Britain poorer than Mississippi

I see why you say this but I actually believe you are thinking about Musk wrongly.

He is undeniably successful and an amazing innovator. He has done things that no one else has done. Every time a govt tells you it will do something, think how much quicker and cheaper it would be with Musk.

Starlink and SpaceX especially are gamechangers.

Musk doesn't need to be a trillionaire when he is a billionaire. I believe he actually cares about the human race and he genuinely believes that we, in the UK, are making huge mistakes.

You do not have to agree with him, but I think it's an error to dismiss him so easily.

I often read quite disparaging comments on the US on Mumsnet. I am no fan of trump, but it should be acknowledged that the US is significantly richer and that for average professional people, teachers, accountants, lawyers and para legals, IT people etc wages are not just a bit higher , they are considerably higher. The difference in my view is that the economy is more dynamic. Risk takers are valued and welfare is very limited indeed. We do have the NHS that is true, and in the US poorer people really do suffer. However, for middle and higher earners medical outcomes are often very much better. Turning up at A&E in 2026 feels very third world and there is quite a lot of data which suggests a number of people die unnecessarily before they get treated. Makes you think doesn't it.

What frightens me the most about all of this is AI hasn’t even kicked in yet. Over the next three years there’s going to be more and more job losses and I’m honestly not sure what happens then. I’ve listened to so many podcasts and can find nothing to put my mind at ease. Swathes of middle England is going to be unemployed and suddenly reliant on benefits.

10 years down the line and still blaming and blaming and blaming. Start looking for some solutions and ideas to move on. It's getting really old. One of the reasons the UK is in such a mess and polarised is people like yourself with their righteous ingination and inability to see anything but their own point of view and just won't accept a democratic decision and always blame and label. All you do is entrench political thinking.
History is full of poor decisions, politicians misrepresenting situations for their own ends with devastating consequences and society having to embrace and change to realities. We were mislead on Brexit, as we are misled every political campaign there has ever been. But it's history now. Solutions and leadership is needed.
What do you actually achieve by this constant labelling and blaming. Does it make you feel superior or something.

It’s ok I saw it said “back of the envelope comparison” which means it’s probably just a random excel screenshot created by an X user.

How much did they cost?

Interesting article. Thank you.

The argument is this:

GDP per person in the UK has declined.

This strongly suggests that, on average, each individual is working less effectively (maybe fewer hours, maybe less efficiently) than in 2008.

The question is why given we also know that wages and salaries have been going up in this period.

One strong contender of an explanation is that more people are choosing to work fewer hours or even decide not to work at all.

A number of factors might influence people to do this. Our tax system has some cliff edge thresholds which means people may manage their earnings to stay below these thresholds.

An explanation which is controversial but plausible too is that the significant increase in benefits over the period has led to some people choosing not to work because they can still have a decent standard of living on benefits.

No it doesn’t count because the article specifically pins the decline to just after the 2008 crash. The Tories have been in power for most of the last 18 years.

I'll tell you what is working - the Stock Market! Crazy levels of returns, not many people in the UK invest in it (apart from their pensions - which they seem blissfully unaware of) compared to Americans.

I know GDP per capita is a poor metric for looking at how well people are doing on average but this article is interesting - thanks.

People forget how desperate the UK was to join the EU. Our more relaxed labour laws meant we went from the poor man of Europe and we're a hub for investment for the UK.

People on this thread have commented on how our growth has outpaced some EU countries at times since brexit- but it would have done so by more if we were still in the single market.

The purse strings are tightening for everyone and now labour are arguing over defence spending. realistically it doesn't matter who is in power. The country is getting poorer and there'll be constant arguing over how to slice up a shrinking (in real terms) pie.

Those..

Lots of people saying this has been debunked but even if it was true, I suspect the average (mean? Median?) American absolutely does not feel this due to the huge wealths of the top 1% skewing the overall data. It’s sickening that Elon Musk has today become a trillionaire, when so many people in the US and around the world whose work he has profited from, are struggling so much.

And then he convinces people to vote for political parties that will benefit him and his ilk, by pointing to immigrants and saying it’s all their fault

This 10,000,000 immigrants did not come cheap.

Why was there nothing the Tories could do?

It’s not that simple. New jobs that did not exist have been created and men and women congregate in different roles.

Why are we worse off under 2 years of Labour as opposed to 15 years of Tories when most of decline was under Tory governments?

Where is that sourced from?

Actually not quite.

I'd say (although I voted to remain) it's what we did or didn't do after Brexit.

Had we post Brexit pivoted to a more dynamic economy, lower taxes, smaller, more efficient govt, pro business growth economy, we could have done very well. It would definitely have required big adjustments but we could have been a bigger Western version of Singapore and possibly super successful. Could still be.

By actually doing nothing different after Brexit (save be outside the EU) we have all the disadvantages of not being members and taken advantage of none of the freedoms that could still be available to use.

Can anybody with access post what the article says as speculating is pointless with an article there.

The answer to this is multifaceted but the UK is light years behind the US in economic productivity.

The UK is very poor at investing in new technologies and makes life almost impossible for new small businesses. It also doesn’t attract a lot of larger companies because it wants to hammer them with tax.

Same with working people where a decreasing number of people actually work enough to pay tax to support a growing number of people who don’t work for various reasons. We’ve become an insanely unhealthy country which results in even poorer productivity.

Then there’s 2 other massive black holes that the UK throws money into. Pensions are unsustainable but no easy solutions. And then there’s the NHS where we all know it’s failing in multiple levels but we’re too proud to really admit it. Probably best to strip it back to a very basic service and then seek investment for the rest. Not saying this is a perfect solution but we can’t keep throwing money at something that is failing.

I saw that earlier but cannot read it as it is mostly paywalled. All I can see is the dip started just after the GFC (in 2008) and has not recovered.

I find GDP per capita fairly unhelpful though.