UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023

Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by coldpie on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:05AM (#34595909)

A friend of mine straight up left Britain for Canada in his 20s after Brexit. He wanted to get out before it all came down. Now that's one less young worker in an aging country. It's hard to overstate how much damage that vote did to the UK.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by phonescreen_man on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:22AM (#34596195)

Same, expat here under 40 living in the US, left when the referendum came in as an exit vote.. grabbed my bag and hit the ocean road! Took my skills with me.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by ben_w on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:51AM (#34596662)

Same except I went to Berlin, and I delayed leaving until late 2018 as my mother got Alzheimer's and I wanted to help while that still meant something.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by coldpie on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:52AM (#34596686)

There's probably something insightful to say around the topic of constantly shitting on the most important people in your economy (young workers) in order to curry favor with the biggest drags on your economy because they are the ones with the spare time to vote (retirees), but I'm not economically smart enough to figure out what it is.

"73 percent of people aged between 18 and 24 voted to Remain in the European Union, compared with just 40 percent of people aged over 65" https://www.statista.com/statistics/520954/brexit-votes-by-a...

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by automatic6131 on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:12AM (#34596021)

>It's hard to overstate how much damage that vote did to the UK.

And yet, people frequently succeed

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by martimarkov on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:36AM (#34596393)

When most ppl around you succeed more than you is it really a success?

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by avh02 on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @11:02AM (#34596848)

"I moved (edit: willingly) to the UK because of brexit" is not a statement that's often heard either.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by krona on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:09AM (#34595965)

Would you mind providing a factor analysis? Which specific economic indicator(s), when compared to other countries, screams 'brexit wot dun it'?

I only ask because the IMF itself doesn't state Brexit as a factor in the prediction.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by rayiner on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:03AM (#34595878)

The UK’s GDP per capita peaked in 2007 and has stagnated since then: https://www.google.com/search?q=uk+gdp+per+capita&ie=UTF-8&o.... 2008 was the global financial collapse, of course, but in the UK it seemed to have exposed some fundamental economic problems because the country never recovered. Whatever is “killing the UK economy” happened long before Brexit. It’s actually like the Sixth Sense—the UK isn’t dying, it was dead the whole time.

Heck, if you look at the chart of GDP per capita you can’t even tell where the Brexit vote happened or when Brexit formally happened. Something similar happened Italy around the same time, as well as Greece.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by cloutchaser on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:30AM (#34596307)

People seem to ignore the EU is in just as bad a state as the UK, especially now that Russian energy is over Germany as we know it is basically over.

Brexit might have had an impact but it’s one of 10 things badly wrong with europe as a whole.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by martimarkov on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:40AM (#34596460)

But the thing is that the EU is not. Every major power in the EU is predicted to grow their economy and the UK is the only one that is not.

Even if you look at it as a purely engineering problem you'd see that adding more red tape on trade would be most detrimental to the smallest player. In the relationship with the EU, the UK is the smaller player.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by xyzzyz on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @11:26AM (#34597241)

Predictions are not worth much. Everyone predicted UK’s economy will collapse after Brexit. While it certainly has not flourished, it is not any worse than before.

Now, what about the other “major powers” which are “predicted” to grow their economy? France’s GDP per capita has peaked in 2008, and never recovered since then. Italy? Same. Spain? Same. Belgium? Only recovered to 2008’s figure in 2021, same as Netherlands, Denmark, Finland. Sweden also only now recently recovered to its peak in 2011.

In fact, the only major EU economies that did not simply recover to their 2008-2011 peaks, but rather grown beyond them, are Germany, Poland and Czechia.

The truth of the matter is that EU economies are deeply stagnant, this is by no means a UK specific problem. There is no reason to predict growth in EU but not in UK.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by jvmfjvfjvf on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @11:30AM (#34597298)

Germany contracted the last 2 quarters. Your explanation?

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by mejutoco on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @12:36PM (#34598412)

It seems that is not true.

https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/germany

Germany growth:

2022Q4: -0.2%

2022Q3: 0.5%

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by fidgewidge on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @02:56PM (#34600993)

"Even if you look at it as a purely engineering problem you'd see that adding more red tape on trade would be most detrimental to the smallest player"

This is economically illiterate, calling it an engineering problem doesn't change that.

Trade happens when both sides can benefit. If trade stops happening, both sides lose. Artificial trade barriers do not mean one side "wins", they are always and everywhere a way to penalize some local citizens in order to prioritize others, usually owners of businesses that are favoured by the state in some way.

At any rate it's an academic question. UK exports to the EU recovered to the prior level, it is selling the same quantity as before. Imports are lower, so UK buys less from the EU. Balance of trade therefore actually improved. This is not widely reported because the media is full of people who want everyone to believe Brexit has been an economic disaster. The reality is it'll never be possible to know because any impact is so small as to be invisible against the chaos caused by lockdowns.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by martimarkov on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @07:40PM (#34604601)

1. Imports from EU are higher than pre-Brexit and higher than exports. So it's the deficit is also higher than before. 2. The EU does not have the UK as their biggest (40%+) market. Therefore the smaller player is the UK. If all trade stops - yes both sides lose. One collapses economically overnight. 3. The EU can either absorb the cost on its internal market (and sell goods internally for a smaller margin) or export to other players as there are existing trade agreements (again with a smaller margin). The UK does not have access to the same deals. 4. The EU market has a much higher GDP. Losing 1 trading partner even of the of Britain would not take down the Union.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by fidgewidge on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @05:42AM (#34608809)

All you're saying is that the EU has a higher willingness for self-inflicting economic pain on its citizens, which is true, but not an argument for being inside it.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @11:14AM (#34597042)

The UK response to the global financial collapse in 2008 was to blame the Labour party that was in power, and "immigrants", which led directly to austerity and then Brexit, as memorably captured by Frankie Boyle, who compared it to watching Columbo with his Granny with dementia.

"It Was The Fu*king Banks" - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtWA3jQN1Pg

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by rayiner on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @11:32AM (#34597330)

New Labour was in power for the decade preceding the financial crisis and two years after. They quite justifiably bore the blame for what happened, just like the Bush administration did in the US.

Brexit and the backlash against globalism is a result of the economic malaise brought about by those policies, not the cause of that malaise.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by rhino369 on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @02:55PM (#34600964)

The UK's back was broken in the Battle of France. It's all downhill from there.

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by dmitriid on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:06AM (#34595920)

The trivialities amount to an evidence of systemic problems everywhere. Even though the whole Brexit farce has exposed all of that on its own :)

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Re:UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF by brianmcc on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @10:53AM (#34596703)

You're right - I'd add a decade of austerity too mind you.

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