“Britain’s biggest problem is a lack of economic growth – so much else is downstream from that. In per person terms, annual real growth averaged more than 2 percent in the run up to the financial crisis. From the crash to COVID-19, growth was just 0.6 percent on average. And of course these growth rates compound. Before the financial crisis, living standards were on course to double every 35 years; afterwards, it was every 120 years. This is a change with profound societal – and even civilizational – consequences.
“From tax and regulation to institutional malaise, demographic decline, and a culture that denigrates success – there are all sorts of explanations for our economic slowdown. But the way I see it is that we are suffering a progressive loss of economic dynamism, as we gradually replace market processes with bureaucratic ones – often to reduce risk or increase ‘fairness’. To many observers, every individual step along the road is reasonable and easy enough to justify. But over time, the effect is suffocating.”
– Tom Clougherty, Institute of Economic Affairs
We are supposed to ignore the 400 Billion Pounds spent on insane Covid policies (which was on-top-of government spending that was already cripplingly high) and chant “Liz Truss crashed the economy” – even though the lady was not allowed to do anything (just as Covid was the rule of “scientific experts”, the betrayal of Liz Truss was rule by the “monetary experts” of the Bank of England and the Credit Bubble “City” institutions which depend on the Corporate Welfare of the Bank of England).
As for the present government – even more government spending (the NHS alone has now breached 200 Billion Pounds per year – and the government has massively increased the pay and perks of various government employees), more taxes (some of the taxes designed to take land, and everything else, away from individuals and families and force its sale to “partner corporations” owned by “Mega Funds” and so on) and even more regulations.
Certainly all these policies are international – the British establishment has invented none of these policies, but they are being carried to an extreme here (as are “Green” taxes and regulations), the British “educated” establishment (of which the government is part) appears to be fanatically determined to destroy the United Kingdom.
It is likely that they will succeed in their task of destroying the United Kingdom.
A fertility rate down to 1.4 babies per woman (replacement level is, of course, 2 or above) and some groups in the United Kingdom have a lot more babies than other groups.
Plus mass immigration of MANY MILLIONS of people, over decades, which (as well as demanding endless benefits and public services – and housing) has overwhelmed the sewers – but it is so much easier to blame “greedy water companies” than to tell the truth about what has overwhelmed the system.
I could tell you what all this, the fertility collapse and the mass immigration, means for the future of the British people (the British nation), but I do not fancy years in prison – so I had better stop here.
By the way – the standard of living is not rising at a slow rate, it is falling and has been for years. People are getting poorer (just as they are in the United States).
It is depressing to see that the IEA does not understand that the inflation figures are severe underestimates (although the distortion of the figures may not be as severe as in the United States – whose government is totally corrupt) – per person, real incomes have been in decline for quite some time.
Paul, a low fertility rate and declining population, and an ageing one, need not be a catastrophe if – and this is a massive “if” – the productivity of those remaining adult workers/entrepreneurs was rising so fast as to offset the impact. But of course….
As for the lax approach to spending, this current joke of an administration in the UK appears happy to pay millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money as a condition of keeping Mauritius (an offshore tax haven) happy as part of a transfer (for no obvious legal grounds) of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. That network of islands contains Diego Garcia, an airbase. It appears that the upcoming Trump administration has other ideas..
I couldn’t tell if this was an intentional double entendre or if it just exists in my imagination, but I like it.
Anyway, it’s all of a piece with what one notable speaker said decades ago: They would rather the poor be poorer, provided the rich be less rich.
Progressive heaven comes when the entire society starves to death equally, on the same day.
Johnathan Pearce – yes, but eventually people age.
For example, I have pains in my back and hip that I did not have years ago – even for non physical work, pain can be distracting.
Also a society where the native people are not having children (a society like Britain or Russia) is a society without long term hope.
By the way only one American State, South Dakota, now has births at replacement level – even Utah does not. Yes society is continuing to decline in Britain and the United States – as it has since the start of the 1960s, but I suspect (just suspect) this is another factor – the Covid “vaccine” injections. Still it may be “just” continued cultural decline – now becoming terminal.
As for giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which is many hundreds of miles away from the islands, and giving Mauritius money on top of this – the government of the United Kingdom is clearly insane.