Most interesting - the UK is still the only country batting at below its pre-COVID GDP, but is still doing better than France, Germany, Italy, and Japan overall.
If this is not a clear demonstration of the alpha/foundation the UK is presently squandering, on top of the value intangibles you describe (to which I would add the fact that the UK is, in a globally relative context, extremely politically stable, which may become more and more of an asset as the decades pass), I don't know what is.
There's a combination of factors, and some unique to the dollar, but the point is the optimism we can feel in terms of what's possible isn't transferable to the rest of Europe I feel. The worse performance seems in spite of advantages.
Agree with all of this, but I think the lack of economic growth is just the UK being a typical Western European country, rather than an outlier. Which makes the situation worse, in a way - more difficult to overcome structural issues that affect everyone in your neighbourhood, rather than individual issues.
Though we should definitely be making it much, much easier to build stuff. Labour's rhetoric is good on this, but I'll only start to think they intend to actually act on it when they make concrete proposals for changing planning legislation.
It is like a multi party Mexican standoff, where every action has an equal and opposite and vociferous reaction. And if you try to make all reactions anodyne then you end up in the current situation, which is stasis.
Also that all vaccines save lives is obviously wrong. An example is the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP) vaccine. It did cause a lower deathrate from DTP, but it caused a higher deathrate over all. This shows us that measuring the amount of people dying from covid in relation to vaccination status is the wrong approach. We have to look at other causes of deaths as well
This uncritical view of vaccines led to the death of a lot of kids
I'm not going to argue the benefits of vaccines, sorry. There are few things which have improved the human condition in the aggregate despite there being some side effects in an individual sense. Regarding any one of this, including Covid, the data is overhewlmingly present in multiple places that if you're asking for data over here that's not a question which I care to answer, since the motivation behind to me is suspect.
I was not arguing vaccines over all, you are straw-manning me. If I criticize the bureaucratic process in which OxyContin was approved do I criticize all medications?
I agree that there is a lot of data that show that covid vaccines cause fewer covid deaths in a specific time period. That is not the data I am looking for
Okay, but that was not the statement you made. You said MILLIONS of lives. I'm open to it saving some lives. It is estimated from the WHO that about 7 million have died from covid globally. UK is 0.83% of world population
Again, really interesting point of view, Rohan. I have questions about any economic policy and know I’ll never win the debate with economists.
First, have you read E.F.Schumacher? Can economic growth really be controlled? In a living organism, uncontrolled growth is simply called cancer.
Second, here in the U.S., a lot of that increase in wealth has produced second homes, third homes, even fourth homes, 90% of which stay empty most of the year and drive up real estate prices for the rest of the population.
Economic growth does have natural limits usually set on it bye the surrounding societal circumstances. But yes, it can definitely go into places where we do not want it to, and most of the work of economic policy is dividentify those corners and try to shave it off with the minimal disturbance to the rest of the economy.
I usually don't like comparisons to cancer only because it makes us feel like we know more than we do.
I don't know that there is an overall capability than doing multiple successful policies, I'd focus on creating simpler decision making structures and funding for technology, and get the bureaucracy out even if there's random outcry from the public or opposition. Choose a few lanes, in other words.
Though your president has been weakened in recent decades. It is a sign that presidential system is better at adapting than a oligarchical parliamentary system.
All orgs get ossified with time. You need the unpredictability of one man to break it
Have you read the Machiavellians by James Burnham?
"It seems Britain is standing still while the rest of the world is sprinting ahead." Politano: "British GDP per capita remains ever so slightly below the pre-pandemic peak." I don't see that on the chart. The UK is slightly up, and looks to be doing about the same or slightly better than Italy and Germany. It depends on exactly which pre-pandemic date you pick.
That said, the UK is doing an even worse job with housing than in the USA. (I don't know enough about other European countries to compare.) I was in Dublin in August and pointed to a small, attached, old house asked the taxi driver what it would sell for. He said around a million Euros. Insane. That's probably cheap for London. The house I grew up in, which is in Bristol, is valued at an insane price for a modest semi-detached house. Restrictions on building are a massive problem.
It's also very unfortunate but almost inevitable that Britain would completely waste the opportunity opened up by Brexit. The country could have gone full free trade, massively cut the bureaucracy, and deregulated. Instead, you got Sunak, more centralization, more spending, and continuing of the disastrous "green" energy policies that are sinking Germany. As you note, one bright spot is that the UK is not following the rest of Europe into shooting themselves in the foot with AI.
Most interesting - the UK is still the only country batting at below its pre-COVID GDP, but is still doing better than France, Germany, Italy, and Japan overall.
If this is not a clear demonstration of the alpha/foundation the UK is presently squandering, on top of the value intangibles you describe (to which I would add the fact that the UK is, in a globally relative context, extremely politically stable, which may become more and more of an asset as the decades pass), I don't know what is.
Thanks for the piece!
Certainly absolute UK progress is not great. And the US has forged ahead since the GFC.
Yet, comparative data for Germany and France seems to paint a similar picture for GDP growth (as you’ve shown) and for discretionary income (see here - https://ronanmcgovern.com/are-we-too-negative-on-the-uk/)
Causes may vary, but the macro trends seem not to be uniquely a UK thing?
Is there other raw data that tells a different story?
There's a combination of factors, and some unique to the dollar, but the point is the optimism we can feel in terms of what's possible isn't transferable to the rest of Europe I feel. The worse performance seems in spite of advantages.
Agree with all of this, but I think the lack of economic growth is just the UK being a typical Western European country, rather than an outlier. Which makes the situation worse, in a way - more difficult to overcome structural issues that affect everyone in your neighbourhood, rather than individual issues.
Though we should definitely be making it much, much easier to build stuff. Labour's rhetoric is good on this, but I'll only start to think they intend to actually act on it when they make concrete proposals for changing planning legislation.
It is like a multi party Mexican standoff, where every action has an equal and opposite and vociferous reaction. And if you try to make all reactions anodyne then you end up in the current situation, which is stasis.
"they also sped up the vaccination program after Astrazeneca vaccine came out. A prescient move that saved millions of lives"
Any evidence for this? Sounds bonkers
They were the first country to roll it out and vaccines save lives.
Also that all vaccines save lives is obviously wrong. An example is the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP) vaccine. It did cause a lower deathrate from DTP, but it caused a higher deathrate over all. This shows us that measuring the amount of people dying from covid in relation to vaccination status is the wrong approach. We have to look at other causes of deaths as well
This uncritical view of vaccines led to the death of a lot of kids
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5868131/
Does this mean that the covid vaccines killed more people? No. All I am asking for is that proper data is given
I'm not going to argue the benefits of vaccines, sorry. There are few things which have improved the human condition in the aggregate despite there being some side effects in an individual sense. Regarding any one of this, including Covid, the data is overhewlmingly present in multiple places that if you're asking for data over here that's not a question which I care to answer, since the motivation behind to me is suspect.
I was not arguing vaccines over all, you are straw-manning me. If I criticize the bureaucratic process in which OxyContin was approved do I criticize all medications?
I agree that there is a lot of data that show that covid vaccines cause fewer covid deaths in a specific time period. That is not the data I am looking for
Okay, but that was not the statement you made. You said MILLIONS of lives. I'm open to it saving some lives. It is estimated from the WHO that about 7 million have died from covid globally. UK is 0.83% of world population
Again, really interesting point of view, Rohan. I have questions about any economic policy and know I’ll never win the debate with economists.
First, have you read E.F.Schumacher? Can economic growth really be controlled? In a living organism, uncontrolled growth is simply called cancer.
Second, here in the U.S., a lot of that increase in wealth has produced second homes, third homes, even fourth homes, 90% of which stay empty most of the year and drive up real estate prices for the rest of the population.
Is there a difference between greed and growth?
Economic growth does have natural limits usually set on it bye the surrounding societal circumstances. But yes, it can definitely go into places where we do not want it to, and most of the work of economic policy is dividentify those corners and try to shave it off with the minimal disturbance to the rest of the economy.
I usually don't like comparisons to cancer only because it makes us feel like we know more than we do.
What policies would you suggest to address these challenges? Particularly around the capability to 'build'?
I don't know that there is an overall capability than doing multiple successful policies, I'd focus on creating simpler decision making structures and funding for technology, and get the bureaucracy out even if there's random outcry from the public or opposition. Choose a few lanes, in other words.
Though your president has been weakened in recent decades. It is a sign that presidential system is better at adapting than a oligarchical parliamentary system.
All orgs get ossified with time. You need the unpredictability of one man to break it
Have you read the Machiavellians by James Burnham?
"It seems Britain is standing still while the rest of the world is sprinting ahead." Politano: "British GDP per capita remains ever so slightly below the pre-pandemic peak." I don't see that on the chart. The UK is slightly up, and looks to be doing about the same or slightly better than Italy and Germany. It depends on exactly which pre-pandemic date you pick.
That said, the UK is doing an even worse job with housing than in the USA. (I don't know enough about other European countries to compare.) I was in Dublin in August and pointed to a small, attached, old house asked the taxi driver what it would sell for. He said around a million Euros. Insane. That's probably cheap for London. The house I grew up in, which is in Bristol, is valued at an insane price for a modest semi-detached house. Restrictions on building are a massive problem.
It's also very unfortunate but almost inevitable that Britain would completely waste the opportunity opened up by Brexit. The country could have gone full free trade, massively cut the bureaucracy, and deregulated. Instead, you got Sunak, more centralization, more spending, and continuing of the disastrous "green" energy policies that are sinking Germany. As you note, one bright spot is that the UK is not following the rest of Europe into shooting themselves in the foot with AI.