On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 03:53:21PM +0100, den Otter wrote:
> > So why is it that despite more and more and more monitoring, the quality of
> > life in Britain is deteriorating rapidly?
>
> Because you have screwed up economically?
Actually, we haven't.
The high-tech sector of the UK economy (computers, software, electronics, pharmaceuticals) amounts to about 5% of it. Overall economic growth rate is about 2-3%. However, the high-tech sector is growning at a steady 26%, and has been doing so since 1996. I get this at first hand; my income (as a high-tech sector worker) has quadrupled in the past six years, and the future's so bright I have to wear shades.
The reason the economy overall is only growing at 2-3% is because we have a lot of rust-belt smoke-stack baggage left over from the last but one industrial revolution. Whole sectors are dying off at 10-15% per annum. The farming industry, only viable because of subsidies (which in turn are paid automatically because of memories of World War Two and near-famine), is losing billions.
However, if we extrapolate a bit, the die-back can only go so far. Eventually there'll be nothing left to cut. And then we should see growth levels in the UK that rival those we got used to seeing in the far east in the early 90's.
Unfortunately our politicians seem to want to turn us into a mega-sized copy of Singapore -- but that's another matter. Me, I'm voting for independence within the EU.