I have long been asking why GDP per head is twice the EU level in the US. Those who want the U.K. to obey more EU laws and pay the EU more money never want to answer this or think it some fabricated Brexiteer question . Now Mr Draghi has written a long report saying that the EU this century has fallen badly behind. Its productivity is poor, its investment too small, its skew to making cars rather than digital products and services is impeding growth in real incomes and living standards.
Central to Mr Draghiâs case ( as mine) is the EU – just like the U.K. in and out of the EU – has gone for dear energy whilst the US and China have gone for cheaper. He says EU electricity costs 2-3 times US and gas is a knock out 4-5 times US. China goes for cheap coal. He sets out the large extra costs of the EUâs net zero policies which he supports.
So what are his remedies? He says the EU must impose more tariffs and the carbon border adjustment tax on imports to offset the advantage. That means higher prices for consumers. He says the EU must find 5% more of its GDP to invest every year. He says the EU must borrow more itself to pump prime the hundreds of billions of investment needed.
Germany and some other states are against the EU building up yet bigger debts. The U.K. by Brexit has avoided responsibility for its share of the Euro 800 bn they are already borrowing, dodging a Euro 120 bn bullet. The U.K. would be well advised to study Draghiâs analysis of EU poor performance and move our policy on energy closer to the US one, as more affordable energy is crucial to industrial success.
September 12, 2024
I had to refresh my memory about Mr. Draghi. Google indicates he was an economist as well as Italian prime minister for a short while and president of the ECB – the European Central Bank. He fell out with MS5 an Italian political party (not a South American criminal gang).
I donât remember him saying anything that went against the general EU consensus while he was in these roles. Perhaps his views have changed with the benefit of hindsight. I wonder what Angela Merkle now thinks of her open door policy for illegal immigrants?
Either way I donât see the EU changing tack any time soon. They will follow the same WEF principles that got us to where we are now.
September 12, 2024
Germany has closed its borders – contrary to EU law – to protect itself from Merkle open border policy. Itâs ârepatriatingâ immigrants.
The problem is that the committed Greens are delighted with deindustrialisation. Draghiâs report sounds like applause to them.
There are plenty of deindustrialised countries in the world. I propose that they are required to live in one, and on its average income, for a year before being allowed to propose their policies in the 1st world.
I donât exclude the King. Letâs see how he like a tent in Botswana – he may love it! Harry does!
September 12, 2024
Botswana’s warm. I’d send Charlie-Boy to live in a tent in The Falklands.
September 12, 2024
A remark from Maurice Strong, who organized the first U.N. Earth Climate Summit (1992) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil revealed the real goal: âWe may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse.â
UK vs China – which one is in industrial decline/collapse …the one following ‘net-zero’
September 12, 2024
This is a deindustrialised country.
September 12, 2024
Ineos has just confirmed it is to close the Grangemouth refinery.
September 12, 2024
You ainât seen nothing yet!
September 12, 2024
Germany has depleted its stockpiles of weapons due to support for Ukraine, and according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, it would take Germany 100 years to restore these stocks to their level from 20 years ago. In contrast, experts estimate that Russia could replenish a similar volume within six months, reports NTV.
September 12, 2024
I think he wants more EU control, not less, to implement his “remedies”, not less. Germany, among others, has already signalled it won’t agree to transfer of more powers to the Commission. Brexit offered the potential for the UK to escape EU induced economic sclerosis. But the ruling UK political establishment succeeded in hobbling it. Furthermore the folly of Net Zero policies is the nail in the coffin of any attempt to rebuild a revitalized UK economy. And there is no more zealous supporter of NZ than the new Labour government.
September 12, 2024
Petrer, I’d argue this paper is still wedded to the EU track. Draghi identifiesthe problems correctly. He then sets out solutions which are to have a larger ‘state’, impose net-zero policies on people, add legislation and increase borrowing.
“The house is on fire, we have a problem. We should solve it by building lots of fire resistant houses that cost twice the price of normal ones”
September 12, 2024
PB.
Yes, Draghi identifies the problems. However, he wants all EU countries acting in unison and no individual solutions from nation states. âOne size fits allâ – which used to mean a Franco/German size.
He also places great hope in a future where we no longer rely on fossil fuels without identifying how we get there. He was perfectly happy with Europe paying 80% more than US for energy but baulks at three or four times the cost.
September 12, 2024
Well, here is something else about Mario Draghi, from last December:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/01/mario-draghi-european-union-single-megastate-italy/
“EU should be âsingle megastateâ, says former Italian prime minister”
“Mario Draghi says European Union is mired in âfunctional paralysisâ and needs greater political integration and a âtrue common parliamentâ”
As always, the solution is “more Europe”, but who in this country is properly organised to keep us out of it?
September 12, 2024
@ Denis Cooper – I would think Mr. Draghi is correct in his view and had I thought there was a fair chance his single megastate would soon come about and that its constituent former states would thrive and be content within it then rejecting Brexit might have made sense.
Robert Schuman once said were he to begin afresh with his European integration efforts he would not begin with economics or politics but rather culture for it was the latter that proved the main obstacle. Overcoming the cultural differences very likely would take a much longer time than the E.U. has available. It is, accordingly, doomed.
September 12, 2024
Dragging was an EU plant parachuted into Italy when they were going bust.
He understands the problems with the sceloric EU but his answer is more EU and a common debt mutualisation.
Good luck with that being agreed with germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
The EU is a busted flush and Starmergeddon wants to rejoin. Insane.
September 12, 2024
Do you ever check anything before writing? Draghi born in Rome in 1947, graduated from La Sapienza University (founded 1303), then PhD from MIT, then World Bank, then back to Italy where he held various positions all related to economics, including top DG of Italian Treasury. Proponent of privatisations in Italy he then went to Harvard U then Goldman Sachs then back again as Governatore della Banca dâItalia. Only then (02/2011) did he become involved with the EU as President of the ECB.
Talk of being parachuted.
September 13, 2024
What a strange argument hefner.
You give us a list of his CV and tell us therefore he wasn’t “parachuted” into Italy by the EU.
When it is widely accepted that he was.
September 12, 2024
The USA has the most attendees in the WEF!
September 12, 2024
I note Draghi, like Carney, worked for Goldman Sachs. He was also based in Washington for a long time, goes to Davos, and holds forth on all the big issue like Covid, Ukraine etc. He is described as the saviour of the Euro after the last crisis period. He denies any knowledge of Goldman Sachs involvement in the Greek economyâs woes.
He seems like a classic managerialist to me. I cannot see him slashing red tape or driving down the cost of energy.
September 12, 2024
Cheap reliable on demand energy, far less red tape and halve the size of largely parasitic government, stop paying health people to not work, stop rigging markets like energy, transport, media, banking, education, housing⊠It is hardly rocket science.
Mogg yesterday (trying to excuse the appalling performance of the Con-Socialist) said we spent ÂŁ400 billion during Covid and this âwas the right thing to doâ. Wrong Mogg, had they done nothing, no lockdowns, no duff vaccines the outcome in health terms and economic terms would have far been better.
September 12, 2024
Or envy of the World NHS.
A&E waits are now so long that a patient will typically have 100 people ahead of them in the queue – up from 40 in 2009, it adds. The long A&E waits are causing 14,000 avoidable deaths each year, the Times says Lord Darzi’s report has found.
Plus you have the ambulance delays on top of this.
September 12, 2024
NHS hospitals are doing less work for their patients despite being handed more money than ever, a landmark report has found.
The investigation by Lord Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, warns that the NHS is in a âcritical conditionâ with surging waiting lists, poor cancer performance and a struggle to access care.
At least poor Kate Middleton does not have to worry about waiting lists with the ten âFree at the point of rationing and delay NHSâ.
The NHS also treats its medical staff very poorly too. My son a second year doctor in London is still paid less than he actually needs to live on, this even with long hours and shift work. I still have to subsidise him, 8 years so far, I had to pay ÂŁ500 for another exam he needs to progress his career. They do not even cover this cost nor his compulsory medical subscriptions. His lawyer & banker flat mates are paid about 2.6 times as much.
September 12, 2024
Then tell him to get a job in banking.
September 12, 2024
Well that would be rather a waste of his training and not what he wants. Hopefully he will earn rather more soon. But he really does not have enough to rent a small room in a shared flat and live on. With the student debt you need about ÂŁ20K of your gross salary just to cover that. They even have to pay for their own exam fees, some medical equipment and the medical registrations needed. Not even a parking space.
No way he can buy a flat or even rent his own flat – even a two doctor couple would struggle to to so in London – unless I buy most of it for him plus I have the other two to fund!
September 12, 2024
Not surprised about lawyers and bankers. My old dad, 50 years ago said if you want to get rich don’t wear a uniform or do anything useful. Politicians are a prime example of useless lumps being paid more than they could in the real world doing something useful.
September 12, 2024
Pay does seem to be higher the less useful the thing you do is. Footballers, pop stars, actors, lawyers, regulators, HR compliance.
I friend converted from being a surgeon to a lawyer suing the NHS twice the pay and half the hassle was his judgement.
September 12, 2024
Well, say what you like about the Labour lot, at least they will reduce the 14,000 NHS avoidable deaths this year and ongoing. They have decided to spread the statistical load and are now removing about 4,000 of the NHS count by placing them in the domestic hypothermia early death count, thanks to the removal of home heating support now overwhelmingly voted to be removed by this Labour administration.
They are nothing if not imaginative in the Labour Party.
September 12, 2024
This while Rachel Reeves and many other MPs get tax free heating expenses for their second homes. over ÂŁ4,000 for Ms Reeves it seems. He salary is about ÂŁ96K it seems but clearly cannot be expected to cover her own bills. But pensioners on ÂŁ16K can be so as to pay Train Drivers on ÂŁ60K+ a large pay increase. The choices Labour choose to make.
September 12, 2024
I went into town yesterday and an elderly lady was lying on the pavement with a suspected broken leg. She had been lying there in the cold for 2 hours waiting for an ambulance. This is not acceptable in a first-world country. Not only do we have a two-tier police force and judiciary but we also have a two-tier NHS. When we hear from Jess Phillips that she went to the front of the A&E queue and we see all the ambulances lined up at Dover to meet the illegals it’s plain for everyone to see.
September 12, 2024
was it ‘do you know who I am?’
September 12, 2024
The UK spent twice asmuch as France on Covid. ÂŁ40bn alone on test and trace, which inflated numbers through false positives and increased testing of people without symptoms. The loss on business loans to crooks was far larger than the winter fuel payments. Many employees paid y the government to stay at home were working remotely. All publicly employed were on full pay but saving on travel and other expenses. The NHS bought expensive patented drugs and vaccines and banned cheap effective early treatments. Sunak blew the money and the BoE printed it.
September 12, 2024
Indeed Sunak and Bailey at the BoE created a tinder box for Truss to set off. A good podcast from Unherd with Liz Truss. She is pretty much right on it all now – she has come a long way since her LibDem days at university. Sunak and the BoE wrecked the economy she was just a bid clumsy. Growth is needed Sunak policies and even worse Starma policies are all hugely anti-growth.
But as Matt Ridley put it:
Whoever you vote for, the Blob wins
If only we had some real democracy. Not only do the people get no say even the ministers cannot do much given the system.
September 12, 2024
I said at the time it was a scam devised by corrupt politicians and corporate pharmaceutical companies and nothing I have seen since will convince me otherwise. Look to see who got rich from it whilst the rest of us paid the price and will do for generations to come.
September 12, 2024
and now spending millions more on a covid inquiry.
Why does it always cost so much to ask some questions and sift through the paperwork?
Let me guess, consultants, experts, red tape and a few other things that put us in this position in the first place.
What benefit to the public purse or the public in general to spend so much on producing a report that will likely be heavily censored for public eyes, and to which not one person involved will be made accountable in any meaningful way.
I’m sure it will end with the stock in trade ‘lessons have been learnt’ label.
Only they never are learnt and the public pays the price over and over again.
September 12, 2024
You, at the time, were demanding more ventilators and faster vaccinations for Men; you were commenting daily on the lack of PPE and getting more testing done, don’t you remember?
September 13, 2024
Indeed well the government experts and medics told us we needed more ventilators and we were assured the vaccines were safe and 80-90% effective. They were wrong or lying. Had the vaccines worked the in injecting men slightly younger than women would have saved many lives as men were at higher risk for a given age. There was never much sense in injecting younger people or people who had had Covid even had they been safe and effective.
September 16, 2024
Exactly, the experts mislead the governing party too. They were responding to pressure from the media-fed panic infesting the population.
September 12, 2024
Good morning
Yes high energy is indeed one of the root causes, as is over regulation. But we must also factor in both governance and the legal system by which the USA and the EU operate. The former by English Common Law and the latter by Napolionic Code. One permits the other inhibits. And apples to growth.
September 12, 2024
English law doesn’t seem to be helping the British. When we see violent criminals released onto our streets to make room for people who criticise government policy then we have a huge problem. Freedom of speech is dead in the country.
September 12, 2024
đŻ
September 12, 2024
Have you really have long been asking why GDP per head is twice the EU level in the US? You obviously haven’t been listening to the discussion then. The US has a single currency, no restrictions whatsoever on the movement of people between its states, and a strong central government based in Washington. The EU does not have this yet, not least because you and your fellow Brexiters threw a hissy fit whenever anything progressive of this type was suggested
September 12, 2024
The USA also operates with a single language, although parts have Spanish as a strong second; has a (now corrupted) democratically-elected Government in Washington and in each of the States; has a Constitution which has the support of its citizens and is based on the English Constitution ….. Common Law, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights.
The vast majority of its citizens, or their ancestors, chose to become American citizens.
The peoples of Europe have never chosen to become citizens of a United States of Europe, which is why it is being imposed on them by stealth. They did not choose to have a single currency or the Lisbon Constitutional Treaty.
The EU structures, and its protectionist economic policies, resemble the former Soviet Union, not the USA.
September 12, 2024
@ Donna +1
September 12, 2024
Yes Sir John has indeed long been asking why GDP per head is twice the EU level in the US, and giving us answers. If you had been following his comments here for years, then you would know. Johnny come lately.
September 12, 2024
Lemming, can those people moving freely between States all get socialised benefits in each new State? Is the new State they move to obliged to put a roof over their heads?
September 13, 2024
Oh dear back to Brexit again.
Your type spent years frustrating it so that it would never work as proposed, weâre successful in part, and then blame it for not working.
September 12, 2024
So basically, Draghi admits that Nut Zero is destroying the EU’s economy and impoverishing its citizens, as it is in the UK. And his solution is to make consumer goods (and a great deal else) even more expensive by imposing tariffs, impoverishing them still further.
How very WEF of him.
I guess the million-plus brain surgeons, IT specialists and civil engineers the EU/Merkel invited to flood into Europe aren’t making quite the contribution they claimed they would.
September 12, 2024
Yes, Donna. My thoughts entirely.
September 12, 2024
Rejoice, he is bringing forward the final days of the EU by years.
September 12, 2024
Good Morning,
The recipe for a Nation’s economic performance is very similar to a corporation’s economic success. There are a few people in a corporation or nation that have the drive and creativity to produce needed income. You might call them the ‘Rainmakers’. The rest of the ‘staff’ are there to support the Rainmakers creativity or bringing in the business. A corporation that does not find, encourage and reward these Rainmakers will not last long. Which way are we going?
September 12, 2024
If the USA and China are showing the way forward with growth, why does he think adding on ever more taxation on their products to Europe is the answer, they export all over the world not just to Europe, and so will continue to thrive and be more competitive.
Europe and the UK need to wise up to the real cost of net zero, change direction, or gradually die.
Emissions have no geological boundaries.
September 12, 2024
The economic fundamentals can not be hidden or ignored. The fact is, a large successful economy is always founded on low cost reliable and plentiful energy. Anyone trying to dispute that is trying to suggest history can be ignored, with all the lessons learned over the centuries counting for nothing.
The deindustrialisation of Europe which includes the UK during its period of membership of the EEC/EU has failed to provide the necessary alternative high paying real jobs that our manufacturing industries once did. The service economy is seen as a progressive advancement beyond the metal bashing era but it can only exist if there are industries/employees needing the services being offered.
The USA has moved ahead of its European competition by majoring on high tech industries, computer development organisations and management of international IT. All of that requires energy at least cost which they have unashamedly accessed from within their own boundaries. Prior to the USA fracking for fuel evolution the world hung on every OPEC meeting and statement. That is no longer the case because the USA has rendered OPEC powerless.
The UK has a unoque option to embrace the fracking benefits but successive Tory governments and now Labour, have blocked it by knowingly imposing fracking earth tremor thresholds that are below any that can be met. A technical block has been imposed, it must be removed if we are to recover our economic strength and future potential.
September 12, 2024
Quite so, and this unrealistic attitude to energy is based on a questionable (at the very least) premise. There seems no willingness to take a long hard look at the ‘science’. We are basing our entire national economic policy on questionable data and projections and yet nobody other than in blogs and scientific publications is questioning it. If we had competent politicians we’d have this under continual review, and we’d be looking for methods to adapt to changing climate, if necessary, rather than holding back the tide,
September 12, 2024
The Industrial Revolution started in the UK for a reason. We had the required resources in abundance. We had the Victorian entrepreneur and most of all we had innovators. Sure we had massive poverty and some terrible working conditions but the sacrifice of our ancestors has given us the easy prosperous life we have today. Our descendants will not be as lucky as recent politicians do all they can to steal our wealth and give it away. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to rid ourselves of the communists and socialists that rule us.
September 12, 2024
Here is another take on this report, from yesterday:
https://euobserver.com/Green%20Economy/ar67bf567e
“Draghi: Competing with China and US ‘infinitely easier’ with joint debt”
So much for the prohibition on member states becoming liable for each others’ debts, remember that?
September 12, 2024
đđ€ŁThank God we are out.
Where is Kaya Kallas? She was supposed to replace Stoltenberg. I was looking forward to it, she is worse than Ursula! Maybe so bad that the EU has chickened out of âpromoting a womanâ. Shame!
September 12, 2024
Kallas is to replace Josep Borrell ;Rutte replaces Stoltenberg.
BRICS Security Summit starts today in St Petersburg,with many aspiring BRICS members in attendance in addition to the existing membership.
September 12, 2024
LOca and central Governments are responsible for all of these problems !
The fundamental difference between the US and Europe is down to regulation :
Europe has the desire to regulate everything and anything written into its DNA, and we are at the top end of it !
The Civil Service even used to Gold Plate EU regulations when they arrived here !
The US, with its federal structure, leaves much regulation to the States to decide on, so while they have a wide diversity of regulatoruy regimes, they are largely far more light-touch than ours. China has tight control of the state, but because of its poor human rights record and lack of care for the individual, that does not extend to its industry.
In a global market, we cannot carry on with gas and electricity prices so high compared with China and the US and hope to be anywhere near competitive, but we have to wean governments off of very high taxation in order to achieve parity on costs.
September 12, 2024
The growth in GDP in the USA is largely due to the IT dominance, banking and global finance, fracking and domestic oil and the armaments and pharma subsidies. But the mean income per head in the US is not much more than in Europe and in Europe this varies widely with the ex communist parts and Greece lagging behind. The extreme income inequality in the US has lead to inner cities becoming no go areas. Murder rates are 6 times higher than comparative European cities. Trump has identified this but Dems laugh at him.
The higher average income in the US and Europe includes the richest 1% but the bankers and CEOs shovelling bonuses into their own pockets are making more than ever in the US. Their wealth has expanded since the banking crisis and covid lockdowns with small firms wiped out.
But in the industrialised European countries like Germany, the Ukraine war and Green policies have destroyed their manufacturing industry. The cheap Siberian gas has gone as they scramble to use lignite. The closure of nuclear removed that option. Wind a s solar are expensive. But the EU still goes along with the same policies and the remaining political elite press on, happy to de- industrialise while suddenly realising that they will be importing everything instead. They need toget rid of the Draghis, the 1% money grabbers, the WEF, big Urse and her bossy boots and stop the war before they go down the drain.
September 12, 2024
And in the UK we need to get rid of the Bank of England governor, the top civil service, the 1% money grabbers and the Labour, Conservative, Liberal and Regional governments before we go the same way.
September 12, 2024
I keep reading that Starmer should take us closer to the EU to boost our economic growth. Firstly the economic impact of EU membership was always marginal, contrary to the lies from UK politicians over many decades, and secondly that marginal effect was more likely negative rather than positive, and thirdly how logical is it to expect that getting closer to a low growth zone would increase our growth, rather than the opposite? If we must follow an external lead, rather than ploughing our own furrow, we would do better to align with the US than the EU. But why do either? As pointed out previously, by far the largest market for UK producers is the UK home market, not the EU Single Market or the US market. That is another lie from our politicians, that the EU is our largest market, and one which is now set to break up the UK with Northern Ireland being gradually split off.
September 12, 2024
Germany’s and the EU’s answer was to have been independent and cheap energy via Green Energy based on the capture of Ukraine with its vast reserves of critical minerals, of which lithium and rare earths alone were valued at up to US$13 trillion (and gas!). Von Der Leyen announced in late 2023 that post-war reconstruction is to be directed towards green energy and plans to that end continue to be made and published. Alas, the rest of the world has also joined the race to develop critical minerals so the EU now finds itself supporting at vast expense a war that no longer serves its main aims – or at least the aims behind Germany’s reversal of policy on 27 Feb 2022 to start supplying arms in exchange for EU sovereignty over Ukraine. This gamble is likely to fail as alternative supplies of critical minerals are developed elsewhere. Ukraine won’t get the independent sovereignty it is fighting for and will be extremely resentful of rule by another bunch of foreigners, this time in Brussels. It will be a more troublesome member than Poland and Hungary combined.
But the EU is now saddled with Ukraine, unless it can find a way to wriggle out of its accession process. It was already part of the plan that post-war Green reconstruction was to be funded by international aid – with profits going mainly to German industry – and efforts to persuade countries to contribute money will no doubt now be stepped up. The EU can never have enough of other people’s money. I’m sure Starmer wil be at the front of the queue.
September 12, 2024
The EU will be saddled with the worst parts of Ukraine-the western region of Galicia.When part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before 1918,it was the most impoverished component of that empire.Apparently they still have a certain fondness for one Austrian in particular.
September 12, 2024
Thank you very much for this analysis of Mr. Draghi’s report.
I wonder if he sees a Smoot-Hawley type risk in his proposed remedies of imposing more tariffs and the carbon border adjustment tax on imports. Sustaining artificial barriers of inevitable increasing complexity and resulting distortion surely will breakdown in the face of its own-created harms.
September 12, 2024
The EU GDP per capita is indeed much lower than the US GDP per capita, but compared to the US, the EU is still a far more fragmented market than the US, in services, in capital, in digital, even in goods, and it has a far more fragmented languages-landscape.
It will take a long time to remedy all that. Maybe in the long term we will get âmore Europeâ with at the same time fewer regulations. 27 countries having to agree on all this will make it a slow process.
So far 8 EU countries have a higher GDP per capita, so let us hope that number will increase in the coming years. đ
September 12, 2024
đđ€Łno chance of the top EU earning countries beating the average American state on GDP per capita. EVER. Itâs about to lose its free defence curtesy NATO. Itâs got to buy Russian energy and give India a big cut. Itâs got an explosion of people who have increased the language problems, cultural problems, economic problems and rule of law problems. The EU is becoming MORE diverse not less.
September 12, 2024
Oh I forgot to mention that President Putin is proposing banning the sale of all sorts of commodities to the west if it has a market elsewhere. So we can thank Putin shortly for saving us from NZ – which without these rare commodities will become impossible.
Great man, Man of the Century.
September 12, 2024
That “elsewhere”is equivalent to at least 85% of the world population-and is growing more quickly both demographically and economically.
Western Europe,that periphery of Eurasia, is going to be cut out,cut off and cut adrift.
September 12, 2024
“Great man, Man of the Century” – could Time Magazine put him on its cover perhaps?
September 13, 2024
Been there,done that!2007
September 12, 2024
always look on the bright side eh? Peter. Even facing the miserable reality of failure.
September 12, 2024
Looking at our company’s latest accounts, taxes (CT, employer’s NI and business rates) amount to about six times the energy costs. Cheaper energy would be welcome, but that is small beer compared with the cost of government.
Wage bill is then much higher than taxes, but then the employees are hit with massive taxes before they can get their hands on what’s left. After that they have to pay council tax out of already taxed money. Then there’s motoring taxes for their drive to work.
After taxes have cleared them out of a substantial part of their wages, they then have to find enough for rent or mortgage. Again, government policy is to push these costs up with second home and foreign ownership welcomed, and pushing up demand with high immigration.
Lower energy bills would be welcome of course, but in the main what throttles business is tax, tax, tax.
September 12, 2024
I’d add rising insurance bills up from 10-20%, including vehicle insurance hikes.
The cost of payroll creation (software) is increasing.
Workplace pensions – Labour is talking about increasing that contribution along with Employer’s National Insurance increases.
Borrowing costs and raising funds have increased.
Licence and permit costs have gone up.
I feel sorry for new businesses that don’t know what to expect from a Labour government with people to please, especially if those owners have loans with their homes as security and credit card debts for the business. It took us decades to become profitable. A Labour government will affect your shortâand long-term planning.
September 12, 2024
To anyone considering starting a new business – are you mad?
And just don’t think about employing anyone if your one man band has been doing quite well. The legislation stands ready to make your life a misery. Stay small and keep your head down.
September 13, 2024
Dave
Have to agree, far too much hassle and cost in running a small business nowadays.
Risk far too great for the often meagre rewards.
September 12, 2024
What Draghi portrays is a state that has impoverished itself by tying itself up in knots with painful and unnecessary legislation.
A centralised over-bureaucratic central command that was made a whole lot worse when the EU parliament came into being. Instead of being the bell of freedom of real democracy that Mrs Thatcher wanted, the EUP became a factory to speed up the production of ever more inane laws to do self harm.
The EU failed to move on from its structure of commissioners set up to create the EU. Once in place the commissioners should have been replaced by an executive from the EUP, but being a commissioner was too appealing, so the whole corrupting process of law making continues. With so many presidents in place responsibility for disasters falls on nobody.
It seems that Starmer is determined to get us back close to the EU. His actions already show that he has a death wish for the UK, so aligning us with the EU will certainly complete that wish.
September 12, 2024
With Draghi we see experience and intelligence coming to the fore and as he once famously said “whatever it takes” – Ode to Joy
September 12, 2024
I and the reform party agree with your assessment, cheap energy is the only way to increase growth …and the reason why the reform party wants to scrap the lunacy of net-zero
September 12, 2024
I see again in the FT today EU overwhelmed with debt apparently the answer is more debt ?
I see the UK chancellor looks overwhelmed with fatigue & planning more debt but its everyone else’s fault
What a great thing that is power without responsibility ?
September 12, 2024
Mr. Draghi correctly identifies half the problem, that of expensive (and will soon to be chaotically intermittent) energy but continues to support Net Zero and even proposes policies to make it worse!
The other half of our problem, also caused by the same fifth column Communists in our Parliament, Civil Service, Quangos, institutions, academia and judiciary is the application of DEI to promote inhomogeneity, division, social unrest and the replacement of meritocracy with diversity. All engineered to sabotage our well-functioning and prosperous nation.
There is no climate crisis caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions from burning hydrocarbon fuels because of a phenomenon known as IR saturation (really CO2 saturation). There is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to cause 99% of all the warming that is possible. So additional CO2 makes only another 1% increase.
We need a referendum on Net Zero and the BBC should be required to allow alternative views on CAGW and Net Zero to be aired. Only through freedom of speech can the truth be found
September 12, 2024
Draghi’s comments – all because Germany cannot buy cheap gas from Russia any more???
… And we all know that in the EU “What Germany wants Germany gets – and what it does not want does not happen”
September 12, 2024
The EU does what the US wants.
September 12, 2024
He as with UK governments this century misses the point although he is making it in a back handed way. Business and commerce is driven by non- penalised energy availability it gets to create the wealth needed for a tomorrow, reaching for putative punishment by suggesting everyone else is bad is destroying tomorrow
September 12, 2024
I suggest that the contenders for the Conservative Leadership read it and explain how they would avoid the UK falling into the same trap.
But come 2029, if Labour last that long, the next conservative/reform PM needs to be tough enough to dismantle
all that Labour will do to strangle the UK economy. Plus end the Quango culture by shutting them down.
The younger generation will learn a bitter lesson in the next few years.
But let’s remember it was the last 14 years of conservative government that led to thisâthe last two or three years being a horror show. The new conservative leader has to listen to the members and govern with conservative values and conservative policies!
September 12, 2024
The more I read of Mr Draghiâs report about the impediments that the EU countries have built for themselves, the more I realise that practically the same comments apply to the UK situation.
Where is an equivalent report (with a similar level of detail and recommendations) on the UK situation? I would have loved to see where the UK would have appeared in the multiple comparisons shown in Part 2 of Draghiâs report.
The reports of UKRI are rather poor compared to this Draghi report.
September 12, 2024
Some chance of Starmer and his team of nation wreckers taking heed of these EU warnings. As the saying goes, “There’s none so blind as those who WILL NOT see”.
How did we manage to end up with this group of Labour incompetents who are proving worse than the succession of poor 21st-century Tory PMs? Will we ever get back the 20th-century “stability”?
Has our country fallen so far that we can no longer expect a true and talented Government for Britain and its citizens? Right now, after a quarter of a century of mismanagement, there seems no end to it.
September 12, 2024
The BRICS nations are getting stronger year on year. Their combined GDP is now 34.92% compared with 30.07% for the G7 by purchasing power parity. Turkey has now applied to join BRICS along with 8 other countries. Our stupid government seems oblivious to the changing world order. It continues to beggar our nation with high taxes, net zero lunacy and constantly giving taxpayer money to foreign countries. Our Governments from the last few decades will go down in history as the most inept wealth wealth-destroying group of people ever.
September 12, 2024
Like Gordon Brown, Draghi talks of ‘investing’ 5% more, but that is not actual investment: what Draghi means is increasing tax receipts by 5% and throwing the money into EU-dictated and -managed projects in the hope of growing the economies of its member states.
That is not how economies are grown, never was, never will be. Keynes was an outlier, all the others copying him since have lacked his ability, because the basic principle and theory of state enterprise is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Only private investment is successful. (Imagine Nvidia or Apple under state control…. đ
September 14, 2024
Tell that to starmer who wants to join the EU
And destroyed the uk unless you are of a certain religion