Did anyone just about get used to new absurd UK restaurant prices, to find that the price has once again gone up almost 20% in the last year?

This post is largely nonsense, not because it is completely wrong, but because large parts of it are wrong, making the parts that have some credibility just random chance, it is not a coherent or logical outcome. > You cannot tax your way to prosperity. You cannot regulate your way to prosperity. You can only reallocate so much without impacting demand. So the first and second point, you can if taxation and regulation is low because you live in a dystopian hell hole that has no prosperity in the first place. To the third point, that is not the primary function of taxation, it can be a function of taxation, in fact a useful feature of taxation in the case of "vice taxes". So we already have a massive problem that the original sentence isn't actually correct. > The private sector is the engine that fuels everything else, including 100% of taxes, welfare and public sector salaries. While I understand what you are attempting to get at, it isn't everything, the private sector has short term objects, often 2-5 years, these will not produce efficient outcomes for a countries needs, there is a reason the majority of infrastructure projects are in some way government subsided if not just paid for by the government outright. The problem with the UK is it has this bastardised system where government money doesn't go to state owned companies or even UK companies, so you end up shipping wealth off shore every time you attempt to increase economic efficiency through infrastructure development. Then we have what adds the real value long term, education, research and development, and establishing new completely novel outcomes and technology, at the 20, 30, 40 year level this is largely done through government spending even if these grants are provided to private sector companies. Fixing a road does not actually achieve anything but to stop your economy failing, creating a new road surface material that wears at half the speed, so you have to fix it half as often has just increased economic labour resources and possibly productivity. > It's an uncomfortable reality that we cannot afford the state This is where it is just BS, we can afford it, this country due to its political mass of boomers, are just unwilling to tax the rich boomers cruise funds to pay for the poor boomers can of beans on toast. [Pensioners were £2000 a year better off than workers in 2017](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/13/pensioners-now-20-a-week-better-off-than-working-households), [they are now £4000 a year better off](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/pensioners-better-off-working-families-more-money/) a load of people being better off than people doing something shows a broken system, it however does not show a broke system, it clearly has plenty of money in it. > If we don't reduce taxes, reduce regulation, do all we can to encourage growth then we will all get poorer. This isn't true, as the same can be achieved by maintaining the countries asset base and therefore not renting infrastructure off the rich. Every time some council sells off its offices so a private company can make some money off building flats, that is a net loss to society, the government could have built those flats and then provided non for profit housing to the populace, instead of 10 people scrapping a 10% profit off what was a publicly owned asset. We see this with Trains, Water, Power, Housing...the Tories spent decades underfunding the NHS so they could attempt to sell it off. In a system where there can't be competition and is essential, the private sector is a failure by design because it requires a competitive market for price control. > We need to focus on the economy again at the expense of short term public sector spending. Does this mean anything? Not really, short term fixes are not long term solutions, but short term public spending is just the start of mid and long term public spending which is the only thing that keeps economies economically competitive, because the private sector is focused on the next quarter, maybe the next 5 years, but Little Timmy doesn't grow up to be economically efficient for 20 years so close down all the neonatal units schools? After all that is just "short term spending" if we close them for 3 years and all the babies die and the children can't read or write. Economies grow through investment, both public and private, the UK has some serious issues with use of this investment and that can be seen in everything from HS2 to the failed Biotechnology funding rounds, but at the same time the UK is world leading in areas of finance and Fin Tech. What is the solution? Long term, as in 15-20 year, infrastructure to improve transport, technology links, education, and housing issues. How do you do you achieve that with a government that has a requirement to placate the boomers with another hand out for doing nothing every 5 years? You don't.