GDP per capita returns to pre-recession levels

BobQ

So the trend following the GFC was for GDP/capita to adopt a continuing upward trend on which it has continued ever since. No wonder Darling feels hard done by.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

BobQ wrote: »

No wonder Darling feels hard done by.

Darling was hard done by.

Labour's response to the Global Financial Crisis was actually pretty good overall.

A bit slow to start with, and some of the measure were too little too late, but given the once in a century scale of the event it was hardly likely any government would have got everything right.

You can certainly question their fiscal competence in the decade prior, but in the GFC itself, not so much...

michaels

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Darling was hard done by.

Labour's response to the Global Financial Crisis was actually pretty good overall.

A bit slow to start with, and some of the measure were too little too late, but given the once in a century scale of the event it was hardly likely any government would have got everything right.

You can certainly question their fiscal competence in the decade prior, but in the GFC itself, not so much...

There was some extraordinary fiscal laxity in the period running up to the 2010 GE when the economy saw something of a 'dead-cat' bounce, I'm not sure this was the best thing possible but then stabilisation was definitely required and overshoot on the upside was probably better than missing on the downside but this certainly made the scale of austerity required even greater.

stator

CLAPTON wrote: »

strange how unemployment figures seem to be failling

Not strange, figures have been fiddled for years. Just reclassify who is counted as unemployed.

Generali

stator wrote: »

Not strange, figures have been fiddled for years. Just reclassify who is counted as unemployed.

If unemployment is actually rising how come GDP, wages and employment are all rising?

Either there's a massive conspiracy amongst statisticians and economists to lie to us all or unemployment is falling. I know where my money is.

kabayiri

CLAPTON wrote: »

It's of course an excellent thing that totally unaccountable HAs are reducing the rate of creating new ghettos at taxpayer expense.

what 'core' function are being eaten into?

I consider building housing under a social program to be a core state function. There are arguably others, like mobile libraries; support programs for minority groups.

Of course some of this will be picked up by private enterprise. To add balance, the HA I mentioned is trying to increase a building program on commercial housing. It's a reasonable response.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

If unemployment is actually rising how come GDP, wages and employment are all rising?

Either there's a massive conspiracy amongst statisticians and economists to lie to us all or unemployment is falling. I know where my money is.

Anecdotally, I know from friends that when jobs are lost as a result of council cuts the existing staff are expected to pick up the slack.

Wouldn't this look like an improvement in productivity?

Capital spend on investment projects was dramatically curtailed after the GFC. It's taken a while but the drive for these projects has returned.

I know one project going live which replaces 150 staff in various reporting roles with just 4 people.

This would show as improving productivity if the displaced staff find other roles wouldn't it?

It's probably a complex mix of factors.

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Anecdotally, I know from friends that when jobs are lost as a result of council cuts the existing staff are expected to pick up the slack.

Wouldn't this look like an improvement in productivity?

Only if output remains the same.

To take an extreme example, if I employ someone to sit and stare out of the window all day and another person to cut cheese into portions which I can sell for more than the unit cost of the big block and I fire the window starer then the productivity of the department has doubled: half as many people employed, just as much cheese cut.

If, however, the window starer was collecting valuable weather data which would help the cutter be more efficient then perhaps the gains by sacking her are less than the losses from lost efficiency of the cutter.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

Only if output remains the same.

To take an extreme example, if I employ someone to sit and stare out of the window all day and another person to cut cheese into portions which I can sell for more than the unit cost of the big block and I fire the window starer then the productivity of the department has doubled: half as many people employed, just as much cheese cut.

If, however, the window starer was collecting valuable weather data which would help the cutter be more efficient then perhaps the gains by sacking her are less than the losses from lost efficiency of the cutter.

It would be even trickier to measure things which get labelled under "intangible benefits".

Output is fairly easy to measure in a manufacturing context. What about service levels amongst the elderly? Can we rely on satisfaction surveys?

The Tory government response to your cheese business analogy is to get customers to cut their own cheese portion, and yet still charge them !

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

It would be even trickier to measure things which get labelled under "intangible benefits".

Output is fairly easy to measure in a manufacturing context. What about service levels amongst the elderly? Can we rely on satisfaction surveys?

The Tory government response to your cheese business analogy is to get customers to cut their own cheese portion, and yet still charge them !

Kinda.

The Tories proposition I would argue is that more people should simply cut their own cheese rather than have the Government take taxes from them (at threat of imprisonment) and cut the cheese for them.

What we have seen is that cheese cutters and window starers have lost their jobs, although arguably more of the latter, and all of them and more have managed to find jobs making beer and bread to go with the cheese that people are cutting themselves.