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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

#281

Post by bruce511 »

jamie_ca wrote: post #89
walthamstow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you think the north and Scotland would be better off together. The south east would only get richer under such a scenario. Taxes-too-high is a common refrain but income tax + national insurance takes 26% of my 95th-percentile income. Is that so bad?

I'm in the 45-49 age bracket this year. In BC (Canada), a 95th percentile income for that age is $126,000 (2021 Census). Before any deductions (specifically retirement investments that reduce taxable income) I'd be looking at a 26.85% tax rate, with a marginal rate of 38%. So pretty much the same rate here. Not to say that Canada's overall economy is particularly any better than the UK's, and especially Trump's tarif…

>> especially Trump's tariff threats will do a number on us.

There will be losers certainly, but I'm not 100% sure that tarrifs for Canada are bad in the long run.

Firstly, there are already reports of Canadians buying local over US goods. If that sentiment hrows, and becomes entrenched that's good.

Secondly, at least gor some goods, suppliers are incentivised to explore other export markets. Again, long term, that diversification is good.

Thirdly, for at least some goods, the US cannot simply ramp up production. So they'll still be buying, but their consumers will pay more. Canadian suppliers can simply increase prices as well, since any US consumer increase will be ascribed to the tarrifs. This though is somewhat balanced by Canadian oversupply.

Fourthly it encourages producers to diversify somewhat to reduce over supply. In the long run a varied economy is better than one dependant on any one sector.

Ultimately Canada and Mexico could come out of this stronger. While the US consumer gets used to higher prices. (Which Canada et al can take advantage of whe tarrifs are removed.)

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

#282

Post by tw04 »

lenkite wrote: post #243
tw04 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read a Donald Trump tweet? Because no reputable source has ever said wind turbines are a major risk to birds. If you’re trying to save birds, the first place you should be looking is outdoor cats. https://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mor...

> Did you read a Donald Trump tweet? Because no reputable source has ever said wind turbines are a major risk to birds. I don't care about Donald Trump. (How did this even become about him ?) And your second statement is laughably false as even elementary research would tell you. Do note that there are ~100 million cats and only ~70k wind turbines, if you use US as a reference. Cats are clearly not the top-predators…

> I don't care about Donald Trump. (How did this even become about him ?)

You said you “read” about turbines killing birds (shockingly with no citation). There is literally nobody else claiming such stupidity.

> Do note that there are ~100 million cats and only ~70k wind turbines, if you use US as a reference. Cats are clearly not the top-predators of birds anymore.

Do note, a tiny fraction of the 100m cats are outdoor cats. And yes, they are absolutely one of the top predators of birds and have been for decades.

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

#283

Post by seabass-labrax »

chippiewill wrote: post #165
thrance wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, in fact the UK _does_ have competing services via "open access railways". The issue is they only exist where routes are profitable - which is almost none of them.

Open access operators have generally not been allowed to directly compete with franchised Train Operating Companies (TOCs).

Many of Britain's railway routes are profitable, but open access operators aren't allowed to compete with franchised TOCs for a slice of those profits. As a prerequisite for approval, the Department of Transport requires open access operators to show that their services would create additional value of their own, not just abstract existing revenue.

Lumo, an open access operator and a part of First group, run trains between London and Edinburgh. They stop at Morpeth for no other reason than to fulfil their requirement to create value, in this case by stopping at a station previously underserved by the DfT franchise of the route. In other words, Lump had to make compromises in return for being allowed to get in on the action on one of the profitable railway lines.

I'd be confident in claiming that there has never been any true free market competition for British passenger rail services since privatization. The existence of private capital doesn't automatically create free markets!

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

#284

Post by greggman25 »

amrocha wrote: post #182
greggman25 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

All of that is only possible because of network effects, and a nationalized JR built most of that network. And honestly, I think you’re overstating the degree of choice you have as a rider. Different lines carved out their corners and companies avoid each other. Service level is generally high, to the point that it’s a non factor. You take whichever train is cheaper/faster, and that’s it. The problem is that rail has…

> You can address that by letting operators speculate on real estate, or you could do it with taxes.

One of those has a positive virtuous feedback loop. The other has politicians.

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

#285

Post by caseyy »

roenxi wrote: post #276
blibble wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't have mattered due to the screwed up energy pricing system, if there's a single watt of electricity in the grid produced by burning gas, we pay for the entire grid output as if it was gas

That is how literally everything in a market gets priced. When you buy an X, the price of it naturally trends to match the most expensive X that will be sold. In this case X is a watt of energy. But you can substitute any good or service.

Can you explain this?

In commodities market, the strike price is between the lowest price seller and the highest buyer.

In the goods market, individual buyers buy depending on their elasticity of demand unless the good has inelastic demand (rare).

Neither matches what you seem to say.

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

#286

Post by darth_avocado »

marliechiller wrote: post #256
tacker2000 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Brexit was the most stupid thing a country ever did to itself From an economic standpoint, brexit was indeed a big L, but I dont think brexiteers were largely voting on economic grounds - a point which is lost on most remainers.

Brexit was absolutely about Economic conditions. Anti immigration sentiment was one big factor that everyone talks about, but in reality the sentiment itself was a symptom on display for the underlying condition of people having their living standards drop. The second big factor people kept bringing up was that EU was making decisions for UK, which people thought needed to be reversed. Austerity measures, which EU adopted, were the single biggest reason why people felt they needed more control. They also slowed down the post 2008 recovery, which meant people weren’t doing as well anymore. Anti immigration sentiment also rose once people were unhappy and needed someone to take the blame.

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

#287

Post by riffraff »

owenversteeg wrote: post #226

>Per capita electricity generation in the U.K. is now roughly one-third that of the United States, and energy use per unit of GDP is the lowest in the G7. By these measures, at least, Britain may be the most energy-starved nation in the developed world. Yikes. Housing is the big issue that gets everyone’s attention, but this is huge. Cheap energy drives economic growth at all levels. It’s incredible that the various…

I think those are intentionally misleading numbers. The UK is a finance power house, not a manufacturing one, so of course it derives a larger share of GDP from less energy.

Italy has a higher % of GDP from manufacturing but way more expensive energy.

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

#288

Post by notTooFarGone »

cupcakecommons wrote: post #219
tuatoru wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out "The Price is Wrong" by Brett Christophers[1]. It explains at length that what matters is not price, but how profitable an investment is. And how wind and PV don't look great without subsidies in various guises. 1. https://www.amazon.com/Price-Wrong-Capitalism-Wont-Planet/dp...

You distribute pv and wind over large areas and they get destroyed by weather, get dirty, require significant maintenance. If individuals want to have wind turbines or pv installations that's great - but these things are a giant mess at grid scale - absolutely awful.

Yeah of course distributed infrastructure is ... Bad???

Oh no we have no single point of failure, empower people to invest into the grid and have huge redundancies in the grid... Batteries literally solve most of the problems

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

#289

Post by bruce511 »

ryan93 wrote: post #195
thrance wrote: post #106

60 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.

Like 44% of your economy is government spending. lol

This is not as crazy as it sounds at first glance. The % is less important than where they are spending that money.

An "economy" is just a measure of the overall movement of money. If the bulk of that spending is internal, then that is contributing to the economy. Govt workers are consumers, local companies are providing goods to govt etc.

USaid for example spent a lot of money on food. And a lot of that was purchased from US farmers. Killing USaid "saves a lot of money" but also costs a lot of producers their income.

As long as the bulk of spending is local, govt spending is an excellent way of keeping money moving.

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

#290

Post by Nursie »

nikkwong wrote: post #116
kmeisthax wrote: post #92

Earlier 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.

Not really, growth in the UK has effectively stalled since 2008, quite a few years before Brexit.

I’m sure Brexit hasn’t helped, but it seems that the economic stewardship of the coalition and post-coalition governments was also lacking.

I don’t know what the UK can do about it, but it’s been stuck in a spiral of economic stagnation for over 15 years now.

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