Brexit, The Economy and House Prices (Part 2)

mayonnaise

Britain is fast becoming the sick man of Europe

I keep waiting for the good news that the Brexiters told us would come once the vote to leave the EU was in. The vote was an unexpected shock to the markets that was always going to take a while to work its way into the main economic data. A year on, Britain is the slowest-growing country in both the G7 and the EU28. In the first quarter of 2017, the UK grew 0.2%, whereas the eurozone grew by 0.6%. As a result of the Brexit vote and the economic uncertainty it unleashed, Britain is fast becoming the sick man of Europe. That seems unlikely to change soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/24/britain-is-fast-becoming-the-sick-man-of-europe-experts-debate-brexit-data

always_sunny

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

I do wonder why the insistence upon accepting as factual that which remains questionable?

Isn't that the whole basis of Brexit? Insistence upon accepting as factual[STRIKE] that which [/STRIKE]what remains questionable?

Herzlos

mayonnaise wrote: »

So apparently, our unemployment rate is higher than the EU's. Hmmmm....:think:

I suspect that the EU figures are massaged in a similar (but non-compatible) manner.

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

A small point?
"Economically inactive" is not the same as unemployed, which is why this group is not counted.
It includes (just for example) those who retire earlier than the age of 64; students over 16 years of age; oh, and around two million stay-at-home parents.

Yup, that's all covered in the article. Also people who take a few weeks off between jobs. But it also includes a lot of people who are potentially going to rejoin the workforce, if the work is there (stay-at-home parents, people who've taken a break from looking for jobs).

The bigger concern is the under-employed. Part-time workers that want full-time hours, casual workers, 0-hour, etc. We don't have unemployment low enough for workers to be able to pick & choose the jobs they do (on the whole), so wages are still going down.

Arklight

Herzlos wrote: »

So apparently unemployment is about 4x the actual statistics, because of all the things they don't count:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/unemployment-in-the-uk-is-now-so-low-its-in-danger-of-exposing-the-lie-used-to-create-the-numbers-2017-7



Only the bottom band (unemployed) is counted, not the underemployed or the inactive that want a job.

It also points out that that's why none of the usual things associated with actually low unemployement are happening (wage inflation).

This was also covered on the previous thread with a comparison to France and Germany. To the same "lalalala" fingers in ears dismissal from the Brexits that your post will be.


It turns out, that when "we" (and I use that term very loosely) are boasting about our employment rate it's largely based on a fiction of lies.


Apparently it turns out that when the French or German government encounters someone who wants to work and can't find a job, it records them as jobless. When the UK government encounters a Brit in the same situation it classifies them as a Jobseeker, and Jobseekers aren't unemployed for long in Tory Britain - well, not if they want to keep signing on they aren't.


So there are a lot of spurious ways to classify people on benefits, or who are earning so little on so few hours that they can't come off benefits, or who are on zero hours contracts and literally getting zero hours of work, as "employed".


One jolly wheeze which has got rid of absolutely oodles of the great unwashed from the jobless figures is to take someone who is physically fit, but say can't do some jobs, like heavy lifting - because they have a bad leg - say, or they've dared to get a bit old. Watch them flounder in the labour market, then force them to apply for disability benefit for their leg because they have no other excuse to not take an agency job in the fields lifting boulders on day rates.


They then get to claim disability, which gets them off the unemployment and the DWA gets to cut their benefits off completely 6 months later when they fail a fitness for work test. Double win and high five Mrs May!


Then there's the millions of teens having to do useless apprenticeships in FE colleges to become plumbers when there are approximately 7 plumbing companies looking for apprentices in the entire country at the moment.


Or the women forced out of work after having a baby because they can't get childcare and have no rights to flexible working therefore having made themselves voluntarily unemployed and therefore not being counted. Yes!


Whereas the French and Germans count all these people by asking them innovative questions like "Do you have a proper job and do you want one?"

A_Medium_Size_Jock

mayonnaise wrote: »

Britain is fast becoming the sick man of Europe


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/24/britain-is-fast-becoming-the-sick-man-of-europe-experts-debate-brexit-data

According to "Two former members of Bank of England’s interest rate-setting committee".
Hmm, perhaps opinions like this are why they are "former".

A_Medium_Size_Jock

Herzlos wrote: »

I suspect that the EU figures are massaged in a similar (but non-compatible) manner.

Arklight wrote: »

This was also covered on the previous thread with a comparison to France and Germany. To the same "lalalala" fingers in ears dismissal from the Brexits that your post will be.

I refer you to this:

All members of the EU must use the ILO standardised measure of unemployment

http://economicsonline.co.uk/Managing_the_economy/Measuring_unemployment.html
The UK are (still) a member of the EU.
To suggest then that any EU member country measures their unemployment in a different manner is untrue.

mayonnaise

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

According to "Two former members of Bank of England’s interest rate-setting committee".
Hmm, perhaps opinions like this are why they are "former".

MPC members are appointed on a fixed term.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Pages/people/mpc.aspx

By the way, Andrew Sentance is currently Senior Economic Adviser at PwC. Here's what a forum sage had to say about PwC.

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

Mock if you must but their record is methinks far superior to yours.
Such predictions are one of the many things that they are globally highly-regarded for.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PricewaterhouseCoopers

;)

A_Medium_Size_Jock

mayonnaise wrote: »

MPC members are appointed on a fixed term.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Pages/people/mpc.aspx

By the way, Andrew Sentance is currently Senior Economic Adviser at PwC. Here's what a forum sage had to say about PwC.



;)

Well here's what The Bank Of England thought about Andrew Sentence:

Stepping down as an external member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, the hawk again failed to win backing for an increase

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/05/andrew-sentance-mpc-bank-of-england-interest-rates

It seems that most there did not agree with his views then either.
:cool:`

So nice try - but another fail.

Herzlos

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

I refer you to this:
http://economicsonline.co.uk/Managing_the_economy/Measuring_unemployment.html
The UK are (still) a member of the EU.
To suggest then that any EU member country measures their unemployment in a different manner is untrue.

Have you read the requirements for counting as unemployed? It's right here:

1. Have been out of work for 4 weeks.
2. Be able to start work in the next 2 weeks, so they must be readily available for work.
3. Workers only need to be available for work for one hour per week, so part-time unemployment is included in the measurement, though these workers are unlikely to claim unemployment benefit. This tends to make ILO unemployment much higher than the Claimant Count

That's it. There's nothing stopping us reporting differently (we do) as long as we meet those criteria (we do, because it's very hard not to).

Or do you deny that Germany uses different (and clearly better) metrics than us? That of "people who want a job" Vs "people who can't be hidden in a program"?

mayonnaise

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

So nice try - but another fail.

Got it.
PwC is highly regarded, globally and especially by our own forum sage.
Unless PwC says something not entirely positive about Brexit.
Yup, makes sense. Let's move on.