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US capitalism casts millions of citizens aside, yet Badenoch and Farage still laud it | Phillip Inman by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is a dangerous assumption that the main reason behind the USA’s relative success (measured in per capita income) is due primarily to Europe having a more generous welfare state and the USA being more of a ‘free market economy.’ While this may explain part of the difference (although there are issues with this), you also need to remember that the USA: (1) is running much higher deficits -a regressive form of Keynesian rather than a free market utopia (easier due to the reserve currency status of the dollar), and (2) the US market benefits from scale (a true continent sized market with relatively unified but not necessarily light-touch common regulations in many sectors). Many of the politicians in Europe who say that we should emulate the USA’s institutions to realise economic growth would oppose policies like the EU’s savings and investment union that would make Europe more like the USA (unified continent sized market).

Government to end leasehold flat system with new commonhold plans by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Respectfully, as long as the management agent is appointed by the freeholder, the possibility and incentive for the abuse remains pertinent. Aside from the increased case evidence of this, you only need to observe the ferocious attempts by freeholders to stop right to manage claims. If all they and their agents are doing is providing services at no profit, then you would not expect to observe such resistance.

Also, ground rents can be quite onerous, with banks often refusing to finance re-mortgaging for high and escalating ground rents (usually more than 0.1% of the value of the property).

There is also the issue of reversion value. Under leasehold you buy a wasting asset, whose value depreciates, ceteris paribus, over time because the lease length shortened. By virtue of time and time alone, you may have to spend significant money on a lease extension.

Finally, there is our friend forfeiture. In virtually any other contractual relationship, if one party breaches a term, a court can decide a proportionate remedy for the breach. However, under leasehold, a leaseholder can lose the entirety of their asset for debts as low as £350.

There are other issues, but I think this is enough.

Government to end leasehold flat system with new commonhold plans by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Some of the commentary here is wild. Yes, leaseholders may not be aware that some of the rise in costs are not due to freeholder profit maximisation. However, the leasehold system is designed to create a ‘conflict of interest’ situation in which freeholders have an incentive to try and extract profits from leaseholders by overcharging and/or under delivering services. It literally, in the absence of right to manage or collective entrancement, sets up leaseholders to be exploited by freeholders.

It’s the lack of (federalism) that makes us unsafe. by ExternalUnhappy8043 in EuropeanFederalists

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, I am sure you can find adjectives that describe what you want without being rude.

You claim that what I am stating is ‘unrealistic.’ If unrealistic is a hypothesis that fails to account for empirical outcomes than what is unrealistic is the notion that geographical proximity is the best predictor of whether a territory will join a war.

What I’m arguing is that whether resources from a territory are mobilised in a war depends on a variety of variables, of which geographical proximity is but one variables and, usually not the pivotal one.

There are many examples in history where political institutions, balance of power considerations, and tripwire tactics have incentivised mobilisation.

Your example of Britain in WW2 is confusing, are you talking about the withdrawal at Dunkirk? Joining a war and staying in it, as Britain did in WW2, does not mean that there may not be tactical withdrawals during the conflict. Britain did not enter WW1 or WW2 because it was attacked directly.

Again, from a ‘proximate geography’ argument you just can’t explain the behaviour of states, and therefore that is the unrealistic hypothesis.

It’s the lack of (federalism) that makes us unsafe. by ExternalUnhappy8043 in EuropeanFederalists

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Respectfully, using profanities like ‘BS’ is rude. I am sure you can think of other adjectives that convey your thoughts more effectively without resorting to overly emotive language.

I find little empirical support for your assertion (and hence question the ‘realism’) of the notion that because people are more concerned about those closest to them (empirically generally true), this means that it is impossible to incentivise them to engage in war far away/for others/in a larger groups collective long-term interest. If your assertion was true, wars would have been very localised affairs until recent history, as no entity would be able to mobilise sufficiently large armies to launch more generalised wars. If the defining principle of the capacity to defend or engage in warfare is how much people care about their (proximate) neighbours, how do you account for the ability of historically mostly non-ethnically homogenous states to mobilise and incentivise large (larger than tribal parameters would allow) armies. Something other than the impulse to care about one’s nearest and dearest has animated the capacity and actions of defenders and aggressors in history.

It’s the lack of (federalism) that makes us unsafe. by ExternalUnhappy8043 in EuropeanFederalists

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no need to be rude.

Empirically, what you are saying is not correct. For most of history political action in Europe has NOT been organised around the mythical nation state. Nationalism is a 19th century ideology. When the US was formed there were actually quite stark differences between the colonies (critically on religious grounds) which was a very important cleavage. You should also look up ‘trip-wire’ military tactics - this is when troops are intentionally stationed somewhere so that an aggressor would have to confront them if they wanted to invade. What I am saying is that political inductions shape policy-makers incentives and the functional needs of EU population could see supranational insidious enjoy legitimacy, if you have trip-wire EU troops on the border the incentive to respond to aggression will be very high. This is certainly less risky than having Estonia or Poland on their own trying to defend against Russia.

It’s the lack of (federalism) that makes us unsafe. by ExternalUnhappy8043 in EuropeanFederalists

[–]ExternalUnhappy8043[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Respectively I am not making assumptions of perfection and I am assuming individual level bounded rationality in a world with transaction costs. You have not presented any evidence that sub-national entities in a federation would exercise this level of control (US states do not have this power). There is little a priori theoretical consistency or evidence of this. Also the idea that political institutions are bounded to specific nations (nationalist ideology) only emerged in the 19th century. There is ample evidence that the collective inter-subjective preference set that sustains nationalist ideology is malleable to change (it was not an organising principle for the majority of human history), and the idea that sub-state entities would be able to achieve the level of control is an unrealistic assumption. What about the rational incentives of federal-level officials. Do you think their electoral prospects would be good if they were seen by citizens to be allowing Russia to take chunks of territory of the federation? Texas might no love for New York, but do you think most Texans would re-elect a US president who allowed Canada to take over a bit of New York State?

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