Quote:
Originally Posted by Willd
I said it was trivial to research, not that the point itself was trivial. Did you really fail to understand that or are you just deliberately misrepresenting what I said to try to score points?
Whether an American cartoonist supports Trump or not is pretty trivial to a discussion on whether or not Brexit is a good idea.
Also you posted he was:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willd
one of the biggest Trump supporters and a committed member (arguably leader) of Trump's cult of personality
To me, switching endorsements several times, including apparently as a joke, sounded like a comic artist being a comic artist - I assumed none of his "biggest supporters" would have done the same but in the Trump camp who knows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willd
As for why I made my post in the first place, it was because Alex was defending a terrible cartoon (regardless of the general content of Dilbert, the posted cartoon was objectively dumb) by defending the writer of the cartoon. Him referring to Adams as "wise and subtle" in that defence, when he is so clearly neither of those things, felt relevant enough to point out.
Yes, it's fair enough in that context, though one can be wise and subtle about the minutiae of working life and less wise about political personalities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by grizy
If you bothered to actually read the page you cited you'd see the data and the "First take" in page you linked isn't as up to date as the chart and the numbers visible to you don't even represent the numbers that make up the chart associated with your link (that's bad on the site's part but the site's audience is professioals who are expected to pick up on that).
This is from
https://www.economy.com/dismal/countries/IGBR
To be clear, you think the chart is correct and the report the data comes from is wrong, even though those same (YoY) numbers are reproduced directly under the chart itself?
So if you think the UK economy suddenly contracted 1.4% QoQ in Q4 2017 - could you go into more detail on why this information is known only to people like professionals in reading/summarizing stuff and has not been picked up by mainstream journalists or the Labour party? Wouldn't it be newsworthy?
Also, you say the site you're using is an aggregator of reports, if -1.5% is the aggregate then you must be able to find individual reports showing worse numbers. Let's have a look then:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gross...todecember2017
UK gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated to have increased by 0.5% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2017, compared with 0.4% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2017.
The dominant services sector, driven by business services and finance, increased by 0.6% compared with the previous quarter, although the longer-term trend continues to show a weakening in services growth.
Production industries grew by 0.6%, boosted by the second consecutive quarter of strong growth in manufacturing.
Growth in manufacturing was partially offset in total production by a significant fall in oil and gas extraction, caused by the well-publicised repair work made to the Forties pipeline.
https://ig.ft.com/sites/numbers/economies/uk
GDP growth
Over the past year manufacturing growth has picked up, services output has remained steady but the construction sector has slowed.
Q4 2017 GDP growth (QoQ)
0.4%
Second thoughts, maybe best if you look.
Quote:
Originally Posted by grizy
Industrial Production was down in December by more than expected if you bothered reading the link or did any cursory research elsewhere. But of course, you cherry pick the part that supports strong manufacturing. Let me spell this out for you, Europe grew faster, and it wasn't being supported by a weak currency.
We're attempting to find data that supports your assertion that manufacturing is in decline. When I open the report you link to and find the figure for manufacturing I'm cherry-picking?
Industrial production in general is down because of the pause in oil production while the pipeline was down. That has nothing to do with politics. Also fyi oil isn't manufactured.
Quote:
Originally Posted by grizy
Chances are manufacturing still grew in January but by less than Europe and by less than what was originally expected. This is despite GBP being significantly weaker than it was on January 1st. Meanwhile you guys are calling 3% inflation good news. That's more than enough in EU and US for central banks to slam on the breaks.
The weak pound is an expected result of Brexit and IMHO a welcome one. We were told manufacturing jobs would go as a result of Brexit and it doesn't seem to be happening yet.
(Not that GDP is the be all and end all of quality of life, but) if we stay within about a percent of the comparable western European economies like France and Germany during this changeover period I'll be pleasantly surprised. (I assume nobody here is comparing us to parts of the EU like the Czech Rep, Poland and Hungary which have 4-5% growth.)
Like I said earlier, you'll probably get your decline at some point during this changeover period, so feel free to call it when the numbers come in - but outside the EU is going to be the best place to be ten years from now, so it's a price worth paying.