Earlier quoted context omitted.
What were those prior mistakes?
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You think the relentless replacement of UK services by unhinged sovereign wealth funds is caused by 'uncontrolled immigration'? I'll have to study this more.
How the U.K. broke its own economy
141–150 of 784 posts
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#142A new report, titled “Foundations,” captures the country’s economic malaise in detail. That 'new' report was discussed here 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41600388
The source report is a much better read. The article barely adds anything of value to it, outside of quoting it a dozen times.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I wonder how Napoleon would react to finding out that British voted to impose the continental system on themselves.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. B…
You can, Japan does it and they are considered best in the world. There are at least 10 different train companies in Tokyo, (probably more like 20 but I don't know all the smaller ones). Similarly in Osaka, Kyoto, etc....
> Rail should be a public service.
No, it should be run for profit but the system put in place well designed so serving more customers better means the company does better.
Japan accomplishes this AFAIK, by letting the train companies buy/own/build other things. For example, the Tokyu company that runs some of the trains that come into Shibuya station owns the building Google's Japan office is in. They also own the famous 109 building (10 = to, 9 = kyu). And 10 or 15 other buildings in Shibuya. They run grocery stores at probably 50% of their stations. They also build apartments.
If their line gets sucky people spread the word "don't live on that line, it sucks, it's too crowded and the trains are late" and all their business suffer and people start moving out. So they have an incentive to keep their lines better than the other lines.
They also compete on destinations. For example Shibuya to Yokohama. You can take a Tokyu line and you can also take a JR line. They go slightly different routes but end up at the same place. Similarly if you're in Kyoto and want to go to Osaka. You can take JR, or Hankyu, or Hanshin, 3 separate train companies all of which run multiple lines. You'll see ads for the multiple different competing trains to get you from downtown Tokyo to Narita and Hanada airports.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this is MFJ two similar incomes, then Social security and Medicare is another ~14% (it'll say 7.65% on the tin, but really your wage is lowered to compensate for the 7.65% employer portion, working out to about 14% total). Effective federal income tax on $300k income is 20%+, not including healthcare. State tax is another 8%.. So that's 42%, not including healthcare costs. Which is gonna be easily another 5%+.
State tax is definitely not 8% for many, many states.
That is fair but we are explicitly talking about California here
> if you are an employee and that is direct compensation (not deferred capital gains) then your taxes are lower than California
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol, they used to mine coal under that very mountain (until it was outsourced). It's not like we have some insular life. The region is economically depressed. People would rather have jobs while destroying the environment than not have jobs while destroying the environment and recreational value simultaneously.
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Have they ever used that technique in the UK? I don't think the UK has mountains suitable for mountaintop removal - they are famous for their underground operations.
I've always filed mountaintop removal mining as one of those "weird things Americans do" approaches. Probably associated with unusual geology or something.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Plus it was never about immigration, It was partly about immigration. According to these surveys 43% of people that voted leave think immigration should be reduced. https://public.tableau.com/views/Publicopinion2023/FIGURE9?:... > it was always - I think - a classic case of misinformation and greed from many places. Sadly many people fell for it. Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a…
> Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a particular political issue they must have fooled somehow? politicians sometimes lie…? the £350 million a day bus springs to mind as one example. the amazing trade deals which will unleash our new economy were another. like, those things sound great. people wanted those promises to become real and believed the people who were saying those things co…
> politicians sometimes lie…?
Most people are quite aware that politicians lie. It is a common trope in movies, tv and media generally. Politicians are quite disliked in the UK generally. So this idea that people blindly believe politicians is nonsense.
> A study by King's College London and Ipsos MORI, published in October 2018 found that 42 percent of people who had heard of the £350 million claim still believed it was true, whereas 36 percent thought it was false and 22 per cent were unsure.
So? People frequently cherry pick information to justify their decisions after they have already made them. I actually looked up the actual report (not the wikipedia summary). While much more people generally believe the 350 million figure voted Leave, there was a decent percentage of people that believed the figure and voted Remain.
People seem to forget that a good portion of the Media and Parliament (including the Prime Minister at the time who won with a majority) were in favour of Remain. What is often ignored is that if you look at UKIP voter percentage before the referendum. It had risen from 3.1% to 12.6%. That was rising well before the bus campaign was a thing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
The Leave Referendum was about many things. It was partly about immigration, it was partly about sticking it to an entitled political class, part of it was about sovereignty. Making it about a figure on the side of the bus is asinine. I also don't believe Dominic Cummings on how effective it was btw.
But in any event this will probably be my last comment on anything political on here because you get downvoted for simply defending half the people in my country that voted a particular way.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#148There was plenty of housing before the Thatcherite "right to buy". Pretending it was socialist politics that broke it is moronic.
Exactly. Housing is the big cost of living increase. A perfectly unregulated economy with finite land will drive land prices up to the margin of cultivation (the margin at which one would move to a less desirable piece of land). As population and productivity grows this results in ever higher land rents. In the limit rents will be exactly the edge of what people can pay.
Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol, they used to mine coal under that very mountain (until it was outsourced). It's not like we have some insular life. The region is economically depressed. People would rather have jobs while destroying the environment than not have jobs while destroying the environment and recreational value simultaneously.
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Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy
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