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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

#151
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about how bad land and energy policies (essentially central planning)—dating from the post-war period—are holding back the British economy. Is that neoliberalism?

In fairness, whilst the article isn't without merit, it's authored by some of the only people in the UK that actually describe themselves as neoliberal. Which is why it's focusing on "green belt" planning policy and ignoring the fact that local government built 150k houses per annum back when we actually built enough houses, something which "neoliberal" policy introduced by Thatcher essentially made impossible, and w…

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

#152
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like em.

They're one of the only pieces of technology that I think often (not always) improve the appearance of a landscape. Maybe also lighthouses. Sometimes.

Lighthouses have only become aesthetic because of their rarity rendering them as quaint or nostalgic. Modern versions and their impacts would be largely protested.

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

#153
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Only idiots think immigration is uncontrolled. Practically all immigration is from government granted visas.

My cousin migrated to UK to work as a nurse because it turns out UK’s hospitals are fucked up. Or, lacking manpower.

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

#154
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like em.

[flagged]

Sure why not?

Maybe it's a geographical/cultural difference, but there are so, so many mountains in the western US. it's a good part of why the game Oregan Trail was made. Before carving roads around and through mountains it was a truly treacherous journey.

US also jury has so much land to begin with. We can certainly afford to retrofit a few mountains without fundamentally disrupting the ecosystem. We're very bad at moderation, sadly.

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

#155
post #146
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

I think the UK had the none-mountainous version of strip mining - open pit mines. I think there aren't any in operation currently, and I'm unsure if they were for coal or just other commodities.

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

#156
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Seriously? UK was the only EU member not part of the Schengen Zone as-in it was the only member you couldn't freely immigrate to. As well as it's an island, nobody hoping a boat from Morocco and landing in London. Pakistani's aren't taking your job. The economy is just stagnating. Post-Pandemic is a huge anomaly [1] but the article is talking about stuff pre-2019. [1]: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-br…

Freedom of Movement applies to all EU members, it isn't restricted to the Schengen Zone.

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

#157

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.

Yes that’s really funny. Im not sure how you can write an article like this and never even mention it once.

Brexit was the most stupid thing a country ever did to itself, and the full effects are just starting to come to the surface now. I dont think the UK will ever fully recover from it.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, leade…

Yeah I argue that's human nature. When you're in danger (or perceived danger) you will make drastic moves to survive. When you're in a good spot, you are less incensed to rush things. And generally, status quo in not-bad times is the majority.

So on a macro level a progressive or simply sympathetic minority has to fight a conservative majority in order to keep pushing for change.

The only solace here is that the you rarely need a majority to enact change. Apparently movements need a critical capacity of 3.5% in order to start this network effect of people joining in due to popularity bias.

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

#159
post #145
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Roger that, heard. Had my blinders on.

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

#160
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have to read the analysis below as well as look at the charts. From the articles I linked

> As a further way of characterising countries, we include a second measure based on the percentage of people saying that immigration ‘makes the country a worse place to live’ On this measure, the UK maintains a similar rank position as one of the more positive countries in the sample, and similar to Switzerland at 18%.

> These two measures can be thought of as capturing opinions on future migration flows and current population stocks. In most of these 13 countries, it appears that people are more negative towards the idea of continuing flows than about the immigrants already present. Finland, for example, is a country where 42% of the public would prefer few/no immigrants of another race coming to live there, whilst, at the same time, just 19% think immigrants make the country a worse place to live.

It is still much better than many other countries in Europe.

> This isn't a small minority and I can guarantee you the distribution of these attitudes isn't equal between leavers and remainers.

Ok sure. I probably shouldn't have said minority. Yeah of course the distribution isn't going to be equal. However people pretend it was all about racism when it clearly wasn't.

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