I'm no economist but I do feel like this is such a minor thing that's as you say is dependent on such fragile metrics when there are so, so many other things that should be addressed that could save us substantially more.
Just speaking from the stories of my own direct family living there, the level of waste, whether it's in the NHS or pretty much any other service sector, is mind boggling. You could write about it in a fantasy novel and it would still be hard to believe.
I think the government seems to only just be learning (now it's too late lol) the idea that sometimes, spending more money now saves a lot more money in the future.
Like how they refused a nuclear power plant because 'it would take a decade to build and we need energy now'. Well thanks. Ten years have passed and we still need energy, and we have no nuclear plant for at least 10 more years. Cheers!
Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
'good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.'
Sorry for the lengthy comment
I'm not entirely convinced by individualist arguments when objectively the very poorest in the UK can't afford to eat and heat it's not just about poor decisions! Waste in the NHS I know very little about@
Oh my comment isn't about telling people to have less avocado toast. It's:
People can't afford lasting investments that leave them better off, so they are forced to pay even more for short term investments that cripple them further. And this metaphor I want to extend to our government (such as nuclear energy) and social programs who, for example in the NHS, still use Windows 95 to save money up upgrading, which comes at the long term cost of, well, a shitty NHS and countless lives lost and sick for far longer than they need to be.
Sometimes, we will have to bite the bullet and spend more than we're comfortable with
Oh I see I take your point about lack of long term objectives. I'm not a fan of nuclear given that I don't trust future governments to manage its toxic legacy. I mean if Rome had had nuclear power I dread to think the state its Empire would have been in a few decades after it collapsed!