Scrutable

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:07 pm

Well that’s self evident, thanks. I can now clearly see the point you were making, it’s all there. Lovely.

UK investment performance (earlier graph) was bad since the Brexit vote.

The export performance has also been worse than countries the UK should consider to be peers (And Ireland has been performing particularly well)
And you were complaining that people weren't providing data, so I have.

You could also read the reports that have assessed the loss to exports. I have pointed to them as well



It's not my fault that you keep changing what you want. The raw data is too noisy. The analysed data is too far from the raw. I am not a specialist, so prefer to provide the raw data so my assuptions/corrections are not biasing the data.


https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence- ... -uk-trade/

Comparing our recent overall trade performance with other advanced economies suggests that the UK saw a similar collapse in exports as other countries at the start of the pandemic but has since missed out on much of the recovery in global trade.d UK and aggregate advanced economy goods export volumes fell by around 20 per cent during the initial wave of the pandemic in 2020. But by the fourth quarter of 2021 total advanced economy trade volumes had rebounded to 3 per cent above their pre-pandemic levels while UK exports remain around 12 per cent below (Chart I, left panel). The UK therefore appears to have become a less trade intensive economy, with trade as a share of GDP falling 12 per cent since 2019, two and a half times more than in any other G7 country (Chart I, right panel).

jimbob wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:38 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 20, 2022 8:33 pm

jimbob wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:03 pm

There is plenty of data of brexit adversely affecting sectors of the economy as well as more anecdotal evidence of the red tape making it uneconomical for multiple specific companies to do business within the EU.

Pretending otherwise is silly.

Also Google is a thing.

Oh well in that case

Here is my plotting of the data Normalised to Q12016, so just before the Brexit vote.


From

https://data.oecd.org/trade/trade-in-go ... ator-chart

UK looks only very slightly worse than Germany and France there. Not quite sure what would be hampering the set of "populous rich north european countries" specifically, but there does seem to be a wider problem.

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:14 am

Maybe not quite the right thread for it but germane to the discussion: an example of the kind of “doesn’t tell us what we want to hear but if we fiddle around a bit and squint really hard then I’m sure you’ll agree things are awful” bollocks that is everywhere at the moment. Bet you the conclusions are well within margins of error in any case.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BenChu_/stat ... 2444557313

Not quite sure what your issue is with that thread? It's not news that productivity in the UK is stagnant, nor that using raw GDP rather than GDP per capita is often done disingenuously by politicians.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:59 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:14 am

Maybe not quite the right thread for it but germane to the discussion: an example of the kind of “doesn’t tell us what we want to hear but if we fiddle around a bit and squint really hard then I’m sure you’ll agree things are awful” bollocks that is everywhere at the moment. Bet you the conclusions are well within margins of error in any case.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BenChu_/stat ... 2444557313

Not quite sure what your issue is with that thread? It's not news that productivity in the UK is stagnant, nor that using raw GDP rather than GDP per capita is often done disingenuously by politicians.

Because he starts “adjusting” for different factors until the point he wants to see emerges. We all know that had he chosen to adjust for other metrics he could have told a completely different story. So it’s that kind of clever clever narrative that is literally everywhere right now that explains everything but helps us understand nothing.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:54 pm

UK looks only very slightly worse than Germany and France there. Not quite sure what would be hampering the set of "populous rich north european countries" specifically, but there does seem to be a wider problem.

Well exactly. Plus Ireland is a tax haven. Plus growth relative to what? Blah blah blah it doesn’t tell a proper story boo boo hoo

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:46 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:54 pm

UK looks only very slightly worse than Germany and France there. Not quite sure what would be hampering the set of "populous rich north european countries" specifically, but there does seem to be a wider problem.

Well exactly. Plus Ireland is a tax haven. Plus growth relative to what? Blah blah blah it doesn’t tell a proper story boo boo hoo

There's an easy narrative there: Britain starts to fall behind Germany/France at the point of the Brexit vote that makes business with Britain uncertain, and then doesn't recover from CoVID as well, as the progression of Brexit continues to increase uncertainty and hamper recovery. With UK as a large trading partner in north west Europe, it's also not hard to imagine Brexit affecting other large north western European countries.

Of course, that's just one model, as a consequence of calling for the Brexit referendum in the 2015 manifesto is Tory majority rule and continuing austerity, and you could lay more on Tory rule vs Brexit, even though those are correlated variables.

And in both cases, the effects on this data is small enough that you have to do fairly sophisticated analysis to determine if it's significant or not. But you also have to do that analysis to show that it isn't significant.

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:46 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:54 pm

UK looks only very slightly worse than Germany and France there. Not quite sure what would be hampering the set of "populous rich north european countries" specifically, but there does seem to be a wider problem.

Well exactly. Plus Ireland is a tax haven. Plus growth relative to what? Blah blah blah it doesn’t tell a proper story boo boo hoo

Growth relative to 2016. It says so on the plot.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 10:49 am

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:46 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:54 pm

UK looks only very slightly worse than Germany and France there. Not quite sure what would be hampering the set of "populous rich north european countries" specifically, but there does seem to be a wider problem.

Well exactly. Plus Ireland is a tax haven. Plus growth relative to what? Blah blah blah it doesn’t tell a proper story boo boo hoo

Growth relative to 2016. It says so on the plot.

And I have put my source in the graph as well, so one could download the data and play with it

Christ almighty this is clunky as hell. We’ve just had a couple of the most economically and politically chaotic years ever. I’m not going to magically produce sense out of this, in exactly the same way you aren’t. There is nothing like enough finesse here.

Meanwhile my brother pointed out that

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the- ... -bill-2022

Is causing problems, also in the devolved governments as Westminster took ownership of the EU rules, not the devolved governments.

And there's lots of legislation (thousands of pages) that have not been replaced yet.

Oh yes. Loads of industries have no idea what the legal framework they work within will be in thirteen months' time. The entire environmental sector for a start, so Plodder should be very worried.

The always-excellent Tim Harford gives an idiot's guide to why uncertainty is bad for businesses.

Let’s get something clear. An article was posted that suggested there wasn’t much in the data to suggest brexit has had much economic impact yet. Scorn was poured on it from all sides. I have pointed out that the article appears on the face of it to be correct. Scorn has been poured on me from all sides. No one has yet demonstrated that either I or the author are wrong. Scorn and copypasta continues to be poured. If scorn is all you’ve got (and that’s what it looks like) then please just say so.

A petition for a Public Enquiry, which will clearly establish the benefits of Brexit
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/628226

plodder wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 23, 2022 8:05 am

Let’s get something clear. An article was posted that suggested there wasn’t much in the data to suggest brexit has had much economic impact yet. Scorn was poured on it from all sides. I have pointed out that the article appears on the face of it to be correct. Scorn has been poured on me from all sides. No one has yet demonstrated that either I or the author are wrong. Scorn and copypasta continues to be poured. If scorn is all you’ve got (and that’s what it looks like) then please just say so.

Want some evidence? It cost my theatre company more than £1000 and about 48 hours of my time to take our production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Netherlands this year for three performances.

If the company in The Netherlands hadn’t covered the cost of this, it would not have been financially viable to do so.

We didn’t travel in 2021, because the rules weren’t clearly defined to give us the certainty to confirm the booking.

That meant we lost about £5k in takings.

Am I supposed to respond to that or it is a general data point to chuck on the heap? Sorry to hear that btw, sounds like a colossal pain. A thread on the arts in the uk would be good.

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:36 pm

Am I supposed to respond to that or it is a general data point to chuck on the heap? Sorry to hear that btw, sounds like a colossal pain. A thread on the arts in the uk would be good.

It makes touring to multiple EU countries nigh-on impossible for small companies that don’t have the resources to arrange paperwork for each EU state.

Our Chamber of Commerce told us it has reduced trade to the EU by SMEs by about 80%. Also, that there was scant funding for proper research in this area…for obvious Tory reasons.

Same with importing too.

The route for UK bands starting out on the slog of trying to 'make it' is dying on it's arse due, in no small part, to the opportunities to tour Europe having been slammed shut because of the lack of freedom of movement and the need for carnets to account for every piece of equipment down to the last guitar string. This is massively exacerbated by the collapse of grassroots music venues in the UK due to the UK's ridiculous energy market.
This was an industry that was worth a few £billion to the UK economy. It is falling apart while the government looks on.

Totally agree. UK venues are on their arses but the strictness of the benefits system also skews the opportunities to rehearse / tour in a transit van favour of wealthier kids which further dilutes the talent pool. Add in the insidious nature of streaming income vs actual sales and there’s a whole difficult landscape to navigate.

They gave specific points related to Brexit, and you've just gone "look over there" rather than acknowledge that.

basementer wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:17 pm

They gave specific points related to Brexit, and you've just gone "look over there" rather than acknowledge that.

By saying “totally agree”? What is this place?

headshot wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:49 am

Brexit added nearly £6bn to UK food bills in two years, research finds

Here's the paper.

https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1888.pdf

Abstract
Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are the main policy impediment to international trade, yet little is known about their pass-through to prices. This paper exploits the Brexit trade policy shock to quantify how NTBs affect consumer prices and welfare. The increase in NTBs raised prices by 6%, implying a passthrough of 50-80%. Based on a standard welfare framework, we show households lost £5.84bn, domestic producers gained £4.78bn, and £1.06bn was lost through deadweight loss. Due to differences in food expenditure shares, households in the lowest decile experience a 52% higher increase in the cost of living than households in the top decile.

Not read or tried to digest it yet, but would be interesting to understand why the analysis suggests domestic producers gained £4.78bn.

Britain set to become the global scientific and technological superpower outside the EU ... there is a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this article is too narrow to contain.

Sadly the geniuses you'd expect to find BTL on the Telegraph have a few criticisms.

No not the state of science education after 13 years of austerity and Govian meddling.

No not the crisis in HE.

No not the loss of Horizon funding and other EU wide schemes.

No not the loss of access to the wealthiest market on Earth, nor a continent's worth of the finest scientific talent.

Can you let me finish ... ?

No, the biggest issues facing science in the UK at the moment are:-

"Wokeness"

Accepting the science behind climate change rather than nonsensical rightwing dogma.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with the logic behind those proposals and provide some ready examples.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 12, 2023 3:16 pm

Britain set to become the global scientific and technological superpower outside the EU ... there is a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this article is too narrow to contain.

Sadly the geniuses you'd expect to find BTL on the Telegraph have a few criticisms.

No not the state of science education after 13 years of austerity and Govian meddling.

No not the crisis in HE.

No not the loss of Horizon funding and other EU wide schemes.

No not the loss of access to the wealthiest market on Earth, nor a continent's worth of the finest scientific talent.

Can you let me finish ... ?

No, the biggest issues facing science in the UK at the moment are:-

"Wokeness"

Accepting the science behind climate change rather than nonsensical rightwing dogma.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with the logic behind those proposals and provide some ready examples.

“Scientifically 3rd rate EU countries”

Little waster wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 12, 2023 3:16 pm

Britain set to become the global scientific and technological superpower outside the EU ... there is a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this article is too narrow to contain.

The difference between us and the rest of the world is the Wiltshire Festival of Engineering and Manufacturing.