To ask what should be being done about the economy and the country generally

[AlertCat]

I’m fairly Keynesian in my economics (I’m not an economist) but there are so many problems in society at the moment that I’m not sure even a massive programme of work like in the 1950s would really help.
There’s another thread where people are expressing unhappiness at the levels of tax they’re being asked to pay and it’s easy to find lots of threads about benefit claimants and immigration.

If we take as given that (a) our birthrate means we need immigration; (b) we have a benefits system that’s both overly punitive and (apparently) overly lenient if you say the right things (I’m not sure I personally believe the second part, but it’s an opinion I see a lot); (c) climate change means more and more people from the global south moving north; (d) the days of good state services, free at the point of use may be over-

what would you do differently to the government? Could we get back to the kind of services provision we had in the post-war consensus era (up until the Thatcher government)? Is that a pipe dream? Is it even desirable?

Your givens are not actually givens, so hard to say really.

Legal immigration needs to be looked at, without emotion.

I am an immigrant myself, so really REALLY do not want reform to get in off the back of the government refusing to see the truth of the situation.

Immigration is beneficial when done right. In the UK at the moment far too many legal migrants are not net contributors, when also adding in that they and their dependants also need to access services such as schools and infrastructure it becomes a net loss for most.

It is and never has been the permanent solution to low birthrates. All us immigrants get old too so you need a constantly increasing flow of people, but what is the solution long term? Better quality of life, free childcare provision, acknowledgement of the social contribution of SAHP who choose to, and higher wages would help far more.

None of them? Why not?

Reduce the influence of the billionaire media barons who basically inform the country and seem to determine the country’s political direction. Leveson 2 or whatever. The amount of deliberate misinformation and distortion of the facts is horrendous. Farage gets no scrutiny at all and the Tories were shit for years yet silence. The amount of negativity Starmer and the Labour Party got from day 1 is ridiculous.

Take point a. Immigration is not necessary due to birth rate decline IMO.

Voluntary euthanasia would massively reduce care needs and draw down of state resources and immigration requirements.

We don't need immigration for unskilled work - we have plenty of unskilled people in the UK. And yes, I hate the term unskilled. But with the price of uni and a lack of investment in schools, that's where things are heading.

I accept that people will want to emigrate as a result of climate change but i think more needs to be done to address climate change than accept that the world is fucked and people will move as the solution. It also assumes that people will be permitted to move. In 50-100 years time, its not a given that any country will accept migration and that these people won't be ignored and left to rot (as much as you might think otherwise from a humanitarian pov).

It is quite simple really: revert Brexit.

Everyone needs to pay more tax.

And - we need to get state expenditure under control.

The elephant in the room is the ageing population, and the cost of this which is being shouldered by a shrinking and far less wealthy working population - who are not accumulating capital in the way older generations did.

In particular the cost of pensions to councils and central government - not the state pension, but DC schemes which are totally unsustainable. I saw a post yesterday of someone complaining their NHS pension from 55 was only £800pcm and they’d worked 33 years - they might live to 95, claiming far longer than they ever worked!

There has been a move to a very very extractive Uber "free market" capitalism in the UK. Children's homes and older people's care homes are a good example. Massive multinationals and venture capitalists making money whilst the actual provision of service goes down the drain. Water, social housing and rail were also areas not really suited to the kinds of privatisation Thatcher unleashed.
I don't think lurching back to national industries is the trick but better oversight and control and devil ed decision making to the regions would help.
"Failed State" by Sam freedman (Tory policy chap) has some good analysis and suggestions... It's not cheery because a lot of it is hard and will take time.....

@TheWisePlumDucka very sensible answer. OP, you have stated too many things are a given when a significant number of us wouldn’t agree.

Having thought alot about it, in my darker moments "nuke it from space" seems a viable option. But I give my head a wobble of course.

Funnily enough, in the course of trying to understand "how it all works" I've just watched a video that sets a good case for the global economy being a giant Ponzi scheme. Lots of analysis of how Fiat currency versus gold / silver backed finance is the problem.

And I think this is the problem - we can't look at our domestic economy in isolation because it's so tied to world affairs and politics.

Moves toward further redistribution of wealth, starting with windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies. I wonder if there could be an "excess profit" tax. Bigger taxes on the capital of extremely high net worth individuals. Resurrect the idea of a land tax, for larger landowners.

Ban overseas residents from buying up property in the UK as an investment. Even bigger taxes for second home owners! Introduce meaningful incentives for older people under occupying large homes to downsize (building attractive small home developments for them to downsize to is a start). Build lots and lots of good quality social housing.

Decouple the unit price of electricity from the price of gas.

Have a meaningful national conversation about our ageing demographic and how to manage it so that our older people are looked after without our younger workers bearing a crippling tax burden.

Rejoining the EU (or attempting to) would be helpful, too.

This is clearly unsolvable. Today labour announced they are going to partially reverse the WFA cuts. If you even touch their benefits they vote en masse for someone else and force you to keep paying.

Also the casual mention of voluntary euthanasia upthread was chilling. Our aging population are our parents and grandparents, and will one day be us and our children. Not a separate species to be sacrificed for financial reasons IMHO.

i was hoping to avoid the discussion going into terms of ‘immigration is the problem/the solution’ or ‘benefits are too generous/too stingy). While lots of us have opinions about those things, it’s too easy to offer them as simplistic arguments (as per the political parties, to be fair- very few say where exactly the money would come from or how their solutions would actually work). I don’t know the answers- but I’m interested in people’s suggestions.

I personally think some form of UBI may be inevitable, given increasing levels of AI impacting various jobs at different levels of work (from creative to menial).

My Dad was an immigrant in the 1950’s he opened the first Chinese restaurant in a small seaside town. Everyone knew him and he loved the UK having been born and lived in Hong Kong as it was a British colony. He arrived and opened a legitimate business, didn’t need welfare at all. He had been a finance officer of a firm in HK. His children became an engineer, research pharmacist and nurse who career changed and then worked in education. My brothers eventually ended up relocating to America because they could earn so much more.

What you need is a points system where skill gaps are filled, so people like myself if I was still nursing would be welcome. Or people like my Father who arrived with money to set up a business.

The UK is very liberal minded and needs to look at people as economic units far more. There is far too much guilt about the empire around and it clouds judgement.

There are just too many people who are not net contributors both immigrants and people born here. Some countries link welfare payments to income tax that has been paid. In Spain unemployment benefits are paid like this at two levels. I think that’s a good idea.

Developed countries with low birth rates and let’s be honest it’s when women become more educated and women have more rights that countries have lower birth rates will go through a period of extreme pain with ageing populations. At some point things will level out. The answer is not to allow unskilled migrants from countries where women are treated badly in to this country, which is what’s happening right now.

Anyone that’s turns up without a passport and has no proof of genuine identity should be put in to asylum centres and not allowed to mix with the general population. If you are really fleeing for your life then you would be ok with that. My family fled mainland China when the Japanese were raping and killing thousands, my baby Aunt died when they fled. Liberal sensibilities are destroying developed western countries.

You can’t get proposed solutions when you sideline some of the major contributing factors and note them as ‘given’.

Some days I think we need a global digital ID and the navy manning the channel, and a return the workhouse.

And I'm generally wildly liberal, so I can understand why lots of people are moving to the right. There's no simple answers.

And OP, if you want to get into the uncomfortable discussions, we cannot simply accept that other countries will continue to have a high birth rate in places that will be most affected by climate change and expect that other countries will just welcome them as refugees on a humanitarian basis, as though redistribution of people is the simple solution.

Africa has a much higher birth rate and will be greatly affected by climate change - the solution isn't migration to the UK.

Is like to see more longer term thinking. We are still using so much Victorian technology (housing, sewers, railways) whilst modern stuff seems expensive and short term thinking (60s onwards housing, Heathrow third runway). But so much of life is built to be disposable, even when we've reached the peak of development (housing, cars, electronics, household goods).

I think a change in attitude is needed. We need to rely on ourselves to fund our lifestyle first (with insurance for redundancy or prolonged sickness), and if we cannot fund our own lifestyle we should look to family, and if they cannot help only then should we turn to the state.

I have a child with ASD and apparently we could get PIP to help with the costs of therapy, educational assistance etc but we don’t bother because we can afford to pay it. if my 21 year old daughter became pregnant we’d expect her to move back home. I’d be a bit horrified if she turned to benefits instead when she has a family who are more than capable of helping her financially, but I’m sure if she applied she’d get benefits. This seems to be a waste of money for the state.

Generous benefits plus open borders is a disaster. Ask the Danes and the Swedes.

Also the casual mention of voluntary euthanasia upthread was chilling

I agree.

Housing - it behind so many problems renting or buying - the high price the insecurity if renting privately. It's also possibly contributing to stats for every 2 kids born in UK another is wanted and not had. We had a housing crisis before and the poltical concenus for decades became build - private as well ac council - but only after first goverment took the risk - and that's gone. I get it no one wants to lose more countryside and farmland but we needed more housing than we've built for decades.

Immigration an odd one as we do need the workers - and many bring benfit but at same time it adds to the housing and services pressure and probably helps depressed the born UK citizens (of all ethnicities) birth rates but also increasing overall brith rate - like one in three births was to non UK born mother. It does feel it could be better managed somehow.

Electricity prices - I heard a plea on radio 4 about this from one small company - apparent we bid every 30 min and teh highest prices accpeted is what everyone gets - regional pricing coudl help put jobs in poorer areas nearer electical genration not miles away needing imfracture. Since read our high energy prices are likely contributing low and persistant productivity in UK.

Taxes and tax system no idea - we clearly all need to pay more but high cost of living making that hard - personally not keen on property taxes coming in like they have in USA - where tax is linke dto price of land/house but have seen it reference a lot in press last few years. It part of the tax assets rather than income debate.

I think we aren't going to get much say as individuals and I think our country has declining power to none on a global stage.

I think we are at the mercy of world events and that we are in a bit of a post fact age and it doesn't matter which way we vote.

Put a stop to Right to Buy and stop filling every space with new buildings for so-called “hard working families” when we all know that’s not who they are for. Doesn’t make sense when primary schools are being closed down at the same time. Look harder at repurposing existing buildings.

We need to pay FAR more scrutiny to those who govern us & take advantage of the way societal mechanisms have been degraded , rather than turning on each other .
Our systems are broken .
If one takes the time to look carefully it is clear to see that much legislation over more than 40 years has been ( deliberately) designed to re route our tax money into the pockets of shareholders & privatised companies rather than directly into the NHS , schools , utilities and social care .
Paying more tax won’t help much when that money gets siphoned off too .

A pp suggests offering ‘voluntary euthanasia’ as a solution to reduce social care costs .

I’d prefer to redesign the legislation myself to redirect tax money to provide decent wages for care home staff & proper care for their vulnerable occupants over vast profits for ( frequently offshore ) care home company bosses .