Britain is a developing country
Britain is a developing country
We aren't leading the world: we're trying to catch up
Is going backwards "developing", though?
11It is if it is a classification of country.
It isn't a compliment
[Edit] To be clear, it's the modern term for what used to be "third world", since a lot of countries that would be considered "third world" (Africa and Asia minus Japan) are now industrial or post-industrial.
2
The reforms needed to grow are painful and unpopular in the short-run. Regimes that do them without an “elite bargain” behind them are opening themselves up to being removed. Similarly, when one party in the UK proposes planning liberalisation, almost inevitably the others swing heavily Nimbyish.
This is the lesson we need to learn, and learn quickly.
4I read this as needing to have the old money behind the movement.
I'm not entirely sure how we would do this, as old money is hard to find and has entrenched power. Other countries can do this with new money, as taxes and investment tax offsets encourage people to invest and make everyone better off while they make more money. This can be either like the US where it is all new money, or France where the old money was redistributed by blood.
Taxing old money is hard, and increased interest rates mean they want to save it. To redistribute it, I can only assume we need to:
- Stop hording, so essentially we need to get interest rates down low so investments are the only place for old money to go
- Correct our tax brackets. Punish those that make over £200k (essentially top execs) to discourage the top management from sharing the profits, and stop treating £100k like it's a lot of money. I could easily make that in other European countries or the US without being an executive.
- Increase minimum wage and pull everyones standards up with us.
2
In the same way a person who has broken all their bones has "growing pains", sure.
3De-evolving, surely?
3Developing sores, perhaps.
2Enjoyed this and now following consumer surplus. Any other newsletters / blogs that you would recommend?
2I don't but when I do I'll post them here.
2