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The gathering crisis in the UK

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Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#101

Post by justin66 »

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...

> I'd ignore Stross. He's been predicting inflation and famine since Brexit passed.

Thank God he was wrong about all that, it's hard to imagine what the UK would look like with close to 20% inflation.

Wait...

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#102

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

> are things really that bad there?

UK resident here. I am in a lucky position where the current hardships don't affect me financially. In the short-term, I can ignore the issue and pretend it doesn't exist. I wish it was only a short-term issue.

Long-term however, most of what attracted me to the UK in the first place died with the pandemic. The high street in most places is a shadow of its former self (replaced by money-laundering fronts masquerading as gift/American candy shops), work in tech is stuck in a weird hybrid state where it's neither fully remote nor on-site and is the worst of both worlds, wages haven't kept up with inflation while housing prices have skyrocketed, businesses are struggling and will struggle even more as people don't even have the money to pay their heating/energy bills, let alone for discretionary spending. The NHS is basically a write-off at this point and your only option is to go private.

Taxes on the other hand are still high. Now I don't know anybody who likes paying taxes, but it stings less when you feel like you get your money's worth out of them (in terms of infrastructure or services, such as the NHS) and the tax rate is adequately calibrated. However, the tax brackets have yet to adjust for inflation, so you must earn more (and thus pay more tax) even though your standard of living hasn't actually changed at all. Services that you used to be able to get for "free" (paid by your taxes) such as the NHS are no longer functional, so you must now effectively pay twice and go private instead.

Politically, there doesn't seem to be any urgency to fix the problem either, from any side of the political spectrum. I haven't paid attention to them too much here (I can't vote anyway), but the feeling I got was complete apathy from the ruling class. It always felt like a plane flying on autopilot with nobody at the controls - we happened to luck out for a while and prosper despite that but now we're approaching a mountain and it will be really bad if someone doesn't change course.

I have an EU passport, when my current lease expires I will be moving back to the EU and taking my business with me. At this point I am losing money by staying here, paying huge rents and taxes for sub-par value in return.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#103

Post by rich_sasha »

eisa01 wrote: post #66

This is not limited to the UK Europe has been in an energy war with Russia for the past year, we have a drought affecting hydro power and the French nuclear fleet is just out of service The government action up to now has been almost nothing, basically amounting to announcing a few LNG import projects and updated 2030 targets. Nearly nothing has been done to the demand side nearly six months into this crisis What nee…

Yeah, it's all fairly bad, but then I'm not sure where I would move to.

US seems bonkers in its own way, Germany is buckling under the gas crisis, France... lovely place but i can't understand how it stays afloat. Poland is just about in free fall. Italy and Spain seem (?) perpetually in the grip of a political crisis. Other countries i know less about.

Switzerland? Netherlands? Denmark?

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#104

Post by jacquesm »

Nextgrid wrote: post #102
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…

> are things really that bad there? UK resident here. I am in a lucky position where the current hardships don't affect me financially. In the short-term, I can ignore the issue and pretend it doesn't exist. I wish it was only a short-term issue. Long-term however, most of what attracted me to the UK in the first place died with the pandemic. The high street in most places is a shadow of its former self (replaced by…

> I am in a lucky position where the current hardships don't affect me financially.

Yet. But I'm not sure if that is something that has enough staying power to see you through to the end of this. Inflation is a fickle thing. So are bankruns.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#105

Post by gspetr »

stickfigure wrote: post #51
Victerius wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, represe…

Was this translated from original Russian? Honestly, it really does sound like you're for dictatorships. I think all that diversity - sure, even competing bases on the Moon - is the sign of a healthy society. Monoculture is much more perilous. Centralization gives you NASA, market chaos gives you SpaceX.

I would exercise restraint with extrapolations here.

Countries with lowest homicide rates: Least diverse.

US States with lowest homicide rates: Least diverse.

There are some exceptions, however in general this statement is true when we look at the entire data set.

Market chaos also gives you walled gardens like Google/Apple App stores with outlandish fees and company policies like this one: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/06/eff-urges-apple-abandon...

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#106

Post by pasabagi »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #32
WaxProlix wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something wild going on there, too. Leaked documents have shown how their best chance at real Labour-style governance (Corbyn) was intentionally smeared from within as an antisemite, among other things, in order to torpedo his popularity. Instead, Labour has the hugely ineffectual Tory-esque Keir Starmer now. Feels very much like a managed opposition.

Corbyn seems to have done a fine enough job smearing himself over his long and illustrious career of far-left populism and terrorism apologia. His campaign signed up a lot of fly-by-night party members and was successful in getting him elected party leader, but convincing the general public was far more difficult. (Part of the answer to why Labour has been out of power for 13 years is the Corbyn disaster, it explains…

Eh, they did quite well in 2017 - in fact, the best performance for the Labour party since Blair was under Corbyn[0].

[0]: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#107

Post by Nextgrid »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #57
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…

To answer such questions I always imagine transplanting a random citizen of country 1 to country 2 and vice versa. In other words, I guess you should ask the expats. Having lived in both the UK and the US, I would say that anyone not rich is still much better off in the former because of the free healthcare, better infrastructure, cheaper education, etc. However, in my experience the UK living standards (again, for a…

> is still much better off in the former because of the free healthcare

Is it? The NHS is completely useless since the pandemic for anything non-emergency (can't comment for emergencies). You go private or you go without.

Whether it's still cheaper than US, I don't know - US healthcare is priced to milk out as much cash as possible out of insurance policies, so I'm not sure what the true price is when you negotiate and are paying privately.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#108

Post by dragontamer »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #88
dragontamer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* The 1800s of the USA were marked by a large, government program to invent pocket watches to solve the issue of trains crashing into each other. * There were additional long-term government projects, such as ARPA's Network (aka: the internet). * Strategic supercomputer initiatives as well. * The debate over USA's social security is all measured in the year 2040 or later. People constantly use social security as an e…

Just because you demonstrated some long-term thinking in the future does not mean the US government was not short-sighted in the past. I don't know if it it was or not, but a few counter-points is not proof. I am sure you could find millions of counter-points that the US and the UK are currently long-term thinking (even though I think most of us can agree that isn't the subjective truth).

> I don't know if it it was or not, but a few counter-points is not proof.

Literally no one in politics thinks about purely short term issues actually. I *disagree* with my political opponents, but that's because my vision of the next 30 years is grossly different than their vision of the next 30 years.

-----

This isn't about "counter-examples". This is about you failing to provide even the first example of short-term thinking. What exactly is your "short term" problem that was messed up here?

Brexit, in particular, was never supposed to be a quick-and-easy process. I think it was an idiotic idea, but everyone knew it'd have short-term pain. You can call the UK Brexit crowd stupid perhaps for misreading the future. But they weren't thinking "short term" at all.

I've got criticisms of the Brexit crowd, and that has more to do with xenophobia, europ-phobia, self-centered thinking, etc. etc. But it doesn't actually have to do with "short term vs long term" thinking. If anything at all, the Brexit crowd was very forward looking (just wrong / incorrect about it, if anything, misjudging the short-term effects of Brexit's decision)

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#109

Post by swader999 »

dane-pgp wrote: post #56
swader999 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Create a crisis, provide a solution. Install bought/captured politicians, perhaps a dash of tyranny, CBDC and social credit for all. Total surveillance and enslavement. It doesn't require violence, people will demand these 'solutions' when they are stressed enough. Every tyrannical regime in the past had a constitution. Rendered mute by a uni-party system, captured media and judiciary. Now you can add big tech collus…

> Create a crisis, provide a solution. The problem with that simplistic analysis is that it relies on the unspoken assumption that if it weren't for those sneaky, all-powerful, conniving [members of whichever out-group is being blamed] then the whole world would be peaceful and prosperous and free. Having said that, I absolutely agree with the rest of your comment about what's ahead of us.

Of course it doesn't guarantee we'd be prosperous and free but it does allow a hundred more rolls of the dice that a way might emerge.

Re: The gathering crisis in the UK

#110

Post by Nextgrid »

eisa01 wrote: post #66

This is not limited to the UK Europe has been in an energy war with Russia for the past year, we have a drought affecting hydro power and the French nuclear fleet is just out of service The government action up to now has been almost nothing, basically amounting to announcing a few LNG import projects and updated 2030 targets. Nearly nothing has been done to the demand side nearly six months into this crisis What nee…

> French nuclear fleet is just out of service

Isn't it just temporary due to the heatwave? Thus they'll be able to power them back on as winter hits (which coincides with extra demand for heating)?

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