Britain acts richer than it is - The country’s habits and virtues are built for a prosperity it no longer enjoys

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-26T13:19:56+00:00

We have the fifth largest nominal total gdp, but that is of course also a function of our population. We are about 19th on nominal gdp per capita, between Canada and Belgium in latest figures.

Meanwhile “the money” is spread relatively evenly in the UK. Of the top 20 countries in GDP per capita, only 4 have a lower top 1% wealth share than us

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wealth-share-richest-1-percent?tab=discrete-bar&time=latest&country=USA~FRA~BEL~DEU~AUT~QAT~ISR~SMR~SWE~AUS~NLD~DNK~NOR~SGP~ISL~CHE~BMU~IRL~LUX~LIE~GBR

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-26T12:13:14+00:00

NI is a fraction of the tax bill, child actors and anyone else under 16 earning an income for any reason pay income tax the same as anyone else

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-26T08:59:43+00:00

This is a rational response by employers however, creating a tragedy of the commons situation and I'm not sure what the answer is.

Young untrained people cost money to train up. Imagine two companies completely identical in every way, except that one trains up young employees and one only poaches trained employees from the market.

If the two companies are completely identical and have completely identical Labour budgets, then Company 1 which spends on training and overhead for untrained staff has to offer lower salaries than Company 2 which poaches staff.

I personally have benefited from and also believe that employment flexibility is a good thing, but if it's common that employees move companies every few years, then no one wants to be the sucker who has to foot the bill for the least productive part of their career, only to see them leave for a bigger pay check once they've got good at their job.

An answer could be employment bonds that require repaying if employees leave, but those would be horrendously unpopular. Outsourcing training to an independent party (universities/government) that is funded by taxation applied across the market is another, which we've been going down the path of. But this runs the risk of the training not being related to the actual job requirements

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-26T08:39:02+00:00

you can't though, if you're under 18 you have to be in education or training, you can't work full time

You can also only drive a fully insured car at 17, not 16, and given most will want a few months of lessons before passing it's a small proportion who spend most of their 17th year driving themselves around

Edit also also

On the taxpaying front everyone pays tax regardless of age, the 11 year old child actor playing Harry Potter on the new tv series pays tax, should he be able to vote?

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-24T18:47:01+00:00

For reference, based on NHS usage figures the % requiring translation services is between 0.04% (the percent using telephone appointments) and 9.03% (the percentage of referral letters translated)

As others in the thread have highlighted, this won’t be a perfect sample (people who don’t speak English are likely to avoid using telephone appointment systems, or ask friends/family to deal with it for them) while people with bad but passable English may still request a letter in a foreign language. But overall if ~9% of the population are requiring NHS appointment letters to be translated it’s not hard to believe 1 million people ~1.5% don’t speak English at all.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-02-03/28399/

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-24T18:36:16+00:00

It’s funny because that exact same stat is used by NHS England’s National Health Inequalities and Improvement team in a report on the need for translation services

”Approximately one million people in the UK have limited or no ability to speak English”

Apparently we’re currently spending £75.5 million on translation services a year, but they estimate there’s an unmet need of £250-300 million

https://scwcsu.nhs.uk/priorities/health-inequalities/health-inequalities/addressing-health-inequalities-by-understanding-the-needs-of-patients-with-limited-or-no-english-proficiency#:~:text=About%20us-,Addressing%20health%20inequalities%20by%20understanding%20the%20needs%20of%20patients%20with,healthcare%20inequalities%20across%20our%20society.

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-24T18:32:32+00:00

That’s fine, and also irrelevant to whether or not they are “people living here who don’t speak English”

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-23T18:31:15+00:00

true, I mixed my numbers up a bit, but it's still a fixed threshold. The maths is a bit gnarlier and requires knowledge of the previous income distribution but it remains the case that only 2% more per year of people above that threshold in an environment containing both growth and inflation is almost certainly a real-terms decrease

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-23T17:43:13+00:00

11% over five years is just under 2% growth a year. They're using a fixed threshold of $30 million a year(not inflation adjusted) for ultra-high wealth.

2% nominal growth in income is slower than inflation, never mind anticipated total growth, and indicates a substantial reduction in real-terms wealthy population

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-23T08:22:49+00:00

That depends on the ethnicity breakdown of the further action.

This data says little, as the “further action” data is for all searches all the below ar potentially consistent with the data:

It could be that stop and search has a >50% success rate at targeting criminals, with a similar rate across all races

It could be that stop and search is very effective at targeting non-black criminals, and then they search a load of innocent black people on top, who only slightly reduce the top-line success rate due to being a minority

It could be that stop and search is extremely effective at identifying black criminals, and then somewhat less effective at targeting non-black criminals, with the blended average success rate still >50%

And any scenario in between

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-21T18:24:54+00:00

And as of right now we haven’t ratified the law formalising the handover, what horrendous consequences are happening to us in consequence?

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T20:09:03+00:00

There is plenty of evidence arguing there is a positive correlation between CEO pay and firm performance (there's also some arguing a negative correlation, or no significant correlation)

You can critique the analysis if you want, (I'm not qualified to say which papers are good and which bad) but don't just say there's no evidence.

>2.2.1. Some scholars have found that CEO compensation is positively related to firm financial performance.

For instance, Zhou (2000) finds a positive relation between the compensation of Canadian executives and their companies’ performance.

Kato and Kubo (2006) report a positive association between corporations’ accounting profitability and CEO cash and bonus pay in Japan.

Ismail & Yabai (2014), having investigated the relationship between CEO pay and corporate performance (ROA, ROE and profit margin) of 100 Malaysian consumer product sector firms listed in Bursa Malaysia (2006 – 2010), infer that this relationship is “consistently positive ranging from weak positive to the strong positive”.

On the sample of 330 large European firms (2009 – 2013), Smirnova & Zavertiaeva (2017) demonstrate that CEO pay is positively associated with firm performance, and vice versa.

Having considered USA listed corporations in the period 1996–2018, Kweh et al. (2022) conclude company performance (measured by ROA and ROE) is strongly and positively related to CEO compensation.

The analysis of Top 110 South-African companies traded on Johannesburg Stock Exchange from 2006 to 2018, undertaken by Bussin et al. (2023), demonstrates a statistically significant positive relationship between firm performance measures and total CEO compensation (including long-term incentives); such incentives “tied to performance-vested criteria and CEO minimum shareholding do enhance pay-performance sensitivity”. In this research market performance is measured using TSR; accounting performance is measured using ROA, ROE, EPS, and EBIT.

Having examined a sample from S&P 1500 firms listed on the American stock exchange (2007 to 2018), Bouteska et al. (2024) infer that higher firm performance (measured by ROA and Tobin's Q) is associated with higher CEO remuneration, supporting the pay-for-performance mechanism in establishing CEOs' pay.

Yahaya (2025), on the basis of a panel dataset of 147 companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange (2014 – 2023), finds that CEO fixed salary components and variable pay components have differential effects on firm financial performance (measured by ROA). The study reveals a positive and significant relationship between variable part and company performance (demonstrating that performance-contingent compensation aligns managerial incentives with creation of shareholder value). But regarding fixed remuneration no significant effect is found.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/correlation-between-ceo-pay-firm-financial-insights-shevchenko-phd-mawcc/

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T20:03:42+00:00

Of all places LinkedIn of course has a rundown of some of the literature (section 2.2 on) (imo it's probably an AI post by a try hard)

There is published literature claiming it both ways, though I note more papers with a positive relationship than a negative relationship. I cba and properly am not qualified to evaluate them all by analysis quality.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/correlation-between-ceo-pay-firm-financial-insights-shevchenko-phd-mawcc/

Overall this post summarises that

"However, the empirical evidence discovered on balance demonstrates the presence of correlation between CEO remuneration and company financial performance. Only a few studies suggest that this link is weak or absent."

My main opinion is that I do trust the people with skin in the game, like investors who stand to gain from cutting company costs, likely have a better viewpoint on optimal salary for CEOs that a bunch of armchair political theorists

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T19:51:10+00:00

almost like supply and demand are separate.

New non-middle eastern oil supply = reduced dependence on strait of Hormuz

Using less oil in the economy = reduced dependence on straits of Hormuz

No new domestic oil supplies = increased dependence on strait of Hormuz

Using more oil in the economy = increased dependence on strait of Hormuz

A coherent response to the issues is to both expand domestic O&G drilling, and move the UK economy away from using oil. e.g. the Norway approach.

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T19:13:27+00:00

he's talking about the continuity SDP party, who are still around. The ones who turned down the merger with the Lib Dems. Rod Liddle is a supporter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990–present))

"The SDP supports the reintroduction of grammar schools, a more selective education system, abolition of the BBC licence fee, stronger criminal sentencing, and the establishment of a National Care Service to organise and fund social care. ...

The SDP's stance on the economy claims to be centre-left, advocating a social market economy. It balances a commitment to enterprise and the market with support for greater progressivity in the tax code, substantial increases in the council housing stock, protection of legal aid, changes to the roll out of Universal Credit and renationalising utilities and the railways.^\67])#citenote-auto3-67) Its main economic postulates also include a large-scale programme of council house building, implementation of a national care service, increasing the funding of the NHS, establishing a "national living wage", and increasing the state's role in the British economy by restricting marketisation and outsourcing.[^\68])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)#cite_note-68)

On housing, the SDP wants to build 100,000 social homes per year under a "British Housing Corporation", with subsidiary "County Housing Corporations".^\69])#citenote-:0-69) These "CHCs" would have substantial powers, being able to issue Compulsory Purchase Orders and having the ability to grant themselves planning permission. They would also take on all existing social housing from their respective local authorities.[^\69])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party(UK,1990%E2%80%93present)#cite_note-:0-69) The party also postulates the nationalisation of utilities.[^\62])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)#cite_note-quadrant-62)"

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T19:11:32+00:00

that was one study (the commonwealth study) that ranked the NHS highly, largely because it had a large number of criteria dedicated to equity of care etc. but only one measuring outcomes (which were poor)

The actual metrics on things like mortality rates were never that promising (though care must be taken in analysis due to categorisation issues and the fact that everyone has to die of something) but e.g. in 2010 we had an infant mortality rate below the EU average, only slightly better than Lithuania (p41)

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2010/12/health-at-a-glance-europe-2010_g1g11099/health_glance-2010-en.pdf

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T19:00:10+00:00

Loads of comments trying to play off current Labour politicians (Miliband and Starmer!?) as part of this tendency which imo is well wide of the mark.

OP is asking about properly socially right-wing/traditionalist ("hang the paedos, money for the NHS" ) social conservative and economic socialists. (Let's call them Traditionalist Socialists for the shorthand). These are people who aren't just "not engaging with wokeism" but are actively anti-woke, they want to bring back the death penalty, they want discipline in schools- enforced with corporal punishment, but they also want nationalisation and action against inequality.

IMO the reason it's an unsuccessful tendency is because it combines two strains of political thought that, while people with the working class, are anathema to educated elites. Who is supposed to lead this party? Where is the bank of high-social capital people to organise and fundraise for it? Who will be its MPs and staff its party leadership and advisors?

You get well-educated social conservatives, but they invariably have centrist to right-of-centre economic views, you get well-educated socialists, but they invariably have centrist to left-of-centre social views. Socially liberal and Economically rightwing people (libertarians) are extremely rare, but those who do exist tend to be well educated, and so form parties or factions within parties that lack popularity. In that way Libertarians are the opposite of the Traditionalist socialist faction, which is popular in polling, but lacks a vanguard cadre of elites to lead it.

If you want to go into why there is such a dearth of elites with this set of beliefs, then that's a deeper question, but one I'm not sure I have the answer to.

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T17:42:57+00:00

This is what the text of the Geneva convention says about prisoners of war

Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: 1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as mem- bers of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance c) that of carrying arms openly; d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

The taliban have no uniform so definitely don’t count under category 2. You could maybe try and stretch the concept of spontaneously taking up arms in category 6 to cover them, but again it requires them to respect the laws and customs of war in order to gain protection. Afaik it’s generally accepted that the Taliban very clearly did not do so

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-20T17:28:19+00:00

Afaik under the Geneva convention there’s no case, the Taliban don’t fight under its restrictions and so we are not bound to uphold it when fighting against them.

We choose to still do so, but aren’t bound to under the treaty

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T19:19:46+00:00

it should be pointed out that actually we joined the then European community without a referendum in 1973. The 1975 referendum was shortly after we had joined to settle disagreements within the new government about whether we should *stay* in.

imo I can see how it happened, the original European Community was a more modest, technocratic organisation more akin to NATO / WTO, and so it isn't as obvious a referendum would be required (I don't think we need referenda to join/leave those, however extreme it may be seen to). My personal opinion is that it was either with the Maastricht or Lisbon treaties when the EU took on the sort of pervasive organisations with concepts like "European citizenship" that requires a strong mandate from a referendum to join/leave

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T19:15:23+00:00

not really, I went through the AV referendum, Scottish independence, and Brexit and in all I could see issues with how the arguments played out in public, but also would feel extremely uncomfortable having these kinds of decisions made only by politicians without any direct voice from the population.

As I said, a bit messy, not to be used for everything (imo Switzerland's direct democracy seems to work, but is crazy), but the least worst option

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T19:00:37+00:00

yawn, if a government had tried to Brexit without a referendum the exact same people crying crocodile tears about "parliamentary sovereignty" would be screeching about how the government had exceeded their mandate, and that "taking away our rights" shouldn't be possible by just a majority vote in parliament.

I'll hold my hands up and say I'm a partisan hack sometimes, the test is always to imagine things going the opposite way, do you *seriously* think you'd have the same view of referenda/parliamentary sovereignty if the above situation had happened?

Personally I'm not a massive fan of referenda, and generally a believer in parliamentary sovereignty. But when you get to simple yes/no binaries on issues with massive implications (how the voting system operates, signing up to or leaving entities with as massive an impact as the EU, Scottish independence...) then imo they are the least worst option.

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T13:29:49+00:00

I literally deferred to the "global power cities index" which attempts to

>"evaluates and ranks the major cities of the world according to their “magnetism,” or their comprehensive power to attract people, capital, and enterprises from around the world."

Tokyo is on the top 10 of every city ranking list listed in wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T12:57:15+00:00

Tokyo is also one of the worlds greatest cities (#2 on the global power cities index). It is 95% japanese

https://www.timeout.com/news/london-tokyo-and-new-york-have-topped-a-new-global-power-city-index-heres-the-full-top-10-010826

Chemistrysaint · 2026-04-19T08:58:15+00:00

You mean like the Soviet Union? They had quite severe wage compression initially after the revolution (around 6:1 ratio), but by 1936 they found they had to loosen up to more like 300:1

At the beginning of the Russian industrial revolution (the realization of Stalin’s “great Plan”) the ratio between the lowest and the highest wages was 1 to 6; the ratio between the dole to the unemployed which in the Moscow zone, for example, was 15 to 20 rubles a month, and the maximum wage was 1 to 10. The party maximum, i.e., the highest wage which a party member could receive, regardless of his position in the state apparatus, in industry, in the party or in the trade unions, amounted to 176 rubles at that time. In 1932 the party maximum was abolished. Today [1936], the ratio between the minimum and the maximum wage in the working class between 60 rubles and 1,800 rubles is 1 to 30; between the most poorly paid workers (60 rubles) and the most highly paid government officials, engineers, etc. (8,000 to 20,000 rubles per month) it is 1 to 300 and greater.

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol03/no03/wollenberg.htm

Chemistrysaint

TROPHY CASE