zlacker

>>buro9+(OP)
The UK has just given up on being in any way internationally relevant. If the City of London financial district disappeared, within 10 years we'd all forget that it's still a country.

>>alangi+mb
How much damage can they withstand before they figure out how to stop hurting themselves? I wouldn't touch UK investment with a ten foot pole.

>>observ+We
A lot more, the Online Safety Act is just a symptom of the structural problems (Lack of de-facto governance, A hopelessly out of touch political class, Voting systems that intentionally don't represent the voting results, etc).

Argentina has had nearly 100 years of decline, Japan is onto its third lost decade. The only other party in the UK that has a chance of being elected (because of the voting system) is lead by someone who thinks sandwiches are not real [1]. It's entirely possible the UK doesn't become a serious country in our lifetimes.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-tory-leader-sandwiches-no...

>>intund+Af
Argentina is a great analog for the UK, time shifted by century. Both former first-class economies doomed to a long decline by bad policies that elites refuse to change.

>>alangi+Dh
Argentina was a rich country but never a rich industrialized country. At the time we were rich, we were exporting beef and importing everything that came from a factory. Later attempts at industrialization, after global protectionism and domestic infighting had already plunged us into relative poverty, were based on the flawed paradigm of import-substitution industrialization, whereas the UK was transitioning from mercantilism to Smithian liberalism when they industrialized, both of which put the highest possible priority on exports. London is the world's second biggest financial hub, a fact that accounts for a significant part of the English economy, while Buenos Aires was never a financial hub for anyone but Argentines, and even we bank in London, Omaha, or Montevideo whenever we have the choice.

Industrialization was somewhat successful; I am eating off an Argentine plate, on an Argentine table, with Argentine utensils (ironically made of stainless steel rather than, as would be appropriate for Argentina, silver) while Argentine-made buses roar by outside. A century ago, when we were rich, all those would have been imported from Europe or the US, except the table. My neighborhood today is full of machine shops and heavy machinery repair shops to support the industrial park across the street. Even the TV showing football news purports to be Argentine, but actually it's almost certainly assembled in the Tierra del Fuego duty-free zone from a Korean or Chinese kit.

There is not much similarity.

>>kragen+kz
Well, I guess who decides the line between basic industrialization and import substitution? The bondholders?

>>selimt+pJ
Import substitution is not an alternative to basic industrialization. It's a policy advocated as a means to achieve basic industrialization. I regret that my comment was so misleading.

The usual alternative to import substitution industrialization is export-focused industrialization. Argentina and Brazil exemplify the former; Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and now the PRC exemplify the latter. The line between them is whether the country's manufactures are widely exported.