Another nail in the coffin for "GREAT" Britain

Yes, I'm sure Mr. More Maths Needed Sunak is delighted at Harry's distractions.

So much for market forces. Clearly Tory economics don't work.

What next? I dread to think. Remember, it's only a few months since the PM with the shortest time in office was back to trying trickle-down economics, which was proved not to work in the 1980s.

Wasn't George Osborne supposed to prevent this.

Is there much more room for many ‘nails in the coffin?

I despair, I find it all very depressing.

Very few countries have triple A ratings at the moment. I think about 6?
Not sure how Moody’s ratings fit into the MMT economic theory.

12 countries AAA
Moody rating for Uk is still in high category

The UK is still a very wealthy country though. I am not sure what difference the ratings will make to peoples’ everyday lives.

nanna8- sorry to say, but this is a massively naive comment.

The effect on all of us is huge.

Even more important than the rating is the 'negative outlook' that follows it.

nanna8

The UK is still a very wealthy country though. I am not sure what difference the ratings will make to peoples’ everyday lives.

I think it’s going to make the raising of credit more expensive. Perhaps some of the exponents of the Magic Money Tree economic theory will explain?

The UK is a relatively wealthy country but the wealth is in the hands of the wrong people which is why so many other are poor.

Fleurpepper

nanna8- sorry to say, but this is a massively naive comment.

The effect on all of us is huge.

Even more important than the rating is the 'negative outlook' that follows it.

How ? I know the cost of essential services are going up but that is the case across the globe, certainly where we live. I am genuinely interested in how everyday people will be affected. I don’t mean the rich, they will be fine whatever happens because they are skilled at hiding wealth elsewhere.

It's been a long time since Britain was anywhere near 'great'. Many people would welcome that final nail in the coffin.

I don't think that our credit rating is a great deal to worry about when it comes to government bonds, financial institutions and Ftse 100 companies. The government cannot go bankrupt, so will always repay principle and interest on bonds; our banks are highly profitable, even taking £billions in interest from the government on the QE money that has gone into reserves, and the big companies are making excellent profits which are being use to pay dividends and for share buybacks.

The cost of borrowing for companies and individuals is high, not because of fears that they cannot repay but because the BoE has raised interest rates in an entirely futile attempt to reduce inflation. Futile because the inflation is supply led, which we can do nothing about, not demand led (too much money in the economy)

Moody's ratings go from Aaa, which is the highest grade for the top quality issuer with the lowest risk, down to C, which is usually given to securities that are in default with little chance for recovery of principal or interest.

www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moodys.asp

P.S As far as optics go a Moodys downrating doesn't look good, but I don't think it will make much difference.

When the outlook for Britain is discussed (mainly on social media, but also in the press) it is usually described in nebulous (albeit forceful) terms such as ‘we are screwed’, ‘Britain is f*cked’, with metaphors such as falling off a cliff, train crashes and so on.

What does it mean? I’m not asking for examples of what makes people feel that way, as I understand that, but we aren’t really going to fall of a cliff, and ‘we are screwed’ is very non-specific.

What will being screwed at the bottom of a cliff look like? How will the average Gransnetter be affected? Is the situation reversible? Are we looking at civilisation disappearing, with anarchy in the UK, or a return to a 19th century ‘two nation’ situation in which some people thrive on the backs of others’ poverty but the country as a whole keeps its power? Or something else entirely?

I realise that there is not one answer to this, and a lot of it is fortune-telling, but I do wish that the vagueness would stop and that we started discussing things in real terms.

I think it means that we've turned from a country that was, on the whole, a pleasure to live in and one to be proud of in many ways, to a country where everything that made life comfortable is collapsing around us with little prospect of improvement.

Yes, I’d agree with that, and it’s grim; but not as catastrophic as being on a crashed train at the bottom of a cliff.

Not that I’m excusing the mismanagement of the economy or the running down of public services over the past decade - I’m not.

It feels like a catastrophe to me, Doodledog. It's killing people for a start, just as the train crash would...

It's catastrophic for those people who have to use food banks that would not have needed to in the past and also for the increased numbers of homeless people.

And the people who are having to wait outside A&E in ambulances, and those who need the ambulances but can't get them.

Yes, of course, which is why I was careful to try to pre-empt retorts like that by saying that I am not excusing any of it.

What I thought I was making clear is that the vague remarks about train crashes and falling off cliffs do nobody any favours. Of course it is terrible for the people suffering (and nowhere did I imply otherwise), but the metaphor of the country falling off a cliff suggests a sudden irretrievable collapse of everything for everyone, not a situation where victims of a mismanaged economy and an uncaring government reap the 'rewards' of Tory policy. The fate of those people was predictable and probably deliberate, which is not the same thing as a train crash or falling off a cliff, which is what I was saying.

Nebulous concepts can't be proven or disproved for a start, so people making vague predictions can claim to have been right at the same time as others claim they are wrong. We need measurable forecasts and baseline measures, not nightmare scenarios and waffle. Of course there are commentators who give those things, but they get lost amongst the talk of sunny uplands on one side and train crashes on the other.

I was thinking more about future prophesies than descriptions of the current state of affairs, really. To say we are heading for disaster without saying what disaster would mean is unhelpful - not just for moving conversations along, but to think about how it can be prevented or mitigated.

People running businesses, for example, are going to get more help from knowing that interest rates are likely to rise or fall, that wages will stagnate, fall or rise, or that only a small number of people will have disposable income in five years time than they will from vague but gloomy predictions of the life in the future. Similarly, young people making plans for future careers need more than 'The UK is screwed' as a basis for deciding whether to emigrate or to try to get dual citizenship and leave the sinking ship. Many pensioners have found that not planning for the consequences of Brexit has scuppered their chances of a retirement abroad, and owners of tourist facilities might have planned differently had they realised the impact of losing so much cheap labour - it is this sort of thing that should be discussed IMO - and by saying that I am not in any way minimising the severity of the current situation.

ronib

nanna8

The UK is still a very wealthy country though. I am not sure what difference the ratings will make to peoples’ everyday lives.

I think it’s going to make the raising of credit more expensive. Perhaps some of the exponents of the Magic Money Tree economic theory will explain?

Why? Because of said above. Think of it as credit rating for an individual- it makes debts very expensive to repay, and it makes it almost impossible to borrow. Makes it very exepensive, prohibitive even, to import anything, including essential drugs, utilities, energy, etc, etc, etc.

Blondiescot

It's been a long time since Britain was anywhere near 'great'. Many people would welcome that final nail in the coffin.

Who? Why?

Doodledog

When the outlook for Britain is discussed (mainly on social media, but also in the press) it is usually described in nebulous (albeit forceful) terms such as ‘we are screwed’, ‘Britain is f*cked’, with metaphors such as falling off a cliff, train crashes and so on.

What does it mean? I’m not asking for examples of what makes people feel that way, as I understand that, but we aren’t really going to fall of a cliff, and ‘we are screwed’ is very non-specific.

What will being screwed at the bottom of a cliff look like? How will the average Gransnetter be affected? Is the situation reversible? Are we looking at civilisation disappearing, with anarchy in the UK, or a return to a 19th century ‘two nation’ situation in which some people thrive on the backs of others’ poverty but the country as a whole keeps its power? Or something else entirely?

I realise that there is not one answer to this, and a lot of it is fortune-telling, but I do wish that the vagueness would stop and that we started discussing things in real terms.

I can only answer one of those questions, it was very enjoyable and a lot of years ago when on holiday one night in West Bay.
Hope that helps.😊