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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

#531

Post by rickdeckard »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #505
rickdeckard wrote: post #480

"These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven’t been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth." I can't find this mentioned anywhere in the article, but the current imbalance of supply and demand and the resulting high prices is quite beneficial for parts of the real…

Here in Australia, there are 227 sitting Members of Parliament, of those: one in three federal politicians (71) own two properties; one in three (77) own three or more properties, and about one in three (67) own one property. Eleven federal politicians don't own a home, at least not in their name, and of those only one is known to be a renter. I don't know why we call it Parliament House, it should be call the House…

Or Lords of Housing

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

#532

Post by rickdeckard »

thepaulmcbride wrote: post #497
f6v wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Approximately one in five Members of UK Parliament are landlords or have investments in the property market. Ah, the class-based society.

Everybody wants affordable housing until it’s their housing becoming affordable.

If only those people outside of my window would just "vote with their wallets" and stop demanding a roof to live under, demand would die down and prices would stabilize again.

It's simple free market economics!

/s

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

#533

Post by optimalsolver »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #515
rickdeckard wrote: post #480

"These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven’t been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth." I can't find this mentioned anywhere in the article, but the current imbalance of supply and demand and the resulting high prices is quite beneficial for parts of the real…

In the year ending June 2024 the net migration into the UK was 728,000. That is the root cause. The government (and this hasn't started with the current government) has a policy of high immigration then makes noise about the need of doing more to solve the "housing crisis"...

UK's birth rate is 1.44. Someone is going to have to pay for your upkeep in old age.

Most political problems of today stem from the fact that politicians are unwilling to explain this basic fact to their none-too-bright constituents.

Reality is reality. This is why the fascist-lite Italian PM actually increased immigration from Africa after assuming office and taking one look at the numbers.

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

#534

Post by mytailorisrich »

rickdeckard wrote: post #527
mytailorisrich wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the year ending June 2024 the net migration into the UK was 728,000. That is the root cause. The government (and this hasn't started with the current government) has a policy of high immigration then makes noise about the need of doing more to solve the "housing crisis"...

Coincidentally that's also roughly the birth-rate of the UK 20 years prior (2004: 715,996 [0]), a group of people I assume also arrived on the housing-market by now. The population (and this hasn't started with the current population) has a tendency to shag around and then make noise about the need of housing (and food, and education, and...) [0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...

Except that with immigration you add adults and families that need housing as soon as they get into the country. Additionally the birth rate has now been below replacement rate for long enough that population would start to decrease without immigration (and the need for housing would obviously decrease with it).

I can't understand this disparaging stance against anyone who brings the issue of immigration up.

It is at the highest level on record and the only cause of increasing population but, no the only issue is that we should build more apparently. And we should also do that while saving the climate and the environment.

There are many contradictions and cognitive dissonance here... And the way my comment is shut down is very telling of that.

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

#535

Post by data_marsupial »

littlestymaar wrote: post #410
moooo99 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out the “ideal market” is a dystopia instead of the intended utopia. Why? This market is pretty much ideal and sets the right incentives. You have little to no information asymmetry, you need to strike a price that clears the market because you must balance production and demand. Why should sellers of renewable energy be forced to sell at their marginal cost when they are selling a commodity where somebody el…

> Why? This market is pretty much ideal and sets the right incentives. Says whom? > Why should sellers of renewable energy be forced to sell at their marginal cost when they are selling a commodity where somebody else gets triple the price? It doesn't make sense to force them to sell at their marginal cost either (which is much less than their operating cost, consisting mostly of fixed costs). In fact, in real life,…

do you have an alternative market design in mind?

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

#536

Post by Lio »

alt227 wrote: post #468
dan-robertson wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure this is a fossil fuel industry thing. I think there are just people who really dislike the appearance of windmills in the landscape. Onshore, it is often better to put windmills on hills where they will be more prominent and so any one windmill can be ‘local’ to many people. Offshore, wind farms may ‘spoil’ a view out to sea, though they are also harder to oppose. P.s. I think you meant to write fomentin…

I come from Cornwall in the UK, and whenever I go back there I am struck by how many on shore windfarms and turbines there are there. As you drive through the countryside they are everywhere. I have asked hundreds of local people what they think of them over the years, and not one of them have ever said anything about them spoiling the view. The farmers love them as they get subsidies for putting them on their land,…

I used to goto Cornwall regularly back in the 90s. The site of the wind turbines on the drive down always gave my heart a little flutter.

As a tourist I loved the sight of turbines on the far away hills.

They're a damn site nicer to look at than concrete cooling towers or gasometers.

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

#537

Post by mc32 »

rickdeckard wrote: post #480

"These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven’t been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth." I can't find this mentioned anywhere in the article, but the current imbalance of supply and demand and the resulting high prices is quite beneficial for parts of the real…

A big part of the problem is the UK used to let in about 100 thou immigrants yearly, that figure is now over a million per year. That means putting up a new house every few minutes. Unless you let Lagos or Caracas-style slums flourish, that’s not going to happen.

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

#538

Post by pjc50 »

fpoling wrote: post #520
junto wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same narrative is being pushed on Germany for instance. I think it’s quite simple. Renewable energy is a route to energy independence for various nations that were previously highly dependent on foreign nations and corporations and there are very powerful fossil fuel interconnected groups / nations that are terrified of that. Russia wants Germany to buy Russian gas. The U.S. wants Europe to buy their gas’s too. T…

It is not any fossil fuel, it is specifically oil and gas. Coal is not a problem for energy independence as it is much more evenly distributed on Earth. What Germany has done with its reliance on Russian gas is truly insane. Not only they closed nuclear stations, but they also have been closing coal power stations. They should be pushing electrical vehicles and modernization of coal plants instead as China is doing.…

> Coal is not a problem for energy independence as it is much more evenly distributed on Earth.

Not true - it's just more prevalent in Europe than oil, especially in Germany. And the CO2 emissions are much worse, which is where all this starts from.

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

#539

Post by Retric »

phicoh wrote: post #491
Retric wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constant pricing means they make more when wholesale prices tank and less when whole prices rise. I’ll sell you X% of my output for Y$/kWh is a perfectly valid strategy and batteries can absorb output spikes just as they absorb blackouts. Hedges like this are a useful risk mitigation strategy as going bankrupt is a much larger downside than making slightly more money.

This fine. But from the fact that prices are sometimes high, we can conclude that overlll there is a shortage of windpower. Which will factor into the prices. The owner of the windpark can take the prices for each hour, and compute weighted average with production. And set that as the constant price. So the consumer does not gain anything.

Curtailment means there’s a different between what wind farms can produce and what the grid is willing to buy.

Wholesale prices are really just one aspect of grid manufacturing and paying them doesn’t mean you’re getting the equivalent of a percentage of wind farm productivity.

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

#540

Post by moooo99 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #410
moooo99 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out the “ideal market” is a dystopia instead of the intended utopia. Why? This market is pretty much ideal and sets the right incentives. You have little to no information asymmetry, you need to strike a price that clears the market because you must balance production and demand. Why should sellers of renewable energy be forced to sell at their marginal cost when they are selling a commodity where somebody el…

> Why? This market is pretty much ideal and sets the right incentives. Says whom? > Why should sellers of renewable energy be forced to sell at their marginal cost when they are selling a commodity where somebody else gets triple the price? It doesn't make sense to force them to sell at their marginal cost either (which is much less than their operating cost, consisting mostly of fixed costs). In fact, in real life,…

> Says whom?

I do and given the practice is pretty common, it seems like most people would.

To be clear, the incentive is: you make more money when you can produce energy cheaper than everybody else.

> In the electricity world, this kind of pricing only makes sense for electricity produced from fossil fuel as the marginal cost represents most the underlying cost, but it makes zero sense for renewable or nuclear where the cost is swallowed upfront and close to zero afterwards.

Are capital costs not real underlying costs? If I borrow money from a bank I have to return that money plus interest. I would argue that this is a very real cost. Also, renewables do require maintenance. That is not as expensive as the ongoing cost of burning fossil fuel, but it’s still a cost

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