Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I don't disagree from a political perspective.

But I think path dependency matters and we can't just re-imagine our economy's strengths and it happens. I think, ultimately, the sort of lever we probably need to pull are industrial strategy, nationalisation, British preference in procurement etc - for political purpose. Not because it's necessary for national security or even necessarily good for the British economy as a whole but because it is good for the body politic. Obviously that is in breach of lots of international trade law, including the TCA with the EU which would be challenging.

How do Switzerland, Japan and others manage with such dense made in-nation sectors?

I do think we need to put a lot more focus on the benefits industries bring to communities as well as the overall economic gains they bring.
Like if there's a big factory churning out widgets in Wigan or wherever, this might not do anything for Britain on an international scale, we're never going to compete with China on widgets, but as long as we're not blowing billions on supporting it and it is keeping several thousands employed.... then its absolutely something to be encouraged.

Basically a "Why not do both", the city, education, etc.... and industry.

To be clear I think it's a bad idea - not so much the Iberian rid as Russian subs and a big wire from Morocco to Devon is a lot to protect. I think we're in a world that is less and less tolerant of the very efficient, the thin stretched networks whether that's supply chains or just-in-time or power infrastructure. We need to be thinking far more about resilience (which in my view also means, largely domestically and democratically controlled) and spare capacity..

Oh I was speaking Europe-wide rather than with a cable around to Britain. That does indeed seem quite out there. Though, surprisingly less so than many other projects- crazy you could lay a hundreds of miles cable across the sea but finding a place for a depot on land would be the issue.

We have the Norway cable which should bring a fair bit of green energy now- there should be room for more of those. Then there's the Icelink that gets talked about. But ultimately it does have to happen at home.
The big tidal ideas do sound quite tempting, though lots of iffy stuff about the environment with them. Though the one at the Wash will apparently help with revitalising wetlands....but also has the most fascists to deal with.
I dunno.

Maybe but I think the way grad recruitment/entry level recruitment works that may not be enough for the cohort that have come up in recent years.

My basic view on AI is perhaps a little pessimistic. I think it's either going to be transformative technology that will boost productivity, to the benefit of capital and at the expense of labour. It'll do to white collar jobs what the cotton mills did to the skilled working class of that era - or automation to some jobs in the last few decades. That'll have huge social and economic consequences that will need to be managed politically.

Or it's a massive misallocation of capital that could have been more productively used elsewhere. Markets will eventually realise that and we'll face a crash I think closer to 2008 than the dotcom bubble. Which will have huge social and economic consequences that will need to be managed politically

Yeah, the generation graduating now have suffered. Though I do think the graduate recruitment scheme thing is quite overrated and could really do with cutting down/opening up to people who have been out of uni a few years but did other things before going into their career.

I do long term feel quite pessimistic about AI. Afterall, after the .com bubble things did come back and this time it stuck.  But I don't think LLMs are the tech to eliminate white collar work. That will need something quite different and predicting these future-techs is always a risky game, so when the time will come I do not know.

I'm not so optimistic on any of this

You think Russia will pull through?

[garbon]

I'm not especially bothered about this government; they'll get quite a few thing right, eventually.

What gives you that impression?

Are you falling into the 'everything's gone to shit' trap?

I think there is a big gap between everything is shit and our current government is flailing with d ant evidence they will get "a few thing right".