Britain poorer than Mississippi

I may have cracked it

Austerity
Brexit
Boris Johnson
Liz Truss
Rachel Reeves.

How people can blame Labour for everything that’s happened over the past, is laughable and shows ignorance of facts.

@BigYellowBus

One word: debunked,

It was also being said the France is poorer than Mississippi as well, by GDP per Capita

https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/mississippi-richer-than-france-gdp-per-capita

Thatcher started the decline in the 1980’s by decimating UK industries, so creating long term unemployment for the unskilled youth and ensuring we had to buy essential resources from overseas.

More years of Tory misrule followed culminating in Brexit and here we are!

Hardly a surprise when you compare the UK to the rest of Europe. 🤷🏻‍♀️

From the Spectator in 2014

I came across a striking fact while researching this piece: if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and join the US we’d be the 2nd-poorest state in the union. Poorer than Missouri. Poorer than the much-maligned Kansas and Alabama. Poorer than any state other than Mississippi, and if you take out the south east we’d be poorer than that too.

^https://spectator.com/article/why-britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-other-than-mississippi/^

Exactly. It was Gordon Brown who started the rot by encouraging everyone to claim benefits instead of lowering taxes for the lower earners.

Once that had started, there was nothing the coalition or the Tories could do.

The idea has been debunked OP. The same was being said about France (I.e. that Mississippi GDP per capita is higher than France, ergo Mississippi is richer than France).
https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/mississippi-richer-than-france-gdp-per-capita

Thatcher and the Right Wingers are definitely to blame, it's no wonder we are falling behind Mississippi which is run by Progressive Left-Wingers in a country being run by that nice Mr Trump.

Why GDP Falls Short for Well-Being

• Ignores Inequality: GDP measures the size of the overall economic pie, but it doesn't show how the pie is sliced. A rising GDP can mask widening gaps between the rich and poor.
• Counts "Bads" as Goods: GDP registers any monetary transaction. For instance, a natural disaster or an oil spill can "boost" GDP because of the money spent on repairs and cleanup, even though overall societal well-being has decreased.
• Omits Unpaid Work: Caring for children, tending to the elderly, and volunteering contribute immensely to human welfare but are completely absent from GDP figures.
• Overlooks the Environment: Economic growth often comes at the cost of pollution and resource depletion, which degrade long-term quality of life

Remember as well, a huge chunk of the US "economy" is the private healthcare sector, which is hugely profitable because it charged US citizens hundreds of dollars for medications the NHS pays a tenner for.

GDP per capita is a number on a piece of paper. It doesn't necessarily mean the ordinary citizen of mississipi can afford a wealthier lifestyle than the typical person in the UK.

Sounds like heaven on earth

A massive amount of US "growth" at the moment is concentrated in tech stocks and not really representative of how normal people experience life. That GDP is not distributed evenly at all.

That said, the UK is divided. The wealthy south east and a few other pockets are hiding a much poorer midlands/north.

I don’t think that she can be blamed for everything, but she certainly got the ball rolling and no government since then has done anything to improve the situation.

Yep, it was short term gain and kick the can down the road. We have now run out of road plus we have an ageing population which is ££££.

But is that much different to a load of people on benefits while low paid people slog away to fund them? As a working person neither appeal.

If you are ill in the US, there's a fair chance you will die though? Unless you have money.

I don’t think that she can be blamed for everything, but she certainly got the ball rolling and no government since then has done anything to improve the situation.

Just about every industry has been sold off so we manufacture very little, our utilities too so there has been no investment in infrastructure. Yet we continue to import huge numbers of people who offer nothing, give away huge sums of money to foreign causes and waste on domestic projects that never see the light of day (eg failed NHS project started in 2002 costing 10 billion plus, just one example).

Then there is the catastrophic Net Zero obsession, which no other country seems to be following, giving us the highest global energy costs, and so much red tape and so many disincentives to starting small and medium businesses, the backbone of our economy. Add to this the current determination of government to buy up prime farmland for solar farms, further reducing our food security and damaging the soil for generations, and in a country where the sun so rarely shines!

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking it’s deliberate, given the amount of bungling and waste by successive governments, despite expert advisors galore.

@TheKittenswithMittens how much has it increased by & does this have nothing to do with an ageing population and increasing the state pension age which pulls more people into the “working” category.

The jobs situation for young people should have been easy to predict. If we think about the 1960s, lots of women did not work outside the home. Now most of us do, so that is 50% more people looking for jobs basically than back then.

At the same time, the retirement age has been steadily increasing, so not only are there more people looking for jobs, but those that have them are not giving them up/retiring!

The governments (both Conservative and Labour) are conveniently blaming AI. Guess it must be cheaper to pay unemployment benefit than it is to pay a state pension.

Yep, and no hope of an upturn. Too many people with ‘needs’ and not enough people taxpaying to support it all. We now have to choose between quality of life and length of life.

Actually it's several words.

Brexit, the pandemic, the Ukraine war, the Iran war and the Labour govt (under whom we are worse off than we ever were under the Conservatives). Britain has become a nation of scroungers living off the state. The number of people claiming disability benefits has DOUBLED since 2019. How is that even possible? Answer: it's not. Our benefits system is open to abuse and millions of lazy fuckers are abusing it. That has to stop or we are doomed.

It really isn’t just Brexit although that has exacerbated it.

We never recovered from the 08 crash & we made ever increasing house prices a key part of the economy.

That little note on the bottom should be noted - "back of the envelope comparison"

🙄

True

I am not doubting what you've posted. See my post above. Apologies.