
UK officially in recession for first time in 11 years - vijayr02
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53748278
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clement_b
What I find interesting, is that those who were betting on Brexit were
probably doing so thinking it might be a little bit tough in the short term
believing the UK will end up being stronger in the end.

With such a massive recession already happening, and talks around Brexit going
nowhere, they are really not going to have a nice next 5/10 years.

I have just left the UK, several Europeans I know, working in tech, are doing
the same. Not data backed, just personal experience. Maybe this is going to be
even tougher than expected. Hopefully not.

~~~
callamdelaney
> as coronavirus lockdown measures pushed the country officially into
> recession.

This is nothing to do with brexit.

~~~
akmarinov
Yep, this is the first punch from the Corona and the second punch will be
beginning of next year when they end up with no deal.

The sad thing is that everyone will say that Brexit went through great with no
issues, it's the Coronavirus' fault that the economy is bad and is getting
worse.

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Jestar342
BBC desperately trying to add some positivity to the headline. It's the worst
recession on record, and yet they are clamouring onto this notion that it has
been an achievement of success that it has been 11 years since the last
recession.

~~~
thu2111
BBC has been very pro-lockdown, pro-panic the whole time. Now they are seeing
the results and trying to spin it positively, so less anger reflects back at
them.

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georgespencer
Excited for my second once in a lifetime economic correction!

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Out of curiosity, why are you excited about this?

~~~
cjrp
The 2008 recession was considered a "once-in-a-lifetime" event. it's ironic
that we're now experiencing a second.

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LatteLazy
Comparing corona-quarantine times with normal times is silly.

~~~
celticninja
But the recession has hit the UK harder than many other European countries.
That strikes me as comparable and indicates that it has been more poorly
handled by the UK than by other countries.

~~~
niklasrde
Do you have any more figures than what's in the article? In the article it's
got these figures:

> The economy is more than a fifth smaller than it was at the end of last
> year. This fall is not as bad as the 22.7% decline in Spain, but about twice
> the size of contractions in Germany and the US.

I think Germany's handling was exceptional anyway, and for the US it hasn't
hit fully yet. I reckon there's a lot more to come in the UK, as well, when
the government furlough scheme comes to an end. And not to forget to mention
the country is still in the Brexit transition period, which runs out at the
end of the year.

~~~
pimterry
Interestingly, the Q2 results for Spain are actually better than for the UK
(-18.5% vs -20.4%). It's only the comparison to the end of 2019 numbers
specifically where Spain comes out worse.

Debatable why, plausibly because the Spanish lockdown started earlier in Q1.

Since the entirety of the rest of the article is about today's Q2 results
specifically though, a comparison of those would be more relevant. Smells like
the BBC cherry picking to try and find anything where the UK isn't in last
place.

~~~
makomk
It's almost certainly because the Spanish lockdown started earlier in Q1 - if
I remember rightly, other articles have mentioned that the UK saw less of an
economic decline in Q1 than many other European countries precisely because of
the timing of our lockdown. Comparing Q1 to Q2 results and comparing countries
based on that would therefore be misleading, because it's not measuring actual
economic differences but an artifact of how lockdown timing happened to align
with our arbitrary measurement cut-offs.

(Also, speaking of misleading, it's interesting that all of a sudden the BBC
can correctly compare US GDP figures with European ones now that it's the UK
they're comparing with. Previous coverage quoted US quarterly figures that had
been multiplied by four to annualize them next to non-annualized European
ones, making it look like the US was doing worse economically than other
European countries like Spain when it was doing better.)

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logicchains
An interesting thing about percentage change in GDP is it's worse on the
downside than the upside. If GDP falls 40% one year, then rises 40% next year,
it's not back at 100% of what it was before, it's actually only back to 84%
(1.4 * 0.6).

~~~
kenniskrag
not only for GDP but also for stocks. People assume if they loose 10% they
need a 10% gain but that is not true:
[https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2018/11/8/saupload_i...](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2018/11/8/saupload_iwae-2.jpg)

~~~
parenthesis
Easy way to convince people of this: after a 50% fall you need to double (up
100%) to get back to where you started.

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kgraves
There is no hope for the UK, especially the disaster that is the UK tech
industry.

After the lockdown is over, people who reside there should get out while they
can.

~~~
_Wintermute
Not sure the UK tech industry is a disaster, I left the UK for France
following the Brexit result and it has really opened my eyes to how good it
was in the UK.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Please expand on this. Are you referring to technical sloppiness,
compensation, availability of jobs, something else?

~~~
_Wintermute
I could write paragraphs on this but I'll keep it short, also bear in mind a
lot of it will be due to specific workplaces and so on.

There's some incredible French engineers, but I get the impression a lot of
the talent is lost to the US, Canada and the UK. Compensation isn't too
dissimilar to the UK or other western European countries. There's still a huge
emphasis, especially in larger companies, on where you went to school - if you
didn't study at a Grand Ecole you can get snubbed by a lot of people. France
is also very conservative when it comes to technology, and often the French
bureaucracy leaks into the workplace, I had to have multiple managers sign off
my request form to get a HDMI cable.

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barrenko
GDP as a measure is a scam.

~~~
s_dev
Some models are useful, the map is never the territory etc.

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merrvk
Worst out of all of the G7

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monkeydreams
Worst out of all of the G7 so far. The US is still yet to manage its
coronavirus problems and I suspect that the impact when the US finally manages
to tackle this, it will dwarf anything the UK is dealing with.

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maga20yes
It's what people demanded. UK is still in semi-lockdown, with only 30% of
office workers returning to the office. UK proposed a more relaxed approach at
the start but backfired in the public opinion. Now, here's the arithmetic
result of forcing people in their homes.

Also, UK relies heavily on services, international business, students,
tourism, all heavily hit, so that increases the pain of a travel and mobility
freeze.

