Is the UK at severe risk of becoming one of the least prosperous in Europe?
This recession is going to hit the UK very hard, we have very limited natural resources and we have no manufacturing base, we export very little and have to import a lot - the UK is one of the most indebted countries in the world and the only way we are able to sustain are current standard of living is by boring money for supposedly poor countries like, you guessed it, China and India. Also, it seems to me that the UK is becoming one of the least prosperous and lowest developed in the Western world. According to the Human Development Index, from the late 90s to the early 2000s, the UK was one of the most prosperous in Europe, and ranked consistently high in the HDI table. However, in the mid 2000s, we dropped back to about the level of Italy and Greece. However, the HDI table was updated on Dec 18th, 2008 detailing the period between 2004-2006, and in this time the UK's development had dropped to the level of places like Hong Kong, Israel and South Korea - and this was all BEFORE the recession. I fear for the UK, we have been poorly managed, and now we are going to pay dearly, billions of pounds have been stupidly borrowed on our behalf and now we are going to pay for it. When the HDI is updated in a couple of years time I dread to think how far the UK will have fallen back, we are going to be one of the poorest countries in Europe. However, I guess that's obvious. How can a country go on having a high standard of living when public debt is some of the highest in the world, we have no natural resource, we make nothing and have to import many necessities.
Politics - 7 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Maybe now we can get a united Ireland. Woot!
2 :
I'd blame the chav culture that's been sweeping through the UK. Crime, teenage pregnancy, poverty, it's a huge problem in the UK at the moment. There is so much racism in the UK as well. Personally, I believe the UK needs to be tough on crime. It's been so tolerant lately. Tolerance can be a good thing, but not when your dealing with hooligans. I'm sure passing laws to allow muslims to have their on system of law in the UK doesn't help things either. Reporter X: I vacation in Northern Ireland every other year with my family. The Irish in Northern Ireland don't want to join Southern Ireland. They'd rather be part of the UK, and if the UK fell, then they'd rather be their own sovereign nation. Clearly you know nothing about the conflict between the Irish in the North and South.
3 :
When you have to go to this much trouble to make your point, the answer will always be "no". Just show the numbers. (Oh wait, you don't have any, do you?)
4 :
We can never remain rich with a 60 million soon to be 70 million population, there simply is not enough space.Mass immigration is about to take away our living standard because it was mass immigration which caused the massive population increase in the UK Edit...Ally You are 100% correct we cannot keep up our living standard with service industries, we need manufacturing industry increase desperately. We also cannot sustain massive immigration population increase due to immigration
5 :
And guess who smashed the Trade Union by destroyingthe Manufacturing industry - Margaret Thatcher. We need to bring back our Manufacturing, and fast i say. The lack of jobs in Northern UK is astonishing, the only thing that is keeping this country alive is the Financial Sector in London. At the moment, the main reason this country is crumbling so much is because of our dependants on other countries, this is why Japan is getting so badly hit by this recession as well, what our countries need to to bring back UK manufacturing and we need to produce more British products. As the banks weren't regulated, they were allowed to run on their own free will and ended up crumbling as they gave out more than they could afford.
6 :
lets get our democratically elected representatives to pull troops out of iraq aned afghanistan. that'll save us some money at the very least
7 :
Yes. Gordon Brown has given us the Emperors new economy where growth has been built on ever increasing government borrowing over the past ten years or so. Meanwhile consumers have also been living under the wealth illusion with personal borrowing pushing up house prices to ridiculous hights. The chickens are coming home to roost for the UK and it will be interesting to see if we can cope without severe social unrest. I still have confidence in the enterprising spirit of some Brits but we are carrying a lot of dead weight in the form of an underclass that our welfare state has been cultivating for decades.
