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What does that have to do with the actions of the current government over the past decade? You were talking about things that have allegedly already improved, n

by foldr 3y ago

What does that have to do with the actions of the current government over the past decade? You were talking about things that have allegedly already improved, not possible future improvements. By the way, I live in London and am reasonably familiar with its history. Asking people to 'read up' on things that haven't previously been a topic of the discussion is a bit presumptuous. I might know more about it than you!

Retric 3y ago
I was supporting my argument for hundreds of years of bureaucracy built up. Reducing support for local councils has been deeply unpopular, but pointing out 32 + 1 local councils for London is overly bureaucratic and long agreed to be inefficient doesn’t connect to that in any way? The actual solution is to get rid of most of them, but a stopgap is to reduce their funding and thus waste.
- foldr 3y ago
  >I was supporting my argument for hundreds of years of bureaucracy built up. I don't really understand what this means. Any country that's existed for hundreds of years has bureaucracy that's built up over hundreds of years. Britain isn't an unusually bureaucratic country – quite the opposite in many respects. >Reducing support for local councils has been deeply unpopular And yet you seem to think that it's had various unspecified benefits. If so, why is it so unpopular with the general public? And what are these benefits? It's easy to cut 'waste' by cutting funding. Cut funding to zero and you'll have zero waste! Magic!
  - Retric 3y ago
    > Any country that's existed for hundreds of years has bureaucracy that's built up over hundreds of years. Britain isn't an unusually bureaucratic country – quite the opposite in many respects. Most countries disrupt the existing bureaucracy over time, the UK is somewhat unique in how old many of it’s structures are. Tokyo and Paris are equally old cities, but their structure didn’t ossify hundreds of years ago they fundamentally changed over time. Also, there is nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. The difficult bit about cutting spending in a democracy is the unpopular nature of doing so. So, again you personally don’t like what’s going on, and at the exact same time it’s good for the long term health of the UK. Not because their doing a particularly good job, but because their doing something necessary.
    - foldr 3y ago
      >There’s nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. You haven't specified who's benefitted and how. Nor have you shown that 'waste' spending has indeed gone down, either in absolute terms or as a fraction of total spending. >So, again you personally don’t like what’s going on, and at the exact same time it’s a very good thing for the long term health of the UK. How long is 'long' here? The country was in a better economic state when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. How long will we have to wait to see these long term benefits?
      - Retric 3y ago
        Continuing my last point, Tokyo went through several major disruptions over the last 200 years ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo > How long is ‘long’ here? Everyone’s kids is who benefits. I am talking 30-40 years, countries don’t turn around on a dime. That said from 2000 to 2010 the UK was ‘flat’ and it just dealt with COVID, but I am not blaming the people in power for either the event just how well they set the country up to improve in the future.
        foldr 3y ago
        >Everyone’s kids is who benefits. https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-risk-councils-forced-halve-spending-early-support https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-ris... In any case, you are implicitly conceding that you cannot point to any tangible benefits of this government's policies in the present day. They are merely policies that you think are ideologically correct, and thus expect to have good outcomes within some very long timeframe. No idea why you are brining Tokyo into this – sorry.
        Retric 3y ago
        I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. > cannot point to any tangible benefits How about debt/ GDP ratio that fell down to 82.8% in 2019 right before the pandemic. This trend was really easy to find 84.5, 84.3, 83.5, 82.8 (pandemic) Making longer term predictions is much harder than retroactively looking on a few backward looking and easily gamed indicators. Rather than directly looking at GDP you need to compare things like GDP per capita PPP with other countries adjusting for demographics, economic development, etc but it’s really not worth getting into with someone that’s thinking in terms of political ideology.

by foldr 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

I was supporting my argument for hundreds of years of bureaucracy built up. Reducing support for local councils has been deeply unpopular, but pointing out 32 + 1 local councils for London is overly bureaucratic and long agreed to be inefficient doesn’t connect to that in any way? The actual solution is to get rid of most of them, but a stopgap is to reduce their funding and thus waste.

foldr 3y ago
>I was supporting my argument for hundreds of years of bureaucracy built up. I don't really understand what this means. Any country that's existed for hundreds of years has bureaucracy that's built up over hundreds of years. Britain isn't an unusually bureaucratic country – quite the opposite in many respects. >Reducing support for local councils has been deeply unpopular And yet you seem to think that it's had various unspecified benefits. If so, why is it so unpopular with the general public? And what are these benefits? It's easy to cut 'waste' by cutting funding. Cut funding to zero and you'll have zero waste! Magic!
- Retric 3y ago
  > Any country that's existed for hundreds of years has bureaucracy that's built up over hundreds of years. Britain isn't an unusually bureaucratic country – quite the opposite in many respects. Most countries disrupt the existing bureaucracy over time, the UK is somewhat unique in how old many of it’s structures are. Tokyo and Paris are equally old cities, but their structure didn’t ossify hundreds of years ago they fundamentally changed over time. Also, there is nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. The difficult bit about cutting spending in a democracy is the unpopular nature of doing so. So, again you personally don’t like what’s going on, and at the exact same time it’s good for the long term health of the UK. Not because their doing a particularly good job, but because their doing something necessary.
  - foldr 3y ago
    >There’s nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. You haven't specified who's benefitted and how. Nor have you shown that 'waste' spending has indeed gone down, either in absolute terms or as a fraction of total spending. >So, again you personally don’t like what’s going on, and at the exact same time it’s a very good thing for the long term health of the UK. How long is 'long' here? The country was in a better economic state when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. How long will we have to wait to see these long term benefits?
    - Retric 3y ago
      Continuing my last point, Tokyo went through several major disruptions over the last 200 years ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo > How long is ‘long’ here? Everyone’s kids is who benefits. I am talking 30-40 years, countries don’t turn around on a dime. That said from 2000 to 2010 the UK was ‘flat’ and it just dealt with COVID, but I am not blaming the people in power for either the event just how well they set the country up to improve in the future.
      - foldr 3y ago
        >Everyone’s kids is who benefits. https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-risk-councils-forced-halve-spending-early-support https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-ris... In any case, you are implicitly conceding that you cannot point to any tangible benefits of this government's policies in the present day. They are merely policies that you think are ideologically correct, and thus expect to have good outcomes within some very long timeframe. No idea why you are brining Tokyo into this – sorry.
        Retric 3y ago
        I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. > cannot point to any tangible benefits How about debt/ GDP ratio that fell down to 82.8% in 2019 right before the pandemic. This trend was really easy to find 84.5, 84.3, 83.5, 82.8 (pandemic) Making longer term predictions is much harder than retroactively looking on a few backward looking and easily gamed indicators. Rather than directly looking at GDP you need to compare things like GDP per capita PPP with other countries adjusting for demographics, economic development, etc but it’s really not worth getting into with someone that’s thinking in terms of political ideology.