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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

#91

Post by dataflow »

ben_w wrote: post #72
aftbit wrote: post #5

Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?

> Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though? No. What you need to combat climate change is cheap green energy, and "green" is just a different question entirely to "cost". If you have expensive energy, regardless of how green it is or isn't, you get poverty. If you have greenhouse-gas-emitting energy, regardless of how cheap or expensive it is, you get climate change. 20 years a…

I assumed they meant higher prices for non-green energy than green energy.

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

#92

Post by kmeisthax »

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 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.

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

#93

Post by PaulKeeble »

necubi wrote: post #56
reverendsteveii wrote: post #4

Everyone who bought into neoliberalism in the 80s is now experiencing economies that are mysteriously failing to thrive. Correlation isn't cause, except when it is.

The article is about how bad land and energy policies (essentially central planning)—dating from the post-war period—are holding back the British economy. Is that neoliberalism?

It is, neoliberalism has been about taking away all the state owned assets and putting everything the country needs into private hands. This is what has stalled the economy and its what is fuelling enormous inequality. Calling for ever more of it falls really flat now after 40 years of the same strategy making things worse for the average person.

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

#94

Post by lotsofpulp »

mistrial9 wrote: post #88
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?

if you are an employee and that is direct compensation (not deferred capital gains) then your taxes are lower than California

Is this including the use of tax advantaged accounts like HSAs/401Ks/IRAs/etc?

In the US, it should be possible to get a 95th percentile household income ($300k, married filing joint) effective federal income tax rate down to 10% to 15%. Including total health insurance costs (employer + employee) plus some amount of deductible/out of pocket maximum for a family of 4 would bump it up to 20% to 25%. And then on top of that would be state + local tax liabilities like property and sales tax.

All in, I bet total proportion spent on taxes is less than 40%, even in California, at 95th percentile income, and 30% in a state without income tax.

Edit: I’m probably understating my numbers by 5% due to forgetting about social security and Medicare taxes.

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

#95

Post by mistrial9 »

ben_w wrote: post #72
aftbit wrote: post #5

Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?

> Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though? No. What you need to combat climate change is cheap green energy, and "green" is just a different question entirely to "cost". If you have expensive energy, regardless of how green it is or isn't, you get poverty. If you have greenhouse-gas-emitting energy, regardless of how cheap or expensive it is, you get climate change. 20 years a…

> now, green energy is the cheapest

great to notice, but the overview falls short.. price signals are supposed to trigger conservation yet somehow, that is not discussed. Also note that energy markets have lifecycles.. it takes investment and infrastructure to make and deliver energy. Fossil fuels have done that in the past.

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

#96

Post by roenxi »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #64

The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that were the case, public transport (which underwent radical privatisation and deregulation across the UK some 40+ years ago), would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe. In fact, it's the most expensive in Europe. It is all currently being wrestled back into…

> public transport ... would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe.

While that is generally the argument, I wouldn't expect it to hold when governments remove subsidies as is often the case with regulated transport systems. The argument is actually one of efficiency.

I had a great argument with someone one time on the classic subject of deregulating roads. The interlocutor made a point that I initially struggled with - that without subsidies there probably wouldn't be many roads. After a bit of reflection it became obvious that in a free market where land was worth a lot of money, the market wouldn't put roads on it. Because of government subsidies, roads were being overbuilt beyond what actually makes sense (denser cities where people can walk from place to place are actually pretty livable). So in the case of deregulating transport higher prices isn't the end of it. If you remove a subsidy, there will be less of a thing. The question is why is that bad? If subsidies were good without drawbacks, we'd subsidise everything.

And land is a famous special case; there should be a land tax to weed out people trying to make money from owning undeveloped land.

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

#97

Post by monkeycantype »

I want to see more discussion from the perspective that the economy and government is not just a process, an institution, but a contest, an arena. Outcomes which are presented as a failure, are not merely a failure, but like a punch in a boxing match that misses its mark, occurs in a wider context, and against deliberate opposition. A failed project might be a failure for most, but for opponents it may be a victory, or even just collateral damage in a wider fight.

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

#98

Post by vkou »

aftbit wrote: post #5

Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?

No, if you want to have a stable standard of living, you need higher energy prices for polluting energy sources, and lower energy prices for non-polluting energy sources.

Then, to make killing this political suicide, make sure to mail every man, woman, and dog a check every two weeks called 'CARBON DIVIDEND'.

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

#99

Post by EndShell »

lurk2 wrote: post #67
the_third_wave wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is there needs to be a version of Godwin's law related to client of supposed 'racism', i.e. the one who claims ${issue} is caused by/related to 'racism' thereby loses the argument unless he comes with solid proof. I see no proof, spurious claims of 'racism' do not count as such so it actually was about immigration.

It's disingenuous to pretend Brexit wasn't at least partially motivated by in-group preference. Almost as disingenuous as implying that there's anything wrong with having said preference. I don't open up my house to people I don't know regardless of their potential to contribute to it economically. Why is this treated as immoral when the same reasoning is applied to the immigration system?

I am not pretending anything. I've showed some actual evidence to back to back up my view point.

Moreover, time after time the British public are surveyed about their views on immigration and ethnic background is not something that is important to a large portion of the people taking part.

Are there some people that do care? Sure there are, but they are very small minority typically.

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

#100

Post by vkou »

typewithrhythm wrote: post #65
aftbit wrote: post #5

Aren't higher energy prices exactly what we need to combat climate change though?

The issue is there is currently no mechanism for end consumers to moderate their behaviour based on energy related emissions. Currently if users as a group demand more power than clean can provide, dirty gets turned on and everyone pays the highest cost. We need a way for a consumer to be able to commit to only clean power, potentially at a lower cost but with limited supply.

Do you not get charged different rates based on usage amounts? This is common across the world - where the first X KWH of usage per month cost a lot less than the next X.
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