6 ms·

So far every expert prediction about Brexit had been wrong. The UK was meant to be in a deep recession by now, remember?

inciampati 8y ago
It is not doing well. It's turning back into the sick man of Europe. Productivity growth is among the lowest in the EU.
- sievebrain 8y ago
  That's an interesting description. Last year UK growth beat Germany, France and Italy in Q3 (don't know q4 figures yet I believe). It looks like the eurozone may be heading for recession given falling industrial output in Germany. It bothers me immensely how quickly the truth gets discarded the moment it conflicts with EU ideology. The UK has shown excellent economics relative to the rest of Europe since the vote despite its people being told "uncertainty" would trigger a massive recession and employment bloodbath. Yet here you are, saying it's turning into the sick man of Europe!
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    It probably is, but so is most of EU. Important big money already migrated to Ireland (mostly), but it takes some time (years, multiple) to take an effect if any.
spuz 8y ago
Where did you read that the UK would be in a deep recession 2 months before Brexit actually happens?
- stephen_g 8y ago
  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 (2016). Treasury (as well as other organisations) predicted that the vote itself would immediately trigger a deep and severe recession.
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    That's a helpful article, but I don't know of any examples of organisations other than the Treasury that predicted a deep and severe recession occurring before the UK had even left the EU. One has to admit that there is something of a conflict of interest when it comes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer producing a document to analyse the negative consequences of a scenario which his own prime minister was campaigning against.
    - sievebrain 8y ago
      You didn't look, maybe? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-brexit-would-trigger-uk-recession-eu-referendum https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-br... The entire global establishment of "experts" united together and made a series of predictions that weren't just wrong by a percentage, they were wrong in the wrong direction. There are NO organisations that I remember who predicted the outcome correctly. There were though, quite a lot of vox pops with the man on the street who said words to the effect of, "it'll be fine, we'll manage". The brutal reality is that people who put their faith in the notion of expert understanding of politics or economics have been made to look very foolish, and worse, many of them don't seem to have accepted the uselessness or bias levels of the people the media present as experts. They are still being upheld not only as important, but actually as people who should be given vast new powers to run government! It's quite concerning.
      - dane-pgp 8y ago
        Thank you for going to the trouble to find that. I wasn't sure how to search for predictions about how the Brexit vote itself would affect the economy, rather than the effects of actually leaving. The article starts "Leaving the EU would hit British living standards" and only talks about recession (occurring in 2017) in the context of the "adverse scenario" they modelled. As explained here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/imf-christine-lagarde-brexit-uk-economy-assessment-forecasts-eu-referendum-forecasts-a8119886.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/imf-christi... "[The adverse scenario] was predicated on the UK’s EU negotiations collapsing and the UK eventually crashing out of the bloc without a trade deal." which hasn't happened (yet). So I think the lessons to be learnt are that journalists can be guilty of over-simplifying economic analyses (presenting conditional scenarios as certain outcomes) and that government analyses can be self-serving (if they are published before a vote in which the government is campaigning for one side).
tim333 8y ago
It's true it's not as bad as some predicted and I imagine with a no deal brexit we'd muddle through but it still wouldn't be great. For reference here's some prediction from back then: >The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted. >In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%. Which was pessimistic. Sterling certainly fell, about 20%, but unemployment's doing fine so far.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  By fine you mean as poorly as before so far, and Brexit is not yet in full effect.

inciampati 8y ago

It is not doing well. It's turning back into the sick man of Europe. Productivity growth is among the lowest in the EU.

sievebrain 8y ago
That's an interesting description. Last year UK growth beat Germany, France and Italy in Q3 (don't know q4 figures yet I believe). It looks like the eurozone may be heading for recession given falling industrial output in Germany. It bothers me immensely how quickly the truth gets discarded the moment it conflicts with EU ideology. The UK has shown excellent economics relative to the rest of Europe since the vote despite its people being told "uncertainty" would trigger a massive recession and employment bloodbath. Yet here you are, saying it's turning into the sick man of Europe!
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  It probably is, but so is most of EU. Important big money already migrated to Ireland (mostly), but it takes some time (years, multiple) to take an effect if any.

spuz 8y ago

Where did you read that the UK would be in a deep recession 2 months before Brexit actually happens?

stephen_g 8y ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 (2016). Treasury (as well as other organisations) predicted that the vote itself would immediately trigger a deep and severe recession.
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  That's a helpful article, but I don't know of any examples of organisations other than the Treasury that predicted a deep and severe recession occurring before the UK had even left the EU. One has to admit that there is something of a conflict of interest when it comes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer producing a document to analyse the negative consequences of a scenario which his own prime minister was campaigning against.
  - sievebrain 8y ago
    You didn't look, maybe? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-brexit-would-trigger-uk-recession-eu-referendum https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-br... The entire global establishment of "experts" united together and made a series of predictions that weren't just wrong by a percentage, they were wrong in the wrong direction. There are NO organisations that I remember who predicted the outcome correctly. There were though, quite a lot of vox pops with the man on the street who said words to the effect of, "it'll be fine, we'll manage". The brutal reality is that people who put their faith in the notion of expert understanding of politics or economics have been made to look very foolish, and worse, many of them don't seem to have accepted the uselessness or bias levels of the people the media present as experts. They are still being upheld not only as important, but actually as people who should be given vast new powers to run government! It's quite concerning.
    - dane-pgp 8y ago
      Thank you for going to the trouble to find that. I wasn't sure how to search for predictions about how the Brexit vote itself would affect the economy, rather than the effects of actually leaving. The article starts "Leaving the EU would hit British living standards" and only talks about recession (occurring in 2017) in the context of the "adverse scenario" they modelled. As explained here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/imf-christine-lagarde-brexit-uk-economy-assessment-forecasts-eu-referendum-forecasts-a8119886.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/imf-christi... "[The adverse scenario] was predicated on the UK’s EU negotiations collapsing and the UK eventually crashing out of the bloc without a trade deal." which hasn't happened (yet). So I think the lessons to be learnt are that journalists can be guilty of over-simplifying economic analyses (presenting conditional scenarios as certain outcomes) and that government analyses can be self-serving (if they are published before a vote in which the government is campaigning for one side).

tim333 8y ago

It's true it's not as bad as some predicted and I imagine with a no deal brexit we'd muddle through but it still wouldn't be great. For reference here's some prediction from back then: >The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted. >In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%. Which was pessimistic. Sterling certainly fell, about 20%, but unemployment's doing fine so far.

AstralStorm 8y ago
By fine you mean as poorly as before so far, and Brexit is not yet in full effect.