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Why Northern England is poor

tomforth.co.uk

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Re: Why Northern England is poor

#51

Post by hackandthink »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #23
tetris11 wrote: post #3

We also shifted largely into a service based economy, shutdown a lot of mines and mills (for better or for worse) which were primarily more north based. More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight into banking, as there was no relevant industry to pick them up... and as someone with several postdoctoral degrees, yet no house or meaningful assets... who could blame them for going into banking in this…

>More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight into banking How does one get hired into banking with a physics degree? For what kinds of jobs? Where I live right now you only get into banking with a economics/business degree. Anything else and your resume goes in the bin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analysis_(finance...

My experience: even when it comes to only implementing financial products, banks prefer mathematicians/physicists as software developers.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#53

Post by EarlKing »

nine_k wrote: post #48
EarlKing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a consequence of companies outsourcing to countries where they can get away with slave labor and a complete lack of environmental regulation. There's nothing natural about it.

OK, let it be not outsourcing to places with lower cost of labor, but to machines. There are whole factories that are operated by half-dozen people who mostly oversee its interaction with other human-run systems, such as trucks. It will still keep most population away from industrial production. Same thing happened is agriculture a century ago, when machines made 90% of agricultural workers redundant, and huge farms…

OK, sounds good... hey, you're going to pay taxes on those machines, right? Because no business operates in a vacuum. Gotta pay for that military, police, and fire that allow you to continue operating. Think of it as the labor element of the manufacturing sector shifting to the defense sector. It's natural. :D

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#54

Post by tomatocracy »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #23
tetris11 wrote: post #3

We also shifted largely into a service based economy, shutdown a lot of mines and mills (for better or for worse) which were primarily more north based. More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight into banking, as there was no relevant industry to pick them up... and as someone with several postdoctoral degrees, yet no house or meaningful assets... who could blame them for going into banking in this…

>More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight into banking How does one get hired into banking with a physics degree? For what kinds of jobs? Where I live right now you only get into banking with a economics/business degree. Anything else and your resume goes in the bin.

I haven't been in banking for a while (I'm on the investment side of finance now) but I have been in finance for 20 years now. I'd say that at least in London, my experience is that a majority have degrees which weren't economics/business - sciences and (general) engineering degrees are very common, and maths and comp sci aren't uncommon.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#55

Post by ceuk »

jdietrich wrote: post #26

I think there's a fundamental gap in this analysis, which is how hyper-local many of the inequalities are. Manchester has a GDP per capita of £59,000. Tameside, the poorest area in Greater Manchester, has a GDP per capita of £19,000. Leeds has a GDP per capita of £42k; ten miles away, Bradford has a GDP per capita of £23.6k. Those disparities are really difficult to explain in terms of infrastructure or commercial in…

100%

I live down the road from OP in Harrogate and it's an incredibly desirable and affluent place

Also while I'm commenting. I know OP isn't saying the North is shit. Just poor(ish).

Nevertheless I just want to say I love the north of England and genuinely think it's one of the best places in the world. We've already established that I'm in one of the better areas so my perspective might be a little skewed, but I honestly think it's an incredible place and I hope this doesn't put people off visiting.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#56

Post by nine_k »

nickff wrote: post #2

Interesting perspective, but it really seems like state capitals just tend to siphon money from far away to invest nearby, and consequently, grow. Selecting a major city as your capital seems to accelerate the process, but even countries which select minor towns as their capitals have had this happen.

The US somehow avoids this, likely by putting state capitals and the national capital into smaller cities. Hence NYC, SF, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, etc are all big urban agglomerations, but are not the points that concentrate everything important in their respective areas.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#57

Post by taffer »

casenmgreen wrote: post #13
James_K wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process is quite simple and fairly obvious. Government policy is the bedrock of all economic development. Government officials will always have the most knowledge about the capital, so all policy is tailored to it. It's no surprise that they don't make policies that benefit the North given that they don't live there.

Berlin is not like this, though. If Berlin were removed from the map, Germany as a whole would economically (loss of people, loss of income) be on average better off. If this is the mechanism, why is Berlin not doing better?

Germany is the only Western European country with an Eastern European capital. As a result, Berlin was poorer than the rest of the country, but this is no longer the case. Since reunification, Berlin has had the fastest growing economy in Germany and is now close to Hesse in terms of GDP per capita.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#58

Post by dambi0 »

matt-p wrote: post #20
James_K wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process is quite simple and fairly obvious. Government policy is the bedrock of all economic development. Government officials will always have the most knowledge about the capital, so all policy is tailored to it. It's no surprise that they don't make policies that benefit the North given that they don't live there.

What policy would benefit the north, without (even further) subsidising it? If we could invest £10Bn and get £20Bn back for the economy with our money back over time then not a single politician would turn that down, there's actually been a load of support over the past ~5+ years for "levelling up" (AKA investment in the north) but we've not invested much because the returns are abysmal. Meanwhile there's a whole sta…

Interesting. If we look at the idea of subsides between region, and we accept that this the right way of thinking about it and assume it's factual and that simple. Then I think one of the questions worth asking is effectively do we want to try reduce that inequality or do we want to perpetuate it. Neither is obviously right or wrong, but I think that's the core question. If we are believe to the idea in the article then we can see a reasonable case that the disparity between the regions has been, if not deliberate, than an obvious outcome of previous policy. Which makes the argument that we shouldn't invest in the regions requiring subsidy circular.

There are investments beyond transport that we could make. Not all investments generate or should be judged against short-term returns. That a 1B tram system in Leeds may be less than effective does not mean we shouldn't invest at all. I don't see why we need an insane bet rather than a programme of improvement across the board.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#59

Post by jwiz »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #33
jakey_bakey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stem degrees are pretty high rated

That's a vague answer that doesn't answer my specific question. I also have a STEM degree (electrical engineering) but would never be considered for finance roles.

Physics math has high overlap with Finance math.
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