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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

ukfoundations.co

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#131

Post by AnimalMuppet »

emmet wrote: post #104
dukeyukey wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been here for 30 years, and am 30 years old, and I don't think anyone has ever asked me where I went to secondary school. What kind of people ask you that?

I somehow keep ending up working at places where 90% of the employees grew up with staff in the house. Dozens of people with wikipedia pages about their families.

So, people who grew up with staff in the house are obsessed with class. That's perhaps disappointing, but not really surprising.

I'd bet, in the US, you'd find the same among people who grew up with staff in the house. The difference may be that, in the US, it's a lot harder to find people like that.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#132

Post by ignoramous »

nine_k wrote: post #65
benrutter wrote: post #18

Really interesting and well researched read. The main take away seems to be that Britain has seen a lack of state funded infrastructure development and it's paying the price for this, especially in the energy sector. I'm obviously oversimplifying, but I think that's an ok rough summary. I think it's well argued and evidenced in the article, but I'm interested in this question: why isn't the US stagnating? My understa…

The US has a huge internal market, with free interstate trade and no need for localization. The US has accumulated colossal scientific and R&D resources, which regularly produce industrial breakthroughs. Lower taxes help, too. (Lower taxes is what a country can afford for general benefit, not a sloppy pro-rich policy.) But most importantly, USD is effectively the world's reserve currency, so the US can literally prin…

Another factor is that Quantitative Easing (QE) kind of works for the US, but not for the UK: https://youtube.com/watch?v=goA9kkaDfTE / https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/goA9kkaDfTE

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#133

Post by gm3dmo »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #126
BillFranklin wrote: post #106

This is pretty bleak reading for a resident of the UK! It's a good explanation for why there's stagnation (generally not allowed to build here). I'm a fan of their work (see the housing theory of everything [1] which is also good). I'd be interested to read what they think can be done about the planning issue. The new government hasn't really come through on their promise to address it. They ran out of low hanging fr…

The "new Government" has not yet been in power for 100 days. How exactly have they not "come through on their promise to address it"? Given the old government didn't come through on similar promises on planning for 14 years, I think we can give them another year or so to get policy and statutes in place, no?

feels like the government need to set the tone for the rental market first then both owners and builders can decide if they want to participate.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#134

Post by tempfile »

fidotron wrote: post #69
hnlmorg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that but the UK has not experienced the kind of energy disruptions that, for example, the Texans have since the 1970s. Let’s also not forget the railroad problems you face. You’re probably the only country that makes Britain look good for its rail infrastructure. Having driven on both American roads and British roads, I’d say UK rural roads are to a much higher standard. However that I can give America a pass…

> You say that but the UK has not experienced the kind of energy disruptions that, for example, the Texans have since the 1970s. The energy disruptions the UK had in the 70s were how Thatcher came into power. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

The article you link to explains that the Three Day Week led to the collapse of the Conservative gov in 74, and while Thatcher became leader, she did not come into power until 79. If the power outages led to anything, it was to a Labour gov.

(this is unrelated to the correct statement that there were widespread outages throughout the 70s)

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#135

Post by shortrounddev2 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #45
glimshe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a more robust system for supplying infrastructure through private investment - including in the energy sector.

You say that but the UK has not experienced the kind of energy disruptions that, for example, the Texans have since the 1970s. Let’s also not forget the railroad problems you face. You’re probably the only country that makes Britain look good for its rail infrastructure. Having driven on both American roads and British roads, I’d say UK rural roads are to a much higher standard. However that I can give America a pass…

The US has one of the largest freight rail networks in the world. We don't have as big of a passenger rail investment because nobody would ride most of it

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#137

Post by kjellsbells »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #38

I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whils…

> It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already.

I dont follow this line of reasoning too well. The conservative party was in power for fourteen years, 2010 to 2024. The new Labour government has been in power for less than fourteen weeks. Isnt it too soon to make any claims about their performance fixing the structural issues identified in this report?

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#138

Post by diggan »

apwell23 wrote: post #127
benjaminwootton wrote: post #38

I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whils…

> 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation Its the same in USA if you want to see a specialist. There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors. I waited about 1.5yrs to get a routine endoscopy at northwestern hospital in chicago. We've gone to northwestern in downtown for decades and have never seen waits this bad.

> There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors.

I'm not sure you can extrapolate that it's worldwide because things are the same in UK and US.

FWIW, I had surgery in Spain recently and had to wait like two-three months tops. Probably depends a lot on the type of surgery and how urgent it is.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#139

Post by fidotron »

stef25 wrote: post #122
benjaminwootton wrote: post #38

I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whils…

It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?

The local variation is incredible.

Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death.

Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#140

Post by glomph »

This website makes some claims about what has caused both growth and decline that are pretty contentious.

I think that many would argue that the growth following the second world war was the result of massive state investment in public services like creating the NHS and the building of council housing.

They baffelingly attribute yhat growth to the Conservative Govrernment of the 1930s rather than the post war labour government.

Similarly this page attributes growth in the 80s to the Conservative government privatisation program. Again many would argue that was actually the start of the decline which we are feeling the pain of now with things like a terrible and fractured rail service and not enough housing.

I think a perfect example of this is our water companies that have been private since the 80s and have done nothing but pay dividends to shareholders and now we have a disaster with shit being poured into all our rivers and costs to households rising dramatically.

Edit: I read on and they use the drop in passengers in the railway in 1965 as an argument against nationalisation of the rail service, somehow neglecting to mention the beeching cuts! That is incredibly missleading given 55% of stations were axed due to a /reduction/ of state infrastructure at that time.

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