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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#301

Post by defrost »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #299
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the current administration interfered with it for petty political reasons I'm not entirely sure that doubts about handing fistfuls of cash to a corporation headed by an increasingly politically extreme CEO whose 2nd generation satellites are leaking so much radio energy that radio astronomy in that band of the spectrum looks doomed is "petty".

The persecution of Elon Musk is entirely political, and he is not "extreme" just for disagreeing with the entire media/corporate/state establishment and supporting basic human rights like freedom of expression as enshrined in the FIRST Amendment of the US Constitution. The persecution has nothing to do with the costs or merits of his products, which vary but are generally the best in class or very competitive. He was…

> I'm sure whatever minor inconvenience comes to those scientists can be fixed somehow.

\1. It's not a "minor inconvenience" at all.

\2. Problem started with Starlink 1.0. The fix was Musk promising better shielding and attention to leaks in Version 2.0 and to turn off Starllink sats over Murchison Radio Quiet Area etc.

\3. Starlink V2.0 has 30x more noise (Musk lied | didn't deliver) and remains noisy over quiet areas (Musk lied | didn't deliver).

> The persecution of Elon Musk is entirely political

It's more due to Musk lying and not delivering.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#302

Post by [deleted] »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #299
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the current administration interfered with it for petty political reasons I'm not entirely sure that doubts about handing fistfuls of cash to a corporation headed by an increasingly politically extreme CEO whose 2nd generation satellites are leaking so much radio energy that radio astronomy in that band of the spectrum looks doomed is "petty".

The persecution of Elon Musk is entirely political, and he is not "extreme" just for disagreeing with the entire media/corporate/state establishment and supporting basic human rights like freedom of expression as enshrined in the FIRST Amendment of the US Constitution. The persecution has nothing to do with the costs or merits of his products, which vary but are generally the best in class or very competitive. He was…

[deleted]

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#303

Post by nmadden »

mike_hearn wrote: post #271
grumpy_coder wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are referring to the liz truss budget.

What happened wasn't primarily due to her budget. It was due to a meltdown in the pension sector triggered by over-leverage, arguably caused by the BoE not doing its regulatory duties correctly. Don't get me wrong, a budget that cuts taxes without cutting spending is no good. But the idea that what happened was a direct consequence of that doesn't make much sense as it had been telegraphed a long way in advance, givi…

Pull the other one. Only some of the tax cuts had been telegraphed in advance. Abolishing the top rate of income tax and cutting the basic rate early hadn’t been. They ignored all the warnings they were given and sidelined the OBR. The Truss/Kwarteng budget directly crashed the economy and trying to pretend otherwise is some serious revisionism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63229204

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#304

Post by wakawaka28 »

defrost wrote: post #301
wakawaka28 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The persecution of Elon Musk is entirely political, and he is not "extreme" just for disagreeing with the entire media/corporate/state establishment and supporting basic human rights like freedom of expression as enshrined in the FIRST Amendment of the US Constitution. The persecution has nothing to do with the costs or merits of his products, which vary but are generally the best in class or very competitive. He was…

> I'm sure whatever minor inconvenience comes to those scientists can be fixed somehow. \1. It's not a "minor inconvenience" at all. \2. Problem started with Starlink 1.0. The fix was Musk promising better shielding and attention to leaks in Version 2.0 and to turn off Starllink sats over Murchison Radio Quiet Area etc. \3. Starlink V2.0 has 30x more noise (Musk lied | didn't deliver) and remains noisy over quiet are…

>It's not a "minor inconvenience" at all.

What's your solution? This kind of satellite system is going to get built and improved over time regardless of what you think of it.

>It's more due to Musk lying and not delivering.

No, it's not. I think you know it too. Biden and a bunch of EU politicians have literally threatened Elon over Twitter, as recently as last month. Everyone was cool with his hype game until they cashed out and/or discovered that Elon has the views of a liberal from about 2010.

Let's look at Elon's accomplishments objectively. He oversaw a new and inexpensive reusable rocket program, cutting-edge electric cars which libs begged for, solar systems for houses, and satellite internet. Not to mention his original online payment system in the early days. All of those projects are very competitive and widely used. Did he promise more? Sure, he did. But he also delivered more than any of the naysayers. I have some sympathy for a man trying to do what was considered impossible, like developing autonomous taxis.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#305

Post by hilbert42 »

arunix wrote: post #233
hilbert42 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems you didn't read the story.

It doesn't tell me your reasons or where you moved to. (And it ends on a positive note)

1. A clue: our mob comes from above 55N. 2. I haven't time to write the book. 3. I see no reason to have that info indexed by the web.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#306

Post by wakawaka28 »

defrost wrote: post #300
wakawaka28 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything costs more in the US except for imported stuff. It's not because of corporate greed. It's because labor costs so much here, primarily. >The problem with the NHS is due to the amount of budget cuts from the Tory government. I don't know all about UK politics but I know that the current social programs and government spending are unaffordable. The US and other Western countries can't afford it either. The pr…

The UK ran the NHS as a high quality first tier health service for 50 years or more, during times when the UK was still making debt repayments to the US to cover costs from WWII. Once Thatcherite neoliberalism (specifically: market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state inf…

"Free trade" globalism aka outsourcing everything is indeed self-destructive. Liberals are just as much to blame as conservatives when it comes to not protecting our national interests. They can say whatever works, but if they get out of line with the globalist establishment then they are systematically pushed out by big money interests.

At this point, cutting spending is the right move in general. But that isn't going to happen because it's too unpopular. And whether we do cut spending or not, hard times are ahead.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#307

Post by hnlmorg »

SpecialistK wrote: post #295
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US southwest, it's not the distance, it's the very small numbers of people who are moving around that is the problem.

Not to mention the other issue: even if it's easy to get into another city via rail, how do you get from the train station to your final destination? Very few cities have public transit anywhere close to NYC's. Of course flying has the same issue, but the airport has a car rental desk. Or avoid that entirely by driving your own car.

This is another part of infrastructure Europe generally does better: inner city public transport.

There are some European cities that are still car dominated, however quiet a few are easier to navigate via public transport and some have even gone as far as entirely banning private cars from the city centre.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#308

Post by sph »

nmadden wrote: post #158
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.

Of course, the second most upvoted comment is an ad personam dismissal that doesn't even engage with its arguments. How's that for HN-level intelligent discourse?

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#309

Post by willtemperley »

dzonga wrote: post #234

why was this flagged ? there is no poor energy rich country. with the U.K having expensive energy it means they're slowly becoming a poor country. it already feels poor as it is. But this will accelerate the rate

Presumably because Americans like that Britain is declining but don’t want people to figure out why

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#310

Post by mike_hearn »

nmadden wrote: post #303
mike_hearn wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened wasn't primarily due to her budget. It was due to a meltdown in the pension sector triggered by over-leverage, arguably caused by the BoE not doing its regulatory duties correctly. Don't get me wrong, a budget that cuts taxes without cutting spending is no good. But the idea that what happened was a direct consequence of that doesn't make much sense as it had been telegraphed a long way in advance, givi…

Pull the other one. Only some of the tax cuts had been telegraphed in advance. Abolishing the top rate of income tax and cutting the basic rate early hadn’t been. They ignored all the warnings they were given and sidelined the OBR. The Truss/Kwarteng budget directly crashed the economy and trying to pretend otherwise is some serious revisionism. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63229204

You're arguing with the conclusions of the official investigation, not me.
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