Interesting data, to say the least, but aside from Reuters and the BBC I don't really trust any media sources to give an accurate depiction of the data (or it's implications).

I'll be withholding my judgement until we get some solid ONS data in the coming months.

EDIT: Should point out--my reading of the evidence definitely suggests some kind of nominal slowdown, although labour market reports prior to the referendum were strong, this could be accounted for by the fact that the market failed to price in the possibility of a Leave vote. There is not much room to manoeuvre in terms of monetary policy besides guidance and the delicate whispers of a broken man into the uninterested ears of a hooker, so we should be keeping an eye out for changes in fiscal and structural policy with the new May Cabinet.

Policy changes to look out for:
- Slowing down of fiscal consolidation.
- Increased investment in infrastructure.
- Greater devolution to Northern cities.
- Tax changes.
- Changes in planning laws, or alternatively renewed social housing construction.
- Changes in corporate management (currently not promising from May).
- Trade deals.
- Welfare.

Some of these are more likely than others. It's pretty hard to overstate the importance of changes in fiscal policy and trade deals, as well as the uncertainty surrounding the latter. Tax changes and planning law reform could prove to be instrumental, but I doubt the government will exploit these opportunities. Welfare will probably see marginal changes. I expect no real progress in education or healthcare, so did not list them.

but I don't see this primarily being the result of poor planning.

I'm saying the strong labour market data was strong because the markets were not at all expecting a leave vote, and we're seeing a correction currently take place as markets belatedly react.

with many financial institutions and banks preparing for a recession and predicting major falls in economic growth.

This is kind of an overstatement. The only bank I know of which has explicitly said a recession is on the cards is Goldman Sachs--as well as NGOs like the IMF--but the worst they are predicted, which is in line with the most pessimistic, independent research before the referendum, is a mild recession.

And, again, even this kind of forecasting is subject to variables like monetary and fiscal policy which are very much likely to change.

We're still at least almost half a year away from article 50 being triggered (and that isn't even accounting for the possibility of an expedited general election, the matter of leaving being brought before the UK's court system, achieving a unified approach including Northern Ireland and Scotland, the potential requirement of parliamentary approval

All of these actually seem like auxiliary concerns considering the unexpected big decision has already been made. I would be incredibly surprised if we were to see a second general election, the government has already made its position clear on the Norn Iron-Irish border, and the EU has also been pretty clear about its unwillingness to negotiate with an independent Scotland.

Confidence is not unmanageable, and the thing that will determine how we perform, far and above any other variable, will be how the government takes us forward. There is room for both success and failure, but we're not caught in a death-spiral of overwhelming confidence-busters.

the EU shaping up to be unforgiving in the negotiations...)

All the more reason to have left.

And during all that time, the UK cannot enter into new trade agreements with any other countries or break with any other EU rules.

Promising noises (and even legislation) has come out of countries from India and Mexico to Canada and China on trade deals. And the UK government is working towards securing some kind of trade 'framework' with the EU prior to triggering Article 50.

That means that there will be major uncertainty for years to come, which is bound to be damaging to the economy.

Damaging, but not fatal. Pretty much everybody in my camp of the Brexit debate acknowledged that there would be some economic slowdown to face. The difference between us and the Remainers was magnitude, and so far the evidence is pointing to us being on the correct side of the argument. The doom-and-gloom stories spun by Remain are currently, for the most part, baseless.

UK unemployment is again on the rise (at the highest it has been in a decade

UK unemployment is 5.4pc. It was 8.4pc in mid-2011.

and has been expected to rise by another 2% in the next 2 years

Do you have a source for this? The EIC has been predicting a peak of 6pc unemployment. But, I'll say again, this depends heavily on which was monetary and fiscal policy go, and while the BoE kind of has its hands tied, the government has already signalled it will move away from austerity and towards renewed investment, particularly in infrastructure. IIRC, May has effectively co-opted Crabb's leadership pledge to invest Β£100bn in infrastructure, and Chancellor Hammond has also said it makes sense to fund greater investment at a time when the cost of borrowing is so low.

How long do you think it will take for those major policy changes to be implemented?

Changes in monetary and fiscal policy can happen on a pretty short time-frame. The next budget statement is set to be delivered in March 2017, so any big reforms should be spelled out then.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on July 26, 2016, 03:38:00 AM

UK unemployment is 5.4pc. It was 8.4pc in mid-2011.

I'll respond to some other parts of your post later, but you appear to be right on this one. I wish I hadn't closed all of the tabs I had open when making this post, because I could've sworn there was an article of the IB Times which mentioned unemployment was now at a decade high. I'll see if I can find it again. But yeah, you're right. I stand corrected, unemployment definitely isn't as high as it was a few years ago.

Are you sure you didn't misread the article?

Sorry about that. :/

Happens to the best of us.

I should not be making serious posts after a few drinks at 2 in the morning.

Better than making them sober.

You don't have to respond to all of the above

Looking over it, we really don't seem to disagree on much. The most telling comment was Weale's support for stimulus in order to avoid a recession. I can't speak as to how much stimulus the government will pursue, but I would be incredibly disappointed if it were small/non-existent, especially given the noises coming from the government.

Say you were given complete control over the UK's policy on matters of taxes / trade / foreign relations / investment and so forth. What do you think would be the best thing to do?

Tax reform is an area with massive potential for pro-growth reform. In an ideal world, we would abolish corporation tax, capital gains tax and income tax; then replace them with a highly progressive consumption tax and a tax on the value of unimproved land. Of course, this won't happen, but the government really couldn't go amiss by lowering corp tax and CGT (although given her "blue-collar Tory" talk, I'm not so sure how May will approach these issues). There's also a lot of space for structural reforms regarding education, healthcare, planning etc. but given the focus on Brexit these will likely take a back-seat; but May has stated she doesn't want her government to be solely defined by Brexit.

Trade's easy. Abolish all import tariffs, try to negotiate tariff-free access for goods and services to the Single Market, come up with some kind of fairly liberal framework for high-skilled immigrants to come here from all over the globe to live and work. FTAs with any country who wants one. Will it happen? Well, we'll see, but any move towards expanded free movement of goods and services with any country/trading bloc would be a positive.

There's not really much to say for foreign relations. Johnson will be the least important Foreign Secretary we've had, but even over this last week I feel as if he's been too high-profile. I wouldn't say drop him, but Liam Fox should come out of the woodwork and start playing a much bigger role. Although his hands will probably be tied with the EU negotiations.

Investment needs to happen in order to boost productivity, which has been poor since the recession and is the underlying cause of slow growth. Investing in transport infrastructure--like HS2--should be a secondary concern, and we should focus on investing within the cities of the Midlands and the North as opposed to between them. Education reform could also significantly help in this area, as well as housing construction. I doubt the government will go mad, but with Osborne gone it's pretty clear austerity will be pushed to the back of the queue in terms of policy considerations, which is good at this point in time. I never hated Osborne, but defining your success by achieving some arbitrary fiscal target with no reference to the economy's performance was always stupid.

Anything you feel I've missed out?

Worries about agricultural funding are on the rise, as much of the funding came from the EU and 73% of British agri-food exports are other EU countries.

Good. Hopefully we'll be the second developed country to try and kill their agricultural sector.

Lloyds Banking is set to close several of its UK branches and cut 3,000 jobs.

As Lloyds themselves said, this decision was taken before the Brexit vote and is not related to the result. The decision was taken because of Lloyd's falling operating profit, and the switch by consumers from branch-based to online banking services.