UK is poorer than Mississippi and not much richer than Italy or Spain or former East Germany (without London in the equation)

[rosetintedmemories2023]

Does this shock you?

A welfare state and free healthcare is generally the preserve of rich countries. It makes sense why the NHS pay is no longer competitive (whether inside or outside London) as the country can only pay proportionately to its wealth (even if you make a policy decision to try to pay essential workers well, there is only so much you can do without overstretching)..

Average gdp per capita (for the basis of the study ) is not calculated based on the population size. When the study removes London from the equation, what it does that it removes the figure of 70k USD (London's gdp per capita) from the total.
So as an example, if region X is 30k, region Y is 40k, region Z is 60k and London is 70k , the total is 200k divided by 4, which gives an average of 50k
However, taking London from the equation is £130 divided by 3 is roughly £43k.

So that is a much lower average.

This kinda reminds of my sister in law (in her 20s) who writes for a living, just earns enough to pay NI (so will get pension if there is one), lives at home (mum pays for everything and cooks for her- food to her liking), even has her own home office (siblings old room), goes on holiday to Europe (paid for by grandparents as she stays with them). Has multiple health problems but manages to access NHS fine because she doesn't need to work a 9-5 pm. Free prescriptions and when her earnings were low, she got universal credit -couple of hundred pounds a month.
Would probably inherit my mother in law's London house (do not begrudge her this as she needs it). Will never need to worry about rent or bills or mortgage or holding down a job. If you compare it to a lot of people including higher rate taxpayers, it's a pretty swell deal because even higher rate taxpayers have to be concerned about mortgage interest rates and possibly job security. I would say her quality of life is pretty high simply because it's stress free, she can afford all luxuries due to not paying bills, she is 100% secure as her mum's house is owned outright and her mum would never pick it out, she never needs to work a single day if she doesn't want to (mum would pay for everything and she will still be able to go on holidays and enjoy herself ). Don't know where you live but I am sure that you probably do have to pay for bills.

she laughed at me for using a private GP as I didn't have time to take leave to go for medical appointments. Why can't I just use the NHS, she does and it's perfect! She has a point, I am the silly one,I have a much more stressful life than her as I have a mortgage and need to hold down a job. The only thing I can say is that I am more independent (and my pride intact) but no one is giving me a medal for that lol.

But it's not sustainable for everyone to be like my sister in law. Sure it's a great life and very enviable, and I don't begrudge her for it, but I feel like I have to contribute financially to society. Even though she would probably have a more valuable property than me (as I own a London flat and her mum's house will appreciate more) at the end of it but oh well, I can say I pay a lot of tax! I go to a lot more restaurants and a lot more holidays than her though (but also have a lot more stress so I suppose it evens out).

Sometimes the right thing to do isn't always the easy thing. It is the people who push themselves career wise who pay the tax the country needs.

The problem is property is so out of reach that the actual working people have no incentive to become more productive.

Productivity isn’t decided like that. A factory or supermarket worker can’t really decide on their own to be a bit more productive.

Only the management can increase productivity by investing in more efficient technology or working practices.

British industry has historically been very very bad at investing in modernising its technology, that is why we have lower productivity than other countries like Germany or Japan.

The North and West Midlands of England have been allowed to rot, and London (Westminster) didn't give a shit, so I don't care that they are paying something to the mess they made. We are in Manchester, which is much better off then it used to be, but place like Stoke on Trent, just about 1hr away have been left in a pitiful state, as have many others. This is not news or a surprise to many @rosetintedmemories2023

@rosetintedmemories2023 your description of your privileged sil sounds nothing like the pp's decision to leave London because it's shit! I don't get the connection at all. I mean, thanks very much for pushing yourself so hard to pay taxes I guess...

@blackforestcake thank you for explaining on this thread what productivity means. So many people use words they do not understand

Begs the question, and im not say we shouldn’t be helping in some form but,

why are we sending foreign aid to india??? They have a bloody space program!

spending ~£6Million a day on immigration

sending so much money and goods to ukraine for the war

supporting so many who, are playing the system by not working more than 16 hrs a week and topping up with max benefits? (Ive always worked full time btw with having children too) max ive claimed is child benefit. And im on average earnings

plus whatever else the UK is funding. Charity begins at home in this situation

This is not quite correct. Thats one side of the productivity puzzle only.

At an individual level, a person can pick up skills and abilities that have the potential to make them more productive.

Thats things like education and computer skills (for example)

This usually takes time & money (investment)

High house price & rents reduce disposable income, and also reduce the possibility of an individual investing in himself. They can then go on to do higher skill, higher value-add jobs.

I just described the other side of the productivity puzzle.

"What the people who voted for Brexit never understood, is that by actively damaging London (which is what they wanted) "

What drivel.

Lots of people felt remaining was the best choice and that's fair enough - there were two perfectly valid opinions.

But the sensible ones have moved on leaving us with fantasists little different from those who think there are chips hidden in vaccines.

West Midlands had the highest regional gdp growth last year.

*This is not quite correct. Thats one side of the productivity puzzle only.

At an individual level, a person can pick up skills and abilities that have the potential to make them more productive.*

Well, yes, but that usually involves a change of job to utilise the new skills.

It doesn't really affect my basic point, which is that the productivity gap between us and Germany/Japan isn’t because we don’t work as hard as them. We do.

In fact, the Germans earn more than us but work less. Which they can do because they are more productive.

They are more productive because German businesses invest in modern technology and UK business doesn’t, on the whole.

Senior leadership in the UK is not strong. There is an ‘us and them’ culture in a lot of companies. It’s also present to a certain extent in the US but my experience has been that senior leadership is working much harder than lower level employees.

The lack of strong leadership is a massive problem. It’s not about having an MBA, it’s about being humble and striving for more. In the US, senior leadership will make $500k-1m base and the rest in stock comp with a portion of the stock comp only vesting if defined goals are met. I’ve not seen many comp packages set like this in the UK.

I agree with @TheThinkingGoblin here.

I'd like to suggest that one of the hallmarks of a healthy economy is the ability of business and the general population alike to adapt and a mindset that embraces change.

British politics on the whole tends to be backward-oriented, and the electoral dynamic concentrates on pitting interest groups against each other. This is a recipe for stagnation.

Aren’t you in the US? I wouldn’t see that as a place that doesn’t pit groups against each other.

On adaptation etc we are actually good on creativity and ingenuity but less so on scaling up. Altering the tax system is one way to help with that.

We also have an issue with high number of people just not working much or earning, but the US has higher inequality so you likely have similar.

By 2035, Poland’s economy will be larger than the UK.

This country has been in terminal decline since 1997, when nu Labour came to power. Since they were too incompetent to grow the coming properly they decided on two things to massage the economic growth numbers. One was tax credits and the other open borders with low skilled immigration.

Tax credits were a way of keeping wages low and subsidizing employers by taxing the taxpayer to top up below market rate wages. Low skilled immigration increases GDP just by having population growth but less money to be split between more people. Slightly bigger pie but much smaller slices for everyone.

Result - this country was set up for a perpetual decline in productivity and living standards, while the economy appeared to grow a little.

Unfortunately the corruption and incompetence continues with the Tories in subsequent years. And the economy is well and truly damaged permanently. We will fall outside G20 in coming years and expect GDP per capita to match the upper league of developing countries.

Anyone with long term ambitions for themselves and their families should consider emigrating within the next decade or so.

And to add to the low pay welfare dependency culture and mass low skilled immigration, the corrupt and incompetent governments have damaged this country in other ways too.

Printing almost £1 trillion since 2008, with half of that of being printed during the two years of Covid.

Borrowing trillions since the nu Labour years non stop. This country now borrows almost £25b a month just to pay the various handouts like energy support payments and the recent benefits increase.

Killing any chance this country ever had to stay a high income country by wiping out chances of energy dependency. Driving oil producers out of the North Sea through sky high taxes, actively choosing to not build nuclear power, having some of the highest green taxes in the world despite our emissions being less than 1% of global emissions and spending trillions to import oil and gas from the US, Qatar and Russia.

Having the highest levels of taxes since postwar era despite wage stagnation. Government spends more than 50% of all spending in our economy. They tax, borrow and print and spend trillions.

What do you get for your money? Do you feel like the trillions ripped off from the taxpayer is value for money. The corruption and incompetence of our governments since 1997 has been breathtaking. And now they don’t even try to hide it. All the while our economy has been irreparably damaged.

Was that Poland soundbite fact checked? It seemed to come from Starmer at some point. Was it based on growth continuing on a particularly high rate?

On projections the U.K. stays in top 10 up to 2075, just googling on stuff. I can’t see Poland in the tables at all let alone above U.K.

Although I share reticence over post next GE, that does concern me

https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/06/08/50ccfb98-b82c-4ba6-976d-d541f83239be.html

The book Rentier Capitalism by Brett Christopher's is a fantastic read. He argues that the UK economy is now dominated by reciters, perhaps most obvious in an entity like Thames Water, using their quasi-monopolistic position to take money, provide the bare minimum service and completely fail to invest.

What makes the book so interesting is how he traces seven variants of this, showing just how widespread it is in the economy. Truss etc. saying workers are lazy is just such bollocks when you look at the larger structural trends. And it's her crony class that tend to benefit most. I felt so enraged reading it, I had to leave a gap between chapters! Here's a review.

Maybe the UK should have introduced a Solidarity Surcharge to fund infrastructure in poorer areas, rather than prioritising London-based projects.

Scaling up is part of adaptation to business conditions, though.

There is an issue with low pay, which means essentially government props up business profits by means of income top ups - those profits are not always reinvested in businesses. American take home pay tends to be higher. No country is without inequality, but it has to be said that a lot of Americans lead very comfortable lives.

A lot of money finds its way overseas (and not that far overseas - the Isle of Man and the Chanel Islands offer no questions asked banking services).