161–170 of 344 posts
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I don't think that's actually a fact. I don't know what figures you're using, but eyeballing the Global Social Mobility Index puts the UK as pretty middling in Europe. Less mobile than France or Germany, more so than Italy, Spain, or Poland.
It's below average, and lower than all of Scandinavia, Austria etc. Yes, it beats Southern Europe and ex-communist countries. My source was the Sutton Trust and Oxera.
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> incredibly restrictive rules. Like what? Are you referring to the self-regulation at Grenfell Tower?
It was regulations that made the cladding be installed in the first place, I thought?
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?
The problem is hard! Even if you do build 500k homes a year (2x current) in places people don’t want you to build, it will still take 15 years to catch up, and they might be voted out before then because voters don’t want it.
On a tangent, what is astonishing to me as an outsider is the cultural stagnation. Even in times of economic decline Britain was a cultural powerhouse. Modern music, theater, cinema, tv, literature, sports, etc. were permanently shaped by post-war Britain (especially in Europe). Whatever the cultural norm dictated by the behemoth that is the USA, Britain always had something new, something fresh to give. There's no p…
Four of them, if you include Ringo.
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…
I agree, this is pretty wild and made me immediately look up who was behind this. Conservative think-tanks gotta conservative think-tank.
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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…
> who stands to benefit from government investments in largescale infrastructure projects I'm unsure if there's anyone in the country who wouldn't benefit from that. Hell, you can even wipe "government away", the essay talks at length about re-enabling private infrastructure investment too. And who doesn't like infrastructure investment?
There is unquestionably a large swathe of the UK (in particular the North, North East and most of Wales) which would benefit tremendously from improved infrastructure.
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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?
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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 ?
It's because the experience you get is completely random and heavily weighted towards the fatal. If you show up with something life threatening they're actually pretty good. But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out…
>>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...]
Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar.
Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.
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> Building more housing allows both for more people to afford a (better quality of) primary residence As long as residential homes are a vehicle for investors rather than _living in_ (by the owner) you will have a problem.
Why not enable a dynamic rental sector so people can move around the country to better jobs? Feels mean to trap people.
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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
I can’t think of anywhere else in the developed world where the train system is the slowest form of motorised transport around.