Why are we on a steady downward decline

[Neverknowno]

What is the root cause of the UK’s downward slide? What is behind the low productivity?

Is it because we do not tax high earners enough to fund public services? Or are our taxes too high?

Is it because of the increasing number of the workforce going permanently off ill?

Decades of not investing in technology because humans were considerably cheaper.

Scotland and Wales don’t fill me with confidence that the answers are there. Poorer, lower education, sicker

The benefits the high earners get are a good pension and being able to take retirement in their 50s, house they own, a new reliable car, two foreign holidays a year.
a factory worker, supermarket checkout operator, hospital cleaner could work 60+ hours a week and never have those benefits, so why bother, when you could work 24 and be topped up instead.

No it’s not the sole issue at all, but I don’t think it helps to increase productivity. And this is not benefits bashing at all, I’m glad we have a system in this country to support those who need it, but I feel that they have been used to cover the ever increasing gap between wages and the cost of living, a sticking plaster which is unfortunately coming off. My parents never claimed benefits besides family allowance . There were no tax credits or universal credit, yet they managed to buy a nice home and raise 2 dc on one median income in the SE. Impossible in 2023. What’s gone wrong in the last 30years?

My anedotal evidence is that many people go to the GP for very mild conditions, which they could easily get sensible advice from a pharmacy for - and I don't live in the UK and we pay to see a GP here, doesn't seem to stop some people from wasting their time.

Who ARE all these Brits who still think colonialism is alive and good! I’m 59 and don’t know many of them. Both my parent parents were born in now-Commonwealth countries and ended up back in the UK. But no colonial nostalgia here. I think it’s a lazy argument which might have been true when I was a child, not now.

Also, a lot of the colonial wealth was spent in the Second World War. I don’t think many people would have a problem with using it for this purpose.

That person appears to think there is a school called 'Eaton'. Seems to be a bit confused.

1947. Rightly so.

I agree with you. A lot of people want to destroy Britain but they do it in slightly different ways, from the whole political spectrum. Conservative cronyism and legitimated fraud. Labour's struggles with strength.

And every other party in-between that has no real nous on how to get there.

Unless warriors step up we will become a dictatorship soon.

A society that allows the best performers to keep more of their output will outperform a comparable society that forces them to pay more to carry the burden of the lowest performers.

@Reality25 what is a high performer ?, is there a specific wage bracket you are thinking about ?
Who would you class as a low performer ? Is a low performer the person who empties your bins, a nurse, someone who serves you coffee or a meal, changes the sheets in your hotel room, a teacher, the person who delivers your food or works at the checkout in your prefered supermarket or shop, someone who works in planning when you want to extend your house, the person who sorts out your passport or driving licence, the person who you pay to care for an elderly relative or a very young child, just a few examples of people I imagine you class as 'low performers' but are actually essential to you ?

Look for any brit who is content to spend £125m putting a crown on some guy's head and £160m on burying his mother. Also any Brit who will vote for a lazy, nasty, philandering, hygienically questionable guy "because he's a laugh" due to him having a posh accent. Also any Brit who thinks "we" are being overrun with foreigners. Also any Brit who thinks that sending (obsolete) weapons to the oligarch state of Ukraine is a bold and decisive move against Russia and her axis. Also any Brit who considers UK wealth to be fairly earnt and impregnable. Also any Brit who would take to the streets over the desperate situation they see the country as being in but don't quite feel they have the justification for doing so.

I could go on.

Notions of empire as they play out in these fading days are inextricably bound up with the UK class system in all its cringing internalised self hatred blind glory.

@Dymaxion , what @Reality25 is saying is that if you allow those who are productive to keep more of their earnings, they will use it to be even more productive and that extra will help generate extra money for the country.

However, handing out more and more to people who choose to be less productive will not improve productivity. The extra they receive will not be used to generate more money or wealth.

Of course, we do need a welfare system to support people who cannot provide adequately for themselves and reducing wealth inequality is necessary. How best to reduce inequality? Is it through handing out money or is it better to ensure employers pay higher wages. Sadly that would mean higher prices.

@Dymaxion , what @Reality25 is saying is that if you allow those who are productive to keep more of their earnings, they will use it to be even more productive and that extra will help generate extra money for the country.

What do you mean by productive @Neverknowno ? Can you give an example of how someone who is 'productive' uses their earnings to be even more productive and how that helps the country ?
Can low performers be productive and what do you think Reality25 means by high performers and low performers ?

For example, someone who makes the most of their capabilities and has an entrepreneurial mindset will use their money wisely eg, save, invest. That money then creates more money (eg available to provide loans through banks to other investors or more directly invest in small start-ups, etc).

Money can generate money but it is largely because of the mindset of the person with the wealth. There are some people who acquire wealth and lose it in a short space of time because they’ve never really been productive - they have money but have never had much to show for it. Think about some lottery winners.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

In economics, high productivity is when for any given input you get a higher output. I’m assuming that that is what @Reality25 is referring to by high performing. The UK’s declining productivity means that over time we are getting less and less for every input. It could be for instance that our workforce on a whole is less productive. That could be because many more people are ill or unhealthier, it could be because of an ageing population, or those able to earn more are leaving, brain drain, it could be because capital is depreciating with no significant innovation to improve capital, etc.

What isn’t a solution is a system that encourages people to want something for nothing. To want more and more but expect someone else to pay.

@Loria Also any Brit who will vote for a lazy, nasty, philandering, hygienically questionable guy "because he's a laugh" due to him having a posh accent. Also any Brit who thinks "we" are being overrun with foreigners.

Johnson got in because we had Brexited and it was a shit show following Theresa May's permiership (despite her excellent plan to fund social care for old age which the British public trashed - losing many Cons seats) the lack of seats meant it was hard to push through post Brexit stuff and Boris promised to get Brexit done - we were all throughly sick of it by then. There was no one else to vote for.
700,000 that is approaching a MILLION in case people don't know big numbers - immigrants came to the UK last year at the last count.

For example, someone who makes the most of their capabilities and has an entrepreneurial mindset will use their money wisely eg, save, invest. That money then creates more money (eg available to provide loans through banks to other investors or more directly invest in small start-ups, etc).

So those people are productive but other people who do essential work but won't have the same level of wealth to save and invest are not ?

700,000 that is approaching a MILLION in case people don't know big numbers - immigrants came to the UK last year at the last count.

How many of those are students ?
How many of those are people who have jobs here, so have come from the US, Europe, Africa or Asia to work on a visa ?
How many of those are people who have come via the legal migration routes from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong ?

A machine only works if all parts are working parts.

What are the jobs that you think are the only ones that are essential to an economy? Do you suppose that an economy would thrive with only nurses and teachers? Every job is essential otherwise no one would pay for it. However, wages can be seen, to a large extent as a return on investment. Those who do well at school (either through natural aptitude or investing in their education), those who spend longer in education, those who take risks and compete for higher paid jobs, and go into jobs that are high risk with variable job security, get paid more than their counterparts who do less well educationally or who choose safer more secure jobs.

Can you point to all these jobs you think are non-essential? You think an investment banker should be paid the same as a nurse or vice versa? If that were to happen, can you walk me through what you think the impact would be on the economy, on what the nursing profession would look like and what the financial services would look like. I can assure you it would not be a pretty picture and certainly the people who are nurses now would not have a fighting chance at getting into nursing or teaching if these professions have the security they have and the salary of investment banking.

@Neverknowno To be fair I didn't say an investment banker didn't do a productive or essential job. I was trying to get to the bottom of what is seen as a productive person or a high performer, as compared to another essential job such as a broadband engineer or a HGV driver ?

@wildfirewonder

The UK is definitely not becoming less educated.

Have you sneaked a peek into the education threads recently or been inside a state school of late?

Lack of funding and ofsted's preventing any consequences for poor behaviour, as well as kids having had hardly any education for two years have meant that secondary schools are full of kids who have very little interest in actual learning. This is going to have disastrous effects further down the line- as mostly independently educated kids will rise to the top again and social disparity will increase even more.

Our state educators is going downhill. Education is a cornerstone of a healthy economy. The current government are asset stripping the country for personal gain.

Good questions, maybe we need better education in economics for more people

It always amazes me that Tories can say with a straight face "we're the party of aspiration" while asset stripping education.

I think they actually believe it to. Amazing.

@SunnyEgg

We need better history education (that includes economics, sociology, religion, archaeology, art etc)

History GCSE should be mandatory

The UK is definitely not becoming less educated.

I think Scotland has gone down hill on international scores for Science, English and Maths

England and Wales doing better

These are comparitive scores, every developing country is educating more.

It used to be usual to leave at 14, then 16, then 18, now half in the UK stay to 21.

It is completely false to suggest there was better education in the general population in the past.