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How the U.K. broke its own economy

theatlantic.com

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

#111

Post by verall »

rangestransform wrote: post #69
yndoendo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NTU only goes back to the 1980s and does not actually include any analysis of the 1950s. Looks like NTU also is positing their stance on the ideology that the 1% are the only ones that create jobs but they are the ones to most likely invest in large corporations. There seems no prospect to help the mom and pop shops or small companies that have stronger solutions beyond what large corporate tunnel vision provides…

The majority definitely benefits from being able to buy cheap Chinese goods and go on cheap Europe trips while $BIGCOMPANY vacuums up money from the rest of the world to prop up the USD. In which other country can a guy cutting hair (out of many examples) afford so many international vacations?

> In which other country can a guy cutting hair (out of many examples) afford so many international vacations?

In Europe? They can just take a train. Young people backpack all over Europe on shoestring budgets.

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

#112

Post by rounce »

kmeisthax wrote: post #92
patrickdavey wrote: post #81

Fascinatng that `brexit` isn't mentioned once in that article. Making trading harder with your closest neighbour can't be a great move for the economy.

Brexit is a symptom, not the cause. The people who were most screwed by Britain's prior mistakes voted for it in a vain attempt at fixing the problem by throwing misguided nostalgia at it.

What were those prior mistakes?

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

#113

Post by typewithrhythm »

vkou wrote: post #100
typewithrhythm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is there is currently no mechanism for end consumers to moderate their behaviour based on energy related emissions. Currently if users as a group demand more power than clean can provide, dirty gets turned on and everyone pays the highest cost. We need a way for a consumer to be able to commit to only clean power, potentially at a lower cost but with limited supply.

Do you not get charged different rates based on usage amounts? This is common across the world - where the first X KWH of usage per month cost a lot less than the next X.

Commercial contracts generally don't work that way, they generally pay the market rate (the current most expensive producer).

It means there is no way for an individual consumers behaviour to drive (or be driven by) the green energy proportion, as if the collective demand is too high then you pay the market rate for coal anyway.

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

#114

Post by giantg2 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #80

The last government intentionally banned the cheapest source of energy, onshore wind, from being built in England, by making it so that a single complaint could stop a project. I cannot believe this article talks about planning constraints and energy prices and doesn't mention that.

I hate the large scale turbines. I'm sure small scale or other designs are OK. But screw the large turbines. Where I grew up they outsourced the jobs and then we were left with ugly giants ruining the once beautiful mountains. It's on par with strip mining (aesthetically).

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

#115

Post by cr__ »

giantg2 wrote: post #114
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #80

The last government intentionally banned the cheapest source of energy, onshore wind, from being built in England, by making it so that a single complaint could stop a project. I cannot believe this article talks about planning constraints and energy prices and doesn't mention that.

I hate the large scale turbines. I'm sure small scale or other designs are OK. But screw the large turbines. Where I grew up they outsourced the jobs and then we were left with ugly giants ruining the once beautiful mountains. It's on par with strip mining (aesthetically).

I like em.

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

#116

Post by nikkwong »

kmeisthax wrote: post #92
patrickdavey wrote: post #81

Fascinatng that `brexit` isn't mentioned once in that article. Making trading harder with your closest neighbour can't be a great move for the economy.

Brexit is a symptom, not the cause. The people who were most screwed by Britain's prior mistakes voted for it in a vain attempt at fixing the problem by throwing misguided nostalgia at it.

The British economy was doing quite well before Brexit. Now it's absolutely crippled.

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

#117

Post by thrance »

dmix wrote: post #86
PaulRobinson wrote: post #64

The 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…

I googled the transportation privatization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail So the UK rail network was privatized in the 1990s with tracks and stations remaining under government control and private companies bid for a 'franchise' running train services for whole regions. So basically franchises operate as regional monopolies and meaning passengers don't have any real choice of providers? T…

You can't have competing companies on rails. Each companies having their own networks would be prohibitively expensive, or they have to share rails between each other which poses significant issues.

You're also left with the issue of unprofitable stations, which is a lot of them.

If you want an example of what a really privatized, deregulated rail system would look like, read about France in the early 20th century. By the 30s, shareholders were begging the state to nationalize their money-burning companies. And it did.

Rail should be a public service. As one, its benefits to society are immense.

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

#118

Post by xyzzy123 »

Sabinus wrote: post #108
monkeycantype wrote: post #97

I 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?

Not the OP but look at the difference between what governments can do when there is a sense of urgency (i.e it is wartime or one is in recent memory) vs what they do when it's not.

My lizard brain interprets this in the following way: Elites in response to external competition or in the presence of existential threat experience strong incentives to make "real" progress.

When there's little external competition, leadership are more concerned with maintaining or slightly enhancing their relative status within existing power structures and this leads to stasis as their interest is mainly blocking or slowing any disruption which could change the balance of power.

Projects often fail because the forces of "keep things the same" beat the team that wanted the change to happen.

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

#119

Post by lurk2 »

EndShell wrote: post #99
lurk2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disingenuous to pretend Brexit wasn't at least partially motivated by in-group preference. Almost as disingenuous as implying that there's anything wrong with having said preference. I don't open up my house to people I don't know regardless of their potential to contribute to it economically. Why is this treated as immoral when the same reasoning is applied to the immigration system?

I am not pretending anything. I've showed some actual evidence to back to back up my view point. Moreover, time after time the British public are surveyed about their views on immigration and ethnic background is not something that is important to a large portion of the people taking part. Are there some people that do care? Sure there are, but they are very small minority typically.

> Sure there are, but they are very small minority typically.

From your own data, 25% of respondents agreed with the statement: Allow none/only a few immigrants of a different race/ethnicity to come and live in [the UK]. This isn't a small minority and I can guarantee you the distribution of these attitudes isn't equal between leavers and remainers.

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

#120

Post by Marsymars »

vkou wrote: post #98
aftbit wrote: post #5

Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?

No, if you want to have a stable standard of living, you need higher energy prices for polluting energy sources, and lower energy prices for non-polluting energy sources. Then, to make killing this political suicide, make sure to mail every man, woman, and dog a check every two weeks called 'CARBON DIVIDEND'.

> Then, to make killing this political suicide, make sure to mail every man, woman, and dog a check every two weeks called 'CARBON DIVIDEND'.

We effectively did this in Canada and it still became a political albatross.

(Though in practice the cheque was done via direct deposit and a lot of people didn't realize where the money was coming from despite it being clearly labelled. I think cheques in the mail would have been more effective.)

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