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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

#541

Post by nickdothutton »

mc32 wrote: post #537
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.

One of the reasons the Grenfell Tower disaster was so bad, is you had about 130 apartments with about 650 people in them. Illegally sub-let by the official council tenant.

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

#542

Post by cbeach »

> In February, the Bank of England reported an ongoing productivity slump so mysterious that its own economists “cannot account fully” for it.

The UK has seen unprecedented mass immigration from outside the developed world over the last 25 years.

250,000/yr non-EU migrants in the 2000s, rising to 500,000/yr non-EU migrants by 2022.

In 2023, the UK had 1.2M arrivals, comprising 968,000 non-EU nationals. Illegal immigration (mostly by small boats over the English Channel) is running into the tens of thousands (and those are the ones we know about).

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...

Some of the main source countries have low literacy rates (Pakistan 60%, Nigeria 62%, India 77%, Bangladesh 74%) so it is no surprise that economic productivity has taken a hit due to wage suppression and a growth in the labour supply at the entry level.

Obviously, Bank of England economists suffer from institutional cowardice preventing them from joining the dots, for fear of being branded xenophobic.

But the numbers don't lie.

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

#543

Post by cbeach »

optimalsolver wrote: post #533
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"...

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.

Lucky then, that immigrants don't age. Otherwise you'd be turning your country into one hell of a demographic Ponzi Scheme...

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

#544

Post by walthamstow »

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"...

The root cause of there not being enough homes is our failure to build enough homes, decade after decade.

France has over 4 million more homes available than the UK, as stated in the report linked in TFA.

> With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families.

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

#545

Post by data_marsupial »

Rovanion wrote: post #363

This article is plain wrong. It ignores that the largest amount of housing ever built in Britain was council housing post war through to Thatcher.

The greatest housebuilding period was in the inter-war years, mostly driven by private development. This collapsed after the war with the creation of the post-war planning system that tightly rationed land.

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

#546

Post by cbeach »

patrickdavey wrote: post #81

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.

Brexit.

Making trading slightly harder with 27 non-English speaking countries in a stagnating political experiment (roughly 30-50th percentile of worldwide GDP growth rates)

Making trading easier with 168 other countries, many of them English-speaking nations, and who comprise the largest and most dynamic economies on Earth.

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

#547

Post by littlestymaar »

data_marsupial wrote: post #535
littlestymaar wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Long term contracts (or state monopoly) at price based on average cost.

Typically what existed in France and other places of Europe before we decided to “liberalize the energy market”.

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

#548

Post by abenga »

tsimionescu wrote: post #360
manquer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all of those numbers pale in comparison in how we cruelly we treat birds used in the food supply chain (eggs, chicken etc). The recent kurzsesagt video is a great intro to the topic ( https://youtu.be/5sVfTPaxRwk )

This is completely and utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand. Wild bird populations are potentially at risk, and extinction of a population has massive ecological consequences. Commercially raised chickens and the horrors they are exposed to are completely unrelated to that.

> massive ecological consequences

As opposed to the minimal ecological consequences continuing to burn fossil fuels are currently yielding you mean?

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

#549

Post by jordanwallwork »

robertlagrant wrote: post #526
jordanwallwork wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misread it. The context was, _not low_ (ie. high) for the average person. For someone with a higher than average wealth however, £5k isn't all that much, especially if it could potentially protect the value of their assets

I was referring to the "not that expensive".

Maybe I misread it then. I interpreted it as "not low for the average person, but not that expensive _for someone with greater than average wealth_"
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