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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#181

Post by sofixa »

steve_gh wrote: post #5

Long essay. TL;DR the UK planning system is too restrictive and is stopping investment. However, some of the comparisons made don't really stack up. Yes. France has a better housing supply, and roughly the same area. But France has over twice the area, and under half the population density, even before you account for the almost uninhabited mountainous areas in Wales, Northern England and Scotland. So our populations…

> Yes. France has a better housing supply, and roughly the same area. But France has over twice the area, and under half the population density, even before you account for the almost uninhabited mountainous areas in Wales, Northern England and Scotland. So our populations are squeezed into smaller areas.

If you compare population density maps of France vs the UK, you can see that it's pretty similar - there are clusters of population in certain locations, and wide areas with barely any inhabitants.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#182

Post by thorin »

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…

There are more 2nd homes in France because rural housing is relatively cheap and there are lots of land. However the way the employment market works in France has screwed the younger people, I think. It's easy to stay in a job once you have one but hard to get started as a younger person. If I had to guess, France, Italy, Spain etc are in way more decline than the UK as a whole and Germany is spending hard to prop up a lot of the EU.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#183

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

throwaway48540 wrote: post #177
nmadden wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is shady about them? Are they criminals?

If you consider tanking the UK economy to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions of pounds, then yes, absolutely.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#184

Post by ninalanyon »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #130
noja wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The thames tunnel costing as much in planning as Norway spent actually building the longest tunnel in the world. Construction projects are so fraught with regulatory burden that most of these costs are going to legal fees. It's not that they're not spending money. It's that public infrastructure is a money pit of legal fees

Building a tunnel through a stable and self supporting granite mountain is a bit different from building one under a river that is on top of a slab of clay and sand so I don't think the two projects are directly comparable.

And the regulations are really not that different here in Norway. What is different is that there is a less adversarial society. We are a little more inclined to thrash out the problems in discussion rather than litigation.

But there are plenty of infrastructure projects here that take longer and cause more disruption than they should. For instance the upgrade to the E18 between Oslo and Drammen on which 17 billion kroner (1.7 billion USD) has already been spent without getting halfway and the southern half of the project has been scrapped because of the cost of buying out the people who live in the way of the new route.

https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/ny-nasjonal-transportplan-...

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#185

Post by thorin »

JCM9 wrote: post #4

The UK was, and to some senses still is, a culture that strongly values who your parents are vs what you’ve personally accomplished. The head of state is the child of the previous head of state. The House of Lords is still a thing. Prestige based on family lineage is considered a big deal. In the US and other parts of Europe it’s very different. People value you a lot more because of what you’ve done vs who you are a…

To a certain extent I agree, however the head of state is only token position (albeit well paid!). It's not very different in the US, the "name" - Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc takes you most of the way there... Trump too I guess!

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#186

Post by pjc50 »

fidotron wrote: post #68

I left the UK almost 20 years ago, and cannot imagine returning for any length of time. My personal take on this is the UK got so used to having an empire, and specifically India, which could absorb more British bureaucrats than the UK could possibly produce. Consequently when Indian independence occurred this massive pipeline of producing people for running colonies had nowhere to go, and a large number moved back t…

I don't think this is about the number of civil servants so much as the attitude of running everything from the Imperial core. Becomes apparent when you ask questions like "now that there is a Scottish Parliament, what exactly does the Scotland Office do?". There's no California Office in the American government, no Jura office in the Swiss government, because those are federal systems with a clear division of power across different levels.

See also terrible attitudes to local government. Part of London's recovery is getting its own governance back after the abolition of the GLC. Ihe Assembly is also slowly imposing sensible ideas like Regent Street pedestrianisation on London's councils. Andy Burnham is doing great as mayor of Manchester.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#187

Post by BoxOfRain »

tpm wrote: post #155

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 Europea…

England your England by George Orwell is essential background reading for understanding why the UK looks the way it does in my opinion.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#188

Post by pjc50 »

sofixa wrote: post #145
machinekob wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is energy independent and is desirable place for middle and higher class specialist. Compared to overtaxed and energy starved England which live from legacy sectors and cheap immigration workers and is not desirable for anyone not working in finances.

> live from legacy sectors Finance is a legacy sector now? > energy starved Importing energy while ramping up your own production with wind and tidal, and importantly, nuclear, is not "starved". Is there a lack of energy in the UK? Blackouts like the ones in Texas?

No blackouts, but it's now very expensive. The system management is quite good but the cost is a serious political issue.

(It's also an oddity that the Conservative government presided over a lot of green transition in the energy sector, but can't take credit for it because of their base)

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#189

Post by openrisk »

> Nor can austerity or the hangover from the financial crisis explain Britain’s malaise. The financial crisis was at least as turbulent in the United States as here.

Yes it can. For the UK the financial sector was a dramatically important one, more so than practically for any other major country. London was the undisputed financial center for whole Europe and beyond, a legacy of Empire days, the pound as reserve currency etc. This had serious distorting effects: Abysmal center-periphery inequalities; the fatal attraction of talented people to lucrative but mostly pointless financial engineering games; the neglect of "bricks and mortar" etc.

The financial crisis and Brexit demolished this fragile, hyperconcentrated economic posture. Not in the sharp and seemingly recoverable fashion that, e.g., COVID damaged the tourism industry of various countries but in a chronic, gentle decline kind of way.

In the long-term one would think that the immense cultural heritage of Britain across pretty much the entire knowledge spectrum would somehow translate into a way forward. But as we increasingly get to know all too well, the problems of modern societies are self-inflicted and they reflect fundamental breakdowns of social contracts. Yes, despite what that British lady said, there is an emergent phenomenon called "society" and if you deny its existence you will get devoured by demons of its own creation.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#190

Post by gramie »

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.

My brother had a hip replacement in Paris this week. He booked the operation two weeks ago. His angiogram (required for the surgery) was performed 3 hours after his consultation with the surgeon. The clinic is considered the best one specializing in joint replacement surgery in all of France.

Total cost for surgery, follow-up, and 3 days in hospital (he lives in a French Overseas Department so he gets reimbursed): 18,000 Euros.

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