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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

ukfoundations.co

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#211

Post by chaostheory »

pjc50 wrote: post #186
fidotron wrote: post #68

I left the UK almost 20 years ago, and cannot imagine returning for any length of time. My personal take on this is the UK got so used to having an empire, and specifically India, which could absorb more British bureaucrats than the UK could possibly produce. Consequently when Indian independence occurred this massive pipeline of producing people for running colonies had nowhere to go, and a large number moved back t…

I don't think this is about the number of civil servants so much as the attitude of running everything from the Imperial core. Becomes apparent when you ask questions like "now that there is a Scottish Parliament, what exactly does the Scotland Office do?". There's no California Office in the American government, no Jura office in the Swiss government, because those are federal systems with a clear division of power…

The power dynamic is apparent when you have to refer to provinces as “countries”.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#212

Post by ajross »

thedrbrian wrote: post #210
ajross wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is spun nonsense. The problem with the UK right now is brexit. You can see it on a GDP graph: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/GBR/uni... It's growing steadily through the 60's-2000's, has a notable dip[1] at the 2008 financial crisis, then starts growing again until just about 2015. And it's been flat since. The UK had found a profitable niche as the transatlantic hub of finance and…

>The UK had found a profitable niche as the transatlantic hub of finance and commerce, and threw it out the window in a fit of nativist pique over the wrong languages being spoken on street corners. But we’ve imported millions of people that speak different languages since 2015 , why hasn’t line gone up?

I think this is sarcasm, but just to spell it out: this is a causation/correlation fallacy. Immigration is a result of global trade, not its cause. Brexit killed the trade part without actually doing anything about immigration policy.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#213

Post by dukeyukey »

ninalanyon wrote: post #192
dukeyukey wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's manufacturing sector is comparable to France's in size.

But at ground level it seems to get less done, less well. Just look at the dreadful state of repair of the average British town compared to comparable French towns.

Housing state of repair and a country's manufacturing sector aren't much to do with each other. Like, at all.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#214

Post by foobarian »

ignoramous wrote: post #132
nine_k wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a huge internal market, with free interstate trade and no need for localization. The US has accumulated colossal scientific and R&D resources, which regularly produce industrial breakthroughs. Lower taxes help, too. (Lower taxes is what a country can afford for general benefit, not a sloppy pro-rich policy.) But most importantly, USD is effectively the world's reserve currency, so the US can literally prin…

Another factor is that Quantitative Easing (QE) kind of works for the US, but not for the UK: https://youtube.com/watch?v=goA9kkaDfTE / https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/goA9kkaDfTE

That's a consequence of being world's reserve currency

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#215

Post by dambi0 »

The article is fairly misleading. Despite claims to the contrary the list of facts is nothing more than "disconnected observations". They lack any serious context or nuance. For every single one it's possible to ask whether the observation is a fair comparison or something that should be the case. Take the number of second homes relative to France. Is more second homes a good thing? Take electricity production, might we not argue that the UK uses energy more efficiently rather than lagging what other countries generate?

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#216

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

avianlyric wrote: post #160
noja wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incredibly restrictive rules. Like what? Are you referring to the self-regulation at Grenfell Tower?

It’s not so much restrictive rules, as it is a planning system that prioritises local concerns, regardless of how minor, or incorrect, over any kind of national priority. Our planning system is literally designed to maximally empower NIMBYism. There are no well defined planning rules, or zoning, or planning process. Every council develops their own planning policy, and broadly has the power to block any project. The…

While not denying in any way that this sort of thing is a real problem, I think you're overstating differences between the UK and "the rest of the world".

Although zoning in the USA does work to a degree as you say ("must be approved if you ..."), in reality lots of projects that seem as if they ought to be a sure thing for approval face years of process-based objections from local groups, leading to them never being built at all, or having to be significantly revised due to changes demanded or created by circumstances shifting.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#218

Post by physicsguy »

ninalanyon wrote: post #184
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thames tunnel costing as much in planning as Norway spent actually building the longest tunnel in the world. Construction projects are so fraught with regulatory burden that most of these costs are going to legal fees. It's not that they're not spending money. It's that public infrastructure is a money pit of legal fees

Building a tunnel through a stable and self supporting granite mountain is a bit different from building one under a river that is on top of a slab of clay and sand so I don't think the two projects are directly comparable. And the regulations are really not that different here in Norway. What is different is that there is a less adversarial society. We are a little more inclined to thrash out the problems in discuss…

The main issue in the UK is the ridiculous circle of environmental impact assessments, and statutory consultees.

The list of organisations that can by law be required to be consulted on any development is insane: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/consultation-and-pre-decision-ma...

Environental impact assessments now run to millions of pages. Every big infra planning application tries to anticipate any possible complaint, and the whole cost balloons.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#219

Post by Symmetry »

noja wrote: post #73
barry-cotter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French are richer than the British. They have more stuff and a higher quality of life. It would be good for more British people to have more stuff and a higher quality of life. Building more housing allows both for more people to afford a (better quality of) primary residence, and for more people to have a holiday home. Those are all good. Focussing on utilisation is Green Party, NIMBY, degrowth, pro-poverty thin…

> Building more housing allows both for more people to afford a (better quality of) primary residence As long as residential homes are a vehicle for investors rather than _living in_ (by the owner) you will have a problem.

We should build more housing so that homes aren't such good investments that people are tempted to do this.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#220

Post by physicsguy »

lithos wrote: post #58
langsoul-com wrote: post #23

How can there be a 360, 000 page document to build something. That number seems so outrageously high. Is the font size massive or something?

Seems pretty reasonable actually. Final reports contain -everything- and I really do mean everything. Design docs and drawings obviously (easily 1k pages more if you fit it on a4), since each trade needs it's own views. Specifications are included, as a legal document that calls out which regulations every possible system will follow and calls out exceptions (proof they apply). All possible testing from receiving it…

It isn't, it's largely environmental impact studies. The actual plans are a tiny part of the submitted document.
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