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Britian back in recession

  • 25-04-2012 9:18am
    #1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 559 ✭✭✭


    According to BBC news the UK is back in recession again the last one was in 2009, wounder will the BoE will start printing money again.

    'The UK economy has returned to recession, after shrinking by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012'

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,626 ✭✭✭GSF


    Its amazing the psychological impact of shrinking by -0.2% versus growing by +0.3%. Its way bigger than the impact of growth decreasing from say +2% to +1% even though the absolute drop is only half.


  • Registered Users Posts: 605 ✭✭✭creeper1


    No doubt they are already priming the printing presses as I post this.

    The UK is finished.

    The only thing to consider is whether they are going to end in very high inflation or hyperinflation.
    :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭golden lane


    creeper1 wrote: »
    No doubt they are already priming the printing presses as I post this.

    The UK is finished.

    The only thing to consider is whether they are going to end in very high inflation or hyperinflation.
    :P

    all the figures are not in yet.....so no decisions will be made yet.....

    the uk have finished what ?...........buying big telly's, computors or mobile phones........

    the uk is a rich country........and all us here are doing very nicely for ourselves.....thank you..


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    creeper1 wrote: »
    The UK is finished.
    I think that's an ever-so-slight over-reaction to the fact that economic growth has been swinging from slightly negative to slightly positive and back again for quite a while now. It means nothing other than the UK economy, like many others, is pretty stagnant at the moment.

    People place far too much emphasis on arbitrary definitions like "recession".


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭golden lane


    djpbarry wrote: »
    I think that's an ever-so-slight over-reaction to the fact that economic growth has been swinging from slightly negative to slightly positive and back again for quite a while now. It means nothing other than the UK economy, like many others, is pretty stagnant at the moment.

    People place far too much emphasis on arbitrary definitions like "recession".

    no growth....means the sames it was before...we were ok before, so no problems now.....we have had recessions in the uk since time immemorial.........it is only a problem when people ignore that fact.....most people don't.....so it is not a big problem......


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  • Registered Users Posts: 192 ✭✭paddy0090


    It's not the UK that it's finished. Businesses are hoarding cash in anticipation/fear of a euro collapse even as above average inflation eats away at it. Their exports are hampered by austerity on the continent and consumers are seeming their purchasing power diminished by inflation.

    Their stuck in a loop they can't break out of. This is why cameroon wanted to can the Fiscal Compact. IMO growth in the UK will tick up and down again.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    the uk is a rich country........and all us here are doing very nicely for ourselves.....thank you..

    the UK isn't a whole lot better off than Ireland; no growth, deficit about 1% lower, less favourable trade balance. The only difference here is that in Ireland there is some appreciation of the problems, even if it is only the rantings on this forum, in the UK it is business as usual. The Irish crash came after a period of phenomenal growth, the UK one after modest enough growth.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    ardmacha wrote: »
    The Irish crash came after a period of phenomenal growth, the UK one after modest enough growth.

    So the UK didn't have much of a crash at all. Most western economies are in trouble, even in the US with all the QE the economy is still struggling.

    Globalisation. Not sure it's as good as they told us it was, apart from getting cheap products etc


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,626 ✭✭✭GSF


    ardmacha wrote: »
    in the UK it is business as usual.
    Hardly. They havent gone down to the CPA for starters and are reducing quite agressively the number of public sector employees on the books


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,811 ✭✭✭Tigerandahalf


    liammur wrote: »

    Globalisation.

    This is one of the real problems. Before workers could move around when things were bad in one place and then return when things had improved. Now you have swathes of people unemployed.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    This is one of the real problems. Before workers could move around when things were bad in one place and then return when things had improved. Now you have swathes of people unemployed.

    I think it is THE problem, and I cannot see how the U.S economy is going to recover. In many ways it's far worse than the Eurozone area.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    GSF wrote: »
    Hardly. They havent gone down to the CPA for starters and are reducing quite agressively the number of public sector employees on the books

    Eh, please, some links to this, last I heard they were awarding pay increases to public servants.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,501 ✭✭✭✭Slydice


    I was on twitter earlier today and saw something related from a Karl Whelan tweet:
    http://twitter.com/#!/WhelanKarl/status/195093373516906497
    Amazing chart from UK ONS. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263951.pdf Current recession now much worse the Great Depression. Time to start using the D-word?


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Before workers could move around when things were bad in one place and then return when things had improved. Now you have swathes of people unemployed.
    That's not really true - unemployment varies quite substantially between different EU states. For example, Germany, Austria and The Netherlands currently have very low levels of unemployment. A big part of the problem is youth unemployment - almost one quarter of all under-25s in Europe are unemployed. In Greece and Spain, the figure is over 50%. So the problem doesn't appear to be "swathes of people unemployed", but rather swathes of young people who are either unwilling or incapable of securing employment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    djpbarry wrote: »
    So the problem doesn't appear to be "swathes of people unemployed", but rather swathes of young people who are either unwilling or incapable of securing employment.

    It's both, but the youth level is far more worrying. The reason is the jobs have dried up so they are incapable of getting them. The jobs are moving to the Far East.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    liammur wrote: »
    The reason is the jobs have dried up so they are incapable of getting them. The jobs are moving to the Far East.
    Some jobs have moved (it's impossible to outsource everything to India and China and besides, India and China are heavily dependent on Europe to buy the stuff they're producing), but I'm guessing lack of skills and qualifications (and motivation in many cases) is a much bigger factor. Furthermore, in the UK at least, youth unemployment has been on the rise since long before the recession kicked in - this is not a problem that sprung up overnight:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/15258386

    There are a lot of kids here who are going to third-level to study subjects that are in no way going to make them more employable - there are masses of graduates with qualifications that, in the jobs market, aren't worth the paper they're written on. Worse still, many kids are leaving school without basic literacy and numeracy skills, making them virtually unemployable.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,611 ✭✭✭maninasia


    The Anglo world is in trouble, as is the Med world. Other places very much less so.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 236 ✭✭NakedNNettles


    This is one of the real problems. Before workers could move around when things were bad in one place and then return when things had improved. Now you have swathes of people unemployed.

    Yeah, I have heard the media trotting out this BS.

    Last time I looked there were plenty of opportunities to head for Canada, NZ, Australia, Asia, even London for jobs. Despite globalistation nothings changed, it still takes the same amount of get up and go, recession or no recession.

    Fact is many Irish have become soft from 10 years of the 'pampered good life', it's made them lazy and fostered a culture of self entitlement. It's all just a convenient excuse to sit on one's ar*e and do nothing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Fact is many Irish have become soft from 10 years of the 'pampered good life'...
    This is certainly not something that is unique to Ireland, but I do think that, yes, the economic prosperity of the noughties probably influenced educational choices and prompted students to plump for the path of least resistance into the jobs market.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    djpbarry wrote: »
    Some jobs have moved (it's impossible to outsource everything to India and China and besides, India and China are heavily dependent on Europe to buy the stuff they're producing), but I'm guessing lack of skills and qualifications (and motivation in many cases) is a much bigger factor. Furthermore, in the UK at least, youth unemployment has been on the rise since long before the recession kicked in - this is not a problem that sprung up overnight:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/15258386

    There are a lot of kids here who are going to third-level to study subjects that are in no way going to make them more employable - there are masses of graduates with qualifications that, in the jobs market, aren't worth the paper they're written on. Worse still, many kids are leaving school without basic literacy and numeracy skills, making them virtually unemployable.

    That is true. But there are only X amount of jobs out there. And places like China/India are getting more and more of them.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    liammur wrote: »
    That is true. But there are only X amount of jobs out there.
    That's just not true - the number of jobs (either filled or vacant) changes all the time, as of course does the nature of those jobs. So while some jobs will move to another location, such as India or China, other new jobs are created. As I said earlier, it's impossible to out-source everything to another geographical location - for example, a shop in Dublin can't very well employ staff based in Jaipur. If you're looking for a cleaner for an office in London, you're not going to go scanning notice boards in Beijing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    djpbarry wrote: »
    That's just not true - the number of jobs (either filled or vacant) changes all the time, as of course does the nature of those jobs. So while some jobs will move to another location, such as India or China, other new jobs are created. As I said earlier, it's impossible to out-source everything to another geographical location - for example, a shop in Dublin can't very well employ staff based in Jaipur. If you're looking for a cleaner for an office in London, you're not going to go scanning notice boards in Beijing.

    But you can't get 450,000 people off the dole doing shop work in Dublin, and that unfortunately is the key issue.

    Turning our back on manufacturing and leaning towards the smart economy was a mistake. A big mistake. There simply isn't enough jobs out there, nor in the UK, nor the US. Claiming young people don't want to work is imo wildly off the mark.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,005 ✭✭✭✭AlekSmart


    djpbarry wrote: »

    There are a lot of kids here who are going to third-level to study subjects that are in no way going to make them more employable - there are masses of graduates with qualifications that, in the jobs market, aren't worth the paper they're written on. Worse still, many kids are leaving school without basic literacy and numeracy skills, making them virtually unemployable.

    This,IMO,is the great bull elephant we have been rearing in the Irish parlour for some years now.

    The continued belief that further "College" based education was an absolute pre-requisite to every young Irish persons adult life has skewed our views of Life as she is lived.

    The survival of any genre of humanity is surely dependent upon its practitioners having a gist of ABC rather than an intimate knowledge of pure mathemical functions and/or theories of hydrodynamic finance....?


    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

    Charles Mackay (1812-1889)



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    liammur wrote: »
    But you can't get 450,000 people off the dole doing shop work in Dublin, and that unfortunately is the key issue.
    That’s hardly what I was implying – I merely used shop vacancies as an example of positions that can’t be outsourced.

    But anyway, that’s not the key issue. The key issue for Ireland is that a large proportion of unemployed people in Ireland were working directly or indirectly in the construction industry. Those jobs are never coming back and the skills acquired by those who worked in Ireland’s construction boom are largely non-transferrable. So, getting those people off the dole has less to do with creating positions for them and more to do with them re-training to do something else. Either that or they move to where the construction jobs are. Personally, I think a lot of those people are going to remain unemployed for the rest (or at least most) of their lives. That is, without question, Ireland’s biggest socio-economic challenge.
    liammur wrote: »
    Turning our back on manufacturing...
    Ireland hasn’t turned its back on manufacturing at all. Quite the opposite in fact: Ireland has a well-established high-end manufacturing industry (computer hardware, medical devices, pharmaceuticals and food products being the main exports). What’s more, many companies within those industries are trying to expand, but they’re struggling to get the necessary staff:

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0702/1224299938422.html
    liammur wrote: »
    There simply isn't enough jobs out there, nor in the UK, nor the US.
    1.6 million jobs were created in the US alone last year:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16445441

    There are plenty of jobs being created in the UK & Ireland too, the problem is the mismatch between the skills required for those jobs and those of the unemployed.
    liammur wrote: »
    Claiming young people don't want to work is imo wildly off the mark.
    Is it? You don’t think third-level graduates turning up their noses at jobs they feel are below them could even be a factor?


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    AlekSmart wrote: »
    The survival of any genre of humanity is surely dependent upon its practitioners having a gist of ABC rather than an intimate knowledge of pure mathemical functions and/or theories of hydrodynamic finance....?
    I think you’re conflating separate issues here – someone who is mathematically literate is very unlikely to be otherwise illiterate. And what’s more, the world needs more mathematically literate individuals, not less – someone comfortable working with math is very unlikely to find themselves out of work for extended periods because such people are always in demand.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    And what’s more, the world needs more mathematically literate individuals, not less – someone comfortable working with math is very unlikely to find themselves out of work for extended periods because such people are always in demand.

    Exactly. There is no recession for numerate graduates.
    And people from the construction sector in this category, engineers, quantity surveyors and the like can readily retrain for something else, it is the manual workers that will be left behind.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,011 ✭✭✭Brian CivilEng


    djpbarry wrote: »
    someone comfortable working with math is very unlikely to find themselves out of work for extended periods because such people are always in demand.

    Try telling that to the 10% of civil engineers who had to get at least a B3 in HL Maths in their Leaving but are now finding themselves in a state of extended readiness.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    Try telling that to the 10% of civil engineers who had to get at least a B3 in HL Maths in their Leaving but are now finding themselves in a state of extended readiness.

    As I said two posts above, these people's profession is not in demand, the individuals very much are.

    also from today's Irish Times
    Ireland needs to address skills shortage for new tech careers
    Initiative seeks to plug tech skills gap


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭Icepick


    Try telling that to the 10% of civil engineers who had to get at least a B3 in HL Maths in their Leaving but are now finding themselves in a state of extended readiness.
    Most likely because their focus was on construction. They need to refocus and start a business.
    Plenty of opportunities for engineers, but they may need to do their business abroad.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Try telling that to the 10% of civil engineers who had to get at least a B3 in HL Maths in their Leaving but are now finding themselves in a state of extended readiness.
    First of all, 10% is an extreme minority. Secondly, why they can't they do something other than civil engineering?


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