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Comment by GarrisonPrime | Hacker News Reader

The True Cost of the Royal Family Explained, video by CGP Grey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw

too long; didn't watch:

The royal family likely contributes quite significantly to the popularity of the UK tourism industry, which brings in FAR more money to the country than the institution costs to maintain, even considering all the royal salaries to pay, the palaces to maintain, public events to produce, security, etc.

They also lease out a great amount of land to the country - to the wide benefit of the entire populace - for pennies of what it would cost the nation to purchase such land and resources outright.

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> The royal family likely contributes quite significantly to the popularity of the UK tourism industry

France beheaded their king, and people are still visiting Versailles.

No one is coming to see the UK palaces because the Queen may be around.

In fairness, many do, but on the other hand her familys occupation of palaces keeps them from becoming museums

Also, her frequent social functions with some of these other thieving royals is kind of shameful

Buckingham gets an extra 5 million tourists each year over Versailles, which likely relates to having a living Monarch.

Or possibly because it’s in central London and not 45 minutes outside town like Versailles

> They also lease out a great amount of land to the country - to the wide benefit of the entire populace - for pennies of what it would cost the nation to purchase such land and resources outright.

Land which, without support from the royal family, would sink into the ocean.

Ha ha, nice.

In seriousness though, there is a line between the monarchy's possessions and the the rest of the government's; in theory even if they monarchy were dissolved, seizing that land would be illegal/immoral/unethical.

I think at a certain point society stops being about 'who produce these things and values', and instead turns into 'how do I find novel things for people to do'. a.k.a. service oriented economy.

Britain has food banks

The first Bush said that, so did the second. I have yet to see the benefit. The longer it goes the more the inequality increases. There is nothing in history I can point to but I am not a good historian. If someone could educate me, honestly asking because I would sleep better.

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