It’s what happens when you pursue economic growth by just letting people in rather than actually increasing individual productivity or living standards. Canada’s per capita productivity has actually been on the decline from doing this. The UK needs to invest in automation, infrastructure, and other things that increase the productivity of existing workers without the need for increasing its labor pool.
castion5862 on
Blew up its biggest trading market- EU
ScrubbyButts on
I dont know, better ask the Labour party 😂
UkrytyKrytyk on
Hmmm class system still in full swing, allowing land and proprty owners to extract wealth from majority of the society?
tossitlikeadwarf on
Austerity
kazys1997 on
This report is fantastic, really gets to the core of the problem.
However, the UK is a weird country. It’s one of those places that cannot accept that it is in fact a poor country relative to its peers. I left the UK last year and could not be happier with my choice. But, the UK loves to compare itself to France and Germany but reality cannot be anymore different, these are ridiculous comparisons. The UK is a poor country – that is only getting poorer – pretending to be wealthy and I honestly see no upside whatsoever, not even under the current Labour Government.
ImperatorDanorum on
Brexit happened…
TheFortnutter on
State intervention in the economy
KingThorongil on
Self imposed economic sanctions which resulted in the bad kind of immigration and brain drain.
Brexit and toxic politics.
outofspaceandtime on
Thatcher happened.
yourlocallidl on
“the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere. This prevents investment, increases energy costs, and makes it harder for productive economic clusters to expand. This, in turn, lowers our productivity, incomes, and tax revenues.”
This and wealth inequality imo is the number one reason for our problems, far right will go on about immigration, and the left probably Brexit, although i acknowledge they’re both problems, the underlining issue is that we don’t build anything, and the money that the county does make doesn’t treacle down, housing has stagnated, we have no high speed rail aside from the eurostar link, the country outside of London is astonishingly behind when it comes to infrastructure. Our water, energy, trains, mail etc…is all privatised, we don’t produce anything. We also have this toxic NIMBYism culture which is another layer of shit as to why we cant build things, can’t remember the exact figure but around 90% of land here is privately owned.
mangarc on
Lol the aristocrat and rich vs peasants is still a thing in modern times in the UK and that is why they are unable to break this cycle. Along with brexit for example which just knocked the UK while it was already down at this point it is a sinking ship, a country lurched into modern times without any investment but so much foreign interest in the island and is still a backwards classist society. I can only assume there will be an exodus of young Brits that start deciding to start the process of moving elsewhere and the face of Britain will change forever.
pieman7414 on
No more colonialism?
Earl0fYork on
Wow it’s actually impressive how little you lot read the articles when it comes to the UK.
No this isn’t brexit it’s something that has been a problem since 1945 and that is building anything is a bureaucratic nightmare along with policies that hamper attempts to build.
“The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.“
The reason is that we can’t build anything be it because our paperwork is excessive and does nothing but make projects expensive in the application stage, or that attempts are shut down for bullshite reasons (like the pensioners throwing a strop because a reservoir that would have been vital MIGHT make the area less picturesque?)
No government has made a concerted effort to reform a system that doesn’t function, they’ll poke it but that’s it. As the article says if it doesn’t change things will just keep getting worse.
intermediatetransit on
I skimmed most of it. The suggested solution seems to be “deregulation”? Seems to me this is a huge problem holding back other European countries as well.
What are the problematic regulations here, and what’s the cost of getting rid of them?
rising_then_falling on
It’s a very interesting website, although I don’t agree with all of it. The fall in rail travel between 1940 and 1990 is probably more connected to the improved manufacturing of cars and their dramatic fall in cost than it is to do with nationalisation, for example. Ripping up most of the rural lines in the 60s might have played a part too….
But overall it’s a thoughtful and well researched paper. I was hoping for some insightful comments, but….
Is the difficulty of building anything anywhere the single biggest issue with the UK economy? It’s certainly a contributing factor, but the issue while appearing bureaucratic is really cultural. A new road will be opposed on principle by people who are anti-car. A factory will be opposed by people who say the existing road network can’t handle the increase in traffic. Nuclear power stations are opposed by people who think they are always unjustifiably dangerous. Wind farms are opposed by people who think they are always unjustifiably ugly.
British people love expressing political views by opposing building projects. Newspapers love to report on arguments about the local construction plans. “Residents protest new runway”, “Scandal of proposed by-pass road”, “New port facility will add hundred of lorries per week to local roads”.
We’ve had people get so famous by chaining themselves to trees to stop road building that they get invited on panel shows.
It’s a culture based not on building what you want to see, but stopping someone else building what you don’t want to see.
ahnotme on
Since WWII various organizations have been established in the world to further trade and economic cooperation between – mainly rich – countries. Several of them, like the OECD, the IMF, the World Bank etc, regularly produce reports on the economies of their members with recommendations for future policy. A universal and constant factor between these reports over the decades in the reports on the UK was time and time again: lagging productivity due to underinvestment and an underskilled labor force. The reaction of British governments throughout that period has always been the same: deregulation and cost control by squeezing wages and lowering taxation.
terra_filius on
Capitalism
TokyoBaguette on
Tories siphoning off wealth and Brexit own goal?
Oaoadil on
Bureaucracy
dnc_1981 on
Because Brexit
tomo8900 on
It’s difficult to take this report seriously when there’s not even a single mention of wealth inequality [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dY7eBjqsA8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dY7eBjqsA8)
Eatthehamsters69 on
Its what happens when they keep voting for libertarian grifters
BizSavvyTechie on
The billion Brexit Party/Reform UK trolls in this thread run by one guy in his mum’s spare room will say No.
But it absolutely has!
Downvote this MFs! 🖕
bindermichi on
For people that know r/yesminister the political involvement doesn’t come as a surprise.
endianess on
Outsourcing things to greedy companies who bid low but then charge extra for every little thing bleeding councils dry.
evangelion02 on
Because immigration has completely fucking annihilated it
XionV2 on
Sorry you don’t have an empire to export your factories, your mining operations, your industries, cheap labor and pollution anymore.
Maybe when all the nimbys are gone all the big corporations the UK loves so much can tear apart the idyllic countryside before your economy goes belly up.
Somehow I think even then, the younger generations will still get squeezed for all it’s worth before getting an ounce of the ‘British life’ that was possible by exploiting half of the world.
29 commenti
Brexit was dumb
It’s what happens when you pursue economic growth by just letting people in rather than actually increasing individual productivity or living standards. Canada’s per capita productivity has actually been on the decline from doing this. The UK needs to invest in automation, infrastructure, and other things that increase the productivity of existing workers without the need for increasing its labor pool.
Blew up its biggest trading market- EU
I dont know, better ask the Labour party 😂
Hmmm class system still in full swing, allowing land and proprty owners to extract wealth from majority of the society?
Austerity
This report is fantastic, really gets to the core of the problem.
However, the UK is a weird country. It’s one of those places that cannot accept that it is in fact a poor country relative to its peers. I left the UK last year and could not be happier with my choice. But, the UK loves to compare itself to France and Germany but reality cannot be anymore different, these are ridiculous comparisons. The UK is a poor country – that is only getting poorer – pretending to be wealthy and I honestly see no upside whatsoever, not even under the current Labour Government.
Brexit happened…
State intervention in the economy
Self imposed economic sanctions which resulted in the bad kind of immigration and brain drain.
Brexit and toxic politics.
Thatcher happened.
“the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere. This prevents investment, increases energy costs, and makes it harder for productive economic clusters to expand. This, in turn, lowers our productivity, incomes, and tax revenues.”
This and wealth inequality imo is the number one reason for our problems, far right will go on about immigration, and the left probably Brexit, although i acknowledge they’re both problems, the underlining issue is that we don’t build anything, and the money that the county does make doesn’t treacle down, housing has stagnated, we have no high speed rail aside from the eurostar link, the country outside of London is astonishingly behind when it comes to infrastructure. Our water, energy, trains, mail etc…is all privatised, we don’t produce anything. We also have this toxic NIMBYism culture which is another layer of shit as to why we cant build things, can’t remember the exact figure but around 90% of land here is privately owned.
Lol the aristocrat and rich vs peasants is still a thing in modern times in the UK and that is why they are unable to break this cycle. Along with brexit for example which just knocked the UK while it was already down at this point it is a sinking ship, a country lurched into modern times without any investment but so much foreign interest in the island and is still a backwards classist society. I can only assume there will be an exodus of young Brits that start deciding to start the process of moving elsewhere and the face of Britain will change forever.
No more colonialism?
Wow it’s actually impressive how little you lot read the articles when it comes to the UK.
No this isn’t brexit it’s something that has been a problem since 1945 and that is building anything is a bureaucratic nightmare along with policies that hamper attempts to build.
“The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.“
The reason is that we can’t build anything be it because our paperwork is excessive and does nothing but make projects expensive in the application stage, or that attempts are shut down for bullshite reasons (like the pensioners throwing a strop because a reservoir that would have been vital MIGHT make the area less picturesque?)
No government has made a concerted effort to reform a system that doesn’t function, they’ll poke it but that’s it. As the article says if it doesn’t change things will just keep getting worse.
I skimmed most of it. The suggested solution seems to be “deregulation”? Seems to me this is a huge problem holding back other European countries as well.
What are the problematic regulations here, and what’s the cost of getting rid of them?
It’s a very interesting website, although I don’t agree with all of it. The fall in rail travel between 1940 and 1990 is probably more connected to the improved manufacturing of cars and their dramatic fall in cost than it is to do with nationalisation, for example. Ripping up most of the rural lines in the 60s might have played a part too….
But overall it’s a thoughtful and well researched paper. I was hoping for some insightful comments, but….
Is the difficulty of building anything anywhere the single biggest issue with the UK economy? It’s certainly a contributing factor, but the issue while appearing bureaucratic is really cultural. A new road will be opposed on principle by people who are anti-car. A factory will be opposed by people who say the existing road network can’t handle the increase in traffic. Nuclear power stations are opposed by people who think they are always unjustifiably dangerous. Wind farms are opposed by people who think they are always unjustifiably ugly.
British people love expressing political views by opposing building projects. Newspapers love to report on arguments about the local construction plans. “Residents protest new runway”, “Scandal of proposed by-pass road”, “New port facility will add hundred of lorries per week to local roads”.
We’ve had people get so famous by chaining themselves to trees to stop road building that they get invited on panel shows.
It’s a culture based not on building what you want to see, but stopping someone else building what you don’t want to see.
Since WWII various organizations have been established in the world to further trade and economic cooperation between – mainly rich – countries. Several of them, like the OECD, the IMF, the World Bank etc, regularly produce reports on the economies of their members with recommendations for future policy. A universal and constant factor between these reports over the decades in the reports on the UK was time and time again: lagging productivity due to underinvestment and an underskilled labor force. The reaction of British governments throughout that period has always been the same: deregulation and cost control by squeezing wages and lowering taxation.
Capitalism
Tories siphoning off wealth and Brexit own goal?
Bureaucracy
Because Brexit
It’s difficult to take this report seriously when there’s not even a single mention of wealth inequality [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dY7eBjqsA8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dY7eBjqsA8)
Its what happens when they keep voting for libertarian grifters
The billion Brexit Party/Reform UK trolls in this thread run by one guy in his mum’s spare room will say No.
But it absolutely has!
Downvote this MFs! 🖕
For people that know r/yesminister the political involvement doesn’t come as a surprise.
Outsourcing things to greedy companies who bid low but then charge extra for every little thing bleeding councils dry.
Because immigration has completely fucking annihilated it
Sorry you don’t have an empire to export your factories, your mining operations, your industries, cheap labor and pollution anymore.
Maybe when all the nimbys are gone all the big corporations the UK loves so much can tear apart the idyllic countryside before your economy goes belly up.
Somehow I think even then, the younger generations will still get squeezed for all it’s worth before getting an ounce of the ‘British life’ that was possible by exploiting half of the world.