If you thought 2017 was bad for the economy, with the UK falling from the top of the G7 growth league to the bottom, brace yourself ready for 2018. The TUC (HERE) are using figures produced by the OECD to show that next year Britain will have the worst real (i.e. after inflation) wage growth of all advanced economies. This is going to take some selling by the Brexiteers, especially those like Nigel Adams, our local MP, who breezily assured us of a "really prosperous future" ahead.
Unfortunately for him ( but not for us) the future he described looks to be so far ahead that most of us will be dead by the time if happens, if it ever does. The Guardian's take on it is HERE.
Economists at The Treasury were accused of scaremongering if they suggested things might not go so well if we voted to leave the EU. The experts were denigrated while amateurs like Adams thought their assurances were more likely to come true simply because they expected them to.
Forecasting the economy is a bit like forecasting the weather. It's much easier to do if for the next immediate period than it is for the medium or longer term. Another truism is that the experts are more likely to be right than the amateur. So, who do you think is right? Adams, a non economist, with his bright promises about the future or the economists who said we would all be poorer in the short term?
