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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

ukfoundations.co

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#151

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> Unfortunately these supply-side policies causing stagnation are representative of what our ageing population actually wants.

This is basically it. The pensioners don't want change. They might theoretically want some nebulous "improvement", but only if it doesn't cost anything, doesn't involve building anything, or even a change of use, doesn't make any noise, doesn't increase traffic, and doesn't involve any immigration.

The people demand stagnation.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#152

Post by gm3dmo »

noja wrote: post #63
tommy5dollar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "state funded" is the important part to take away from the piece, it's a shortage of infrastructure in general, both state and private, in part due to incredibly restrictive rules. These days you can easily trap a planned piece of infrastructure in court cases for years for largely spurious reasons.

> incredibly restrictive rules. Like what? Are you referring to the self-regulation at Grenfell Tower?

I give them the benefit of the doubt. They are of the opinion its hard to get anything built because of regulations at the planning stage.

Difficult to see anybody but piggy sticks trying to get away with building with highly flammable materials.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#153

Post by apwell23 »

diggan wrote: post #138
apwell23 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

yea could be my specific hospital. I've heard from indian colleagues that if you sprain your ankle you can see someone immediately but if you get cancer and need to specialist then you are competing with thousands of ppl to see that doctor.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#154

Post by nicoburns »

tommy5dollar wrote: post #48
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…

I don't think "state funded" is the important part to take away from the piece, it's a shortage of infrastructure in general, both state and private, in part due to incredibly restrictive rules. These days you can easily trap a planned piece of infrastructure in court cases for years for largely spurious reasons.

Having recently visited the US, the infrastructure there (at least in the parts of California I visited) is noticeably worse than in Europe (including the UK). So I don't think it can just be about infrastructure.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#155

Post by tpm »

Ctrl-f "class" -> "world-class". Checks out.

One thing I will never forget from my short time living in London is how un-insulated the homes there were. Single or thin double-glazed windows, full-brick homes without a hint of thermal insulation. Sure there were exceptions but not many. At the time in Central Europe the movement to heavily insulated, nearly-passive homes was already in full swing. Many central European countries were much poorer than the UK, not even mentioning London, and energy prices were lower, so, naively I thought, everyone with an old house in the UK should be busy insulating it. It would pay off in a few years. Why didn't they?

And I think one of the reasons is that the governments, indeed the ruling class as a whole, just didn't care that the commoners are paying over their heads for energy and are freezing in moldy houses, because the class divide is just so big. It would be interesting to live in an alternate universe where Karl Marx would live in a different country - perhaps his theory would place a smaller emphasis on social class.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#156

Post by seanhunter »

Fernicia wrote: post #89
seanhunter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the authors is from the center for policy studies, which is a thinktank that was founded by Margaret Thatcher and 2 others. The other two authors seem to be the founder and one of the main contributors to https://worksinprogress.co/ which describes itself as "a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world." So I'm going to guess it's gonna be that sort of thing. Someone with a neoliberal economic…

This is one of the worst comments I've read on HackerNews and engenders the decline in critical thinking that has become so pervasive here in recent years. You find a bunch of ways to frame the authors as the out-group, then cast a totally baseless aspersion. Presumably so you don't have to engage with any of the actual points in the article.

I'm not framing them in terms of an out group at all. It's the exact opposite- they are the most "in" of in-groups. In the UK, government policy for the last 15 years has been hugely influenced by this specific thinktank and two or three similar ones. It's an extraordinarily small group. If Britain is in decline due to lack of infrastructure investment it's in no small part because of the policy positions that they have advocated and implemented during that time.

I care a great deal about the actual points in the article. It's just important to understand this is not in any sense a neutral analysis.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#157

Post by sofixa »

misja111 wrote: post #95
barry-cotter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French are richer than the British. They have more stuff and a higher quality of life. It would be good for more British people to have more stuff and a higher quality of life. Building more housing allows both for more people to afford a (better quality of) primary residence, and for more people to have a holiday home. Those are all good. Focussing on utilisation is Green Party, NIMBY, degrowth, pro-poverty thin…

Note that in France, unlike on your first home, you don't pay taxes on your second home. See e.g. https://chasebuchanan.com/property-tax-in-france-residential... .

That's not true. In France you pay both taxe foncière (on any and all property you own) and taxe d'habitation (unless you're renting it for the whole year) on second(and more) homes you own. With some exceptions like newbuilds, newly renovated for better insulation, in very rural places, etc.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F59/per...

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F42

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#158

Post by nmadden »

glomph wrote: post #140

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…

One of the authors is from the Centre for Policy Studies. Another is from the Adam Smith Institute. These are the gang of shady right-wing think tanks that brought us Truss and Kwarteng. That tells you everything you need to know about their economic competence.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#159

Post by nicoburns »

barry-cotter wrote: post #67
noja wrote: post #53

> 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Why the focus on second homes? I would care more about utilisation of homes by home-owners: walk around London at night, so many apartments are dark. The locals say investors own them.

The French are richer than the British. They have more stuff and a higher quality of life. It would be good for more British people to have more stuff and a higher quality of life. Building more housing allows both for more people to afford a (better quality of) primary residence, and for more people to have a holiday home. Those are all good. Focussing on utilisation is Green Party, NIMBY, degrowth, pro-poverty thin…

Regarding housing (and land ownership) specifically, France is over twice the size of the UK with a similar population. So there are underlying constraints that cannot easily be papered over with policy.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#160

Post by avianlyric »

noja wrote: post #63
tommy5dollar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "state funded" is the important part to take away from the piece, it's a shortage of infrastructure in general, both state and private, in part due to incredibly restrictive rules. These days you can easily trap a planned piece of infrastructure in court cases for years for largely spurious reasons.

> incredibly restrictive rules. Like what? Are you referring to the self-regulation at Grenfell Tower?

It’s not so much restrictive rules, as it is a planning system that prioritises local concerns, regardless of how minor, or incorrect, over any kind of national priority.

Our planning system is literally designed to maximally empower NIMBYism. There are no well defined planning rules, or zoning, or planning process. Every council develops their own planning policy, and broadly has the power to block any project. The result is building anything requires millions of pounds, and years of effort, to work through a councils arbitrary, and ever changing planning rules, with no guarantee of any kind of success.

Most of the rest of the world operates some kind of permitted development zoning policy, where planning policy tends to provide clear rules around what can always be built in a specific area. So it possible to start a development process knowing that certain aspects of your project must be approved, as long as you follow the rules. Unlike the UK where you project might be approved if you managed to somehow follow all the undocumented, arbitrary, and changing local rules.

Consequences are quite simple, only projects that are absolutely guaranteed to return large profits if successful are built. And for those projects there’s very little incentive for high quality building, because there’s no competition in the area, and costs of getting permission are so high, that a developers unique selling point is their ability to get permission, not their ability to actually build well.

With regards to Grenfell, that’s the consequence of have shambolic building regulations (I.e. regulations on the quantity and safety of buildings), and a construction industry that can only make money by cutting corners, because the supply of actual work is so low.

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