The Uk economy

fancythat

It's ok PoliticsNerd.
I dont really feel anxious.

But I aam aware that I can think the worst sometimes, including the economy, and then things dont pan out as bad as previously thought, for a lot of people.

Reframing can help. If you start to think of the worst happening, e.g., "the economy will crash and we will not be able to cope." You then challenge that thought with something like, "The economy has looked on the edge in the past but we have survived". The third step is the reframing which might be "We might have some difficult times but people are preparing for this as a possible outcome and we can make it work".

If you do this, after a while just knowing you have a helpful tool may lift any vaguely anxious feelings. If it doesn't professional help is not to be sneezed at

David49

Surely a balanced economy is one where the spending needs of a country is at least met by revenue collected, hopefully some in excess for improvement or growth.

For a great many years the spending in the UK has exceeded revenue.

As has been suggested, it can mean different things to different people. Does this fit your description, do you think?

Fiscal Balance: This focuses on government finances, implying that a balanced economy should have a sustainable fiscal policy, where government revenues are aligned with expenditures.

That never happens though.

Whitewavemark2

That never happens though.

Does any sort of economy ever "happen"? Aren't they bound to be a work in progress?

Of course. I prefer to see the economy as a system though. Capitalism is the dominant system at present and has been for a couple of hundred years - gradually spreading worldwide.

We are all aware of its strengths and weaknesses, - the arguments largely centre around how much control over the system should be necessary- and your opinion will almost certainly differ according to your political perspective,

Whitewavemark2

That never happens though.

Because polititians promise more than they can afford to win votes, not just cash, Thatcher promised cheap council houses for tenants, we are still paying for that now and those buyers still havn’t been taxed on their gains.

I wish I understood finance better because the current state of things puzzles me. If people have money to spare....they will surely spend it, (hopefully on the high street). That keeps shops open, shop assistants employed, council tax paid and the supply chain moving.
There is no point raising wages if taxes go up too, because people are no better off.
Businesses are now laying people off because of the rise in wages and insurance payments. Fewer jobs means more people on benefits.
Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?
We all have a household budget to manage, and if we can't increase the money coming in, we have to reduce our spending.

Here is an example of no resources.

A few years ago I had several trips to Malawi one of the poorest of all countries with an average income of around $2 a day, they have no national resources at all. What an electricity they have is is Hydro from the one large river and intermittent would be a generous description. They do export some tobacco, tea and other food products when there is a surplus, over half their GDP is foreign aid which pays for basic health and education.
Local administration is pretty chaotic but not especially corrupt, elections are peaceful and democratic - there isn’t anything to fight over. In rural areas subsistent food production is the rule, they could grow more but the cost of fertilizer, takes away any gain so it doesn’t get done. So you grow what food you can and exchange any surplus with neighbours. If you can’t grow food and have no family to provide you don’t eat. Urban population live on the trickle down from those that do have businesses or paid work, that is often accommodation and food only.

Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?

If only.

I started a thread on what GNetters thought of £100 million spent on a bat windtunnel.
The answers somewhat horrified me.
Very few people thought it was outrageous.

I realised then that we cannot get ourselves out of any economic mess in the Uk.

Mum2three
All governments depts have been told to make a 10% saving on their expenditure.
Imho unless there are enough people who have worked in the private sector and understand that there isn’t a money tree growing in Whitehall then I can’t see it happening.

fancythat

^Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?^

If only.

I started a thread on what GNetters thought of £100 million spent on a bat windtunnel.
The answers somewhat horrified me.
Very few people thought it was outrageous.

I realised then that we cannot get ourselves out of any economic mess in the Uk.

I looked at that thread. The majority of 26 replies were against the cost.
And to think that 26 replies on GN is a representation of how the economy is going to be fixed ( or not) words fail me 🤦🏼‍♀️
Maybe broaden your reading on this subject.

Btw. £100 million is a lot of money but not on the grand scale of spending on infrastructure.

fancythat

^Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?^

If only.

I started a thread on what GNetters thought of £100 million spent on a bat windtunnel.
The answers somewhat horrified me.
Very few people thought it was outrageous.

I realised then that we cannot get ourselves out of any economic mess in the Uk.

If only the “bat tunnel” was the only example of waste connected to HS2, the real price of all the “environmental” activity is likely 100 times that

petra

fancythat

Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?

If only.

I started a thread on what GNetters thought of £100 million spent on a bat windtunnel.
The answers somewhat horrified me.
Very few people thought it was outrageous.

I realised then that we cannot get ourselves out of any economic mess in the Uk.

I looked at that thread. The majority of 26 replies were against the cost.
And to think that 26 replies on GN is a representation of how the economy is going to be fixed ( or not) words fail me 🤦🏼‍♀️
Maybe broaden your reading on this subject.

Most people were against the bat tunnel.
However, imo we damage wildlife at our peril.

I did say the cost seemed extortionate (it is) and the HS2 project was just so that humans could rush from A to B more quickly.

petra

Btw. £100 million is a lot of money but not on the grand scale of spending on infrastructure.

But it is still a lot of money!

A huge amount of money.
Just think would could be done with it.

I must agree, on rereading the thread it doesnt read quite as bad as what I thought then.

But still..
There was hardly a large outcry then, or since.
Either on GN or elsewhere.

For me, it is a no brainer to not spend that stupid amount.
Seems not, for millions of others of the population.

Unless you can convince me otherwise.

David49

fancythat

Instead of taking more money from the public, wouldn't it be better to see where savings can be made on outgoings?

If only.

I started a thread on what GNetters thought of £100 million spent on a bat windtunnel.
The answers somewhat horrified me.
Very few people thought it was outrageous.

I realised then that we cannot get ourselves out of any economic mess in the Uk.

If only the “bat tunnel” was the only example of waste connected to HS2, the real price of all the “environmental” activity is likely 100 times that

Exactly.

Those of us who want to reduce spending, are up against this type of thing.

Which is the tip of the iceberg[and I dont apologise for any pun].

But we are so far from that in the Uk, I cannot see any quick way back.
At the peril of human beings. In my opinion.

I’m sorry David but your belief that ‘money’ was developed as a result of barter is empirically proven to be wrong by anthropological research.

This extract from an article by the late David Graeber, an American anthropologist whose especial expertise was in economic anthropology, after noting that Adam Smith seems to have started the barter story, explains what anthropology stufies have found.

Anthropologists gradually fanned out into the world and began directly observing how economies where money was not used (or anyway, not used for everyday transactions) ac- tually worked. What they discovered was an at first bewildering variety of arrangements, ranging from competitive gift-giving to communal stockpiling to places where economic relations centered on neighbors trying to guess each other’s dreams. What they never found was any place, anywhere, where economic relations between members of commu- nity took the form economists predicted: “I’ll give you twenty chickens for that ” Hence in the definitive anthropological work on the subject, Cambridge anthropology professor Caroline Humphrey concludes, “No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing”[2]

a. Just in way of emphasis: economists thus predicted that all (100%) non-monetary economies would be barter economies. Empirical observation has revealed that the actual number of observable cases—out of thousands studied—is 0%.

davidgraeber.org/articles/on-the-invention-of-money-notes-on-sex-adventure-monomaniacal-sociopathy-and-the-true-function-of-economics/

The whole article is long, but fascinating.

The countries of the world where people are happiest are, starting with the happiest are: Finland, Denmark, Iceland,
Sweden, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Australia, Switzerland worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world

The 10 highest taxed countries are Finland, Japan, Denmark,
Austria, Sweden, Aruba, Belgium, Israel, Slovenia, Netherlands

Notice the overlap. I would be my happiest living in a happy high tax country where the money is well managed and spent effectively to provide a high level of services and alleviate poverty.

Perhaps we should have a Royal Commission looking in detail at how the Scandinavian countries manage their economies and have high taxation and welfare standards - and a happy population and learn something from them.
The UK is equal 13th in the list of most highly taxed countries together with 7 other countries including Germany, China, South Korea, France and Australia, all of them pretty main stream develope economies.

Britain was 20th on the happiness list. Perhaps what this country needs is better effective management of its resources, and even higher taxation!

I’m sorry, fancythat but fretting over the waste of a few £million here and there isn’t worth the mental effort involved.

What is more to the point is that the current economic beliefs of our chancellor and the current actions of the Bank of England are going to mean less economic activity in the country, increasingly worse (even worse😱 than now) public services, notably the NHS which appears to be at the point of complete breakdown and increasing poverty.

As an aside[but I started the thread so that is ok!], when a relative of mine lived in Finland for a few months, he came back saying many were "suicidal", where he was.
Dalight was for about 7 hours a day, which I dont think helped[he was quite far north of the country and it was winter months].

But Finland managed to turn things around since then.

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/the-finnish-miracle-how-the-country-halved-its-suicide-rate-and-saved-countless-lives

I suspect thatvthe higher taxation in the ‘happier’ countries is a correlation rather than a cause, MOnica. I suspect that these countries have a more equable distribution of wealth and access to resources and that this is more conducive to ‘happiness’

^I’m sorry, fancythat but fretting over the waste of a few £million here and there isn’t worth the mental effort involved.
^

Oh but I think it very much is.

It is symptomatic of how far us in the Uk have come from prioritising humans.

If there was plenty of money to splash around on bat tunnels, then ok, fair enough.

But there is not.
People are turning down or off, their heating. etc etc.

£100 million here, and many simlar projects there, and guess what, not enough to pay for life's essentials for human beings.

Only 10 "projects like that" make £1billion.

Is that not worth bothering about either?

This is what I mean by the Uk having lost financial perspective.