was an illusion fuelled by debt, as we hear on this forum so often.

So what happened to all the money that was borrowed?

Was it spent on wealth creation. Or wasted away on imported goods and foreign travel/property.