> I'm not even a leaver but seriously... fuck the economists. You're not a smart person if you trust them.

My favorite experience when it comes to economists was back in highschool (~15 years ago), when my teacher showed us a recording of two economists arguing with each other (on the news, I think). One was an expert in macroeconomics, the other in microeconomics.

They were using the exact same evidence to argue opposite positions.

Worth noting that you’re not counted as unemployed if you’re working as little as 1 hour a week, or if you’re on a government training scheme or on Workfare.

Given that many people who work are in poverty it would be more meaningful to track the numbers in poverty.

Officially the UK hit the lowest level of unemployment in like 25 years.

That's bullshit of course. For the reasons you mentioned.

Still didn't go up. Still went down.

The figures for underemployment are down as well.

It's worth noting that we are still in that period and we've only just started to see the economic slow down effects. Unemployment will lag behind the economic slow down. The full effects of Brexit won't be know properly for a while.

>It's worth noting that we are still in that period and we've only just started to see the economic slow down effects

We've been in the transitional period for over a year now. The whole period is only supposed to last about 30 months or so.

Moreover, as far as I can tell zero of leading indicators (shipping, retail, etc.) indicate that this cataclysmic 20% drop will ever come.

We haven't even had a quarter of contraction that can be blamed on Brexit - and we had one of those in 2013!

At what point do you stop saying "too soon to tell"?

At the point where businesses have to make serious decisions. Currently they're almost all saying they're waiting and seeing. Once they stop waiting and start doing we'll be able to tell.

The "wait and see" approach was exactly what was supposed to precipitate the sudden decline in investment and spike in unemployment.

It sort of sounds like you're still trying to argue that the prediction was correct. Are you?

A lot of people derive enormous comfort and security from the belief that there's a social class who can predict the future. In the past they were shamans and oracles reading goose entrails, nowadays they're analysts and economists reading Excel entrails. In the Foundation trilogy they were psychohistorians, basically economists on steroids.

I think it takes a certain amount of bravery to accept that there are no "experts" when it comes to predicting the future.

How was the wait and see approach supposed to drive a spike in unemployment? They're waiting not moving so jobs aren't moving yet. As for a decline in investment we are seeing that and you'd expect the resulting decline in the economy to lag behind that.

Unless you want to argue that the recent economic signs are positive?

There is a reason the word con is in eCONomics.

Yes, because the word has its root in Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos), which means house.