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Britain leads the world in destroying its own industries in favour of international suppliers. In theory, that will lead to more prosperity in Britain, but in r
by hyko 6y ago
Britain leads the world in destroying its own industries in favour of international suppliers. In theory, that will lead to more prosperity in Britain, but in reality the competitors it invites in have usually been massively subsidised by their home countries, so the positive effects are harder to discern.
Having said that, I can’t really see the benefits of the BBC building their own AWS any more than I can for building their own power stations (provided the dependency is abstracted and can easily be swapped for a competitor).
I guess its somewhat similar to the situation with the transmitter masts, which are owned by Canadians and Australians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arqiva https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arqiva
- jsmith99 6y agoIf the competitors have indeed been subsidised by foreign countries, that's a nice transfer of wealth from those countries to Britain, and, given the low historical success of government industrial subsidy, one that only the British will benefit from.
- hyko 6y agoIn a world without a level playing field, the solution to poor quality industrial policy is better industrial policy. Foreign subsidies don’t result in a net transfer of wealth if they undercut your otherwise competitive domestic industry, for obvious reasons. It results in a misallocation of capital and the erosion of opportunities that should have otherwise existed domestically. All countries engage in free market distortion, to varying degrees. That may well be a suboptimal use of their resources, but unfortunately it also hurts countries that don’t respond in kind and who have bought into some simplified economic policy slogans.