Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the U.K. broke its own economy

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 784 posts

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#31

Post by pipes »

bojan wrote: post #23
pipes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what was the alternative? Continue with the disaster of central planning. Which is the actual thing that destroyed British industry.

I have a lot of issues with the work of Yanis Varoufakis, but he has one idea that I'd like to see tried out - and that is that the workers own 10% of their companies, obviously getting 10% of the profit, etc. At least in Europe it's uncommon to get shares as part of the compensation package, so I'm curious how the Varoufakis' idea would end up working. It's worth giving it a shot.

It doesn't sound like a bad idea. And I really wish the UK was more like the USA with stock options etc

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#32

Post by raoulj »

twoodfin wrote: post #13
sjducb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back to what the western world was doing in the 50’s. High tax and high public spending. In 1950 the US had a top marginal tax rate of 91%. The 50s were great, let’s do that again. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2021/04/26/taxing...

Federal receipts as a % of GDP has gone up and down by a few % but is basically unchanged from the 1950’s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ockN Meanwhile the income tax burden, specifically, has gotten considerably more progressive: https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxe...

Is figure 4's legend correct from the NTU link? It would seem that the grey is the top 1%, not bottom 50%.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#33

Post by nradov »

bojan wrote: post #23
pipes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what was the alternative? Continue with the disaster of central planning. Which is the actual thing that destroyed British industry.

I have a lot of issues with the work of Yanis Varoufakis, but he has one idea that I'd like to see tried out - and that is that the workers own 10% of their companies, obviously getting 10% of the profit, etc. At least in Europe it's uncommon to get shares as part of the compensation package, so I'm curious how the Varoufakis' idea would end up working. It's worth giving it a shot.

I'm not opposed to employee ownership but there's no reason to think that mandating a certain minimum level will produce better outcomes. The equity dilution will increase the cost of capital, making it harder to start or expand businesses. Most workers have virtually zero ability to impact shareholder returns. And low skilled workers really need cash today, not the possibility of dividends or capital gains tomorrow.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#34

Post by robertlagrant »

rawgabbit wrote: post #28
robertlagrant wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the same? You want to raise the price of energy to make wind etc competitive?

Sound bites drives political discussion. When a polluting industry poisons the air and the water and people go to the hospital because they are coughing or they have dysentery, who will pay to cleanup the mess? If you frame the discussion as about “price” it is a non-starter. I would argue it is better to talk about workers and their families. As in let us not shit in the river so our children don’t get sick and can…

This seems disingenuous twice:

1. You're welcome to argue that, but you haven't here. You've just stated it.

2. You shouldn't supplant one topic with another. High energy prices kill people, because energy drives the cost of everything, and people can direct less value into things that keep them healthy if they're spending a greater proportion of their income on survival. You can say "also air should be clean", fine, but not "Don't think about prices! Look over here instead!"

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#35

Post by smackeyacky »

robertlagrant wrote: post #20
_aavaa_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. We need polluting energy sources to be charged for their pollution, ie stop using the atmosphere and land as a free sewer, which in turn will put renewables on an equal footing. Though even without that, solar, wind, and batteries are already cheaper.

Isn't that the same? You want to raise the price of energy to make wind etc competitive?

No, you just need fossil fuel energy to be relatively more expensive, not for energy to be more expensive overall. It's happened already but we're currently being held hostage by the coal burners while they scramble to extract the last bit of rent they can.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#37

Post by EndShell »

bojan wrote: post #22
robertlagrant wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're surely joking. The IMF isn't bailing out the UK, and there aren't 3 day week debates because of the failing power supply. What's led to the death of the Conservative party is them doing exactly the opposite what a lot of Conservative voters want: bigger economy, and slower immigration.

Didn't they get more independence with Brexit? Regarding the immigration, sure, the Conservative voters maybe want less of it, but rich and influential Tories actually like immigration as it allows their businesses to thrive (even more). The UK has more capital going around than her own people.

> Didn't they get more independence with Brexit?

We didn't leave the EHCR. So there is an argument that we don't have full control of our laws. IANAL and won't pretend to know the specifics.

> Regarding the immigration, sure, the Conservative voters maybe want less of it, but rich and influential Tories actually like immigration as it allows their businesses to thrive (even more).

Not just Conservative voters. Almost 1 in 5 Labour and Lib Dem voters want to see it reduced.

https://public.tableau.com/views/Publicopinion2023/FIGURE9?:...

Generally 52% of the UK want to see it immigration reduced in some capacity according to the migration observatory. This was roughly the Vote Leave percentage.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk...

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#38

Post by EndShell »

mattlondon wrote: post #24
bojan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't they get more independence with Brexit? Regarding the immigration, sure, the Conservative voters maybe want less of it, but rich and influential Tories actually like immigration as it allows their businesses to thrive (even more). The UK has more capital going around than her own people.

Legal immigrants from the EU were not the only source of migrants to the UK. Many come from elsewhere, legally and otherwise. Guess what: we have Brexit but we still have immigrants - impossible?! Plus it was never about immigration, it was always - I think - a classic case of misinformation and greed from many places. Sadly many people fell for it.

> Plus it was never about immigration,

It was partly about immigration. According to these surveys 43% of people that voted leave think immigration should be reduced.

https://public.tableau.com/views/Publicopinion2023/FIGURE9?:...

> it was always - I think - a classic case of misinformation and greed from many places. Sadly many people fell for it.

Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a particular political issue they must have fooled somehow? Considering there is data that partially contradicts your belief that it wasn't about immigration, maybe your assessment about their level of understanding of the issues involved is also incorrect.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#39

Post by Tade0 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #34
rawgabbit wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sound bites drives political discussion. When a polluting industry poisons the air and the water and people go to the hospital because they are coughing or they have dysentery, who will pay to cleanup the mess? If you frame the discussion as about “price” it is a non-starter. I would argue it is better to talk about workers and their families. As in let us not shit in the river so our children don’t get sick and can…

This seems disingenuous twice: 1. You're welcome to argue that, but you haven't here. You've just stated it. 2. You shouldn't supplant one topic with another. High energy prices kill people, because energy drives the cost of everything, and people can direct less value into things that keep them healthy if they're spending a greater proportion of their income on survival. You can say "also air should be clean", fine,…

1. Air pollution kills more.

2. You can have your cake and eat it, if you drop the requirement to buy electricity at the price of the most expensive component in the mix. Spain did just that and they're currently experiencing an industrial revival thanks to comparatively low energy prices.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#40

Post by reverendsteveii »

Aromasin wrote: post #12
reverendsteveii wrote: post #4

Everyone who bought into neoliberalism in the 80s is now experiencing economies that are mysteriously failing to thrive. Correlation isn't cause, except when it is.

Turns out Thatcherism only works as long as the state still has assets to sell off. The delusion that assets would stay in the hands of the working and middle class, and not end up with the wealthy inheriting class, has to be one of the biggest political failures of our government on the modern era. It's lead to the possible death of the Conservative Party if they fail to fight off Reform and the Liberal Democrats.

>has to be one of the biggest political failures of our government on the modern era

Thatcher/Reagan neoliberalism only has to be a failure if you assume the goal was to best serve the general population. This is a POSIWID moment.

Post reply on HN