GeoffCapes
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How about the economy would tank if leave won at the referendum.........does it get any bigger than that?
Brexit Armageddon was a terrifying vision – but it simply hasn’t happened | Larry Elliott
Project Fear predicted economic meltdown if Britain voted leave, so where are the devastated high streets, job losses and crashing markets?www.theguardian.com
First things first. The article was from 2016. That said there are some points which are worth addressing.
With increased costs (mainly caused by the fall in value of the pound) the effects take time to come to fruition. Tightening of belts and finances, until they get to a point where they can be tightened no longer.
The effects are what we are seeing in the high street, M&S falling profits, Jamie Olivers restaurants failing etc etc etc.
In industry you have British Steel (or whatever you want to call them), car manufacturers scaling back production. The list goes on.
People will argue that the stock market has been up since the vote, however, a closer look at the companies in the FTSE 100 will show that 98% of the top 100 companies, make most of their money OUTSIDE of the United Kingdom.
In essence, Brexit will have little effect on them. This paints a false picture of the economy.
Spending has apparently gone up. However, it is fair to say most of this is on credit cards are UK personal debt has skyrocketed to levels much higher than the last recession when there was a run on the banks.
This level of debt is unsustainable. And there will be some very painful times ahead unless something is done about personal debt levels. Which will mean reducing interest rates. Hang on, we can't. at 0.5% they're pretty much as low as you're going to get.
So the article stating consumer spending will reduce is false. The opposite has happened. People want to sustain the level of living they had, when things were cheaper.
But they're doing that with credit.
If we do honour the vote and leave then there will be a lot of financial pain ahead for some. Probably most painfully for those on the lowest incomes.