211–220 of 297 posts
[dead]
Protectionism is failing to revive manufacturing Yes. The rare earths situation is embarrassing. This has been a political football for years now, but the efforts to fix it aren't working very well. First, you need a mine site and a mine. The US has a big one at Mountain Pass, California, and it's producing. But in the past twenty years, it's gone bankrupt twice and has been through three owners, because there were a…
The chart they put doesn't prove a point since the difference between today and the last elections in the US can't be appreciated (aside from the fact that in the entire period the drop is caused by automation too). Additionally you have to account for the time it takes to move production from a country to another. This is not to say that just setting random tariffs to punish other countries is an effective strategy,…
Do not mistake economic indicators such as GDP or "growth" for meaningful measures of economic health.
GDP per person should be the measure. The UK managed to make GDP go up while making GDP per person go down.
GDP also ignores volunteer work and other non market transactions, completely dismisses externalities for health and the environment, and also has no indication of the distribution of said wealth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's about 25% of UK government spending. 33% if you include pensions. The UK does have an issue with a lowering number of people in productive work and ever more on various kinds of disability payout, it's true, but this - > You need to let people fail. Doesn't really follow.
As per the UK government for 2026-2027 9.2 Chart D.2: Public sector spending 2026-27: Social protection - 400 b personal social services - 54b health - 294b Education - 145b industry agriculture and employment - 51b housing and environment - 51 billion That accounts for roughly 70% of public sector spending, not 33%. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2025-docum...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK at least the biggest portion of welfare goes to the state pension. It’s hard to deal with that when people have been paying into the system for their whole working lives on the promise that they will be looked after in old age. It’s hard to see how you can fix this whilst pensioners continue to vote whilst young people don’t.
>It’s hard to deal with that when people have been paying into the system for their whole working lives on the promise that they will be looked after in old age. They weren't paying "into the system". They were being taxed. Treat it for what it was, and stop feeding the pyramid scheme.
It might have been better not to make that promise but you can’t blame people for accepting it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As per the UK government for 2026-2027 9.2 Chart D.2: Public sector spending 2026-27: Social protection - 400 b personal social services - 54b health - 294b Education - 145b industry agriculture and employment - 51b housing and environment - 51 billion That accounts for roughly 70% of public sector spending, not 33%. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2025-docum...
If education is welfare then so is everything. Defence is welfare becuase before you might have to hire private security. Police and fire serviecs are welfare because they used to be private. etc....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDP per person should be the measure. The UK managed to make GDP go up while making GDP per person go down.
GDP per capita has basically all the same problems.
Likewise for the bottom of the list it's an emphatic No.
Is it a completely accurate indicator? Probably not. Is it directionally accurate? Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDP per person should be the measure. The UK managed to make GDP go up while making GDP per person go down.
GDP is not useful to measure how good an economy works. The core problem of GDP is that it does not account for usefulness of spending. GDP also ignores volunteer work and other non market transactions, completely dismisses externalities for health and the environment, and also has no indication of the distribution of said wealth.
Granted it might not be fine grained enough to distinguish between Number 4 and Number 5 on the list.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it’s not perfect but probably the best we have. People forgot or simply don’t realize how much worse life was just a couple of decades ago (in terms of nutrition, access to knowledge, clean water, material wealth).
The question is where. Couple decades ago rent in Munich was like 3x lower. While salaries were insignificantly lower with overall lower living cost. Couple decades ago Germany had electronics industry. Now it’s gone. More industries are following. Couple decades ago there were rather isolated Yugoslav Wars. Now it’s introduction into WW3 with active war in Ukraine and hybrid attacks everywhere in Europe. It depends…