chris955

My brother wrote a book about trains.

rugbymatt

This thread is a train wreck and I am in Britain...... and we're back in the room!

Zen10

I went on a British train once.

commonwealth

chris955

Wasn't it cancelled ?

Budawang

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...ery-hopes.html

More bad news on the economy. This is unrelenting.

Zen10

How could the trade deficit do anything else but widen? I wonder where people get their optimism from sometimes when it comes to the UK economy. Fact is Britain is in a depression that people looking back will date 2008 - 2020 - perhaps even longer.

eddie007

I bet you werent game enough to eat a sandwich from the buffet car

commonwealth

with a weak £ i would of thought the exporters saved the economy. now you have expensive imports driving up prices and a weak export market. who said a weak currency is all good?

Budawang

You might hope that depressed domestic demand would reduce imports which would lead to a reduced deficit if exports hold steady. Unfortunately, Britain is being hit by crumbling domestic demand and external demand combo as its trade partners face their own private debt-induced problems.

What is unbelievable is that the establishment in Europe and the UK still won't acknowledge that the real problem is 40 years of accumulated PRIVATE DEBT. What hope is there when the leaders of these basket case economies don't even understand (or wilfully ignore) the problem they are dealing with!

There's a very bleak road ahead for the UK and Europe.

GarryP

Economic theory says that as the currency declines, exports get cheaper and imports more expensive. Therefore you should be able to sell more overseas, and afford less at home - pushing the trade deficit down (and converting it to a trade surplus eventually).

Problem is, economics is bollocks.

It's simple rules of thumb, or rip offs from physics, and has a track record of getting it wrong much of the time. Somehow they are still taken seriously; must have good PR.

The reality is :

• the UK needs to import raw materials (oil & food in particular) and can't really cut these, since they are so basic. Also, any manufacturing we still have left can't expand exports with less input raw materials, can it?
• even with the currency decline, the low labour costs of SE Asian countries is still overwhelming, and you can't grow exports from the UK when there is nothing to grow from. Zero times x is still zero.
• instead what tends to happen is the businesses go bankrupt because of declines in demand.
• oh, and the primary export market for the UK is europe, and they are in even worse shape.
• oh, and the banks won't lend, so there is no capital to expand exports or start new businesses anyway.
• oh, and debt means never having to say its too expensive, until the whole edifice comes down in a steaming pile.

In short, dumb and failed economic theory is being used to drive policy, and nobody is thinking about how you could actually push the economy, in the real world rather than failed ideology.
Australia is as bad (Abbott and his 'flexibility is key to growth'='**** the workers' policies) - its a general failure of politics to be fit for purpose. Too interested in political game playing and academic ideologies; too little intelligence and 'get down to it' problem solving.

Zen10

I was not! When I got hungry and I ate my show laces and pretended they were licorice instead.

Zen10

Private debt in UK is unbelievable, I quite agree. Almost the worst in the world when measured as a percentage of GDP. As posters here know I am very pessimistic about UK and EU, pessimistic but less so about the US, and mildly pessimistic about Australia.

Next - slowdown in Asia - Chinese electricity output down, Chinese narrow M1 contracting, and slowdowns in S. Korea and Taiwan. These places are known to be leading indicators for global demand and they are showing a drop that could be mitigated if policymakers work together.

Zen10

Yes Australia isn't out of the woods - I quite agree. UK is in real trouble for sure, and focus will return to the economy now the distraction of the Olympics is over - unless there is another distraction on the way??

Grayling

Almost as unbelievable as Australian's private debt

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...-1226163382464

amongst the highest in the world

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-1...ldrums/3831290

Unbelievable!