Brexit the economy and house prices part 6

movilogo

GDP alone does not indicate well being. If that were the case Switzerland, Luxembourg, Qatar etc. would be considered poor and the Chinese would be considered richest.

Per capita GDP is a better measure. Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity is even better.

England's population density among the highest in Europe. Immigration is fine but needs to be controlled. Being in EU won't make that possible.

andrewf75

movilogo wrote: »

GDP alone does not indicate well being. If that were the case Switzerland, Luxembourg, Qatar etc. would be considered poor and the Chinese would be considered richest.

Per capita GDP is a better measure. Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity is even better.

England's population density among the highest in Europe. Immigration is fine but needs to be controlled. Being in EU won't make that possible.

Even GDP per capita is a poor measure of wellbeing, that is surely the point. Our society is massively unequal and our wealth is skewed by the rich.

Of course immigration needs to be controlled, but we could have done much more within the EU. People don’t just come here because they can, they come because there is demand. Immigration levels won’t fall noticeably because the demand will still be there. The government isn’t going to tell businesses sorry you can’t have the workers you need.
We didn’t need to allow workers from the new member countries immediate access, we could have altered our benefits system to favour those who have paid in, we could require language skills for jobs – you or I wouldn’t get a job in Poland unless we could speak the lingo.

Carl31

andrewf75 wrote: »

Even GDP per capita is a poor measure of wellbeing, that is surely the point. Our society is massively unequal and our wealth is skewed by the rich.

individual wealth doesnt come into it, its total GDP / total inhabitants

So, its OK to claim you have high GDP, but if you have a high population, the benefit doesn't stretch as far

Ie UK, we are top 10 in total GDP in the world, but per capita we are much lower, like 20 or something, as we are not as efficient due to a dense population

kabayiri

andrewf75 wrote: »

This is a fair point, but we need an answer to the problem. Brexit isn’t it. With a rapidly ageing population, reducing immigration significantly means the workforce will shrink, not just stay constant. That means the economy will shrink. To be sustainable we really need to embrace falling GDP somehow and no-one seems to know how.

Is there an answer to the problem which would be acceptable to everyone?

I doubt it.

I have little doubt that the Brexit vote reflected a degree of impatience with current UK politics.

These same sort of politicians have been pumping out the same old boring rhetoric for years now, and yet very little has changed.

Only this week we have ambitious new plans for more houses. Guess what. Prescott promised exactly this over 20 years ago.

....He failed to hit the targets too. This initiative will fall short as well.

Nope. You have to throttle demand and replace humans with machines. Machines don't need houses, just a bit of WD40.

kabayiri

Herzlos wrote: »

...
EE is still cheaper than the UK, but it's not as cheap as it used to be, so they must have leveled up already.
....

I understand the big value you see in Brexit is allowing us to join a race to the bottom, but that's definitely not the campaign Leave was running on.

Exactly. The value has gone out of the EE worker market now.

Even Indian workers have become more expensive.

However...in the next decade, China is on a big push to replace labour with machines. They already consume over 50% of global robot production.

This will leave lots of Chinese workers surplus to requirement...and they could have a much better standard of living here.

Plus, children of Chinese migrant workers consistently top the league tables when it comes to academic success at Uni.

See....if you truly believe in globalization, then you search the globe for the best value workers, and look at their academic prowess to power our future.

All I hear in Brexit debates is concerns over where we get our turnip pickers from. It's pathetic really.

I am not sure why so many Remainers are protectionist.

andrewf75

Carl31 wrote: »

individual wealth doesnt come into it, its total GDP / total inhabitants

So, its OK to claim you have high GDP, but if you have a high population, the benefit doesn't stretch as far

Ie UK, we are top 10 in total GDP in the world, but per capita we are much lower, like 20 or something, as we are not as efficient due to a dense population

Of course it comes into it! Even per capita the high wealth of a few skews everything higher.

Not as efficient because we have a dense population? Never heard this before, where does this idea come from?

Carl31

andrewf75 wrote: »

Of course it comes into it! Even per capita the high wealth of a few skews everything higher.

Not as efficient because we have a dense population? Never heard this before, where does this idea come from?

if you have a high gdp, but then your gdp per capita is lower, then the distribution is greater

Its like claiming your better off than your mate as you earn £80k but he earns £40k, but you have a family of 5 to feed and he lives alone, he salary only has to pay for him, where yours covers 5 people

Who has more to spend on themselves?

kabayiri

andrewf75 wrote: »

...
Not as efficient because we have a dense population? Never heard this before, where does this idea come from?

There's a reason why Cross Rail is costing tens of billions of pounds.

Any core investment in densely populated cities costs a fortune now.

Have a look at the HS2 plans. They are all online. Look at the amount of tunneling involved. Their budget for buying affected property was also under-specced. We helped one displaced business claim 3 times what the remuneration committee offered.

Everyone is going to milk capital projects like this, and budgets get shot to pieces.

andrewf75

kabayiri wrote: »

Is there an answer to the problem which would be acceptable to everyone?

I doubt it.

I have little doubt that the Brexit vote reflected a degree of impatience with current UK politics.

These same sort of politicians have been pumping out the same old boring rhetoric for years now, and yet very little has changed.

Only this week we have ambitious new plans for more houses. Guess what. Prescott promised exactly this over 20 years ago.

....He failed to hit the targets too. This initiative will fall short as well.

Nope. You have to throttle demand and replace humans with machines. Machines don't need houses, just a bit of WD40.

Don’t disagree as usual, I just don’t think Brexit will change anything. I think it will make things worse because as we chase lost growth, all the real issues will be neglected. I’m quite anti-establishment so it’s not that I don’t want to give the establishment a kicking. Just seems to me those behind the leave vote are very much the establishment – and the worst elements of it! They want out of the EU so they can have a more extreme version of the same!

kabayiri

andrewf75 wrote: »

Don’t disagree as usual, I just don’t think Brexit will change anything. I think it will make things worse because as we chase lost growth, all the real issues will be neglected. I’m quite anti-establishment so it’s not that I don’t want to give the establishment a kicking. Just seems to me those behind the leave vote are very much the establishment – and the worst elements of it! They want out of the EU so they can have a more extreme version of the same!

I've said before that Brexit was definitely the wrong question to ask the people, and probably at the wrong time too.

I think we are at a crossroads as to our future. I can see the competitors in our world changing rapidly, maybe in just a decade or two. I'm not fixed on a single direction; I just think we need to commit to a longer term plan.

If we have unlimited numbers coming in, inside the EU, we could become obsessed with building ever more houses and roads and schools.

Meanwhile, the big workplace challenges, things like AI and automation, will pass us by.

This is just a collapse of empire thing though. The days of Western economic supremacy are gone.