"Britain is no longer one of the world's price setters. We take our prices from international commodity markets driven by China and India. That is something we have got to live with and adjust to. It is painful. It is a challenge to us in government to explain it. The political class as a whole is not preparing the public for how massive the problem is"
Goldman Sachs has argued that, since the four BRIC countries are developing rapidly, by 2050 their combined economies could eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world. These four countries, combined, currently account for more than a quarter of the world's land area and more than 40% of the world's population.[7][8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC
Vince Cable: People do not understand how bad the economy is
Business secretary says politicians have not made clear the time and pain needed to restructure Britain's broken economic model
Vince Cable has warned that the political class has not yet prepared the public for the scale of the underlying problems facing the UK economy and the coming squeeze on living standards.
In a frank interview with the Guardian the business secretary repeatedly referred to the time and pain that will be needed to restructure what he regards as a broken economic model.
"It is a challenge to us to communicate it better. I don't think it is understood that the British economy declined 6 or 7% – [that is] 10% below trend," Cable said. "We are actually a poorer country, mainly because of the banking crash, the recession that followed it and partly due to the squeeze we are now under from the changing balance of the world economy."
He argued: "Britain is no longer one of the world's price setters. We take our prices from international commodity markets driven by China and India. That is something we have got to live with and adjust to. It is painful. It is a challenge to us in government to explain it. The political class as a whole is not preparing the public for how massive the problem is."