Seriously thinking about leaving the UK - AIBU?

[HonoraBridge]

I love the UK in many ways but it has been going downhill for at least 20 years and it feels as if the speed of the decline is accelerating. I no longer see a happy, or particularly safe, future here. For the first time in my life, I am very seriously thinking about leaving the UK and that feeling gets stronger day by day. When I mention this to friends, many are feeling the same way. YANBU - you are right to think seriously about leaving the UK. YABU - the UK is a still a great country to live in and you are being unreasonable to want to leave.

Tory austerity made everything worse though and because of this and Brexit we are doing worse than lots of other places.

On that basis, it’s not the bank crisis, either, it’s capitalism in general and started way before the latest bank crisis. Now we have global markets, opportunists who are only interested in making money for themselves, not in whether anything useful is produced from it, can create booms and busts on a global scale, whereas in times past it could be isolated to particular countries and investors. As countries cannot actually extricate themselves from the global marketplace, it makes f* all difference who anyone votes for - no individual country has any control over the behaviour of disaster capitalists or the markets in general, and if they try to exert any control, other countries open their markets up to attract the business elsewhere.

Disaster capitalists have rightly recognised that even in “democratic” countries, humans are too bloody selfish to collaborate with every other country in the world to stop the behaviour and will instead act against each others’ interests (and ultimately their own) in the hope they get to keep some of the disaster capitalists’ gains as a reward for facilitating the behaviour in the first place. In fact, people in democracies have been rushing to vote disaster capitalists and billionnaires into positions of power, because they don’t want to share what is not actually being shared with them in the first place, unless they are already enjoying a nice fat pension.

So...form a new plan? If countries can ditch communism, surly we can confront and change capitalism?

I don't agree that humans are always that stupid. The economy and the political systems don't do us justice! There are people out there with good ideas- they just don't get listened to.

I'd love to get out of here but not sure where I would go. Everywhere seems just as bad. I think I'd be best suited to my own private island.

Aren't we all!

PersonallyIdBringAPicnicakaALittleSassy · Today 19:36
So...form a new plan? If countries can ditch communism, surly we can confront and change capitalism

What do you think would be a good alternative to capitalism?

How can one country change global capitalism?

How about pension style stipends in different categories for the basics in life. Something to make sure people can have a decent life without having to choose between heating and eating?

With room for paid work if you want a little more and volunteering when you're happy with what you've got.

The money should come from independent places, not the government or businesses as they are more likely to be biased and attract people who are inclined to misuse the privilege. Which seems to be what happened with communism.

The money could get deleted once it has been through the system. With the ability to call people/ organisations out if they go off on one.

Pie in the sky enough for you?

I should add - the stipends would be available to all and not means tested - as a fall back, whatever is going on in your life.

Also there would need to be a massive change in attitude. Maybe not even call it capitalism or communism.

? Where is the money coming from for “pension style stipends”? What is “money”? Where do countries get it from? Where, as a country, does the UK get most of its food and other resources?

I was thinking that we could have independent organisations that create the money digitally.(Isn't that the form money mostly takes these days?)

The same sort of thing for services and businesses

Obviously we would still have the same resources, (farms, energy, shops, clothing etc etc) and would hopefully have enough to fund organisations and buy from overseas.

How would we persuade the other countries from which we source every type of raw material we need but don’t already have and every type of resource we can’t or don’t make ourselves, to trade with us? What would our invented money mean to them? How would we give it credibility?

What do you think of Labour’s cuts?

Just print or make-up more money. That way, no money will have value to anyone.
Say "pretty please" to other countries, and they'll love the Monopoly Money and give everyone their heart's desire.😆

And then we will wake up from our dreamy nightmare. 😉

The problem is we are very low on options right now. ‘A stitch in time saves nine’… most of the issues stem back to the cost of land and housing. If that had been nipped in the bud back when it started, or at any time up to 2016… if immigration and the import of a million every year had been nipped in the bud… if the needs of future training has been looked at: all long before we got to the point of people with nothing having to take on 50- 70k lifelong debt to do jobs offering 28k while houses cost 300k.

I really don’t see any good news where this is going now. As RTB said earlier, the boomer generation have been prioritised and have taken everything. The only thing I disagree with is that the rot started in the early 2000’s, and that marks the beginning of intergenerational inequality historically. 2008 is very late along.

We NEED international cooperation on international financial movement and we need it now. We need those wealth taxes now and an end to the gaslighting about why it’s not possible. There was movement before the Ukraine war - yet another event used as an excuse for status quo to continue.

If I had any method of talking to people with influence, it would be to remind them that no one really benefits out of a complete crash of the sort that marked the end of Rome. A few survivors will get lucky. That’s all.

Not 'Monopoly Money'. Money that has the same value as what we have now. Not just one country using it. Deleting money at the other end so we don't have rampant inflation.

Other countries don’t have our massive overpopulation issue and inequality levels.

If it’s Brexit and Tory austerity that is to blame it seems odd that the UK’s economy is performing better than the larger European countries.

I dread to think what state the UK would be in now if it hadn’t been for austerity given record government debt levels and a tax take which is the highest since the end of WWII.

I can see some logic in the benefits cuts but I think it should have been approached from the other end. Many, many people are better off on benefits than working, this is so wrong.
I think austerity cutting investment is a massive mistake. Cutting Sure Start for example just loads more costs and problems further down the line. We need investment in public services and massively more council housing with no RTB. This would solve so many problems and long term put more money into both the public and the states pockets.

I do wonder how much the housing crisis, across many 'rich' countries is compounded by democracy itself. In that, most people are nicely housed and don't want more housing. They vigorously oppose development plans and vote for politicians promising no more housing. We desperately need more housing, especially council housing imo and the lack and cost of housing is causing so much human misery and poverty and stopping our young people getting their lives started. But people well housed vote down any mass building at the level we actually need. What to do? The politicians promising no/low development are going to be the ones elected. And its not to do with lack of space, Australia and Canada have their own housing crisis.

Also agree about society prioritising boomers (and I say this as an older person who's been a massive winner) they are a big voting demographic though. I can also afford to buy/give my kids a house each, further entrenching inequality.
I'm not suggesting we bin democracy btw, I'm just pointing out some of the problems.

I don’t think the messages from above about ‘the economy is performing marvellously’ matter jackshit when we’ve got children who haven’t got enough food and decent clothing. European countries may be performing better in this regard.

What is ‘the economy’ exactly?

It seems to me that increasingly large numbers of people would be better off as medieval peasants. Much better off under the open field systems with rights to gather fuel held in communal ownership.

@WaryCrow nobody is claiming the economy is performing marvellously and the problems you highlight are of course real. But blaming Brexit and Tory Austerity means that the actual root causes of why for so many, living standards have gone to shit will never be addressed. The problems that the UK are facing are common to a number of other countries.

Brexit and austerity may have contributed but they are not the primary reason for the current situation.

What is the “primary” reason then in your eyes?

Out of control benefits system, grotesque over spending on Covid, out of control legal and illegal immigration which has depressed wages, hugely increased pressure on housing, health care and other public services.

Fundamentally it’s a shrinking pool of net tax payers and spiralling government spending.

Why is the benefits system out of control? Where are the jobs for people?

@WaryCrowwhy are other EU countries seeing similar issues in your view?, eg Germany