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Eh, this is a bit too doomer in my opinion. Sure, the UK is doing worse than the US (and will probably continue doing worse than them) but it's absolutely not the highest alpha country to get a put on. Many many Western European countries have the same problems we have but even worse, plus they don't have English either acting as a draw for high end immigrants (which the UK disproportionately gets compared to the dregs that end up in Europe). I'd take out puts on France, Spain and Canada before I took them out on the UK, perhaps even Germany before the UK (their demographics are down the toilet, average age is approaching 50).
Planning and building is absolutely fucked but I have hope that when Starmer takes power later this year he'll swiftly liberalise the system: it's basically the only way left to stimulate growth as even he now realises the government can't just spend their way out of this crisis.
I'm actually putting my money where my mouth is: with the upcoming tax year and renewed ISA allowance I'm strongly considering investing the money in a FTSE 250 ETF instead of the standard S&P 500 one I usually buy (deep down part of me already knows I'll regret this, but who knows, also the usual disclaimer: this is not financial advice yada yada).
I'd be somewhat inclined to go long on Canada (over a longer time frame admittedly) purely based on geography - with all that habitable land and and the natural resources that are going to get more accessible as the planet warms it's hard to think things could go seriously wrong for them.
It's not really that habitable, though. Most of Ontario (and Newfoundland) is bedrock, Quebec is bedrock and French, most of Manitoba is bedrock or underwater, the Maritimes are nearly dead of neglect (to the point the Canadian government will pay you to leave under certain circumstances), -30C isn't meaningfully different from -40C for AB/SK and their cities are already expanding as fast as their construction crews can go, there are no logistics for expansion into the territories, and it's illegal to develop the areas of BC that aren't just solid rock already.
Are those things fixable? For BC repealing the ALR is coup-complete, and for the Maritimes, while it's certainly possible to turn it into another megalopolis, it's going to be very expensive even though it is technically possible with existing technology (but critically, not Canadian technology).
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And here I felt stupid for holding some VGK to diversify away from the US. FTSE smells of regret and cold mushy peas.
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