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Britain Is a Developing Country

sambowman.co

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Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#111

Post by deathtrader666 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #109

Is there something weird going on with that Buc-Ees example? If I search for [buc-ees food service manager salary] on Google then Glassdoor snippets say things like "The estimated total pay for a Food Service Manager at Buc-ee's is $47,378 per year." and "The highest-paying job at Buc-ee's is a General Manager with a salary of $69,776 per year." which are far off the numbers in the poster which claims a General Manag…

Yes, the numbers quoted by the article's author for that company (or for that role in general) don't make any sense.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#112

Post by Tade0 »

twixfel wrote: post #46
gumballindie wrote: post #16

[flagged]

Tired of this ridiculous attitude you see everywhere on the internet, "stopped reading at X" (which may actually be near or at the end of the article), "he said X therefore I can now casually discredit everything he says", "he said something factually incorrect therefore the whole article is wrong and I don't have to engage with it". And the arrogance of it too, as if in your head it's virtuous enough to be so closed…

I'm Polish and I had trouble figuring out why would the two countries be put side by side like that, but this:

> If the UK continues with the same rate of growth it has enjoyed over the last decade, then Poland will be richer than Britain in about 12 years’ time.

I find unlikely. I mean, we're doing good economically wise, but not that good. We're going to catch up to Greece and Portugal soon enough - just like the Czech Republic did, but e.g. Italy is out of reach anywhere in the near future.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#113

Post by ashconnor »

tommypalm wrote: post #26
spenczar5 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top UK universities are still globally elite. I don’t know how important that is.

But most people in the UK can afford to go to them, which is maybe by design.

The UK has a student loans system that acts as a graduate tax.

This is a regression though, university used to be free from 1976-1998.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#114

Post by hotpotamus »

throwaway72762 wrote: post #110
dahfizz wrote: post #92

> My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. The author goes on to never support this thesis, and instead complains about British politics and that UK growth isn't quite as fast as…

GDP per capita is a poor measure. I have seen things this year that I would never have thought I'd see outside of wartime. Ambulances never showing up or taking half a day if they do. Rationing of basic vegetables at the store. The return of diseases of vitamin deficiency.

Sounds like they really committed to that austerity plan.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#115

Post by throwaway72762 »

mkoubaa wrote: post #12

What the UK has going for it is that its population speaks the technology and science lingua franca, by default.

Yes, this. The UK has been subsidized for several decades by the dominance of the US and as a result English. Just as Canada and others in the Anglosphere.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#116

Post by ClumsyPilot »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #65
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #45

> But there is one problem. There is virtually no recognition of how bad things are among British elites Not 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 yea…

When comparing with places like Czech Republic, people often forget that most of this area in "Eastern Europe" (this isn't Eastern Europe really) was very well-industralized until the mid-20th century when things went very wrong. So it is true, places like the Czech Republic have done well versus the UK...they have good policies in place, they are doing sensible things. For some reason though, the comparison is never…

> we should be more like these countries either...that we should be friendly to business, that we should limit immigration...strange, isn't it?

I've run a startup in UK and my family has a company in CZ, Britain is so much more friendly to business from my experience.

> there has been no real noticeable impact...even in industries that were going to be "decimated" [by brexit]

What is the basis for your opinion?

I have been unable to get goods from EU because of customs. I cannot post thing back to my family because now you get charged VAT for sending gifts by post to EU. I have never met a person that deals with import or export who was not dismayed by this.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#117

Post by alephnerd »

avgcorrection wrote: post #108
ashconnor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway is probably the best managed petrostate. The key appears to be directing revenues into foreign investment and use the gains to pay for social programs over long periods of time, rather than dumping money into your economy.

In the Americas. Being a petronation on the edge of America’s backyard evidently works fine. America won’t try to coup that part of the world. (As far as I know.)

Canada and Denmark (Greenland) would have a word with you.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

ecshafer wrote: post #30

Growing 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…

> Learning that people with college degrees in the UK make 25k GBP,

They mostly don't; if you annualize the UK median weekly earnings with a degree from 2016-2017, you get GBP 30,524. (Unfortunately, this isn’t a regularly-published breakdown.)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

> In the US I know people with GEDs working Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical, Diesel Mechanics, etc. making $100k-150k in areas where a house in the nice neighborhood cost $200k.

The people you know aren’t a representative sample.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#119

Post by twixfel »

curiousllama wrote: post #94
twixfel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tired of this ridiculous attitude you see everywhere on the internet, "stopped reading at X" (which may actually be near or at the end of the article), "he said X therefore I can now casually discredit everything he says", "he said something factually incorrect therefore the whole article is wrong and I don't have to engage with it". And the arrogance of it too, as if in your head it's virtuous enough to be so closed…

Yea, but that comparison literally underpins the main point of the article (Britain becoming like Poland is bad). Been to Poland recently? It's... kinda nice! He says in 10 years Britain (currently nice) = Poland (up and coming?) = Bangladesh (not as nice)

There wasn't even a direct comparison, which again makes such "stopped reading at X" even more brain dead.

The quote that prompted the OP to discard the entire article (lol):

> A slowdown in “frontier growth” and technological progress matters a lot for the United States. But it matters less to Poland or Bangladesh – countries that are still trying to get to the frontier.

That Poland is a nice place is neither here nor there. Poland and Bangladesh are both playing catch up (objectively true). Britain used to not be playing catch up. Now it is starting to have to play catch up. That's bad.

Re: Britain Is a Developing Country

#120

Post by dahfizz »

throwaway72762 wrote: post #110
dahfizz wrote: post #92

> My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. The author goes on to never support this thesis, and instead complains about British politics and that UK growth isn't quite as fast as…

GDP per capita is a poor measure. I have seen things this year that I would never have thought I'd see outside of wartime. Ambulances never showing up or taking half a day if they do. Rationing of basic vegetables at the store. The return of diseases of vitamin deficiency.

That's valid, but orthogonal. If you want to claim that British society is collapsing, I think you could write a convincing blog post.

But don't try to claim that the UK's economy is structured more like Bangladesh than the US. Or, if you do, at least directly support that claim with some facts.

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