3 ms·

>In a practical sense, the only way for people to get better lives is to work better jobs. If people get more money, they just fight to change the distribution

>In a practical sense, the only way for people to get better lives is to work better jobs. If people get more money, they just fight to change the distribution of presently available stuff. To cause sustainable improvements, people need to have the skills, knowhow and opportunity to produce more/higher quality stuff. Now do inflation and people who already have skills and are forced to work multiple jobs to afford to live somewhere to do the first job, i.e., NHS workers in the UK. And yet we have council housing here, but the waiting lists are long, and we have plenty of unoccupied and unused properties under private ownership. These are complex issues and it starts with property being treated as an "investment" or a revenue stream rather than what it is—shelter.

roenxi 3y ago
The UK's energy availability has collapsed 30% since 2000. Yeah, there are no good jobs. If energy policy gets screwed up that badly, there are really not many options except admitting mistakes were made and doing something sensible going forward. I've been advocating deregulating nuclear power and looking for cheap energy that way for a long time. Possibly renewables has also gotten cheap enough to cover the gap, although realistically it has so much political support the fact that it hasn't suggests it is uneconomic. China just built lots of coal plants. Life has been on the up-and-up for the average Chinese worker. Weird how that works out. Part of helping people get good jobs involves allowing capitalists to build power stations. Handing out $1,000 checks to random families is unlikely to help with that. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-kingdom#per-capita-what-is-the-average-energy-consumption-per-person https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-kingdom#per...
- fulafel 3y ago
  From another perspective the UK had the problem of high energy availability (semi-petro-state style). Housing is built so that it needs cheap gas to practically heat. If you go a bit north to colder climates in Europe, people don't have gas, but they spend less on heating.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Yes, been thinking about this too in the past year or so, it's very interesting, but doesn't seem like many people around here in Liverpool are talking about it. A lot of these old houses just aren't built without fossil fuels in mind. I remember coal!

roenxi 3y ago

The UK's energy availability has collapsed 30% since 2000. Yeah, there are no good jobs. If energy policy gets screwed up that badly, there are really not many options except admitting mistakes were made and doing something sensible going forward. I've been advocating deregulating nuclear power and looking for cheap energy that way for a long time. Possibly renewables has also gotten cheap enough to cover the gap, although realistically it has so much political support the fact that it hasn't suggests it is uneconomic. China just built lots of coal plants. Life has been on the up-and-up for the average Chinese worker. Weird how that works out. Part of helping people get good jobs involves allowing capitalists to build power stations. Handing out $1,000 checks to random families is unlikely to help with that. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-kingdom#per-capita-what-is-the-average-energy-consumption-per-person https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-kingdom#per...

fulafel 3y ago
From another perspective the UK had the problem of high energy availability (semi-petro-state style). Housing is built so that it needs cheap gas to practically heat. If you go a bit north to colder climates in Europe, people don't have gas, but they spend less on heating.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Yes, been thinking about this too in the past year or so, it's very interesting, but doesn't seem like many people around here in Liverpool are talking about it. A lot of these old houses just aren't built without fossil fuels in mind. I remember coal!