• 68 Posts
  • 26 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: November 10th, 2025
  • Sepia@mander.xyzOPtoUnited Kingdom@feddit.uk•Brexit isn’t working: British voters are ready for a European future – European Council on Foreign RelationsEnglish
    10·
    4 months ago

    As an addition:

    Ten years on, Brexit’s economic impact is becoming clearer

    … The UK Trade Policy Observatory at Sussex University calculated a rapid 26% reduction in the different types of UK exports by 2023, while a new study from Aston University Business School using five years of more detailed trade data concludes a loss of 53.8% of the type of exports and 31.5% for imports …

    UK trade with Europe had been on an upward trend before 2016. But official figures show that compared to 2019, 2025 UK exports to the EU were 14% down and imports were down 10%.

    And they’ve been getting worse. Last year, 2025, was the worst year for UK goods export volumes to the EU this century, apart from one year in the depths of the financial crisis …

    Think tank Niesr calculates exports were 16.9% lower and imports 16.1% less than what could have been expected based on positive pre-2016 trends. The Centre for European Reform uses a different method, trying to take account of what could have happened if the UK had not been excluded from a more recent surge in intra-EU trade, leading to a goods trade hit of 16% to exports and 14% to imports …

    One area that has performed more strongly since 2016 is services … Services sector exports from the UK to the EU are up 57% over the last decade [but] it is also true that there has been a service boom across the advanced world and some argue Britain might have done even better without Brexit …

    Investment by businesses was significantly lower than what might have continued after Brexit, according to two studies. Former Bank of England independent economist Jonathan Haskel calculates a £29bn or 1.3% reduction in the size of the economy from lower investment than would have been expected since 2016 …

    Business investment flattened in real terms immediately after 2016, and notably underperformed various measures of UK long term-trends and comparisons with other countries …

    The most visible sign of economic shock was the fall in the value of the pound in the minutes and then years after the referendum. This makes imports and travel more expensive, and makes UK assets worth less in the world …

  • Sepia@mander.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•Four years into Ukraine invasion, Russia’s gains are small, while Kyiv remains resilientEnglish
    12·
    9 months ago

    • Russia’s losses amount to 65,000 soldiers dead or injured over the last two months alone

    • Russian fatalities in Ukraine in the four years of the full-scale war are five times greater than all Russian and Soviet wars since World War Two combined

    • Moscow’s losses in Ukraine are now more than 17 times greater than the Soviet Union’s losses in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and 11 times greater than Russian forces killed in both Chechen wars (1994-1996, 1999-2009)

    • In January, Zelenskiy said 50,000 Russian losses per month would be “the optimal level” to ensure Russian losses in Ukraine became unsustainable for Moscow to replace with new recruits

    Source

  • Sepia@mander.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•Spain courts China in new Asia strategy as US ties sourEnglish
    5·
    9 months ago

    Spain under Sanchez’s government has been ‘courting’ China for some years now, and the prime minister is intensifying it of late. Unfortunately, this has less to do with a strategy aimed at benefiting the Spanish economy and its people imo but rather with Sanchez’s fight for political survival. Sanchez is facing corruption scandals involving his brother, his wife, and close political allies of this socialist party. The recent resignation of a police chief over accusations of rape is adding to Sanchez problems. He needs some distractions it seems.

  • Sepia@mander.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•IMF urges China to halve industrial subsidiesEnglish
    105·
    9 months ago

    This statement makes no sense. China’s mercantilism - pushing for trade surpluses in practically all industries - wouldn’t even work if pursued by all countries (a trade surplus for everyone is logically impossible, and the attempt doesn’t end well as we have seen in Europe 300 or so years ago).

    Beijing is subsidizing some sort of a zombie economy as many companies would long be shut down without massive state subsidies that go well beyond what can be considered reasonable. In the EV industry, for example, only 15 of 129 Chinese EV brands are expected to be profitable by 2030, according to a report from last year.

    The US and China are artificially creating economic imbalances, it’s just that one is doing it mainly by tariffs and the other by deliberately producing oversupply.

    [Edit for clarity.]

  • Sepia@mander.xyzOPtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Russia's war relies on aid from one particular countryEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    In a letter to the Financial Times entitled “The scenario that economic warfare experts fear the most” was enlightening, Eric Golson, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Surrey int the UK, provides valuable insights about why China support Russia, and possible consequences as well as necessary reactions by the UK and West:

    … Despite the public displays of unity between Xi and Putin, China has a vested interest in a prolonged conflict. Like the US, it benefits from a weakened Russia, allowing Beijing to expand its geopolitical influence while Moscow remains distracted and depleted.

    The scenario which concerns economic warfare specialists most is a Russian failure in Ukraine followed by internal Russian fragmentation, continuing the imperial disintegration that began in 1991. In that event, China could expand north and east, extending influence into oil and gas-rich regions such as Kamchatka, Sakhalin and parts of the Sakha region. These are territories China once held under the Qing dynasty. Control of this energy would strengthen China’s global position and reduce its vulnerability to pressure over Taiwan and the South China Sea. This is a plausible outcome if the Ukraine war drags on, yet there is little evidence of serious contingency planning in Whitehall or Washington … [Archived]

  • Sepia@mander.xyztoClimate@slrpnk.net•China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert that it's turned this 'biological void' into a carbon sink
    136·
    9 months ago

    To provide and example: You will easily find stories about Ford CEO Jim Farley saying that Chinese EVs are ahead of those by Western manufacturers - this story has been appearing in various (and also Western) outlets for some time now. The framing is always a bit different, but the story is always the same.

    Here we have the same pattern - one story, published with a slightly different framing (and often with a misleading title, as it is the case also here, because the survival rate of these trees might be too low in the long run as several of these article also say - see here -, but it’s a bold headline).

    Another recent propaganda push is probably the (false) narrative that China has banned all investments in Israel over Gaza. I read headlines here on Lemmy and on many outlets, including Western media. But it is complete fantasy. It’s a completely fabricated story as China-Israel ties are stronger than ever, with both investment and trade at record levels.

    Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say planting trees is a bad thing. It’s good. But such headlines and the endless stream of always the same news don’t aim at informing on climate policy, but rather to distort reality and serve authoritarian propaganda while creating narratives that are outright false. The only goal here is to promote “the West bad, only China good” stance, which is, of course, complete rubbish.