I bumped into this unfamiliar word while reading yet another apocalyptic article about Britain’s economic and cultural future in yesterday’s Telegraph. I have to confess that I hadn’t encountered it before, and for a moment, I thought it might relate to the fear of an obnoxious or rude person. In fact, it is a term that describes the tendency to criticise or reject one’s own culture, home or society while expressing admiration or preference for others.

In this long and interesting article, the author lists a number of reasons why, in his opinion, Britain is heading for “oblivion”, citing in particular immigration, demographics, welfare and low productivity as the principal causes of our terminal decline. One of the principal challenges he mentions is the need for a unifying national culture around which we might all coalesce, but, instead, he argues, most of Britain’s cultural institutions currently promote a self-loathing mindset. I find it hard to disagree with this point, albeit I have never felt the need for my cultural identity to be reinforced or defined by any institution, cultural or otherwise. However, I do accept that many institutions including corporate, state, sport, educational and religious, as well as cultural, appear to have embraced an identical elitist ideology that amongst other things is implicitly and sometimes explicitly self-loathing, which is especially ironic given that so many people from other cultures are so desperate to come here.

However, where I disagree with the author of this article is that the economy is doomed in the way he describes. I accept that the economy confronts many intractable problems, which are shared with most of our peers, but these are not challenges to which we have no answers.  For example, two of the biggest problems highlighted in the article are demographics and productivity. In the case of demographics, we indeed have an ageing society, but there are also 9 million economically inactive people aged 16 to 64 in the UK. That’s over 26% of those people in work. We do not lack available labour in the UK; we lack appropriate incentives to work.

As for productivity, it is true that the UK’s recent record is woeful, especially so in public services and particularly in the NHS. I am no health economic expert, but I suspect that there are many simple solutions that could help to address this problem that don’t require Solomon's judgement. One that I know would have an immediate effect would be to implement an appropriate hire-and-fire policy across the NHS, for example.

So, in both cases, what appear to be structural, intractable problems could in the short term be partially solved by relatively straightforward solutions, albeit that they would require a level of political bravery that hasn’t been a feature of UK governments for many years.

Looking slightly longer term, I believe technology will once again provide many answers to the most pressing challenges confronting the world. AI for example and robotic technology have the potential to transform economic productivity to such an extent that some economists argue that a universal basic income will become affordable much sooner than was imagined just a few years ago. In this environment, productivity and demographics won’t be the major challenges confronting society, but how to keep an idle population engaged and law-abiding might be.

I suppose my key message is to be wary of the prophets of doom, of which there are far too many for my taste, foretelling the imminent “oblivion” of the UK. Bold politicians with vision taking tough but appropriate decisions is what is required to help our economy address many of its most pressing challenges. And in the meantime, more appropriate monetary policy settings will help it deliver the growth that would completely dumbfound the IMF, OECD, Bank of England, OBR, and consensus economics again, all of whom seem to have swallowed the doom-laden cool aid.

In short, I don't buy into the narrative that Britain is broken beyond repair. Yes, we've got issues to deal with—serious ones—but they're not insurmountable. I've always believed in the power of clear thinking, good policy, and a bit of common sense. That's true in economics, politics, and investing.