It is quite lollersome that you attempted to pour scorn on the idea of “self-reinforcing” cycles of productivity and investment, since that’s patently the way it works.
"And there it is, a post that confirms the stereotype: complain about being offended, claim that what's being said is incorrect, and yet not refuting a single statement that's been made."
This kind of thinking has been used to defend homophobia, racism, xenophobia, sexism etc for centuries
It is quite lollersome that you attempted to pour scorn on the idea of “self-reinforcing” cycles of productivity and investment, since that’s patently the way it works.
No, it's not the way it works. It's what people tell themselves. Poland got lots of investment because there was an educated labour force who did not need to be paid so much. Dell moved 2,000 computer manufacturing jobs from Ireland to Poland in the mid-2000s. I know couples in Ireland where both of them worked for Dell who lost their jobs.
There are many reasons that the north of England doesn't get that investment, but a lot of them are cultural including the poor cultural support for education (comparing Northern Ireland and north of England in that regard is very illustrative) as well as the sort of attitude that's been displayed by posters on this thread. One of the things that Irish people took with them when looking for investment from abroad was humility.
Er, of course it is. The notion that investment increases productivity is absolutely basic, that’s why you do it.
That's not what I'm arguing against. I'm arguing against your idea that more productive areas get more investment and that's, e.g. why investment goes to London rather than north of England.
It was 2500 miles a year last time I checked. It is diesel because the petrol version I also considered was £40,000 and the diesel was £14k so in a sense my choice was borne out of poverty (and yes I have known from day 1 of purchase that I would probably be facing ulez charges in due course).
If I keep a car for 15 years and only do 2500 miles a year I think that probably does a lot less damage to the environment than someone buying a very heavy electric car and constantly upgrading it. I think I need an S Khan eco medal not a £4500 a year punishment.
No wonder the poor are cross. Hopefully Ulez can be Khan's and Labour's poll tax.
Ireland got loads of foreign investment from USA companies due to humongous tax breaks, lowish cost of labour (initially) and the fact they speak English.
So you don’t think that more productive areas get more investment?
No, I don't. If that were the case, nobody would have invested in Ireland in the 1980s or Poland in the 2000s. If that were the case, inn the 1980s and 1990s Japanese companies would have kept investing in Japan rather than investing in Vietnam, China and other Asian countries. Productivity results from investment - it's not a necessary condition for investment.
Of course, nobody is going to invest in an area where the results on that investment will be poorer relative to another alternative area in which they might invest. Some of areas winning investments is marketing, some is having a skilled and hard-working labour force, some is network effects.
Of course, nobody is going to invest in an area where the results on that investment will be poorer relative to another alternative area in which they might invest. Some of areas winning investments is marketing, some is having a skilled and hard-working labour force, some is network effects.
…and some is government-funded physical infrastructure such as public transport, and some is government initiatives such as tax breaks and targeted support for public services. The idea that the people of the north just need to be more humble and vote differently to fix the chronic issues of poor economic productivity is patronising at best.
Ireland got loads of foreign investment from USA companies due to humongous tax breaks, lowish cost of labour (initially) and the fact they speak English.
English is also spoken in the north of England.
Corporation tax rate in UK was 19% until this tax year. Corporation tax rate in Ireland is 15%. 4% is material but it's not that material - particularly as there are some deductions that are available in UK which are not available in Ireland.
I'm not going to comment on "lowish cost of labour" because I'm leery of bringing another load of chippiness on myself.
But Ireland is only one example I gave. Poland is another.
If you just do 2500 miles in 360 days, that's less than 7 miles a day. I'm sure you should be able to use a bike (or even walk) on most of those 360 days. No need to pay 4500 a year in ULEZ charges.
and some is government-funded physical infrastructure such as public transport
Public transport in Ireland is much worse than north of England. Until the 2000s the roads were worse than north of England. Yet that did not significantly constrain Ireland from getting investment.
targeted support for public services
I don't know what this means, but there's already a disproportionate amount of public spending in the north of England. Many serious economists believe that the high level of public spending there is part of the problem, not part of the solution: https://www.ippr.org/files/ecomm/files/public_sector_in_the_north.pdf
But certainly public spending could be better spent, i.e. less on benefits and more on investment.
Isn’t Irish economic activity massively concentrated in Dublin?
The Greater Dublin area is slightly above 50% of the population, but other parts of the country have significant amounts of economic activity also. For example, Cork (population of 20000) is a massive pharma centre with 8 of the 10 biggest pharma companies in the world having significant production and/or R&D centres there. Some data here: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cirgdp/countyincomes…
Also, in the context of public transport, Dublin is pretty bad. I am here right now so experiencing it first hand. It's certainly worse than say, York, where I lived for nine months.
The chart on page 14 demonstrates that Dublin is by some margin the most productive region in Ireland. Obviously the state of roads in the west of the Republic aren’t going to have much relevance to Dublin’s success. Comparing the public transport infrastructure of a relatively large and decentralised region like “the North” with Ireland is not comparing like with like, Rob. Surely you must recognise that. https://intertradeireland.com/assets/publications/PRODUCTIVITY-AND-BUSINESS-DYNAMISM-ACROSS-REGIONS.pdf
Comparing the public transport infrastructure of a relatively large and decentralised region like “the North” with Ireland is not comparing like with like, Rob.
Public transport in Greater Manchester (population 2.8m) is materially better than in greater Dublin (population 2-2.5m and similar density to Greater Manchester).
Public transport in rural Yorkshire is materially better than in rural Ireland.
The north of England (the three northern regions) is half the area of the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, I don't know what you mean by "relatively large" - in relative terms it's significantly smaller than Republic of Ireland.
Yes, the biggest thing holding back the north of England is culture.
Absolutely loving Lydia's work in this thread. That first post is just absolutely jam-packed with content. Second one contained the absolute belter that a petrol model and diesel model of the same car are 40 and 14k respectively. Wonderful stuff, thanks lyds.
The north of England has a more widely distributed population than Ireland, Rob. ThTs what I mean. There is no dominant economic centre where most people live and where most productivity happens. Therefore there is a greater requirement to connect conurbations. The poorly-connected regions of Ireland receive less FDI than Dublin, just as the poorly-connected regions of the UK receive less FDI than London.
Yes, the biggest thing holding back the north of England is culture.
You are yet to make this out. You will see similar regional economic and productivity inequalities to the UK’s in many countries (though the UK is particularly severe). i wonder if you would blame all the people living in these areas for not having the correct culture or mindset or whatever, or if you reserve that for the English.
Rob attempting to compare Ireland's boom with Poland's is absolutely daft. One is the product of a relatively highly educated society emerging from post soviet neglect and offering amazing wage arbitrage opportunities albeit not so much anymore.
The other is a tax dodge where US corporations can park their EU HQ and employ a few men and a dog while the bean counters move the euros about.
Royalty's comment on Ireland is very misplaced. Intel's only manufacturing site outside US and Israel is in Ireland and opened in 1989. 4,500 people work there. Hewlett-Packard employs 4,000 people in Ireland across a number of sites, including a large manufacturing site. 13,300 people are directly employed by pharma and medical device manufacturing companies in Cork alone. Meta employs over 2,500 directly in Ireland and Google over 5,000. These are just a handful of examples.
US corporations employing a few men and a dog quite obviously could not on their own generate large amounts of well paid employment.
Tbf to Lydia the point about low mileage in an old car I totally agree with. It’s only roftwots look at my wad who like whanging on about how much they spent on their new car.
@fofro My bad/carelessness - meant to write 200,000 - referring to the metropolitan area, not the county. Probably a bit more than that now in metro Cork TBH.
The idea that a historically poorer region of the country is so because its people “aren’t humble enough” is about the quality of analysis I would expect from this place.
(7 miles a day sounds about right. Lack of time and living at the top of so steep a hill even postmen get off bikes and the fact I always have vast amounts of stuff to lug around mean I need the car.
Davos2021 - I have not say I will "not pay" . I pay all tax that is due. I even obeyed all lock down laws even though I was against them all. I also do not go over the speed limit in the car.)
Fascinating how Rob C starts off mildly offensive in a very London-based way, whenever the north is mentioned, but then escalates when challenged until he's basically paraphrasing Cecil Rhodes. They're just less civilised you know, lazy as a culture.
It has to be a parody, or a northerner stole his lunch money.
Rob basically grew up indoctrinated against the Brits but now lives here so he’s adopted the ‘the ones I know in London are ok’ mentality which allows him to feel ok about where he lives whilst continuing to demonise the British as a whole.
Amazingly I agree with what hotnow just said. Gob Gammon is an Irish Nationalist prick who happens to live in London with his cognitive dissonance dialled up to 11.
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It is quite lollersome that you attempted to pour scorn on the idea of “self-reinforcing” cycles of productivity and investment, since that’s patently the way it works.
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It didn’t. You should probably try not to be so prejudiced against people like me though.
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I think we can all agree davos is a professional northerner
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"And there it is, a post that confirms the stereotype: complain about being offended, claim that what's being said is incorrect, and yet not refuting a single statement that's been made."
This kind of thinking has been used to defend homophobia, racism, xenophobia, sexism etc for centuries
Do better
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No, it's not the way it works. It's what people tell themselves. Poland got lots of investment because there was an educated labour force who did not need to be paid so much. Dell moved 2,000 computer manufacturing jobs from Ireland to Poland in the mid-2000s. I know couples in Ireland where both of them worked for Dell who lost their jobs.
There are many reasons that the north of England doesn't get that investment, but a lot of them are cultural including the poor cultural support for education (comparing Northern Ireland and north of England in that regard is very illustrative) as well as the sort of attitude that's been displayed by posters on this thread. One of the things that Irish people took with them when looking for investment from abroad was humility.
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Ffs
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Er, of course it is. The notion that investment increases productivity is absolutely basic, that’s why you do it.
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Such as?
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That's not what I'm arguing against. I'm arguing against your idea that more productive areas get more investment and that's, e.g. why investment goes to London rather than north of England.
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So you don’t think that more productive areas get more investment? 🤔
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It was 2500 miles a year last time I checked. It is diesel because the petrol version I also considered was £40,000 and the diesel was £14k so in a sense my choice was borne out of poverty (and yes I have known from day 1 of purchase that I would probably be facing ulez charges in due course).
If I keep a car for 15 years and only do 2500 miles a year I think that probably does a lot less damage to the environment than someone buying a very heavy electric car and constantly upgrading it. I think I need an S Khan eco medal not a £4500 a year punishment.
No wonder the poor are cross. Hopefully Ulez can be Khan's and Labour's poll tax.
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Ireland got loads of foreign investment from USA companies due to humongous tax breaks, lowish cost of labour (initially) and the fact they speak English.
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Slaughter and may trained, former island owner tory pleads she understands 'the poor' and refuses to pay tax
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No, I don't. If that were the case, nobody would have invested in Ireland in the 1980s or Poland in the 2000s. If that were the case, inn the 1980s and 1990s Japanese companies would have kept investing in Japan rather than investing in Vietnam, China and other Asian countries. Productivity results from investment - it's not a necessary condition for investment.
Of course, nobody is going to invest in an area where the results on that investment will be poorer relative to another alternative area in which they might invest. Some of areas winning investments is marketing, some is having a skilled and hard-working labour force, some is network effects.
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"hey ethnic minorities - getting less investment due to centuries of prejudice, have you tried some humility?"
I Mean. Come on now.
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…and some is government-funded physical infrastructure such as public transport, and some is government initiatives such as tax breaks and targeted support for public services. The idea that the people of the north just need to be more humble and vote differently to fix the chronic issues of poor economic productivity is patronising at best.
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You never answered whether you have ever lived outside London or been to the north. I’ll draw my own conclusions.
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English is also spoken in the north of England.
Corporation tax rate in UK was 19% until this tax year. Corporation tax rate in Ireland is 15%. 4% is material but it's not that material - particularly as there are some deductions that are available in UK which are not available in Ireland.
I'm not going to comment on "lowish cost of labour" because I'm leery of bringing another load of chippiness on myself.
But Ireland is only one example I gave. Poland is another.
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If you just do 2500 miles in 360 days, that's less than 7 miles a day. I'm sure you should be able to use a bike (or even walk) on most of those 360 days. No need to pay 4500 a year in ULEZ charges.
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I note that although NI’s GCSE performance is very good in the UK context, NI productivity is low. Interesting.
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Lol at Calvin's dad
I have no idea if Lydia can walk those distances but what I do know is that use of electric black cabs/zip cars would be cheaper
Then she'd have to mix with the workers though
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Public transport in Ireland is much worse than north of England. Until the 2000s the roads were worse than north of England. Yet that did not significantly constrain Ireland from getting investment.
I don't know what this means, but there's already a disproportionate amount of public spending in the north of England. Many serious economists believe that the high level of public spending there is part of the problem, not part of the solution: https://www.ippr.org/files/ecomm/files/public_sector_in_the_north.pdf
But certainly public spending could be better spent, i.e. less on benefits and more on investment.
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Isn’t Irish economic activity massively concentrated in Dublin?
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In 2022 public spending on NI was almost 18 quid more per person when compared to northern England
That's a lot of extra cash
Hopefully Rob hasn't based any arguments on it
Oh wait
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Well things like redressing the balance in school spending described in the article I posted.
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NI is less productive than the north east despite that its GCSE results are better. What gives? Are its people insufficiently humble? Rob?
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/what-explains-northern-irelands-long-standing-problem-of-low-productivity
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Maybe they need to try some humility
I don't think he said that with a straight face. Surely he was trolling??
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The Greater Dublin area is slightly above 50% of the population, but other parts of the country have significant amounts of economic activity also. For example, Cork (population of 20000) is a massive pharma centre with 8 of the 10 biggest pharma companies in the world having significant production and/or R&D centres there. Some data here: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cirgdp/countyincomes…
Also, in the context of public transport, Dublin is pretty bad. I am here right now so experiencing it first hand. It's certainly worse than say, York, where I lived for nine months.
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This almost answers my question but not quite.
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The chart on page 14 demonstrates that Dublin is by some margin the most productive region in Ireland. Obviously the state of roads in the west of the Republic aren’t going to have much relevance to Dublin’s success. Comparing the public transport infrastructure of a relatively large and decentralised region like “the North” with Ireland is not comparing like with like, Rob. Surely you must recognise that. https://intertradeireland.com/assets/publications/PRODUCTIVITY-AND-BUSINESS-DYNAMISM-ACROSS-REGIONS.pdf
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It’s almost like you started with your conclusion (the north is poor and lacks infrastructure because northern culture makes it that way).
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Maybe Lyds has to go to the shops for a weekly shop, or maybe visit the local recycling depot.
Maybe she has to convey elderly relatives about, or take other members of a family out to a hospital appointment.
Yes, I’m sure that she can use a bike for all that.
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Taxis are available in London lad
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Public transport in Greater Manchester (population 2.8m) is materially better than in greater Dublin (population 2-2.5m and similar density to Greater Manchester).
Public transport in rural Yorkshire is materially better than in rural Ireland.
The north of England (the three northern regions) is half the area of the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, I don't know what you mean by "relatively large" - in relative terms it's significantly smaller than Republic of Ireland.
Yes, the biggest thing holding back the north of England is culture.
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Absolutely loving Lydia's work in this thread. That first post is just absolutely jam-packed with content. Second one contained the absolute belter that a petrol model and diesel model of the same car are 40 and 14k respectively. Wonderful stuff, thanks lyds.
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“Public transport in rural Yorkshire is materially better than in rural Ireland.”
Heh. Just heh.
Try getting from Pickering or Helmsley to York for a daily commute. Not a chance. Try doing it for shift work and you’re screwed.
York has a decent bus/rail network to the outskirts (say Clifton Moor) but that is not rural Yorkshire.
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The north of England has a more widely distributed population than Ireland, Rob. ThTs what I mean. There is no dominant economic centre where most people live and where most productivity happens. Therefore there is a greater requirement to connect conurbations. The poorly-connected regions of Ireland receive less FDI than Dublin, just as the poorly-connected regions of the UK receive less FDI than London.
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You are yet to make this out. You will see similar regional economic and productivity inequalities to the UK’s in many countries (though the UK is particularly severe). i wonder if you would blame all the people living in these areas for not having the correct culture or mindset or whatever, or if you reserve that for the English.
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Rob attempting to compare Ireland's boom with Poland's is absolutely daft. One is the product of a relatively highly educated society emerging from post soviet neglect and offering amazing wage arbitrage opportunities albeit not so much anymore.
The other is a tax dodge where US corporations can park their EU HQ and employ a few men and a dog while the bean counters move the euros about.
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Do you really think Rob that this kind of disparity a) makes no difference b) can be fixed by voting differently?
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/28/british-trains-up-to-four-times-slower-outside-south-east-research
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Royalty's comment on Ireland is very misplaced. Intel's only manufacturing site outside US and Israel is in Ireland and opened in 1989. 4,500 people work there. Hewlett-Packard employs 4,000 people in Ireland across a number of sites, including a large manufacturing site. 13,300 people are directly employed by pharma and medical device manufacturing companies in Cork alone. Meta employs over 2,500 directly in Ireland and Google over 5,000. These are just a handful of examples.
US corporations employing a few men and a dog quite obviously could not on their own generate large amounts of well paid employment.
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Tbf to Lydia the point about low mileage in an old car I totally agree with. It’s only roftwots look at my wad who like whanging on about how much they spent on their new car.
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My comment on Ireland is somewhat hyperbolic but rooted in truth.
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@Rob C
you have stated that Cork has a population of 20000 which surprises me as when I lived there fifty years ago it claimed to have 120,000.
Of the 20000 ( posted 16.56 ) 13,300 are directly employed by Pharma. (17.41 post )
Amazing. Or possible careless, your choice.
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Well done for picking a bollock out of Rob cannons haystack made of bollocks there. Fine effort.
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@fofro My bad/carelessness - meant to write 200,000 - referring to the metropolitan area, not the county. Probably a bit more than that now in metro Cork TBH.
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while i am all 4 mocking the risible comments made by rob cannon and lyds, can we just rewind a moment 2 thunder 😂😂 @:
marsehole hall admitting 2 living in the chilterns and pretending that’s somehow akin 2 a deprived northern county 😂. the chilterns! 😂😂
bet he lives in high wycombe
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This thread is a complete dumpster fire
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u must feel at home
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If Davos and Chimp are anything to go by, humility in the north is indeed in short supply.
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Poor syntax.
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The idea that a historically poorer region of the country is so because its people “aren’t humble enough” is about the quality of analysis I would expect from this place.
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In general, arguments that rely on attributing a particular character flaw to many millions of disparate people are bad arguments.
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There’s no way Davos is from the north though so your analysis fails, Barry.
North Surrey, maybe. Prime UTD territory.
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(7 miles a day sounds about right. Lack of time and living at the top of so steep a hill even postmen get off bikes and the fact I always have vast amounts of stuff to lug around mean I need the car.
Davos2021 - I have not say I will "not pay" . I pay all tax that is due. I even obeyed all lock down laws even though I was against them all. I also do not go over the speed limit in the car.)
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Fascinating how Rob C starts off mildly offensive in a very London-based way, whenever the north is mentioned, but then escalates when challenged until he's basically paraphrasing Cecil Rhodes. They're just less civilised you know, lazy as a culture.
It has to be a parody, or a northerner stole his lunch money.
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Rob basically grew up indoctrinated against the Brits but now lives here so he’s adopted the ‘the ones I know in London are ok’ mentality which allows him to feel ok about where he lives whilst continuing to demonise the British as a whole.
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Amazingly I agree with what hotnow just said. Gob Gammon is an Irish Nationalist prick who happens to live in London with his cognitive dissonance dialled up to 11.
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https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1686304968553160705?s=61&t=3l…
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