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.
To some people, everything is still Thatcher's fault, 40 years later.
How the U.K. broke its own economy
101–110 of 784 posts
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#102Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?
It's higher energy prices yes, but that means higher everything prices. Even if your energy tariff is a 100% renewable one you still pay the dirty gas price because of the way the market is set up. Combine that with high costs of housing (both to purchase but also to rent) and people are, generally speaking, fucked and living paycheck to paycheck. Renters especially live a precarious life where prices regularly go up…
That's a system that benefits mega-corporations running everything. Housing/cost of living is so expensive it cripples most upward mobility as regular people can't take risks investing/starting a business/switching careers/etc or have savings because they can barely afford rent. The only ones building/buying houses are real estate investors who can afford to navigate the complex market rules, so you'll be stuck working for one and renting from another.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#103Earlier 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.
> 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…
The ECHR is an international agreement like many, many others. It has special status in UK law only because we chose to: that was the purpose of the Human Rights Act. You can also take complaints of breach to the European Court of Human Rights, but they have no enforcement powers (in particular, Russia often decided not to bother complying, and we've avoided enforcing their ruling on prisoner voting rights with their tacit consent).
It used to be the case that we were also tied into the ECHR (and playing nice with the rulings of the ECtHR) because it's required by EU law even though it's not an EU instrument and the ECtHR isn't an EU court. But as we've left that's no longer an issue.
Finally, I'd just say that there's little objectionable about the Convention, and for the most part it tracks very closely with existing British common law (not surprisingly, as it was a Churchill-supported project in the first place and intended to export what was great about the British tradition of liberty as much as to bind us into Europe). There are a few edge cases where politicians and certain newspapers get into enormous flaps about individual cases, but it's really not that constraining a convention: most of the clauses have get-outs for crime, morality and public order and the margin of appreciation is generally quite broad. It's not perfect any more than, say, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, but the complaints are mostly grandstanding.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#104The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that were the case, public transport (which underwent radical privatisation and deregulation across the UK some 40+ years ago), would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe. In fact, it's the most expensive in Europe. It is all currently being wrestled back into…
> ...the Thatcher government in the 1980s gave social housing tenants the right to buy homes, and created laws that prevented local authorities from building new public sector housing projects...
Also, with a large discount, so even if new social housing could be built, there wouldn't be the funds to build them. It is effectively a large wealth transfer from the taxpayer to those needing subsidised homes, such that they could later resell that home to release their windfall, sucking the money that could have gone to housing others.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#105Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?
Only high oil and gas prices specifically. And honestly, low gas prices is good if it helps move away from coal. But unfortunately, even the most liberal political groups have walked back any interest in solving climate change at the margin. You see this with the endless life of the "100 companies cause climate change" misinformation.
China now emits almost 2x the carbon per capita than the UK, and alone emits more than all western countries combined including the US. The UK can't solve climate change at the margin or anywhere else with domestic energy policy.
China is now consuming record amounts of coal (the globe has not actually even reached peak-coal yet despite claims we'd already passed it going back decades and despite western coal consumption taking a nosedive starting about 20 years ago). Which is strange considering that it has also been an enormous producer and exporter of allegedly much cheaper solar and wind generators for many years.
Something doesn't add up here, and further disadvantaging much cleaner domestic industry and driving production offshore to countries with far higher emissions intensity of production (not to mention many other environmental and humanitraian issues) is not the way to solve climate change. It could be making it even worse.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#10660 years of tories and tory-lites slowly but surely cutting "waste", privatizing, deregulating, pushing for austerity...
Let that be a lesson to the US, seeking government efficiency is a non-goal. Good, well-funded public services make productive citizens and a strong economy. Austerity leads to a dead country.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#107funny to read this on the day that Trump announces tariffs for... (reasons?)
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#108I want to see more discussion from the perspective that the economy and government is not just a process, an institution, but a contest, an arena. Outcomes which are presented as a failure, are not merely a failure, but like a punch in a boxing match that misses its mark, occurs in a wider context, and against deliberate opposition. A failed project might be a failure for most, but for opponents it may be a victory,…
Are you referring to the libertarians who like to see government fail so they have a reason to dismantle it?
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#109The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that were the case, public transport (which underwent radical privatisation and deregulation across the UK some 40+ years ago), would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe. In fact, it's the most expensive in Europe. It is all currently being wrestled back into…
Careful now, free market absolutism is almost a religion around these parts.
Our societies becoming increasingly more unequal and less functional coincides almost exactly with Raegan's and Thatcher's mandates. Austerity, privatization and deregulation are directly leading us into Gilded Age levels of inequality. And you shouldn't want that, unless you're like in the top 0.01%.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though? No. What you need to combat climate change is cheap green energy, and "green" is just a different question entirely to "cost". If you have expensive energy, regardless of how green it is or isn't, you get poverty. If you have greenhouse-gas-emitting energy, regardless of how cheap or expensive it is, you get climate change. 20 years a…
> now, green energy is the cheapest great to notice, but the overview falls short.. price signals are supposed to trigger conservation yet somehow, that is not discussed. Also note that energy markets have lifecycles.. it takes investment and infrastructure to make and deliver energy. Fossil fuels have done that in the past.
> signals are supposed to trigger conservation yet somehow, that is not discussed
Energy conservation has been discussed my entire life.
When I was a kid, it was things like double glazing, close windows, wear pullovers indoors, turn off lights when you leave a room, CFLs.
Late teen to young adult, increased loft insulation, cavity wall insulation. Energy efficiency standards for consumer goods. Cars getting taxed based on emissions.
More recently, a campaign group literally called "Insulate Britain": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulate_Britain_protests
> Fossil fuels have one that in the past
At first, but the last coal plant has been closed, and renewables are ascendent — just past midnight UK time and still 28.5% renewables, average for last week 33.6%, and for last year 36.8%: https://grid.iamkate.com/