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This is one of the few articles that seems to do a good job of summarizing why the UK is in its position. It never solved its creeping energy costs, it didn't b

This is one of the few articles that seems to do a good job of summarizing why the UK is in its position. It never solved its creeping energy costs, it didn't build enough housing, then it gambled (and lost) on austerity and Brexit, which makes digging itself out of the hole more difficult. But what really hurts is this: the UK knows exactly what ails it but all solutions are politically untenable.

hnhg 3y ago
The British media, The Times included, have had a big part to play in all of this. For them to behave with their usual convenient amnesia of their past reporting is a bit too much for me, at least, to accept. It just isn't fit for purpose any more. (I tried subscribing to The Times not long ago on a special offer and cancelled my subscription long before it was over. It is immensely pro-Tory and obediently unquestioning of the government. Just today I saw on their front page an article implicitly shilling for the government against encryption).
- sys_64738 3y ago
  A more apt description is the Murdoch Media as he has control of all the mouthpieces that Tory voters look at.
  - hnhg 3y ago
    Don't forget the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Star. Then, take a look at how the composition of the BBC's board changed starting under Cameron's administration. Until recently, their Chairman was Richard Sharp, who donated more than 400k to the tories, and was forced to resign for helping Boris secure a 800k loan. The Director General is Tim Davie, who ran for a seat as a Tory councillor once. Check out the others on the board, many have had positions with some relationship to the tories. Also, what about Ofcom, the regulatory body? Their chairman is Michael Grade, a Conservative life peer. And now we have GB News emerging (aka KGB news), backed by gulf money but also some major tory donors. This isn't healthy, the UK cannot afford an implicit one-party system. Democracy cannot function like this.
madaxe_again 3y ago
It skirts away from the “why” of those, however, looking at first order effects as causes. The “why” is conceit and arrogance - an unshakeable belief in British superiority, that it can never happen here, and that there will be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover. That, I see little sign of changing. I write this as a Briton who has turned his back on the U.K., rather than hold out hope for change.
spankalee 3y ago
The shortfall in housing is such a key factor here, as it drives higher childcare, healthcare, and general labor costs: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every... And housing may just be a subset of the problem of not really being able to build anything anymore that's shared with the US.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Lack of housing in the US is almost entirely confined to select urban areas. There's no shortage of land or legal ability to build housing across most of the country but if you want to build an eight-story condo in San Francisco, you're in for an exhausting battle. Try the same in downtown Des Moines or Omaha, and you're probably going to get the red carpet rolled out for you. Try to build a single-family house in a rural area and most counties will primarily just care that you have a way to treat sewage and that you're following basic building codes (and in some places, they don't even care about the latter).
  - joker_minmax 3y ago
    Cities are where the jobs are, though, and at least in my (American) city of residence, most of the single family homes sold in the last year were bought by property management companies to become rentals or flipped.
    - spankalee 3y ago
      > most of the single family homes sold in the last year were bought by property management companies What's your source on this? I see similar claims, never cited. Even if true, that would be a symptom of under-production. Build more and there isn't the incentive to invest in an asset with government-boosted appreciation.
      - joker_minmax 3y ago
        I won't doxx myself but I found one here with a 30% figure with data from 2021 about Texas. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36304142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36304142
jrsj 3y ago
If there’s no solution within democracy then maybe it’s time for a solution outside of democracy
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  The problem is the absence of democracy.
  - jrsj 3y ago
    What I’m wondering then is: - How so? - What can be done to fix it? - Is there a viable path to getting there? the parent comment to me sounded like democracy as it exists in the UK basically led them down this path and now has them stuck in a death spiral
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ Currently the UK vote is based on trying to get about 1/3rd of the country, in specific places, to vote for you, not 50%. It's a flawed democracy that has gradually evolved from an even more flawed democracy but now lags the state of the art by some margin.
  - pcw888 3y ago
    I would say that it's not an absence of democracy but a population skew. The Boomer demographic has been a majority stakeholder in UK elections for a long time, but it's changing naturally every year. Now you are starting to see more policies aimed at the next marginal voter group. However, it's true, we're in a mess, and none of the major political parties seem to have a viable strategy.
- bruce511 3y ago
  You're going to get downvoted for that not by me though.) It's a serious point though, but unfortunately one that has copius evidence that the outcome of that approach is worse, not better. The problems with democracy are evident (brexit being a poster child.) The democratic successes are equally good (South Africa, Northern Ireland). The primary problem with alternate systems is that there's no way out. Once you have an authoritarian approach, if you don't like the authority you SOL. Basically it's all the worst bits of democracy without any of the up sides. Ultimately people vote, (or don't care) and get to live with the consequences.
rayiner 3y ago
The data doesn’t support your assertion about austerity and Brexit. Since 2008, the per capita GDP of the UK, France, Italy, and Spain follow almost the exact same curves. They didn’t have Brexit or austerity in those countries. Germany is really the only large country in the EU that has a higher per capita GDP now than it did in 2008.
- shapefrog 3y ago
  France, Italy, and Spain Those countries are total basket cases, where the population are either sleeping all day or burning their own cities in protest. Its unfair to compare the UK against them.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Those are by far the largest and most diversified economies in the EU besides Germany. And from the 1960s to 1990s, France outperformed the UK.

hnhg 3y ago

The British media, The Times included, have had a big part to play in all of this. For them to behave with their usual convenient amnesia of their past reporting is a bit too much for me, at least, to accept. It just isn't fit for purpose any more. (I tried subscribing to The Times not long ago on a special offer and cancelled my subscription long before it was over. It is immensely pro-Tory and obediently unquestioning of the government. Just today I saw on their front page an article implicitly shilling for the government against encryption).

sys_64738 3y ago
A more apt description is the Murdoch Media as he has control of all the mouthpieces that Tory voters look at.
- hnhg 3y ago
  Don't forget the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Star. Then, take a look at how the composition of the BBC's board changed starting under Cameron's administration. Until recently, their Chairman was Richard Sharp, who donated more than 400k to the tories, and was forced to resign for helping Boris secure a 800k loan. The Director General is Tim Davie, who ran for a seat as a Tory councillor once. Check out the others on the board, many have had positions with some relationship to the tories. Also, what about Ofcom, the regulatory body? Their chairman is Michael Grade, a Conservative life peer. And now we have GB News emerging (aka KGB news), backed by gulf money but also some major tory donors. This isn't healthy, the UK cannot afford an implicit one-party system. Democracy cannot function like this.

madaxe_again 3y ago

It skirts away from the “why” of those, however, looking at first order effects as causes. The “why” is conceit and arrogance - an unshakeable belief in British superiority, that it can never happen here, and that there will be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover. That, I see little sign of changing. I write this as a Briton who has turned his back on the U.K., rather than hold out hope for change.

spankalee 3y ago

The shortfall in housing is such a key factor here, as it drives higher childcare, healthcare, and general labor costs: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every... And housing may just be a subset of the problem of not really being able to build anything anymore that's shared with the US.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Lack of housing in the US is almost entirely confined to select urban areas. There's no shortage of land or legal ability to build housing across most of the country but if you want to build an eight-story condo in San Francisco, you're in for an exhausting battle. Try the same in downtown Des Moines or Omaha, and you're probably going to get the red carpet rolled out for you. Try to build a single-family house in a rural area and most counties will primarily just care that you have a way to treat sewage and that you're following basic building codes (and in some places, they don't even care about the latter).
- joker_minmax 3y ago
  Cities are where the jobs are, though, and at least in my (American) city of residence, most of the single family homes sold in the last year were bought by property management companies to become rentals or flipped.
  - spankalee 3y ago
    > most of the single family homes sold in the last year were bought by property management companies What's your source on this? I see similar claims, never cited. Even if true, that would be a symptom of under-production. Build more and there isn't the incentive to invest in an asset with government-boosted appreciation.
    - joker_minmax 3y ago
      I won't doxx myself but I found one here with a 30% figure with data from 2021 about Texas. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36304142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36304142

jrsj 3y ago

If there’s no solution within democracy then maybe it’s time for a solution outside of democracy

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
The problem is the absence of democracy.
- jrsj 3y ago
  What I’m wondering then is: - How so? - What can be done to fix it? - Is there a viable path to getting there? the parent comment to me sounded like democracy as it exists in the UK basically led them down this path and now has them stuck in a death spiral
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ Currently the UK vote is based on trying to get about 1/3rd of the country, in specific places, to vote for you, not 50%. It's a flawed democracy that has gradually evolved from an even more flawed democracy but now lags the state of the art by some margin.
- pcw888 3y ago
  I would say that it's not an absence of democracy but a population skew. The Boomer demographic has been a majority stakeholder in UK elections for a long time, but it's changing naturally every year. Now you are starting to see more policies aimed at the next marginal voter group. However, it's true, we're in a mess, and none of the major political parties seem to have a viable strategy.
bruce511 3y ago
You're going to get downvoted for that not by me though.) It's a serious point though, but unfortunately one that has copius evidence that the outcome of that approach is worse, not better. The problems with democracy are evident (brexit being a poster child.) The democratic successes are equally good (South Africa, Northern Ireland). The primary problem with alternate systems is that there's no way out. Once you have an authoritarian approach, if you don't like the authority you SOL. Basically it's all the worst bits of democracy without any of the up sides. Ultimately people vote, (or don't care) and get to live with the consequences.

rayiner 3y ago

The data doesn’t support your assertion about austerity and Brexit. Since 2008, the per capita GDP of the UK, France, Italy, and Spain follow almost the exact same curves. They didn’t have Brexit or austerity in those countries. Germany is really the only large country in the EU that has a higher per capita GDP now than it did in 2008.

shapefrog 3y ago
France, Italy, and Spain Those countries are total basket cases, where the population are either sleeping all day or burning their own cities in protest. Its unfair to compare the UK against them.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Those are by far the largest and most diversified economies in the EU besides Germany. And from the 1960s to 1990s, France outperformed the UK.