Is Britain Falling Behind?

British stocks closed at an all-time high this week, but as exciting as a new all-time high might sound, the British stock market has been lagging US and European stocks since the Brexit referendum.
A recent report from Goldman Sachs says that the British economy is 5% smaller than it would have been had it remained in Europe.
The IMF last week listed the UK in its Fiscal Monitor publication as one of four large economies that “critically need to take policy action to address fundamental imbalances between spending and revenues”.
In this week's video we ask what has gone wrong in the UK, and can it all be pinned on Brexit?

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[glassmuxxic]

Who would have thought a country that spent decades building nothing, orienting policy and the economy around the whims of elderly people and elderly businesses at the expense of young and working people then imposing tariffs on itself would fall behind...

[s]

My elderly cousins live on a state subsidised sheep farm in the UK, they have 8 sheep. Here in Aus you need a minimum of 2000 sheep to make a living. The UK is paying millions to have its most productive land used as a theatre set piece so pensioners can play make believe. Insane.

[phillip]

The Ukraine war has also probably cut into some of The City's oligarch money laundering business.

[burn_out]

Britain has fallen, billions must eat fish and chips

[georgeh]

I am not from the UK, but I think the picture of a head of lettuce with eyes on it is about former Prime Minister Liz Truss. That is so disrespectful. I mean, lettuce actually has a purpose.

[Deany]

Hi, young educated professional Briton here.

I can speak on low productivity in my experience. Salaries are so low for skilled jobs relative to the cost of living there is absolutely no incentive to progress or put in effort. Our generation are sacrificed at the alter of maintaining over inflated house prices

[DisFantasy]

Sounds like British investors don't want to invest in Britain.

[adriangospodaru]

Britain is not falling behind ... is falling apart ...

[drewpac]

I had a relative visit me in UK from Luxembourg. They were born here too, but were saying how depressing the UK is - and it get worse each time they visit. It feels like people are giving up, angry, and the country is falling apart. He works in VC, and UK is just no longer really relevant in the EU... You never really hear that when living here.

[MK-]

England is similar to a hypothetical country where you took Poland and put New York in it. It's a poor country surrounding a financial megacity.

[Tochinoki]

It's a nation of landlords. Produce nothing but take as much as possible from each other. Most successful one gets their face on the money.

[JMF]

Housing affordability…if young people have little hope of moving out of parents home, starting a family and owning their own home, where’s the motivation to work?

[georgettelevesque]

I have a friend in his forties in England and he’s been having difficulty finding good paying work the last few years. Now I understand what’s going on. Thank you Mr. Boyle for this enlightening take on the UK economy.

[owendavies]

The reason Britain is falling behind is because of lack of innovation. I tried to start a business in the UK but red tape eventually forced me to give up and I am doing more or less the same thing in the USA but did not get held up (at least not to the same extent).

[Doweyyy]

It's so over Patrick! We fell behind a long time ago.

[Dragonson]

The issue of the British labour market makes no sense to me. SO many students (international and domestic) are applying for jobs during and after higher education. Yet many don't get employed. The companies themselves aren't helping matters because they don't want to invest in training new graduates but instead want finished products.

[satelliteflash]

I appreciate that you kept saying FTSE like “Footsie”, and never just said the individual letters. Thank you for that.

[davegubbins]

Will NO ONE think of the UK's tax havens? Oh, the humanity !

[RihardsDel]

Britain (excluding London) is falling massively behind. You only need to check the insolvency numbers is SMes

[MarkHeathcliff-bfim]

Remember those guys that claimed that Brexit would give the UK more power to handle its economy and allow it to negotiate better trade deals with countries like the US.