mmarq

16 ms·

151.
by mmarq 4y ago
> The Tories have been systematically destroying Britain's welfare programmes since they got into power. The current variety of Tory has been destroying the country, and not just welfare programmes, since 2010. Look at productivity
152.
by mmarq 4y ago
Work-shy: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/work-shy I don’t know where you are from, but everywhere I lived I never had to be insured or to show my “insurance status” in order to receive medical
153.
by mmarq 4y ago
Oh, well, and I don’t like paying for the local poor and for the work-shy. What do we do about it? If we can let them die, then you are coherent. If we only let die the foreigner, you are being a xenophobe. Controlling immigration, assuming
154.
by mmarq 4y ago
I think that we should really (1) stop thinking that immigration is a problem and (2) obsess about it and (3) make up ex-post rationalisations for idiotic anti-immigration policies. The day after the A&E becomes a branch of the immigrat
155.
by mmarq 4y ago
More likely because the job of a doctor is to save lives and not to discourage patients from seeking help because they’ve become an informant for the immigration Gestapo
156.
by mmarq 4y ago
The very last thing the EU needs is dealing with the British circus again. Maybe in 40 years, after all brexiters have died.
157.
by mmarq 4y ago
Sending 3 kids to nursery cost in excess of 5K per month, that is not half a person’s salary. It is the entire after tax income of somebody earning 100K a year.
158.
by mmarq 4y ago
Whatever, you make 90K and you can’t afford to rent a 3 bedroom flat and to pay nursery fees for 3 kids. You can call this “rich”, but you’d have a better lifestyle as a janitor in Germany.
159.
by mmarq 4y ago
If this shows anything is how low salaries are in the UK compared to the cost of living. 90K in London make you a working poor by Western and Southern European standards (I mean, try to send 2 children to nursery and rent a 3 bed flat on th
160.
by mmarq 4y ago
TFP growth has stopped in the mid-70s or in the 80s at best, there isn’t much more to say.
161.
by mmarq 4y ago
After 20 years, everybody should really stop believing the conspiracy theory of the Germans that invent the Euro to rule them all, à la Sauron.
162.
by mmarq 4y ago
Actually I’d be very surprised if houses in Spain where worse than houses in Britain, whose lack of housing quality rivals with some central African countries.
163.
by mmarq 4y ago
I don’t live in Germany and, of course, Italy and Spain are poor compared to Sweden or Germany, not in general.
164.
by mmarq 4y ago
I find this obsession with Germans selling cars to the Italians partly amusing and partly patronising. Of course the Italians can’t take their responsibilities because of… pizza? Super Mario? The godfather?
165.
by mmarq 4y ago
Italy was already significantly behind Germany and far from the technological frontier in the 1980s, it wasn’t the euro that slowed its growth. Then it took 40 years of obscene governments to bring it where it is now.
166.
by mmarq 4y ago
The Latin block (Southern Europe??) countries joined the euro to cut their interest rates, and that happened. The periphery is poor because it has been ruled by embarrassing governments for decades.
167.
by mmarq 4y ago
The fact is that if I go to France or Germany or Spain or Italy or the Vatican or Switzerland and I put 50-100€ on the table, my child gets the chicken pox vaccine, while in the UK he doesn’t because we have shortages. Have I mentioned that
168.
by mmarq 4y ago
The fact that vaccines and medicines for babies are hard to find and that I can’t assume I can buy bread, milk, fruit and vegetables at the local supermarket (as I’ve been able to until 2019), it’s a serious sign of decline.
169.
by mmarq 4y ago
Of course, all comparisons were UK vs EU and GBP vs EUR. For GBP vs EUR, you just need to change the dates of xe.com link in the comment I replied to (past 10 years instead of a strategically chosen start date). The pound today is much weak
170.
by mmarq 4y ago
The pound is much weaker than 10 years ago (1.25 va 1.13), inflation has been significantly higher in the entire period and in the past year as well. Real salaries in the UK are lower than in 2007, only Italy had a comparable performance. P
171.
by mmarq 4y ago
Ten years later, the UE is still there, Germany is still there and the only country that’s falling apart in the continent is the UK, that left the EU.
172.
by mmarq 4y ago
Yes, the cost of living is extremely high, and you haven't considered the cost of childcare, school and healthcare (the NHS has never been great, but it went AWOL since the lockdowns). In London either you make in excess of 150K or you
173.
by mmarq 4y ago
European salaries are still higher than they used to be last year. But they remain significantly lower than the Americans. In the UK, you could hire a decent senior for 80K in London, now it would cost 100-120K. I know a few decent devs who
174.
by mmarq 4y ago
That’s not a problem, nor an invention or the EU. It’s how all perfectly competitive markets work: price equals marginal cost.
175.
by mmarq 4y ago
Are these 150K being used to build a new house or to buy an existing house? I think it’s time the English speaking world realised that landlords are not providing a service, they are extracting a tax on people that don’t have 150K to pay a
176.
by mmarq 4y ago
The fact that you can’t evict people at will and that you have to go through courts to seek damages (rather than robbing your tenant’s bank account), is a feature not a bug.
177.
by mmarq 4y ago
Everywhere you prefer to rent to a local than to a foreigner, it’s not a German thing.
178.
by mmarq 4y ago
The point is to cool down investment and maybe to manufacture a small recession to reduce inflation expectations. Another point is to show that the Bank reacts to inflation, so that people (such as the Trusses of the world) know what happen
179.
by mmarq 4y ago
As usual the Telegraph publishes stuff that an intellectually normal 14 year old would be ashamed of thinking. > Immigration has bounced back. There is no Brexit-sized hole in our workforce; not anymore. Immigrants now account for one in
180.
by mmarq 4y ago
The employment rate in the UK is 76%, in Germany it is 77%, 68% in France. I don’t see work laziness in the data, at best I see employers wanting to hire full time workers for £1800 a month when renting a half-decent flat cost £1500 and tra

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