Wie die Briten ihre eigene Wirtschaft gebrochen haben

Derek Thompson: “What’s the matter with the United Kingdom? Great Britain is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, which ushered in an era of energy super-production and launched an epoch of productivity advancements that made many life essentials, such as clothes and food, more affordable. Today, the country suffers from the converse of these achievements: a profound energy shortage and a deep affordability crisis. In February, the Bank of England reported an ongoing productivity slump so mysterious that its own economists “cannot account fully” for it. Real wages have barely grown for 16 years. British politics seems stuck in a cycle of disappointment followed by dramatic promises of growth, followed by yet more disappointment.

“A new report, titled ‘Foundations,’ captures the country’s economic malaise in detail. The U.K. desperately needs more houses, more energy, and more transportation infrastructure. ‘No system can be fixed by people who do not know why it is broken,’ write the report’s authors, Sam Bowman, Samuel Hughes, and Ben Southwood. They argue that the source of the country’s woes as well as ‘the most important economic fact about modern Britain [is] that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere.’ The nation is gripped by laws and customs that make essentials unacceptably scarce and drive up the cost of construction across the board …”

“These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven’t been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth. ‘Few leaders in the U.K. have thought seriously about the scale of change that we need,’ Bowman said. Comprehensive reform is necessary to unlock private investment in housing and energy—including overhauling the TCPA, reducing incentives for anti-growth lawsuits, and directly encouraging nuclear and gas production to build a bridge to a low-carbon-energy economy.

“Effective 21st-century governance requires something more than the ability to win elections by decrying the establishment and bemoaning sclerotic institutions. Progress requires a positive vision of the future, a deep understanding of the bottlenecks in the way of building that future, and a plan to add or remove policies to overcome those blockages. In a U.S. context, that might mean making it easier to build advanced semiconductors, or removing bureaucratic kludge for scientists while adding staff at the FDA to accelerate drug approval.

“In the U.K., the bottlenecks are all too clear: Decades-old rules make it too easy for the state to block housing developments or for frivolous lawsuits to freeze out energy and infrastructure investment. In their conclusion, Bowman and his co-authors strike a similar tone. ‘Britain can enjoy such a renewal once more,’ they write. ‘To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do.’”

Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/TlzYwSnj](https://theatln.tc/TlzYwSnj) 

The Brits are going to be happy that brexit will be looking good in comparison what Trump is going to do to the US economy.