Re: The biggest problem with Soft Brexit is that it's not attainable
But Norway only have 5m people and have huge oil wealth.
The problem in the UK is that we have a poor infrastructure in that nothing is very well organised and everything is highly fragmented and silo'ed. We should be doing lots of things properly but the infrastructure does not exist and to put it into place would take decades and cost $1 trillion. So instead there a lots of ostriches and only "good news" is allowed.
So in this situation what you want is eternal growth. But that came to a standstill because of the 2008 crisis and is now cranking to a halt again because of brexit uncertainties.
This will all come out after brexit, but the trouble is that EU cheap labour and overseas investment in property and business have been fueling growth and keeping the balance of the economy, also keeping our goods in the shops cheap, but making our housing expensive. I expect house prices to fall, but lots of people may well be left with hefty negative equity and a fall in spending power. There's not just brexit but the tax changes in mortgage interest relief in the next 2 years. Not really a good idea to increase interest rates given the underlying trends.
If people stop spending then that is bad news for the economy. If you increase wages then the cost of goods goes up or quality goes down. There seems to be plenty of work at the moment but I wonder whether that will last if we have contracted growth. It's all connected and it all balances out in the long run so people end up no better off. It's having negative growth that's the real terror. That won't pay our pensions. Pensions are paid real time so you have to borrow. But cheer up, we are still living in good times. Things can only get worse