Earlier quoted context omitted.
their energy policy has essentially crippled their economy
You mean not getting gas from Russia?
Partly. But the effect of turning off the nuclear plants and simply hoping for the best shouldn't be ignored.
UK's hardware talent is being wasted
991–1000 of 1001 posts
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#992Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a myth they tell themselves. USSR won by incredible amounts of American supplied material.
You’ve watched too many Hollywood movies. Yes, Lend-Lease was very helpful - but only about 5% of Soviet GDP. For example, the Soviets produced more tanks than all other allies combined, and that was while under massive active attack and invasion - even moved entire factories. The real myth is that the Soviets just threw meat waves and would have lost without Uncle Sam. Most of that was anti communist propaganda and…
Lend lease included food and industrial equipment which was critical for Russia through the war not just tanks, aircraft, and ships. The value was more in covering what their economy struggled with than simply total output.
“In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to other Allies.” ~12x that when counting for inflation.
As pointed out by a sibling poster Russia produced more of them than the US but not more than US + England. But the context was tanks are relatively difficult to ship, so America focused on other areas.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#993Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't want everywhere in the country built over, which seems to be something here everyone wants for some bonkers reason. If you want to live in a concrete jungle that is fine, I and many others don't. I moved out of Manchester because I hated it there. Scale issue here: if "everywhere in the country" were build up to the population density of Manchester city, the UK would house 1.2 billion people. I'm fairly con…
Apparently you don't understand the concept of hyperbole.
α) Lots of people on this topic act as if the entire world is heading to their specific country.
It's not Poe's law, but it's close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
β) 1.2 billion demonstrates there's enough room for 90% of the UK to be completely empty at the same time as the population doubles.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#994Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re not, they’re full time employees.
They're in the extreme minority. Most software dev roles in the UK top out between £40 and £50k, £60k if you're lucky.
That bad? Huh. Last time I was a permanent employee in the UK was nearly a decade ago now, and I think I was on something like £37k, I think some of my friends (Cambridge graduates and slightly older than me), even back then, were on £65-75k.
I kinda assumed inflation would have raised all of those by about 50% since then.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#995Earlier quoted context omitted.
Decision of where to allocate money creates value. Imagine you have 500k to allocate. You can choose to invest in A or B, after analysis you realize A is a failing business, but B with 500k invested will create enormous value by producing product C. If you didn't allocate in B this company wouldn't have had enough money to produce C and succeed.
Yes, but this can still be true if the system works in a perverted way. In your example, you should include how many $ go to the entity doing the allocation. If this is an insane amount of money, then maybe we are better off without finance and just figure out the optimal allocation in some other way.
But who will do that other way of optimally allocating?
To take a simple extreme edge case, let's imagine that there's a business that requires 500k to truly flourish, but if it gets that 500k, it will become $10B company within 5 years. If it doesn't get the 500k it will likely fail.
Only 1 person has noticed and believes that this business would have that potential. And let's say they either have 500k or they manage to convince others to get the 500k, how much of that $10B would they deserve?
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#996Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true but there are many policies that the UK could copy from other countries like Singapore that would work much better than what they are currently doing
Can you give a couple of examples, for those unfamiliar with Singapore and/or the UK?
From the top of my head, might be incorrect but this is what I remember from reading about it:
1. Some of the least bureaucracy in the world to start a business. Simple + fast.
2. Some of the simplest/least laws in the world (law in general) to allow for business to succeed/be efficient. They actually started out with British law and then modified it where necessary to get to where they are now.
3. Some of the least political corruption in the world, due to a deliberately designed system against it: paying politicians very high salaries from taxes (on par with industry) instead of from bribes/lobbying (or legalized insider trading like in the US) + a dedicated secret service department tasked with keeping an eye on politicians and their corruption. Very high fines/imprisonment if caught. There's other stuff they do that could be copied.
4. Simple tax laws and low taxes in general.
5. Relatively simple worker protection laws (easy to hire and fire).
6. The best public transportation system in the world (based on my own experience and extensive travel around the world, I'm from EU).
7. Some of the best public housing in the world. Basically similar to what the UK used to have (based on a legacy UK system) before Tatcher killed it, except better thought out. It's all connected to their "central provided fund" (CPF) where everybody can save tax-free for housing, healthcare and other important stuff.
8. Tons of trade agreements with other countries. UK choses to just follow EU, which is relatively complex and limited (Brexit never happened in any practical real sense). "fort Europa"
9. Access to highly educated talent. Both local (some of the best uni's in the world) as well as from students all over (South East) Asia who can't wait to come to Singapore (highest income in the region).
This is some very general examples, the TLDR is that they went from third world country to first world within 1 generation thanks to the best leadership there can probably be.
I often hear the same non-explanations repeated about how Singapore got to wealth. "they use cheap labor" (literally every country in SEA does), "oh it's their location", "they just got lucky", "it's because they're an Island", "it's because they're on a trade route", "it's because other countries helped them", "it's because they're small". None of these make sense to me and don't explain anything. There are tons of regions and countries around Singapore who fit (some of) those criteria. All of the countries around Singapore started out as 3rd world countries when Singapore was a 3rd world country and all of them still are now that Singapore is not. The difference is leadership IMO.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#997Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both things can be true: I am happy with the European welfare state and still think there are structural problems. UK and EU are rich, even if their economy is not doing great.
European corporations and political class are rich and benefit from high GDP stimulated by mass migration and foreign funds cornering the housing market. But European salaries are stagnating and job security is dropping like a stone, while the cost of living is steadily rising. And public healthcare is getting terrible with months of wait for an appointment. Spain is now used as example of a growing economy in EU but…
Spain's youth unemployment halved in ten years from 57%+ to 26%.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_unemployment_in_Spain#....
Yes, cost of living got worse. This does not in any way make the EU poor.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#998Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give a couple of examples, for those unfamiliar with Singapore and/or the UK?
From the top of my head, might be incorrect but this is what I remember from reading about it: 1. Some of the least bureaucracy in the world to start a business. Simple + fast. 2. Some of the simplest/least laws in the world (law in general) to allow for business to succeed/be efficient. They actually started out with British law and then modified it where necessary to get to where they are now. 3. Some of the least…
Thanks for being fair-minded and giving credit where credit is due. I'm so tired of reading comments trivializing Singapore's achievements and mischaracterising it as a country.
> it's because other countries helped them
Also, this is not true. Singapore never received any handouts, save a meagre sum from Japan as compensation for occupying Singapore during World War 2. Singapore's first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, understood that such monetary gifts always came with strings attached, and that accepting them would increase Singapore's vulnerability to the caprices of its benefactors. He was adamant to avoid having Singapore held hostage.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#999This is interesting, but as other commenters have noted, the general point applies more broadly than hardware versus software, or UK versus the US - if you're only trying to optimise for income, 'go work in the US and/or the financial industry' is solid advice for many people, and the macroeconomic incentives driving this are not easy to shift. I also make much less than my counterparts in the US - but here in South…
Similar background here although I stayed on in academia a bit longer. I find the same, I'm working on not very challenging problems a lot of the time. I found a decent compromise in working on engineering software with some physics and maths involved, but it's not world beating in terms of salaries.
What types of engineering software do you work on?
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#1000Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar background here although I stayed on in academia a bit longer. I find the same, I'm working on not very challenging problems a lot of the time. I found a decent compromise in working on engineering software with some physics and maths involved, but it's not world beating in terms of salaries.
What types of engineering software do you work on?
Currently predictive maintenance but previously have worked on simulation software development.