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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

#561

Post by booleandilemma »

TheFuzzball wrote: post #354
darth_avocado wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ad…

Absolutely agree. When my boomer dad complains about the Pakistani family he went to sell something to having 2 BMWs it's definitely racist. But the racism is inflamed by poor economic conditions, and the rationale is "how come these people that aren't even from here have a better life than me?" Sadly, people seeking power know this and use the racism to get power and don't fix the underlying cause, which was never i…

If they were of the same race as your dad, the question "how come these people that aren't even from here have a better life than me?" would still be valid.

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

#562

Post by dijksterhuis »

robertlagrant wrote: post #435
dijksterhuis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a particular political issue they must have fooled somehow? politicians sometimes lie…? the £350 million a day bus springs to mind as one example. the amazing trade deals which will unleash our new economy were another. like, those things sound great. people wanted those promises to become real and believed the people who were saying those things co…

> politicians sometimes lie…? That isn't a big enough reason to assume everyone's been fooled. Or at least, the people who disagree with you have been fooled. That's possible, but it's also possible you've been fooled. So bringing it up one-sided is a bit grating.

i’m going to post the quote above again, with more context from another quote, because you’ve avoided quoting the bit which actually demonstrates that this is a big enough reason to assume that enough people were fooled.

> On 27 May, the UK Statistics Authority chair Andrew Dilnot made a stronger statement against Vote Leave, stating that the continued use of the figure was "misleading and undermine[d] trust in official statistics".

misleading is politics speak for “lying with statistics”.

> A study by King's College London and Ipsos MORI, published in October 2018 found that 42 percent of people who had heard of the £350 million claim still believed it was true, whereas 36 percent thought it was false and 22 per cent were unsure.

two years later, after the claim was repeatedly denounced as being misleading and false multiple times, 42% of people surveyed still thought it was true.

that’s a significant representative proportion of the population, given 52% of people voted to leave.

it’s no wonder that 7 years later “brexit remorse” among leave voters is sitting pretty at around 60% or so (cba to source this, i think it was a yougov poll reported in the independent).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_Leave_bus

> bringing it up one-sided is a bit grating.

i find people who lie, and people who defend liars, grating.

we don’t get to pick our reality. we just have to live in it.

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

#563

Post by mattmanser »

This is such a bizarre story, so obviously just an attack on social democracy.

Blames privatisation and yet in no way explains why that affected house buildings which was not privatised, talking about an entirely different law.

And then it doesn't mention Brexit once.

This is such an obviously ultra-right wing biased and trash article, I have no idea why it's being upvoted so much.

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

#564

Post by immibis »

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.

Is it better to deliver low-quality housing or none at all?

The guy with no housing would be better served even with a large cardboard box, but the police would come and take it away from him if he tried.

Banning the symptoms of the problem doesn't solve the problem.

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

#565

Post by lucidguppy »

graemep wrote: post #510
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…

This is absolutely key. The lobbies are very rich (because they own lots of land) and therefore very influential.

The Normans strike again!

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

#566

Post by immibis »

cjrp wrote: post #502
pjc50 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conservative media (Daily Mail, Telegraph etc - e.g. James Delingpole, climate change denier) are quite capable of formenting this kind of thing all on their own, simply for clicks. The average reader is old and afraid of change. Anything new is scary to them and can easily be magnified into a massive, largely fictitious, horror. People might object to the view of wind farms, but they'll also object to any other…

I think the complaints have also been that people close to the wind farms don't see much economic benefit from them, and only get the negative (noise, loss of countryside, etc.). I believe that's changing though https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-672...

So now I wonder if they could be built if you promised (and delivered) those people cheap electricity.

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

#567

Post by triceratops »

lenkite wrote: post #241
cycomanic wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble believing you are being honest. Piling under wind turbines?! I have yet to see a dead bird under a wind turbine myself (but I acknowledge they do kill some). Published estimated averages are 4 to 18 birds per turbine per year [1]. Compare that to buildings (where we also don't pile up either) which kill man estimated 1 billion birds a year [2] [1] https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/wind-power-bi…

Yes, explicitly piling up under wind turbines. This was in the Western Ghats in India and my mother was sickened - (she used to be a regular trekker before Covid). I didn't initially believe her either. Btw, they were so effective as bird killers that wind-turbines were even acknowledged officially as "top predator". They change ecology drastically within a couple of years. “Our central discovery is that wind turbine…

> This was in the Western Ghats in India

Climate change in the subcontinent is going to kill way more birds and wildlife. You think oil and gas drilling or coal mining is better for them?

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

#568

Post by noja »

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…

Why is the answer always more real estate, and not private ownership of housing? If you don’t live in it you can’t have it.

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

#569

Post by triceratops »

giantg2 wrote: post #191
triceratops wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People would rather have jobs Who do you think puts up windmills and solar panels?

In the case I personally know of, they brought in offshore workers. It also only generates reasonable numbers of jobs during initial construction.

> offshore workers

Also people who need jobs. And that's just the case you personally know of. Maybe people should retrain instead of pining for jobs of the past. And we should support them in the transition as much as possible .

> only generates reasonable numbers of jobs during initial construction

We're gonna need a lot of initial construction though.

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

#570

Post by twixfel »

hans_castorp wrote: post #336
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, Trump tries very hard to make Brexit the second most stupid thing a country did to itself.

Already achieved, easily.
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