So a nuanced answer is that it is recovering from the pandemic, but a way to go yet. We have also not seen the impact of the end of furlough next month, nor the impact of inflation which seems to be rising.
And why should an economy keep growing financially. A firm which makes large redundancies may increase its profits, but at a cost to the public purse (us) and social problems. Cheap imports from Asia may have resulted in lower cost goods, but at the increased cost to the environment via Transport`nsport and the social structure of cities.
Economics has been allowed to be worshiped by governments across the world at the expense of the environment and social well being of the population. this population has itself been brainwashed by the media into believing that money is the important thing. This of course is why the inflation in the housing market is so loved by the capitalist right – higher housing costs makes for a subservient population. Add 20p an hour to the minimum wage and a government claims to be supporting the working person, totally ignoring the hike in rent and mortgage repayments. This housing market is also skewed by second home owners inflating the market in some of our poorest areas.
Where are the jobs with prospects in coastal and rural areas, which would allow entry to this housing market.
A report today stated that a 99% one off tax on billionaires increased income in the last year would pay for everyone to receive the vaccine and pay $20000 to every unemployed worker. And the billionaires would be no worse off than they were a yer ago, but just about everyone else would be better off. A no brainer.
Meanwhile in the capitalist heaven a maker of inhalers has accepted an offer of a take over by a tobacco company – a major UK defence manufacturer is being sold to a private equity firm from the USA – ARM Holdings was sold to Soft Bank (Japan) a while back who now also want to sell it on to a private equity firm. I am sure there are some good private equity firms, but basically their reason d’être is to buy a company and make it more profitable and then sell it for a big profit. If a firm is badly run I guess this is ok, but it is also governments job to ensure that well run businesses are not sold off and decimated by selling profitable bits off or moving manufacturing to somewhere else (Cadbury – Keynsham). Let foreign investors take a maximum 49% holding in UK companies.
Basically the government (of whatever flavour) needs to exert a benevolent but firm hand over the workings of capitalism. In the 1960’s some trade unions may have got too powerful and needed reigning in (rather than the attempted destruction), now we have the gap between rich and poor spiralling out of control. I have no wish for a marxist dictatorship or civil disobedience on a large scale, but fear it may happen. The public will not be conned forever.