This article is missing an important part in the relationship between the developed world and the developing world which is exploitation. When companies start offshoring to the UK for cheap labor or taking its resources for pennies on the dollar we can start calling it a proper developing country.
Britain Is a Developing Country
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Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#42Does the UK have anything going for it? It is very hard for me to see the UK having a better quality of life in future than they had in the past. Not being part of the EU means they will mostly be squeezed in trade negotiations. And the UK does not have any industry going for it, so sooner or later the living standards would catch up with the rest of the developing world at the middle.
But they missed their window after Brexit to strike the trade deals they needed, and now any trade deal they make will probably be under quite unfavorable terms.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#43What the UK has going for it is that its population speaks the technology and science lingua franca, by default.
As does most of the educated populations of rEurope and India etc - I’m an English dev working in the EU and the fact that I speak English is of no real advantage over my peers.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#44Does the UK have anything going for it? It is very hard for me to see the UK having a better quality of life in future than they had in the past. Not being part of the EU means they will mostly be squeezed in trade negotiations. And the UK does not have any industry going for it, so sooner or later the living standards would catch up with the rest of the developing world at the middle.
Why would the UKs living standards increase? Because the world continues to get richer.
Is the UK going to regress to developing world status? That's a heck of a claim. Has any country that was among the richest in the world regressed to developing nation status? This is supposed to happen on the basis of being marginally disadvantaged in trade negotiations?
Get real. This is sentiment because people are mad that the UK rejected their political beliefs. Could the UK suffer negative consequences versus the counterfactual as a result of Brexit? Sure. Is it going to regress to being the equivalent of, like, Peru? Obviously no.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#45Not just elites - ordinary british people too. I've been saying for 10 years that britain is falling behing the rest fo Europe.
I give real examples from my life, "In Czech republic I/anyone has access to Proton therapy and housing is better built, but in Britain protin therapy is missing (was first built last year, ex-communist CZ has it for like 20 years) and quality housing is only accessible to millionairs."
And if I am taling to a british person, there is like a 50% chance they will get offended and respond like "well then why are you here". I had similar responce on this very forum.
And when "locals" bring this up publically, they get accused of 'talking britain down'. Kind of came up in the brexit debate under 'project fear'.
I feel it will get a lot worse before people will finally get their sputnic moment and realise they are in a hole.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#46[flagged]
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#47Does the UK have anything going for it? It is very hard for me to see the UK having a better quality of life in future than they had in the past. Not being part of the EU means they will mostly be squeezed in trade negotiations. And the UK does not have any industry going for it, so sooner or later the living standards would catch up with the rest of the developing world at the middle.
No shit we're not going to have the same standard of living as the past.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#48Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#49Growing up I assumed the UK was pretty rich. But then when you look at the stats, the UK is about as wealthy as Mississippi, one of the poorest states. Learning that people with college degrees in the UK make 25k GBP, and that is considered good, sure isn't that bad when GBP was worth 2x USD. But people are living in London for those salaries. The big expensive cities in the US, like NYC pay you much more to compensa…
Tradespeople can earn fortunes anywhere. I can recall Ireland during the 'Celtic Tiger' phase bricklayers were absolutely milking it. I actually regret I don't have a trade under my belt.
Re: Britain Is a Developing Country
#50(For example, through it I discovered that Ireland's nearest twin in both land and population is South Carolina.)
Looking at the UK specifically, it's the GDP of California but with almost 2x the population, which comes out to a GDP per capita comparable to Mississippi.