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The gathering crisis in the UK

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Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#11

Post by puchatek »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

"Brexit has delivered some deregulation, though: notably, the Conservative government ditched EU standards on effluent discharges, resulting in the (private) water companies discharging raw sewage into almost every river, and the seas around the UK coastline. So it is no longer safe to swim in UK waters." Holy crap! "the Bank of England are forecasting 13% inflation towards the end of the year." And we thought things…

That cannot possibly be the only thing it delivered. The likes of Farage have been working on this thing for decades. They must be getting a lot more it of it

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#12

Post by actionfromafar »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

"Brexit has delivered some deregulation, though: notably, the Conservative government ditched EU standards on effluent discharges, resulting in the (private) water companies discharging raw sewage into almost every river, and the seas around the UK coastline. So it is no longer safe to swim in UK waters." Holy crap! "the Bank of England are forecasting 13% inflation towards the end of the year." And we thought things…

It's starting from a decent place, but the delta is steep. (I'm not from the UK.)

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#13

Post by paulpauper »

This is why all of these people who are always predicting collapse or crisis keep getting it wrong...the collapse if and when it happens, will not hit the US first...it is other countries instead like the UK, Lebanon, TUrkey, etc. Yes, the US has problems, but we see over and over that elsewhere has worse problems. Even the UK (inflation), Germany (inflation, dependence on Russian nat. gas), Japan (a recent assassination, bad demographics). The US dollar hit yet another high yesterday.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#14

Post by Victerius »

reb wrote: post #4

It’s eerie how similar the issues facing western nations are and how intractable the disagreements over solutions have become. Desperate balkanization coming for many, I think.

Or an opportunity for a powerful figure to take power by force and rule over all.

I'm not for dictatorships, but we already have too many countries in the world. And provinces and states within these countries. Too many little fiefdoms. Too many wannabe lords. Too many presidents, premiers, prime ministers, governors, chancellors, kings, emperors. Too many parliaments, congresses, too many senators, deputies, representatives. Too much division. Hell, we're going to have American, Chinese, and European bases on the Moon and Mars. No wonder we can't tackle collective challenges. We'll be traveling through other galaxies and still call ourselves based on the particular piece of land we were born in on this particular planet called the Earth.

I fully acknowledge that this is a privileged point of view on my part. I am lucky enough to live in an industrialized and peaceful enough country to be able to hold this opinion without having to worry about my basic survival.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#15

Post by actionfromafar »

chroma wrote: post #8

I'd ignore Stross. He's been predicting inflation and famine since Brexit passed.[1] Something about the past decade has broken his brain. Obviously the issues he mentions are worth worrying about, but they're not going to cause the UK or the rest of europe to fall into anarchy. 1. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/10/facts-o...

How quickly do you think such systemic changes are going to play out? And it already did kill people. The covid response was not exactly stellar.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#16

Post by abeppu »

> This is the sort of crisis that brings down nations.

What does "bring down nations" mean though? Replacing a government? Violent overthrow and then writing an actual constitution? Because a bunch of the challenges being faced would still be issues under any regime right? A different government isn't going to magically get more potatoes this year, or significantly more energy from strained European countries this winter.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#18

Post by matthewdgreen »

chroma wrote: post #8

I'd ignore Stross. He's been predicting inflation and famine since Brexit passed.[1] Something about the past decade has broken his brain. Obviously the issues he mentions are worth worrying about, but they're not going to cause the UK or the rest of europe to fall into anarchy. 1. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/10/facts-o...

Brexit didn't really come into force until January 2020, so we're only what, 2.5 years into its implementation now? Seems a little early to be dismissing the dire predictions.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#19

Post by throxaway »

I think when discussing this, it should be recognised that there is ample evidence that Russia has worked last several years to undermine the stability of western democracies. Brexit vote and resulting chaos being one glaring result. I am suggesting that we are just starting to understand the magnitude in which Russia has been able to cause havoc in the west by taking advantage of our freedoms.

Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_...

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#20

Post by rgrieselhuber »

reb wrote: post #4

It’s eerie how similar the issues facing western nations are and how intractable the disagreements over solutions have become. Desperate balkanization coming for many, I think.

I always wonder why balkanization is described as "desperate" or some other extremely bad thing.
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