How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe

Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by w1nst0nsm1th on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:45PM (#33337191)

Because we live again in a new Gilded Age, with its monopolies, robber barons, regulatory capture, and corruptions.

If you want to understand these days, you have to understand the Gilded Age, the rise of Unions, the New Deal, the G.I bill, the rise of the middle classe post WW2 until the end of the 70s, when reagan started to reverse the course engaged by FDR in the 30s, gutted every regulation intended to protect workers, envirronement, gutted union coercitive power, deregulated financial system with its new credit offering allowing to compensate diminished real purchase power of middle class salaries, slashed taxes on highest tiers of population and corporation, slashed public service.

The subprime crisis is a direct consequence of this...

For a short introduction in the matter, I suggest you to watch the last episode of season 33 of The Simpsons.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by Aloha on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:50PM (#33337257)

The decay started earlier than Reagan it's not just the vacuousness of supply-side economics, if you asked me to pick a date, it'd be 1971.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @07:29PM (#33337629)

Which is the year Bretton Woods ended, and productivity gains began to be captured by speculators instead of being shared with workers.

In STEM we've seen huge stagnations in frontier research, breakthrough physics, and academic originality. And the arts are hardly in a healthier state.

Financially we're in a 30s-style depression but the media are being careful not to call it out as such.

Clearly this is Not Working.

An economy that privileges a few hundred billionaires at the expense of everyone else is not prosperous, stable, secure, or capable of real invention.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by anonAndOn on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @07:28PM (#33337620)

Reagan was warming up for the presidency in his second term as CA governor in '71.[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Ronald_Reagan

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by Aloha on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @09:54PM (#33338764)

That doesnt explains why its hard to find buildings built newer than 1971 in rural oregon, Oklahoma, or other places.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by w1nst0nsm1th on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @07:25PM (#33337597)

Maybe more like 1973 : the first energy crisis.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by Aloha on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:02PM (#33350783)

I've pondered that, but why did the energy shock kill everything?

Prices came down, even with stagflation, things got better.

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Re:How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Weste... by clnq on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @08:37PM (#33338190)

That episode of The Simpsons was very on point.

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