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How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe

111 points by curmudgeon22 4y ago

fazfq 4y ago
FridayoLeary 4y ago
I know that things don't work as well as they should here, but to my ears this opinion piece sounds more like parody than reality. Take this line. >Take out Greater London—the prosperity of which depends to an uncomfortable degree on a willingness to provide services to oligarchs from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union— and the UK is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe.” Yes. London is a financial centre. A large portion of the GDP of the country is generated by it's biggest (main?) population centre. Is there a problem that london chooses to indulge in the more lucrative financial services over Victorian industry? Still, i do agree there are historical, major issues with lack of productivity and industry. The tories don't seem to have any vision for the economy future. They just throw money where its popular. I thought for a short while Liz Truss would be the answer, but she has turned up short in the IQ department, but i don't think its the picture of doom the atlantic thinks it is.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  - sealeck 4y ago
    Have _you_ ever been there? I've never seen that and I would not say London is a shithole (try walking around central London, e.g. Regent's Park, Hyde Park and surrounding area).
  - FridayoLeary 4y ago
    I've lived here my whole life and i don't know what you're talking about.
  - weavejester 4y ago
    I've never seen raw sewage running down the street. Admittedly I've not been everywhere in London, and some parts are better than others, but it doesn't seem any different from any other city I've been in. It feels cleaner than New York, for example.
    - makomk 4y ago
      The UK actually seems to do a better job of treating its sewage than other European countries. What happened is that a lot of the British press absolutely loathes the current government over Brexit and wants them booted out, so they created a narrative that our rivers and oceans are suddenly full of sewage based off the number of recorded overflows increasing due to much better monitoring. (The main problem is that the sewers are old, mix storm and waste water, and that overwhelms treatment capacity when it rains heavily. There's no easy way to fix it.) I guess one of those articles probably got mangled in repetition at some point. Meanwhile, other nearby countries that are EU members still have urban areas with no sewage treatment plants at all and just dump all their sewage into waterways in normal operation, something that's against EU rules and I'm pretty sure was stopped a long time ago in the UK. That doesn't get as much media coverage because it doesn't fit a useful narrative, though, to the point even people from thsoe countries are convinced their country is doing a better job. Also, this story largely originated in the Guardian, and it turns out prior to Brexit they were pushing the narrative that the big megaproject to 95% fix this in London was completely pointless and only served to channel cash to the Tories' pals, the problem wasn't really that bad and the overflows were mostly rain water anyway: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/27/london-super-sewer-branded-waste-time-money https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/27/london-s... This is, uh, rather different from the current narrative they're pushing.
      - weavejester 4y ago
        "What happened is that a lot of the British press absolutely loathes the current government over Brexit and wants them booted out" That makes it seem like the UK press is largely left leaning, when most of it is very much right leaning and usually pro-government in sentiment. The Mail has far more readers than the Guardian, for instance. The Sun more than the Mirror. The BBC, while historically left of centre, is nowadays pro-government after threats of funding cuts brought them to heel. There are a lot of reasons beyond Brexit to think the government is doing a poor job, though Brexit itself is obviously a huge point of contention.
  - orf 4y ago
    Lived here for a decade and don’t know what you’re talking about. If I was to indulge this for even a second I’d point out this massive project sewage project involving 6 tunnel boring machines: https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/ https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/
  - jen20 4y ago
    Where, exactly? A street name, preferably.
  - mattkevan 4y ago
    You’re talking rubbish mate. Lived all over London for 20 years, including pre-gentrification Hackney and very gentrified parts of Lambeth and there’s never been anything like that. Not even in Croydon, and they’re feral.
- sealeck 4y ago
  The comment is also _completely_ without any substantial basis. Sure, London provides financial services, but there's no data provided to suggest that a substantial portion of London's economic activity is generated by providing services to shady individuals.
- umeshunni 4y ago
  What's even worse is this chart that the article is based on is: https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/07/wages-fallen-behind-european-rivals https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/07/wages-... Title: UK income has fallen significantly behind that of its rivals Actual data: Change in median disposable income I'll repeat my common comment that I wished I lived in a world where 'journalists' had to take basic math lessons.
Tycho 4y ago
- philjohn 4y ago
  Far more stay in Lebanon (e.g. from Syria) or other european countries than try to make it to the UK.
- weakfish 4y ago
  > in Western Europe key part here
  - Tycho 4y ago
    They are travelling from Western Europe to the UK, yes.
    - sealeck 4y ago
      Sure, in the same way that if you take a flight from Australia to London which stops in Singapore and Frankfurt, then you are technically travelling from Germany to the UK.
      - bpodgursky 4y ago
        The point is that the migrants could stop in France or Germany rather than cross the channel, but do not choose to do so.
        atxbcp 4y ago
        Except they do. A very few risk their lives to reach the UK (usually because they have family there), but millions choose to stay in Western Europe (e.g France, Germany).
        azinman2 4y ago
        I cannot speak to where people go (lots of countries have lots of immigrants, including Italy, France, Germany, etc), but culturally the UK is more accepting of integrating immigrants than its neighbors. They also speak English, which will also be a driving force from certain countries.
notright2 4y ago
notright2 4y ago
notright2 4y ago
notright2 4y ago
10g1k 4y ago
The UK is multiple countries. Not really an impactful distinction, just saying.
- moosedev 4y ago
  Although it’s made of countries, it is also a country, so the headline isn’t wrong to refer to it as “one” country, in case that’s what you were implying. Source: am British
aljungberg 4y ago
Sure, the sixth largest economy in the world is “poor” because too much wealth is generated by financial services in the capital and not mom and pops in small towns or whatever. That’s like saying California is poor because most of the wealth isn’t generated by McDonalds employees. You picked some romantic ideal for how money “should” be made and voila now you can complain when it isn’t so. The article actually wants to make a point about falling living standards, but the author couldn’t resist a clickbait title so nonsensical it overshadows the rest. There’s probably some interesting analysis that could be done about UK PPS, absolute, mean and median incomes, incomes vs average cost of living etc. This is not that article.
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  I'd say the UK feels like a bifurcated economy. There's Finance, and closely related industries. Then there's everything else - and that is indeed suffering. I think the article makes a firm, though not very clear, distinction about these things.
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  The article is trying to tie together a bunch of ideas but doesn’t really do a good job of it frankly. However the underlying theme is definitely something that’s worth digging deeper. An economy that is too reliant on only one sector to generate wealth cannot survive on the long run when all the sectors are being systematically torn down and pushed behind. And as the author correctly pointed out, the left wing idea of creating a world without climate change through de industrialization and the right wing idea of living in the past are both fantasies that do a lot of long term damage that may not be apparent immediately.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  It depends on what you think the point of an economy (or a society) is. If the purpose is to create a competition and see who can accumulate the most resources and power, then the UK (and US) are doing quite well. If the purpose is to collectively grow our productivity so that all (for some definition of all) members of society have the opportunity to live better and richer lives, then the UK (and US) are doing rather badly.
deergomoo 4y ago
I’ll be the first to admit I know little about economics, but I despair at the state of things. It feels like half the electorate live in a fantasy land. Over two million people using food banks—many in work—and yet all the chap I see on my morning dog walk wants to talk about is “all the people on the dole who live in big houses and drive brand new cars” (Jobseekers Allowance is £77/week, for reference). Meanwhile our household income is far above the national median, and we still need to scrimp and save far more than our parents and grandparents did to work towards a deposit on a house. I truly feel for the low wage earners in this country, even though a significant portion of them continue to vote for these monsters. We seem to be totally without compassion as a nation right now.
- rapind 4y ago
  It may seem magical, but conservatives have worked really hard to convince peasants that tax breaks for the wealthy is in their best interest.
- bluehatbrit 4y ago
  You've brilliantly expressed exactly how I feel as well. It's so depressing, everyone seems to have their heads burried in the sand or focusing on what other people seem to be getting. It's driving me insane.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    You’re getting Americanized. Congratulations?
- Aloha 4y ago
  I'm an American and I can talk about the same things, nearly word for word (Jobseekers allowance notwithstanding) and feel exactly the same way. Something is wrong with the economy, not just in the UK, but in America and probably a bunch of other countries. Where is the prosperity, if its there, why is it not more widely shared? is it a single cause, or is the cause manifold? I have some ideas as to the answers to these questions (and its not capitalism is bad), but I too am just an engineer, not an economist. The unrest that propels populism is real. It's clear the status quo isnt working for the majority.
reqres 4y ago
If the UK was a US state, it wouldn’t quite be the poorest per capita. It would be USD400 per person better off than Mississippi. Everywhere else – from Arkansas to Washington – would earn anywhere between several thousand to several tens of thousands more.
- orwin 4y ago
  In my opinion, what's really important is how bad live the bottom 20% of the population. Education rate, life expectancy, suffering, suicide rate. Other indicators are less usefull to see if a country is nice to live in.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Include the cost of an individual's health insurance (and many other public services that Americans are charged for despite their similar tax load) and I think the cards wouldn't be quite so stacked in favour of the USA. A direct comparison like this can't be made. I'm not even sure where your comparison comes from, the median American income seems to be about $5k lower than the median UK income.
  - hollerith 4y ago
    GDP and income per capita figures do include health care and other services provided by the government.
    - stevenwoo 4y ago
      You are right but there's a thing where if one has to worry about the affordability of healthcare one avoids seeing medical expertise at all for fear of crushing cost or debt. That probably isn't put into the normal economic measures though may be reflected in maternal outcomes or lifespan trends per income. A long wait as some complain about in Canada or the UK national healthcare seems like a luxury to many in the USA.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
addedlovely 4y ago
Seems more interesting that automation via robotics is initially driven by car manufacturing [0], of which Germany and France produce substantially more units [1] That said the UK government should really get a grip and have a coherent long term strategy instead of fire fighting the next media storm from week to week. Automation will need to increase given an ageing population, people exiting the workforce ( willingly or through care or health reasons ) and closing the door to immigration via Brexit. [0] https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/wr-report-all-time-high-with-half-a-million-robots-installed https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/wr-report-all-time-h... [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/car-production?continent=europe https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/car-production?con...
- jimlongton 4y ago
  Brexit has been absolute poison for the automotive industry in the UK, as expected. I would not expect much innovation or investment when there is so much uncertainty on trade and regulations. Politically it seems there is no appetite to face that reality though.
subsubzero 4y ago
So when Liz Truss announced tax cuts and there was fire and fury after the news and the pound plummeted I started looking into what these tax cuts entailed. They were mentioned as giving the "rich" huge tax cuts so I imagined that they would see a tax rate of 50%(on someone making a million or more a year) going to 25% or something irresponsible like that. After finding the actual figures, for some reason these were very hard to find in various news reports, it was a slight drop of 5% (from 45% to 40%) and the "rich" were classified as those making above 150k. In my mind that salary does not make anyone rich, I mean that's a low to mid level engineering salary in the US. Basically almost any US professional (lawyer, doctor, engineer etc) is going to make that or much more. Then I started looking into what does the average British citizen make and found it was incredibly low at 38K. So basically it dawned on me that the UK is a country that pays very low wages which to me is very surprising as houses(flats) in London are extremely expensive. I would love for a UK citizen to chime in, but for me it was a strange realization as I always assumed that people in the UK made more than in the US.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Based on the number you're citing for the average British salary, you're citing pounds, not dollars. That engineering salary you're citing is, in an ordinary UK economy, more like $225k than $150k (UK comp is also lower than US comp even accounting for currency). $225k is not an ordinary US household income.
  - orf 4y ago
    The median US salary is also 31k dollars, compared to 36k dollars in the UK
    - subsubzero 4y ago
      median US salary is $54K, given the pound to dollar exchange that would mean a UK workers average salary should be 47K(pounds) to equal a US workers average, its not even close. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/average-salary-information-for-us-workers-2060808 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/average-salary-information-f...
Nimitz14 4y ago
Talking with a colleague (while in the UK) I remember us agreeing that the UK felt distinctly behind other WE countries. The quality is often lacking.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  In terms of what?
holoduke 4y ago
Class difference is huge in the UK. There is a large ruling elite living miles from reality. A quick tour in cities like Manchester, Belfast etc show the enormous amount of worker class neighborhoods. And these worker class people are falling below middle class standards now. Good that there is still lots of work availability. But if a recession comes and unemployment becomes a thing then huge issues in the UK will appear.
- jimlongton 4y ago
  This analysis [1] and the linked FT article is eye-opening for many people. I can't say I am surprised though. I've traveled across the UK and the level of poverty in some areas is really shocking. [1] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#m https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#...
  - jeeeb 4y ago
    I think the real take away from those stats is that modern Slovenia is actually quite wealthy. Their GDP per-capita is similar to Italy and their HDI is higher.
- kazen44 4y ago
  very large class difference has always been a thing in the UK as far as i remember. And the only period i can think of when the economy improved drastically for the working class in britain was in the late 60 and the seventies.
  - paganel 4y ago
    Not from the UK myself, but who do you see the '90s in that respect? (i.e. how good or bad they were for the working class people). I had the impression that they were not bad, certainly better than the dreadful '80s, and, on the other end, by the mid-2000s the "third way" shine was beginning to peel off.
sumosudo 4y ago
Ok, Ill just say it: Usury, Quantative Easing, Central Banks. How do we fix this? You better start running for the hills, bucko. The real Shit Storm 'What ryhmes with Rishi' is on its way.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
This is troublesome.. However, I can't help but blame the British system of government. There is no certainty, at any moment the government could collapse, and even when it's not, the PM must constantly watch their back so that his own cabinet does not stab them in the back. America, and similar Presidential systems, there are set lengths of time for someone to be in office. That builds certainty. America may be a lot of things, it may have many issues, but you know with reasonable certainty, that there will be an orderly transfer or adjusting of power. From Boris, to Truss, to Sunak in a matter of months. I'm an ocean away and I have little faith in the British government, I can't imagine what it's citizens must be going through.
- kazen44 4y ago
  i disagree with you on this. The problem with british parliamentarism compared to the system other constitutional monarchies and democracies in europe have, is the the cabinet does not automatically gets disbanded when the goverment looses trust in the Prime Minister. In most european parliamentary systems, a re-election would be called if this situation happens. This is not the case in the UK. Its utterly ludicrous the tories are still in the seat of power after having 5 PM's in 6 years.
- delecti 4y ago
  Amusingly, I actually envy that aspect of the British system quite a bit. It feels like complete fantasy to imagine a president who has messed up and then resigns. The idea of a president's cabinet holding them accountable seems like fantasy as well. And it's only been a week since Truss announced her resignation but there's already a new PM. Boris' own party removed him from office, meanwhile only a handful of US congresspeople have ever voted to impeach/remove a president of their own party. Our last president tried to extort another country, and staged a nearly successful self-coup, and saw the end of his term.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    The Prime Minister is technically the leader of the party so more like the US Speaker of The House than the President. Technically the King as the head of State has the role of President, but of course the King is effectively a figurehead. Imagine if the House of Representatives managed to slap down the President and the Senate so hard that they never got up again, and you have what is effectively the UK system of government.
Moissanite 4y ago
Not a great article, but it touches lightly on a lot of the key points like our problem with an aging, NIMBY-ist voting bloc who decry things getting worse, but won't allow for any meaningful change. The missing puzzle piece for me when trying to better understand this topic is what "productivity" really means. I get the notion of "output per unit of work" - but there is never much attempt to peer deeper and understand why productivity is lower here. Is there actual evidence of workers doing less on a given day? What does that even look like, for example in the retail sector where workers seem to have very little impact on the purchasing decisions of customers. If it isn't employees, where does the lower productivity come from - are we just outcompeted on cost because we still try to have too much of a low-skill economy which can't keep prices as low as the developing world? It would be good to compare productivity in the UK with countries in Scandinavia, i.e. those with a better social safety net and without the financial centre of gravity that is London. Where does their productivity come from? These are the kinds of topics I'd like both journalists and politicians to discuss more - but for as long as they have to cater to the lowest common attention span, I'm not getting my hopes up.
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  Anecdotally, from friends who lived in UK and Sweden: yes, people do less. They are less well equipped, less well trained. Three people do jobs one person could do as a result. Work is not well coordinated, so people end up at work with nothing to do.
  - Moissanite 4y ago
    > They are less well equipped, less well trained. Three people do jobs one person could do as a result. Trying to think of examples where I've seen this, the first thing that comes to mind is receptionists in my dentist's office. 2 or 3 surly, over-makeup'd women sat around chatting and occasionally dealing with customers. Maybe a good starting point would be to fire 1 of them and pay the other two more (or more likely, use the higher pay offer to get better people). Of course what really happens is that the business keeps that money and doesn't hire new/better employees, making the current ones even more surly but no more productive. Going down this rabbit hole I conclude it is a cultural problem, but every solution I can think of (better safety net and higher minimum wage to push these people out of the workforce, for example) feel like they would be inordinately expensive.
djcannabiz 4y ago
does anyone have a non paywalled link
jackjeff 4y ago
I have to say foreign medias have no qualms mentioning Brexit as an aggravating factor. But local U.K. news would not even get near it, for fear of opening Pandora’s box once more. Even opposition parties (Labour) look the other way.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Every second word in the Guardian is brexit.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
United857 4y ago
Original link is 404 for me for some reason so here's the obligatory archive.ph link: https://archive.ph/bSovb https://archive.ph/bSovb
yrgulation 4y ago
Yet taxes will go even higher. 25% corporate profit tax? Get out of here.

111 points by curmudgeon22 4y ago

I know that things don't work as well as they should here, but to my ears this opinion piece sounds more like parody than reality. Take this line. >Take out Greater London—the prosperity of which depends to an uncomfortable degree on a willingness to provide services to oligarchs from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union— and the UK is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe.” Yes. London is a financial centre. A large portion of the GDP of the country is generated by it's biggest (main?) population centre. Is there a problem that london chooses to indulge in the more lucrative financial services over Victorian industry? Still, i do agree there are historical, major issues with lack of productivity and industry. The tories don't seem to have any vision for the economy future. They just throw money where its popular. I thought for a short while Liz Truss would be the answer, but she has turned up short in the IQ department, but i don't think its the picture of doom the atlantic thinks it is.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
- sealeck 4y ago
  Have _you_ ever been there? I've never seen that and I would not say London is a shithole (try walking around central London, e.g. Regent's Park, Hyde Park and surrounding area).
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  I've lived here my whole life and i don't know what you're talking about.
- weavejester 4y ago
  I've never seen raw sewage running down the street. Admittedly I've not been everywhere in London, and some parts are better than others, but it doesn't seem any different from any other city I've been in. It feels cleaner than New York, for example.
  - makomk 4y ago
    The UK actually seems to do a better job of treating its sewage than other European countries. What happened is that a lot of the British press absolutely loathes the current government over Brexit and wants them booted out, so they created a narrative that our rivers and oceans are suddenly full of sewage based off the number of recorded overflows increasing due to much better monitoring. (The main problem is that the sewers are old, mix storm and waste water, and that overwhelms treatment capacity when it rains heavily. There's no easy way to fix it.) I guess one of those articles probably got mangled in repetition at some point. Meanwhile, other nearby countries that are EU members still have urban areas with no sewage treatment plants at all and just dump all their sewage into waterways in normal operation, something that's against EU rules and I'm pretty sure was stopped a long time ago in the UK. That doesn't get as much media coverage because it doesn't fit a useful narrative, though, to the point even people from thsoe countries are convinced their country is doing a better job. Also, this story largely originated in the Guardian, and it turns out prior to Brexit they were pushing the narrative that the big megaproject to 95% fix this in London was completely pointless and only served to channel cash to the Tories' pals, the problem wasn't really that bad and the overflows were mostly rain water anyway: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/27/london-super-sewer-branded-waste-time-money https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/27/london-s... This is, uh, rather different from the current narrative they're pushing.
    - weavejester 4y ago
      "What happened is that a lot of the British press absolutely loathes the current government over Brexit and wants them booted out" That makes it seem like the UK press is largely left leaning, when most of it is very much right leaning and usually pro-government in sentiment. The Mail has far more readers than the Guardian, for instance. The Sun more than the Mirror. The BBC, while historically left of centre, is nowadays pro-government after threats of funding cuts brought them to heel. There are a lot of reasons beyond Brexit to think the government is doing a poor job, though Brexit itself is obviously a huge point of contention.
- orf 4y ago
  Lived here for a decade and don’t know what you’re talking about. If I was to indulge this for even a second I’d point out this massive project sewage project involving 6 tunnel boring machines: https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/ https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/
- jen20 4y ago
  Where, exactly? A street name, preferably.
- mattkevan 4y ago
  You’re talking rubbish mate. Lived all over London for 20 years, including pre-gentrification Hackney and very gentrified parts of Lambeth and there’s never been anything like that. Not even in Croydon, and they’re feral.
sealeck 4y ago
The comment is also _completely_ without any substantial basis. Sure, London provides financial services, but there's no data provided to suggest that a substantial portion of London's economic activity is generated by providing services to shady individuals.
umeshunni 4y ago
What's even worse is this chart that the article is based on is: https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/07/wages-fallen-behind-european-rivals https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/07/wages-... Title: UK income has fallen significantly behind that of its rivals Actual data: Change in median disposable income I'll repeat my common comment that I wished I lived in a world where 'journalists' had to take basic math lessons.

Tycho 4y ago

philjohn 4y ago
Far more stay in Lebanon (e.g. from Syria) or other european countries than try to make it to the UK.
weakfish 4y ago
> in Western Europe key part here
- Tycho 4y ago
  They are travelling from Western Europe to the UK, yes.
  - sealeck 4y ago
    Sure, in the same way that if you take a flight from Australia to London which stops in Singapore and Frankfurt, then you are technically travelling from Germany to the UK.
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      The point is that the migrants could stop in France or Germany rather than cross the channel, but do not choose to do so.
      - atxbcp 4y ago
        Except they do. A very few risk their lives to reach the UK (usually because they have family there), but millions choose to stay in Western Europe (e.g France, Germany).
      - azinman2 4y ago
        I cannot speak to where people go (lots of countries have lots of immigrants, including Italy, France, Germany, etc), but culturally the UK is more accepting of integrating immigrants than its neighbors. They also speak English, which will also be a driving force from certain countries.

notright2 4y ago

10g1k 4y ago

The UK is multiple countries. Not really an impactful distinction, just saying.

moosedev 4y ago
Although it’s made of countries, it is also a country, so the headline isn’t wrong to refer to it as “one” country, in case that’s what you were implying. Source: am British

aljungberg 4y ago

Sure, the sixth largest economy in the world is “poor” because too much wealth is generated by financial services in the capital and not mom and pops in small towns or whatever. That’s like saying California is poor because most of the wealth isn’t generated by McDonalds employees. You picked some romantic ideal for how money “should” be made and voila now you can complain when it isn’t so. The article actually wants to make a point about falling living standards, but the author couldn’t resist a clickbait title so nonsensical it overshadows the rest. There’s probably some interesting analysis that could be done about UK PPS, absolute, mean and median incomes, incomes vs average cost of living etc. This is not that article.

rich_sasha 4y ago
I'd say the UK feels like a bifurcated economy. There's Finance, and closely related industries. Then there's everything else - and that is indeed suffering. I think the article makes a firm, though not very clear, distinction about these things.
darth_avocado 4y ago
The article is trying to tie together a bunch of ideas but doesn’t really do a good job of it frankly. However the underlying theme is definitely something that’s worth digging deeper. An economy that is too reliant on only one sector to generate wealth cannot survive on the long run when all the sectors are being systematically torn down and pushed behind. And as the author correctly pointed out, the left wing idea of creating a world without climate change through de industrialization and the right wing idea of living in the past are both fantasies that do a lot of long term damage that may not be apparent immediately.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
It depends on what you think the point of an economy (or a society) is. If the purpose is to create a competition and see who can accumulate the most resources and power, then the UK (and US) are doing quite well. If the purpose is to collectively grow our productivity so that all (for some definition of all) members of society have the opportunity to live better and richer lives, then the UK (and US) are doing rather badly.

deergomoo 4y ago

I’ll be the first to admit I know little about economics, but I despair at the state of things. It feels like half the electorate live in a fantasy land. Over two million people using food banks—many in work—and yet all the chap I see on my morning dog walk wants to talk about is “all the people on the dole who live in big houses and drive brand new cars” (Jobseekers Allowance is £77/week, for reference). Meanwhile our household income is far above the national median, and we still need to scrimp and save far more than our parents and grandparents did to work towards a deposit on a house. I truly feel for the low wage earners in this country, even though a significant portion of them continue to vote for these monsters. We seem to be totally without compassion as a nation right now.

rapind 4y ago
It may seem magical, but conservatives have worked really hard to convince peasants that tax breaks for the wealthy is in their best interest.
bluehatbrit 4y ago
You've brilliantly expressed exactly how I feel as well. It's so depressing, everyone seems to have their heads burried in the sand or focusing on what other people seem to be getting. It's driving me insane.
- bergenty 4y ago
  You’re getting Americanized. Congratulations?
Aloha 4y ago
I'm an American and I can talk about the same things, nearly word for word (Jobseekers allowance notwithstanding) and feel exactly the same way. Something is wrong with the economy, not just in the UK, but in America and probably a bunch of other countries. Where is the prosperity, if its there, why is it not more widely shared? is it a single cause, or is the cause manifold? I have some ideas as to the answers to these questions (and its not capitalism is bad), but I too am just an engineer, not an economist. The unrest that propels populism is real. It's clear the status quo isnt working for the majority.

reqres 4y ago

If the UK was a US state, it wouldn’t quite be the poorest per capita. It would be USD400 per person better off than Mississippi. Everywhere else – from Arkansas to Washington – would earn anywhere between several thousand to several tens of thousands more.

orwin 4y ago
In my opinion, what's really important is how bad live the bottom 20% of the population. Education rate, life expectancy, suffering, suicide rate. Other indicators are less usefull to see if a country is nice to live in.
jeroenhd 4y ago
Include the cost of an individual's health insurance (and many other public services that Americans are charged for despite their similar tax load) and I think the cards wouldn't be quite so stacked in favour of the USA. A direct comparison like this can't be made. I'm not even sure where your comparison comes from, the median American income seems to be about $5k lower than the median UK income.
- hollerith 4y ago
  GDP and income per capita figures do include health care and other services provided by the government.
  - stevenwoo 4y ago
    You are right but there's a thing where if one has to worry about the affordability of healthcare one avoids seeing medical expertise at all for fear of crushing cost or debt. That probably isn't put into the normal economic measures though may be reflected in maternal outcomes or lifespan trends per income. A long wait as some complain about in Canada or the UK national healthcare seems like a luxury to many in the USA.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

addedlovely 4y ago

Seems more interesting that automation via robotics is initially driven by car manufacturing [0], of which Germany and France produce substantially more units [1] That said the UK government should really get a grip and have a coherent long term strategy instead of fire fighting the next media storm from week to week. Automation will need to increase given an ageing population, people exiting the workforce ( willingly or through care or health reasons ) and closing the door to immigration via Brexit. [0] https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/wr-report-all-time-high-with-half-a-million-robots-installed https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/wr-report-all-time-h... [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/car-production?continent=europe https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/car-production?con...

jimlongton 4y ago
Brexit has been absolute poison for the automotive industry in the UK, as expected. I would not expect much innovation or investment when there is so much uncertainty on trade and regulations. Politically it seems there is no appetite to face that reality though.

subsubzero 4y ago

So when Liz Truss announced tax cuts and there was fire and fury after the news and the pound plummeted I started looking into what these tax cuts entailed. They were mentioned as giving the "rich" huge tax cuts so I imagined that they would see a tax rate of 50%(on someone making a million or more a year) going to 25% or something irresponsible like that. After finding the actual figures, for some reason these were very hard to find in various news reports, it was a slight drop of 5% (from 45% to 40%) and the "rich" were classified as those making above 150k. In my mind that salary does not make anyone rich, I mean that's a low to mid level engineering salary in the US. Basically almost any US professional (lawyer, doctor, engineer etc) is going to make that or much more. Then I started looking into what does the average British citizen make and found it was incredibly low at 38K. So basically it dawned on me that the UK is a country that pays very low wages which to me is very surprising as houses(flats) in London are extremely expensive. I would love for a UK citizen to chime in, but for me it was a strange realization as I always assumed that people in the UK made more than in the US.

tptacek 4y ago
Based on the number you're citing for the average British salary, you're citing pounds, not dollars. That engineering salary you're citing is, in an ordinary UK economy, more like $225k than $150k (UK comp is also lower than US comp even accounting for currency). $225k is not an ordinary US household income.
- orf 4y ago
  The median US salary is also 31k dollars, compared to 36k dollars in the UK
  - subsubzero 4y ago
    median US salary is $54K, given the pound to dollar exchange that would mean a UK workers average salary should be 47K(pounds) to equal a US workers average, its not even close. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/average-salary-information-for-us-workers-2060808 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/average-salary-information-f...

Nimitz14 4y ago

Talking with a colleague (while in the UK) I remember us agreeing that the UK felt distinctly behind other WE countries. The quality is often lacking.

yrgulation 4y ago
In terms of what?

holoduke 4y ago

Class difference is huge in the UK. There is a large ruling elite living miles from reality. A quick tour in cities like Manchester, Belfast etc show the enormous amount of worker class neighborhoods. And these worker class people are falling below middle class standards now. Good that there is still lots of work availability. But if a recession comes and unemployment becomes a thing then huge issues in the UK will appear.

jimlongton 4y ago
This analysis [1] and the linked FT article is eye-opening for many people. I can't say I am surprised though. I've traveled across the UK and the level of poverty in some areas is really shocking. [1] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#m https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#...
- jeeeb 4y ago
  I think the real take away from those stats is that modern Slovenia is actually quite wealthy. Their GDP per-capita is similar to Italy and their HDI is higher.
kazen44 4y ago
very large class difference has always been a thing in the UK as far as i remember. And the only period i can think of when the economy improved drastically for the working class in britain was in the late 60 and the seventies.
- paganel 4y ago
  Not from the UK myself, but who do you see the '90s in that respect? (i.e. how good or bad they were for the working class people). I had the impression that they were not bad, certainly better than the dreadful '80s, and, on the other end, by the mid-2000s the "third way" shine was beginning to peel off.

sumosudo 4y ago

Ok, Ill just say it: Usury, Quantative Easing, Central Banks. How do we fix this? You better start running for the hills, bucko. The real Shit Storm 'What ryhmes with Rishi' is on its way.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

This is troublesome.. However, I can't help but blame the British system of government. There is no certainty, at any moment the government could collapse, and even when it's not, the PM must constantly watch their back so that his own cabinet does not stab them in the back. America, and similar Presidential systems, there are set lengths of time for someone to be in office. That builds certainty. America may be a lot of things, it may have many issues, but you know with reasonable certainty, that there will be an orderly transfer or adjusting of power. From Boris, to Truss, to Sunak in a matter of months. I'm an ocean away and I have little faith in the British government, I can't imagine what it's citizens must be going through.

kazen44 4y ago
i disagree with you on this. The problem with british parliamentarism compared to the system other constitutional monarchies and democracies in europe have, is the the cabinet does not automatically gets disbanded when the goverment looses trust in the Prime Minister. In most european parliamentary systems, a re-election would be called if this situation happens. This is not the case in the UK. Its utterly ludicrous the tories are still in the seat of power after having 5 PM's in 6 years.
delecti 4y ago
Amusingly, I actually envy that aspect of the British system quite a bit. It feels like complete fantasy to imagine a president who has messed up and then resigns. The idea of a president's cabinet holding them accountable seems like fantasy as well. And it's only been a week since Truss announced her resignation but there's already a new PM. Boris' own party removed him from office, meanwhile only a handful of US congresspeople have ever voted to impeach/remove a president of their own party. Our last president tried to extort another country, and staged a nearly successful self-coup, and saw the end of his term.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  The Prime Minister is technically the leader of the party so more like the US Speaker of The House than the President. Technically the King as the head of State has the role of President, but of course the King is effectively a figurehead. Imagine if the House of Representatives managed to slap down the President and the Senate so hard that they never got up again, and you have what is effectively the UK system of government.

Moissanite 4y ago

Not a great article, but it touches lightly on a lot of the key points like our problem with an aging, NIMBY-ist voting bloc who decry things getting worse, but won't allow for any meaningful change. The missing puzzle piece for me when trying to better understand this topic is what "productivity" really means. I get the notion of "output per unit of work" - but there is never much attempt to peer deeper and understand why productivity is lower here. Is there actual evidence of workers doing less on a given day? What does that even look like, for example in the retail sector where workers seem to have very little impact on the purchasing decisions of customers. If it isn't employees, where does the lower productivity come from - are we just outcompeted on cost because we still try to have too much of a low-skill economy which can't keep prices as low as the developing world? It would be good to compare productivity in the UK with countries in Scandinavia, i.e. those with a better social safety net and without the financial centre of gravity that is London. Where does their productivity come from? These are the kinds of topics I'd like both journalists and politicians to discuss more - but for as long as they have to cater to the lowest common attention span, I'm not getting my hopes up.

rich_sasha 4y ago
Anecdotally, from friends who lived in UK and Sweden: yes, people do less. They are less well equipped, less well trained. Three people do jobs one person could do as a result. Work is not well coordinated, so people end up at work with nothing to do.
- Moissanite 4y ago
  > They are less well equipped, less well trained. Three people do jobs one person could do as a result. Trying to think of examples where I've seen this, the first thing that comes to mind is receptionists in my dentist's office. 2 or 3 surly, over-makeup'd women sat around chatting and occasionally dealing with customers. Maybe a good starting point would be to fire 1 of them and pay the other two more (or more likely, use the higher pay offer to get better people). Of course what really happens is that the business keeps that money and doesn't hire new/better employees, making the current ones even more surly but no more productive. Going down this rabbit hole I conclude it is a cultural problem, but every solution I can think of (better safety net and higher minimum wage to push these people out of the workforce, for example) feel like they would be inordinately expensive.

djcannabiz 4y ago

does anyone have a non paywalled link

jackjeff 4y ago

I have to say foreign medias have no qualms mentioning Brexit as an aggravating factor. But local U.K. news would not even get near it, for fear of opening Pandora’s box once more. Even opposition parties (Labour) look the other way.

mr_toad 4y ago
Every second word in the Guardian is brexit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

United857 4y ago

Original link is 404 for me for some reason so here's the obligatory archive.ph link: https://archive.ph/bSovb https://archive.ph/bSovb

yrgulation 4y ago

Yet taxes will go even higher. 25% corporate profit tax? Get out of here.