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Not sure if this is exactly Culture War, but I think if anybody can tell me what the heck is going on, you lot can š
Okay, so the UK has a new monarch, a new Prime Minister and in the past couple of days, a new budget. And now it looks like a new financial crisis.
Can anybody explain to me, in the manner that Chesterton describes Arnold, with "a smile of heart-broken forbearance, as of the teacher in an idiot school, that was enormously insulting" what has caused this kind of meltdown? I'm cribbing from The Guardian, which is trying to explain what is the problem, but my big difficulty is that I don't understand why the Bank of England had to do this. How did the British economy get to the state that the pound is dropping like a metaphor in Amazon's "The Rings of Power" and the currency apparently would have been worthless?
And why is anybody surprised by the tax cuts? They're a Tory government, the first thing they do when they get into power - or when a new PM is hoping to take over - is announce swingeing tax cuts for the better-off (along with swingeing cuts in public spending). So why is everyone now going "Oooh, that's a bit dodgy"? The only surprise for me is that it's Kwasi Kwarteng who is the guy in charge of the Budget instead of Rishi Sunak, but I suppose Rishi - being disappointed in his expectations to succeed Boris - has decided to spend more time with his family('s billions).
The UK has been in a slow-motion crisis since, arguably, 2008 . It's thing after another: 2008-2010 (such as Greece and Portugal sovereign debt defaults), Brexit, Covid, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 2022 inflation surge, etc. Dollar-adjusted GDP is unhanged in 13 years https://i.redd.it/ndb3h3pgpyf31.jpg [1]
The problem is, the whatever problems the US faces, such as inflation ,recession, Covid, or banking crisis, ripples to the UK but only worse (50-80% energy inflation for the UK & Germany compared to much less here). Also, a major difference is, the US quickly recovers from its crisis but the UK, Germany, France, etc. do not. So it's one thing piled on top of another. Things never get better.
The UK doesn't have much going for it...it's hard to attract capital, financial or cognitive. Ireland was smart to turn itself into a tax haven, which helped attract capital and raise GDP and standards of living relative to neighboring countries. The difference is stark: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Historical_economic_growth_of_Ireland_and_the_UK.jpg
Some of it its own doing , like Germany's dependence on Russian natural gas, which worked well until 2022. But the UK also affected by this.
Regarding tax cuts, this creates a debt-to-currency-collapse spiral, similar to in the situation in Turkey over the past decade. No new wealth is actually being created despite efforts at stimulus or monetary policy, because any growth engendered by said policy is negated by the falling currency. The result is no net creation of wealth. The US in the privileged position of being able to stimulate its economy to get out of recessions fast without losing wealth due to currency decline. Breaking out of this spiral requires net foreign inflows.
[1] https://greyenlightenment.com/2022/09/03/europes-lost-decade-the-crisis-is-overseas-not-here/
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