Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
My gut is the Tories might squeek Uxbridge but Labour will win Selby on a big swing and the LDs will romp home in Somerton.
Uxbridge will more be an anti ULEZ vote if the Tories win it so I doubt Labour will change much in camp Starmer but camp Khan might panic
You may be right and Uxbridge is saved by ULEZ. The fly in the ointment is so few voters in Uxbridge will be negatively impacted by non-compliant vehicles that I don't see it as a game changer. However if voters view ULEZ as the thin end of a pay as you drive wedge it may well be important.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
This is spectacularly obtuse, and it says a lot about human propensity for self-deception.
Our economic performance is a result of our own decisions, external factors, and path dependency.
Brexit was one of those decisions. The best estimate we have is that it cost us 5.5% of our wealth.
The "estimate" does not bear a moment's scrutiny. The prejudice and bias that allows people to accept it uncritically says so much more.
Do you have any substantial arguments, or is it now considered acceptable legal practice in Scotland to airily explain that things “don’t bear a moment’s scrutiny”?
You’re in denial I’m afraid. Although I suspect that in your part of the world (Dundee?) and in your profession (law), the economy is a somewhat theoretical concept at the best of times.
@Pagan2 has quoted the facts. The projections by the IMF may prove to be wrong. In fact, given their record they almost certainly will be. What exactly are you operating on? A projection by an economist based upon an economic model that would certainly not have forecast the out performance of the last 4 years. I mean seriously, grow up.
Oh how embarrassing. You haven’t even read the article. The argument is not a “projection” or a “forecast”.
Yes it is a projection. It is a projection of what our GDP would have been had we NOT left the EU. Which frankly is utter bollocks no matter who is claiming it because no one knows. It could have been we would have had 20% growth. In which case Brexit was even worse. It could have been we would have had no growth or even a long recession. In which case Brexit was a stroke of genius. Neither of the scenarios are realistic but then nor are any other scenarios used to make these comparisons. If the last few years have proved anything it is that economists really don't have a clue.
But you carry on believing in your fantasy 5.5% if it makes you feel better. No one can prove it but then no one can disprove it either so it is perfect for you.
The High Priestess of Cranks has spoken.
Nobody here has actually read the article, it’s downright hilarious!
(Raises hand nervously)
Please Sir I did, and Chart 3 looks pretty compelling and model free.
Either the UK really messed up COVID or something else happened in 2020. Or a bit of both.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Interesting header. Buried in that Brexit thread is this nugget, which is so true:
"Prohibition reminds us that politicians follow more often than they lead."
I increasingly wonder whether it makes much difference which party is in power. As an example, look at the enormous changes in social attitudes towards, and the legal protection of, homosexuality, race, disability, gender, single parents, etc. etc. that have occurred during the past 40 years, 27 of which the traditionally conservative Conservative party has been in power.
Have the Tories championed the rights of, say, gay people, single parents, or disabled people? No, they have merely followed where society led.
Although legal abortion, homosexuality, civil unions and the Equality Act and Sex Discrimination Act were passed under Labour governments. Even homosexual marriage saw most Tory MPs vote against it, even if Cameron backed it, with Labour and LD MPs votes passing it.
The Disability Discrimination Act passed under the Major government though
I sort of think both you and @Benpointer are right. I think @Benpointer point is all these things would have happened anyway under a Conservative Government. They didn't champion them so they would probably have come about slower, but come about they would have as they follow where society moves. Most Conservative MPs are much more socially liberal now than 20 or 50 years ago, as are you, whereas your counterpart Tory activist 50 years ago would have been less so.
A Tory activist of 50 years ago might think you were a bit of a wet liberal by their standards
Most socially liberal changes come from Labour governments though, most economically liberal changes from Conservative governments
But isn't that looking to the past in exactly the way that kjh is saying we shouldn't? Yes most of the big social liberalisations have happened under Labour. But that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And as kjh said, with a few sad exceptions, ALL MPs of ALL parties are far more socially liberal now than they were 50 years ago.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
My original post was carefully hedged. I had some researchers had estimated the impact at 5.5% while others thought it smaller or larger.
Cue the mass baying of cranks.
As said researcher points out, this finding is in line with Treasury forecasts anyway, so it’s hardly “unbelievable” as some posters who ought to know better claim.
Well seems so far most people are siding with me, as to the treasury....economists agree with economists is such a huge surprise I have a shocked face
The cranks are siding with you. The usual suspects.
Most everyone else simply politely ignores your posts, as one does a lunatic muttering to himself at one end of a tube carriage.
Only one crank here and he is from new zealand, the mere fact you have to attack me as a person rather than the content of what I have posted which has not been as you say "angry". I have posted facts with sources you have posted estimates by economists with no real world facts backing them. Go home hobbit
As I said, read the article kindly posted upthread for a full defence.
Until you do so, you are justly accused of simply ignoring the evidence. I also note that shouting the word “economists” is not, in itself, an argument.
He doesn't have evidence so dont call it that. He has a theory it has been measured against reality and been found wanting. I don't need to read a defence of the flat earth theory to say its wrong because reality has shown its wrong already. The same as your beloved economist
What “measure of reality” has it been measured against and found wanting?
It’s a counterfactual, based on a basket of analogous economies.
You can minge about whether the basket/doppelgänger concept is even appropriate, and/or you could cavil about the especial weightings maybe?
OR, like DavidL you could just dismiss it like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.
Because it’s not plausible.
We already grew the fastest of all Western European economies over the period (accepting it’s too short).
To add an additional 5.5% would mean we grew at 12.9% vs the US at 10.8%
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Yeah I know you are and I still plan to go for a holiday. I have travelled a bit, but not far afield and I have quite a few places on my bucket list to get through. Nothing like you obviously.
On another topic, I don't know whether you saw, but earlier there was a link to PB posts from 2006. There we both were. You probably don't remember (I'm definitely not as memorable as you) but we used to have conversations here then, although unlike now I never experienced the barb of your wit in those days. I think that is down to me deliberately tweaking your tail more these days, which I should stop.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
Yes, it’s possible that we live in a world where the majority have experienced stagnant income growth with the elite creaming off the profits & since the richest elites live in the US, those profits show up disproportionately in the US.
The US also benefits from lead reserve currency status of course.
To speak literally about the world, income gains in the last 40 years have been incredible, and more equally distributed than before, maybe than ever before. The problem is that the kind of people who use PB, or vote in US/European elections, tend not to be workers in the Chinese or Indian or Kenyan economies.
I do find it difficult to be completely critical of the Chinese (in particular) or the Indians. WHat they have done to improve living standards for their people has been nothing short of incredible. I still don't like them as a country/government - it is unfortunate (to say the least) that they are such an authoritarian state and I do think they are a threat to the West and to our way of life.
But then you have to ask if, had they not been so authoritarian, they would have achieved so much to improve the basic* lives of their people.
*By basic I mean dealing with hunger, sickness, living standards, education etc as opposed to civil rights, freedoms etc.
The official CCP ideology under Deng had been: democracy and freedom good, but we have too many local elites who would use those freedoms to grab power and undermine them, so we need a time of central national authoritarian rule while the economy, media and social organisation develop and become self-sustaining. Needless to say, even that would get you sent to Xinjiang these days.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
It's better to be in at the start than at the end.
So, it's probably best to be born in a poor country that's going places, with a half-decent government.
Hmm. Good test
“Act as if you are in the early days of a greater nation” as the Scot Nat Alisdair Gray put it
Possibly Chile? Democratic, fairly calm, developing fast, with vast natural resources (and great wine)
Unlikely to be invaded by anyone. A long way from geopolitical strife. Spanish speaking (so connected to a world culture). Shame it’s so weirdly long and slender and also far away from anywhere else that’s interesting
Slovenia? But it’s not poor anymore
If Montenegro can sort out corruption it’s a marvellously beautiful, climatically blessed if tiny country
I think it's been an incredible time to have been born in most of the ex-Warsaw Pact countries, or Slovenia, at any time from 1970 onwards.
Eastern Europe was one of the worst places on earth to have been born beween 1900 -40, however.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
My original post was carefully hedged. I had some researchers had estimated the impact at 5.5% while others thought it smaller or larger.
Cue the mass baying of cranks.
As said researcher points out, this finding is in line with Treasury forecasts anyway, so it’s hardly “unbelievable” as some posters who ought to know better claim.
Well seems so far most people are siding with me, as to the treasury....economists agree with economists is such a huge surprise I have a shocked face
The cranks are siding with you. The usual suspects.
Most everyone else simply politely ignores your posts, as one does a lunatic muttering to himself at one end of a tube carriage.
Only one crank here and he is from new zealand, the mere fact you have to attack me as a person rather than the content of what I have posted which has not been as you say "angry". I have posted facts with sources you have posted estimates by economists with no real world facts backing them. Go home hobbit
As I said, read the article kindly posted upthread for a full defence.
Until you do so, you are justly accused of simply ignoring the evidence. I also note that shouting the word “economists” is not, in itself, an argument.
He doesn't have evidence so dont call it that. He has a theory it has been measured against reality and been found wanting. I don't need to read a defence of the flat earth theory to say its wrong because reality has shown its wrong already. The same as your beloved economist
What “measure of reality” has it been measured against and found wanting?
It’s a counterfactual, based on a basket of analogous economies.
You can minge about whether the basket/doppelgänger concept is even appropriate, and/or you could cavil about the especial weightings maybe?
OR, like DavidL you could just dismiss it like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.
Ask yourself why he hasn't produced an update this year. If the methodology is valid, surely it could continue indefinitely?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
It's better to be in at the start than at the end.
So, it's probably best to be born in a poor country that's going places, with a half-decent government.
I think it'll be Norway for me. Can't beat a fjord and $1.4 trillion fund.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
Yes, it’s possible that we live in a world where the majority have experienced stagnant income growth with the elite creaming off the profits & since the richest elites live in the US, those profits show up disproportionately in the US.
The US also benefits from lead reserve currency status of course.
To speak literally about the world, income gains in the last 40 years have been incredible, and more equally distributed than before, maybe than ever before. The problem is that the kind of people who use PB, or vote in US/European elections, tend not to be workers in the Chinese or Indian or Kenyan economies.
I do find it difficult to be completely critical of the Chinese (in particular) or the Indians. WHat they have done to improve living standards for their people has been nothing short of incredible. I still don't like them as a country/government - it is unfortunate (to say the least) that they are such an authoritarian state and I do think they are a threat to the West and to our way of life.
But then you have to ask if, had they not been so authoritarian, they would have achieved so much to improve the basic* lives of their people.
*By basic I mean dealing with hunger, sickness, living standards, education etc as opposed to civil rights, freedoms etc.
Entirely agree. Which poses a real challenge if you believe in democracy and want it to spread around the world. If you are a developing economy and see USA as one model to aim for, or China as another, which do you choose?
A few percentage points here and there on the economy, whether Brexit caused it, what would’ve happened if we’d remained, actually it’s better that we left, we’d all be riding unicorns if it wasn’t for Covid, Ukraine, whatever, it’s all noise. It’s for the anoraks. It doesn’t matter to 98% of people.
People were told Brexit would only have considerable upsides, no downsides. We would have our cake and eat it. The easiest trade deal in history. All the advantages of the single market. Frictionless trade. German car manufacturers something something. A free trade deal with the US. Better unilateral trade deals.
It was all horseshit.
And beyond the ideological, leave-at-any-price it-might-be-shit-but-it’s-our-shit-glorious-sovereignty ocular rotators, everyone now knows it was bollocks. It’s made us poorer, it’s made everything more expensive, and we have fewer rights. Everyone knows it. It hasn’t improved anything other than the wages of HGV drivers. That’s why it’s the accepted wisdom amongst an ever growing majority that Brexit was a mistake. And it will only become more obvious as time passes. It will become unarguable.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
My original post was carefully hedged. I had some researchers had estimated the impact at 5.5% while others thought it smaller or larger.
Cue the mass baying of cranks.
As said researcher points out, this finding is in line with Treasury forecasts anyway, so it’s hardly “unbelievable” as some posters who ought to know better claim.
Well seems so far most people are siding with me, as to the treasury....economists agree with economists is such a huge surprise I have a shocked face
The cranks are siding with you. The usual suspects.
Most everyone else simply politely ignores your posts, as one does a lunatic muttering to himself at one end of a tube carriage.
Only one crank here and he is from new zealand, the mere fact you have to attack me as a person rather than the content of what I have posted which has not been as you say "angry". I have posted facts with sources you have posted estimates by economists with no real world facts backing them. Go home hobbit
As I said, read the article kindly posted upthread for a full defence.
Until you do so, you are justly accused of simply ignoring the evidence. I also note that shouting the word “economists” is not, in itself, an argument.
He doesn't have evidence so dont call it that. He has a theory it has been measured against reality and been found wanting. I don't need to read a defence of the flat earth theory to say its wrong because reality has shown its wrong already. The same as your beloved economist
What “measure of reality” has it been measured against and found wanting?
It’s a counterfactual, based on a basket of analogous economies.
You can minge about whether the basket/doppelgänger concept is even appropriate, and/or you could cavil about the especial weightings maybe?
OR, like DavidL you could just dismiss it like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.
Ask yourself why he hasn't produced an update this year. If the methodology is valid, surely it could continue indefinitely?
You mean apart from the update dated 9 May 2023 that I linked to earlier?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I quoted reliable sources for actual figures....it is not me that is the one with ishoo's you quoted an economist. The definition of the "science of economy" is someone who can tell you tomorrow why the predictions they made yesterday didn't happen. Blanchflower is an economist look how his predictions came to fruition
If the 5.5% is real then you should have no problems coming up with figures to prove it, not what some shit for brains economist tells you
But your figures don’t answer the question. You are comparing the UK to the EU, whereas the question at hand is to compare the UK to a counter factual UK that was still in the EU. These are not the same.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
OK but are we going to believe an economist who has published his research or some guy on the internet with a lot of “ishoos”.
I believe the economist who came up with the doppelgänger model has now given up on it because the war in Ukraine apparently means it’s no longer valid. (But in that case was it ever?)
This guy, you mean?
It is difficult to be precise, but the doppelgänger method remains the best way to estimate the cost of Brexit when compared to other methods. It should be our central estimate until a better way to identify the counterfactual is found. The evidence points to a big shortfall in GDP as a result of Brexit, and it is important to try to raise growth and not wait for the economy to pick up. I will not be withdrawing the model: Brexit has blown a sizeable hole in Britain’s economic model, and major reforms are needed to recover lost ground.
Quibble about the size if you like, but the big picture points that
Overall economic growth has been rubbish in the UK since 2016,
There's a plausible mechanism (we've put up barriers to the trade we actually do and that has to be negative and it's not obvious what we've done to compensate),
The scale of the economic hit is the right ballpark for what the econoboffins predicted.
So what's going to make us millionaires by this time next year?
My original post was carefully hedged. I had some researchers had estimated the impact at 5.5% while others thought it smaller or larger.
Cue the mass baying of cranks.
As said researcher points out, this finding is in line with Treasury forecasts anyway, so it’s hardly “unbelievable” as some posters who ought to know better claim.
Well seems so far most people are siding with me, as to the treasury....economists agree with economists is such a huge surprise I have a shocked face
The cranks are siding with you. The usual suspects.
Most everyone else simply politely ignores your posts, as one does a lunatic muttering to himself at one end of a tube carriage.
Only one crank here and he is from new zealand, the mere fact you have to attack me as a person rather than the content of what I have posted which has not been as you say "angry". I have posted facts with sources you have posted estimates by economists with no real world facts backing them. Go home hobbit
As I said, read the article kindly posted upthread for a full defence.
Until you do so, you are justly accused of simply ignoring the evidence. I also note that shouting the word “economists” is not, in itself, an argument.
He doesn't have evidence so dont call it that. He has a theory it has been measured against reality and been found wanting. I don't need to read a defence of the flat earth theory to say its wrong because reality has shown its wrong already. The same as your beloved economist
What “measure of reality” has it been measured against and found wanting?
It’s a counterfactual, based on a basket of analogous economies.
You can minge about whether the basket/doppelgänger concept is even appropriate, and/or you could cavil about the especial weightings maybe?
OR, like DavidL you could just dismiss it like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.
Ask yourself why he hasn't produced an update this year. If the methodology is valid, surely it could continue indefinitely?
You mean apart from the update dated 9 May 2023 that I linked to earlier?
That's just a defence of the previous report which covers the period up to June 2022. Unless I'm mistaken he hasn't updated the figures since then and has said he doesn't plan to.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
The Guardian is reporting that Sir K says he will keep the 2 child rule for child benefit. if true I am surprised. The cost can't be massive, it signals the absolute reverse of any policy which is both humane and child friendly. It says "It's hard having babies in this frenetic world. Let's make a it a bit harder. Let's tell young women who want to do the world's toughest job that we hate them."
If Labour are reading this, note that I normally vote Tory but won't now. The 2 child rule was one of the reasons.
I'm pretty certain that it is true. I didn't see the interview on Kuenssberg this morning because I was out doing something more constructive, but Starmer refused to get rid of the two child limit for the provision of social security to families. It's emblematic of Labour's entire approach, which is to suck up to the grey vote (note that no element of means testing is to be applied to pensioner benefits, so we are somehow too broke to help children who have more than one sibling but have oceans of cash to fund gold-plated handouts for oldies who own million pound houses in Surrey,) whilst telling everybody else to suck it up. It is Conservative policy, with one or two minor cosmetic changes to give the illusion that Starmer doesn't propose to lead yet another Conservative Government.
John Harris in the same paper sums up the Labour approach succinctly as follows: "Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do." There is no point at all in having a change of Government if all we are going to get is more of the same exhausted, failed, miserable rubbish.
Good evening
Starmer was unequivocal on Kuennssberg this morning that the 2 child rule will remain
I would just comment that Kuennssberg suggested he was a fiscal conservative which he did not deny
Maybe the country needs to wake up that there really is no money
If Starmer can't find the money to spend on health and education that Rishi will be able to find for his substantial end of term tax cuts what is the point of voting Labour?
Answering the veil of ignorance thought experiment with "Norway" is rather cheating, though we should have a healthy disrespect for thought experiments anyway.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Yeah I know you are and I still plan to go for a holiday. I have travelled a bit, but not far afield and I have quite a few places on my bucket list to get through. Nothing like you obviously.
On another topic, I don't know whether you saw, but earlier there was a link to PB posts from 2006. There we both were. You probably don't remember (I'm definitely not as memorable as you) but we used to have conversations here then, although unlike now I never experienced the barb of your wit in those days. I think that is down to me deliberately tweaking your tail more these days, which I should stop.
I like the banter! PB would be a bit dull if we didn’t cross swords from time to time
America is a great place for holidays. Especially road trips - the ultimate way to see it. The best way
I’d recommend the Deep South or the southwest deserts. Wonderful. The people are half the charm. So friendly and open
But living there? No. No no no. I am too European. Or rather: too Old World
I also love the fact I can be here in Warsaw - a totally different culture, history, language - within 2 hours from Heathrow. Just 2 hours!
2 hours from most American cities puts me in a very similar American city, with the exact same strip malls
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
None of that is true about my small patch of America. Except the cheese. If there’s one thing I would change if I was world king it would be to outlaw American cheese
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
The Guardian is reporting that Sir K says he will keep the 2 child rule for child benefit. if true I am surprised. The cost can't be massive, it signals the absolute reverse of any policy which is both humane and child friendly. It says "It's hard having babies in this frenetic world. Let's make a it a bit harder. Let's tell young women who want to do the world's toughest job that we hate them."
If Labour are reading this, note that I normally vote Tory but won't now. The 2 child rule was one of the reasons.
I'm pretty certain that it is true. I didn't see the interview on Kuenssberg this morning because I was out doing something more constructive, but Starmer refused to get rid of the two child limit for the provision of social security to families. It's emblematic of Labour's entire approach, which is to suck up to the grey vote (note that no element of means testing is to be applied to pensioner benefits, so we are somehow too broke to help children who have more than one sibling but have oceans of cash to fund gold-plated handouts for oldies who own million pound houses in Surrey,) whilst telling everybody else to suck it up. It is Conservative policy, with one or two minor cosmetic changes to give the illusion that Starmer doesn't propose to lead yet another Conservative Government.
John Harris in the same paper sums up the Labour approach succinctly as follows: "Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do." There is no point at all in having a change of Government if all we are going to get is more of the same exhausted, failed, miserable rubbish.
Good evening
Starmer was unequivocal on Kuennssberg this morning that the 2 child rule will remain
I would just comment that Kuennssberg suggested he was a fiscal conservative which he did not deny
Maybe the country needs to wake up that there really is no money
There is plenty of money, it's simply in the hands of wealthy over 50s and the very rich, who are the Conservative core constituency. Except that it turns out that the Labour Party is also only interested in the votes of wealthy over 50s and the very rich. The two parties give a surface impression of being very different to one another - thanks to loud activist spats over fringe culture wars issues like transgenderism and refugees - but peel away the veneer and they're virtually identical. Just two cheeks of the same arse.
Interesting header. Buried in that Brexit thread is this nugget, which is so true:
"Prohibition reminds us that politicians follow more often than they lead."
I increasingly wonder whether it makes much difference which party is in power. As an example, look at the enormous changes in social attitudes towards, and the legal protection of, homosexuality, race, disability, gender, single parents, etc. etc. that have occurred during the past 40 years, 27 of which the traditionally conservative Conservative party has been in power.
Have the Tories championed the rights of, say, gay people, single parents, or disabled people? No, they have merely followed where society led.
Although legal abortion, homosexuality, civil unions and the Equality Act and Sex Discrimination Act were passed under Labour governments. Even homosexual marriage saw most Tory MPs vote against it, even if Cameron backed it, with Labour and LD MPs votes passing it.
The Disability Discrimination Act passed under the Major government though
I sort of think both you and @Benpointer are right. I think @Benpointer point is all these things would have happened anyway under a Conservative Government. They didn't champion them so they would probably have come about slower, but come about they would have as they follow where society moves. Most Conservative MPs are much more socially liberal now than 20 or 50 years ago, as are you, whereas your counterpart Tory activist 50 years ago would have been less so.
A Tory activist of 50 years ago might think you were a bit of a wet liberal by their standards
Most socially liberal changes come from Labour governments though, most economically liberal changes from Conservative governments
But isn't that looking to the past in exactly the way that kjh is saying we shouldn't? Yes most of the big social liberalisations have happened under Labour. But that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And as kjh said, with a few sad exceptions, ALL MPs of ALL parties are far more socially liberal now than they were 50 years ago.
When HY is shoehorned into his safe seat he will reverse that trend and quite dramatically.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Yes, Norway is painfully boring
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Well, they went down a rabbit hole with Mao, from 1949 to 1976. Deng Xiao Ping thought that Chinese living standards were scarcely higher in 1976 than twenty years earlier, and for that, the Chinese had to endure famine, and repression.
The achievements from 1976 have still been hugely impressive. Could a less authoritarian China have done this? My own view is probably yes, South Korea and Taiwan grew steadily less auhtoritarian from the 1970's, and did even better than China.
Yes, on this I tend to agree with Piketty's view that post-WW2 there was a lot of scope for "catch-up" with the current world leading edge in terms of industrialisation, which gives you a one-time growth bonus; once you're on or around the leading edge for most of your population it gets much harder.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Yeah I know you are and I still plan to go for a holiday. I have travelled a bit, but not far afield and I have quite a few places on my bucket list to get through. Nothing like you obviously.
On another topic, I don't know whether you saw, but earlier there was a link to PB posts from 2006. There we both were. You probably don't remember (I'm definitely not as memorable as you) but we used to have conversations here then, although unlike now I never experienced the barb of your wit in those days. I think that is down to me deliberately tweaking your tail more these days, which I should stop.
I like the banter! PB would be a bit dull if we didn’t cross swords from time to time
America is a great place for holidays. Especially road trips - the ultimate way to see it. The best way
I’d recommend the Deep South or the southwest deserts. Wonderful. The people are half the charm. So friendly and open
But living there? No. No no no. I am too European. Or rather: too Old World
I also love the fact I can be here in Warsaw - a totally different culture, history, language - within 2 hours from Heathrow. Just 2 hours!
2 hours from most American cities puts me in a very similar American city, with the exact same strip malls
Nice post.
Both my trips are planned to be road trips. East Coast first and then West Coast but then driving up to Las Vegas via Death Valley. Pretty standard tourist stuff I am afraid. The latter was previously cancelled due to covid.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
Interesting header. Buried in that Brexit thread is this nugget, which is so true:
"Prohibition reminds us that politicians follow more often than they lead."
I increasingly wonder whether it makes much difference which party is in power. As an example, look at the enormous changes in social attitudes towards, and the legal protection of, homosexuality, race, disability, gender, single parents, etc. etc. that have occurred during the past 40 years, 27 of which the traditionally conservative Conservative party has been in power.
Have the Tories championed the rights of, say, gay people, single parents, or disabled people? No, they have merely followed where society led.
Although legal abortion, homosexuality, civil unions and the Equality Act and Sex Discrimination Act were passed under Labour governments. Even homosexual marriage saw most Tory MPs vote against it, even if Cameron backed it, with Labour and LD MPs votes passing it.
The Disability Discrimination Act passed under the Major government though
I sort of think both you and @Benpointer are right. I think @Benpointer point is all these things would have happened anyway under a Conservative Government. They didn't champion them so they would probably have come about slower, but come about they would have as they follow where society moves. Most Conservative MPs are much more socially liberal now than 20 or 50 years ago, as are you, whereas your counterpart Tory activist 50 years ago would have been less so.
A Tory activist of 50 years ago might think you were a bit of a wet liberal by their standards
Most socially liberal changes come from Labour governments though, most economically liberal changes from Conservative governments
But isn't that looking to the past in exactly the way that kjh is saying we shouldn't? Yes most of the big social liberalisations have happened under Labour. But that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And as kjh said, with a few sad exceptions, ALL MPs of ALL parties are far more socially liberal now than they were 50 years ago.
And economically more liberal but that may change too, with populist parties on the rise in the West, especially in Europe, which are economically more statist but socially more authoritarian
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
The Guardian is reporting that Sir K says he will keep the 2 child rule for child benefit. if true I am surprised. The cost can't be massive, it signals the absolute reverse of any policy which is both humane and child friendly. It says "It's hard having babies in this frenetic world. Let's make a it a bit harder. Let's tell young women who want to do the world's toughest job that we hate them."
If Labour are reading this, note that I normally vote Tory but won't now. The 2 child rule was one of the reasons.
I'm pretty certain that it is true. I didn't see the interview on Kuenssberg this morning because I was out doing something more constructive, but Starmer refused to get rid of the two child limit for the provision of social security to families. It's emblematic of Labour's entire approach, which is to suck up to the grey vote (note that no element of means testing is to be applied to pensioner benefits, so we are somehow too broke to help children who have more than one sibling but have oceans of cash to fund gold-plated handouts for oldies who own million pound houses in Surrey,) whilst telling everybody else to get knotted. It is Conservative policy, with one or two minor cosmetic changes to give the illusion that Starmer doesn't propose to lead yet another Conservative Government.
John Harris in the same paper sums up the Labour approach succinctly as follows: "Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do." There is no point at all in having a change of Government if all we are going to get is more of the same exhausted, failed, miserable rubbish.
Both Starmer and Sunak are technocratic managerialists, frantically placing sticking plasters on the ship as it continues on the wrong course. I'm beginning to think @Casino_Royale is right: it'll be a one-term government. Like Sunak, Starmer doesn't know what the strategic problems are and doesn't know how to fix them. I'm sure he'll like the limo and the title, so he'll get something out of it, but as for the rest of us we are kind of f***ed.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
Interesting header. Buried in that Brexit thread is this nugget, which is so true:
"Prohibition reminds us that politicians follow more often than they lead."
I increasingly wonder whether it makes much difference which party is in power. As an example, look at the enormous changes in social attitudes towards, and the legal protection of, homosexuality, race, disability, gender, single parents, etc. etc. that have occurred during the past 40 years, 27 of which the traditionally conservative Conservative party has been in power.
Have the Tories championed the rights of, say, gay people, single parents, or disabled people? No, they have merely followed where society led.
Although legal abortion, homosexuality, civil unions and the Equality Act and Sex Discrimination Act were passed under Labour governments. Even homosexual marriage saw most Tory MPs vote against it, even if Cameron backed it, with Labour and LD MPs votes passing it.
The Disability Discrimination Act passed under the Major government though
I sort of think both you and @Benpointer are right. I think @Benpointer point is all these things would have happened anyway under a Conservative Government. They didn't champion them so they would probably have come about slower, but come about they would have as they follow where society moves. Most Conservative MPs are much more socially liberal now than 20 or 50 years ago, as are you, whereas your counterpart Tory activist 50 years ago would have been less so.
A Tory activist of 50 years ago might think you were a bit of a wet liberal by their standards
Most socially liberal changes come from Labour governments though, most economically liberal changes from Conservative governments
But isn't that looking to the past in exactly the way that kjh is saying we shouldn't? Yes most of the big social liberalisations have happened under Labour. But that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And as kjh said, with a few sad exceptions, ALL MPs of ALL parties are far more socially liberal now than they were 50 years ago.
And economically more liberal but that may change too, with populist parties on the rise in the West, especially in Europe, which are economically more statist but socially more authoritarian
Is there any evidence that British youth are more socially authoritarian?
A few percentage points here and there on the economy, whether Brexit caused it, what would’ve happened if we’d remained, actually it’s better that we left, we’d all be riding unicorns if it wasn’t for Covid, Ukraine, whatever, it’s all noise. It’s for the anoraks. It doesn’t matter to 98% of people.
People were told Brexit would only have considerable upsides, no downsides. We would have our cake and eat it. The easiest trade deal in history. All the advantages of the single market. Frictionless trade. German car manufacturers something something. A free trade deal with the US. Better unilateral trade deals.
It was all horseshit.
And beyond the ideological, leave-at-any-price it-might-be-shit-but-it’s-our-shit-glorious-sovereignty ocular rotators, everyone now knows it was bollocks. It’s made us poorer, it’s made everything more expensive, and we have fewer rights. Everyone knows it. It hasn’t improved anything other than the wages of HGV drivers. That’s why it’s the accepted wisdom amongst an ever growing majority that Brexit was a mistake. And it will only become more obvious as time passes. It will become unarguable.
Yes, everything is going beautifully in the EU, that’s why the Swedes have voted for Nazis, the Italians have voted for post Fascists, the Hungarians and Poles are ruled by the racist hard right, the new Nazis are second in the polls in Germany, the Spaniards are about to elect Francoites, and the French may well make Le Pen president
Soon it will become “inarguable” that we must rejoin this healthy, wholesome, entirely progressive polity
Brexit is estimated to have cost 5.5% of GDP so far (some think it a bit lower, some higher).
That really is a fuck-ton when you think about the state of the country’s finances and you wonder why Britain doesn’t seem to be able to afford anything anymore.
Re-entry into the Single Market, seems inevitable.
The problem is that Britain is now a significant rule-taker, and nothing short of Rejoin really fixes that. Brexit has resulted in an astonishing loss of meaningful sovereignty.
Hahahaha.
You are deluded if you think being a member of the EU made us anything other than a rule taker anyway. That is the whole point of QMV. We don't get to choose.
I accept your Brexit. You said it might be s*** but your perceived return of sovereignty is fair enough a reason to encourage a leave vote. I don't agree, but it is a good enough justification for me.
The ones that get my goat are those lying toerags like Johnson who sold Brexit as being an economic opportunity.
What annoys me most about that is that it actually didn't (and doesn't) have to be that way. Yes there was always going to be a hit on the economy - all change is disruptive but that is not a good enough argument not to change. But May and Johnson chose the very worst forms of change whilst smiling and telling us it was all fine.
It hasn't changed my view of Brexit one iota. Funnily enough it hasn't really changed my view of Johnson or May either. I always knew they were shits and one or two extra data points confirming that view doesn't change anything.
You are one of the few Brexiteers who has acknowledged at least in the medium term there would be pain.
Johnson and his chums claimed it would be pain free, land of milk and honey stuff, and they put their b******* on the side of a bus.
Thing is, if the Leave campaign had put forward Richard's preferred version of Brexit then Remain would have won by about twenty points. To get the WWC voters in Stoke and Hartlepool to bother turning at the polling stations you needed to say we could have all the benefits of the single market without FoM.
And yet, perhaps Richard’s version of Brexit might actually
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Great anecdotes- I’d never heard those.
My views are coloured by spending my honeymoon there, but I couldn’t get over the fact that there were no chain stores of any real description outside Oslo, you’d turn up in a small town to find only one restaurant that served exquisite food, and wild camping was positively encouraged.
There was also a very healthy distaste of braggadocio and narcissism amongst the Norwegians I got to know.
Perhaps it’s the place that has done communism properly?
Entirely off-topic. Have spent the day up at the father-in-law's villa. Family day, various Spanish relatives coming over. FIL has definitely swung right and vocally supports Vox and despises the government. May not actually vote, but that's where he is.
Anyway, one of his gripes seems to be against changes to Spanish society. Can't wolf-whistle at beautiful women. Ministry of equality promoting women threatens men. Gays being pushed on people.
Then he declares "all these LGBT people are demented." Coooeeee Bisexual man here. Who shaved his legs again this morning. With a non-binary offspring who's in a thruple and whose two previous partners were both trans.
I did manage to giggle rather than call him out. Entertainingly I did manage to slip on "that's the 'why can't I slap my wife' complaint". FFS.
I think what I'd love for any new government to do in 2025 after the election is investigate all of the anti growth regulation and legislation the country has in place that other countries don't bother with. Stuff like ULEZ, which though I personally favour, is undoubtedly a drag on growth, a lot of the agricultural regulation is a huge drag on growth (pro-badger policies that other countries laugh at) in our farming sector, lack of competition in key sectors and a swathe of planning regulations and eliminating council control over any project that drives continual positive GDP.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
But who does it negatively impact, in terms of numbers? What I am asking is how many voters have pre- Euro 6 diesels?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Bet you a plugged nickel to a purloined groat, that there are more regimental flags displayed in public places in the UK than in USA.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
But who does it negatively impact, in terms of numbers? What I am asking is how many voters have pre- Euro 6 diesels?
You don't have to be a genius to work out that it would be daft to put in all that vastly expensive surveillance equipment, to get rid of some old cars that will naturally leave the road soon anyway. Once it's in, they will ratchet it up.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Bet you a plugged nickel to a purloined groat, that there are more regimental flags displayed in public places in the UK than in USA.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
Umpteen regimental flags hanging from the average cathedral, certainly.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
The Guardian is reporting that Sir K says he will keep the 2 child rule for child benefit. if true I am surprised. The cost can't be massive, it signals the absolute reverse of any policy which is both humane and child friendly. It says "It's hard having babies in this frenetic world. Let's make a it a bit harder. Let's tell young women who want to do the world's toughest job that we hate them."
If Labour are reading this, note that I normally vote Tory but won't now. The 2 child rule was one of the reasons.
I'm pretty certain that it is true. I didn't see the interview on Kuenssberg this morning because I was out doing something more constructive, but Starmer refused to get rid of the two child limit for the provision of social security to families. It's emblematic of Labour's entire approach, which is to suck up to the grey vote (note that no element of means testing is to be applied to pensioner benefits, so we are somehow too broke to help children who have more than one sibling but have oceans of cash to fund gold-plated handouts for oldies who own million pound houses in Surrey,) whilst telling everybody else to suck it up. It is Conservative policy, with one or two minor cosmetic changes to give the illusion that Starmer doesn't propose to lead yet another Conservative Government.
John Harris in the same paper sums up the Labour approach succinctly as follows: "Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do." There is no point at all in having a change of Government if all we are going to get is more of the same exhausted, failed, miserable rubbish.
Good evening
Starmer was unequivocal on Kuennssberg this morning that the 2 child rule will remain
I would just comment that Kuennssberg suggested he was a fiscal conservative which he did not deny
Maybe the country needs to wake up that there really is no money
If Starmer can't find the money to spend on health and education that Rishi will be able to find for his substantial end of term tax cuts what is the point of voting Labour?
For what its worth I very much enjoy @Leon sending photos of drinkies on his travels. People interacting with places and environments are far more interesting than just the places themselves.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
It is something of the last resort of scoundrels. Like the Tories give a flying **** about poor people and their non-compliant diesels. It is sold as an extension of the nanny state so despised by Boris Johnson, who of course detests ULEZ. Now remind me which Mayor developed ULEZ?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
But who does it negatively impact, in terms of numbers? What I am asking is how many voters have pre- Euro 6 diesels?
Depending how you count, it's between 10 and 16 percent of vehicles in outer London that were non-compliant at the end of 2022.
I think what I'd love for any new government to do in 2025 after the election is investigate all of the anti growth regulation and legislation the country has in place that other countries don't bother with. Stuff like ULEZ, which though I personally favour, is undoubtedly a drag on growth, a lot of the agricultural regulation is a huge drag on growth (pro-badger policies that other countries laugh at) in our farming sector, lack of competition in key sectors and a swathe of planning regulations and eliminating council control over any project that drives continual positive GDP.
Why is ULEZ a drag on growth? It encourages additional spending and transactions in the auto retail sector, and it will lead to improved health outcomes and thus higher productivity. The biggest drags on growth right now come from inadequate government spending on health and education, which is leaving people too ill and too poorly-educated to be as productive as they could be. And too little spending on infrastructure that could unlock new housing development (eg in my neck of the woods, failure to fund the Bakerloo Line extension that could allow for loads of new housing down the Old Kent Road). At the moment it feels like the government has a deliberate policy to impoverish us.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Should the Tories somehow hold Uxbridge narrowly - a result which would indicate that we are headed for a Hung Parliament - it'll be fascinating to see if this prompts Labour to double down on its general election strategy of changing the management of the country but altering policy as little as possible, or if they might be persuaded to budge a few inches further away from Continuity Conservatism. I suspect the former but I'm far from sure of it.
The Guardian is reporting that Sir K says he will keep the 2 child rule for child benefit. if true I am surprised. The cost can't be massive, it signals the absolute reverse of any policy which is both humane and child friendly. It says "It's hard having babies in this frenetic world. Let's make a it a bit harder. Let's tell young women who want to do the world's toughest job that we hate them."
If Labour are reading this, note that I normally vote Tory but won't now. The 2 child rule was one of the reasons.
I'm pretty certain that it is true. I didn't see the interview on Kuenssberg this morning because I was out doing something more constructive, but Starmer refused to get rid of the two child limit for the provision of social security to families. It's emblematic of Labour's entire approach, which is to suck up to the grey vote (note that no element of means testing is to be applied to pensioner benefits, so we are somehow too broke to help children who have more than one sibling but have oceans of cash to fund gold-plated handouts for oldies who own million pound houses in Surrey,) whilst telling everybody else to suck it up. It is Conservative policy, with one or two minor cosmetic changes to give the illusion that Starmer doesn't propose to lead yet another Conservative Government.
John Harris in the same paper sums up the Labour approach succinctly as follows: "Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do." There is no point at all in having a change of Government if all we are going to get is more of the same exhausted, failed, miserable rubbish.
Good evening
Starmer was unequivocal on Kuennssberg this morning that the 2 child rule will remain
I would just comment that Kuennssberg suggested he was a fiscal conservative which he did not deny
Maybe the country needs to wake up that there really is no money
If Starmer can't find the money to spend on health and education that Rishi will be able to find for his substantial end of term tax cuts what is the point of voting Labour?
Fiscal probity and the future of our economy?
But Starmer is saying there is no money left. Rishi is saying I have money to spend and here is your tax cut. Rishi know where the magic money tree grows, Starmer does not.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
Ulez has been working (and working well) inside the North and South Circ for 19 months. This is merely the extension of an existing scheme. People can and will adapt.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
For what its worth I very much enjoy @Leon sending photos of drinkies on his travels. People interacting with places and environments are far more interesting than just the places themselves.
Oh God, I am trapped in the Website Comments Section Of No Taste.
Incidentally I saw two Teslas in a car park today. Next to B&Q.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
But who does it negatively impact, in terms of numbers? What I am asking is how many voters have pre- Euro 6 diesels?
Depending how you count, it's between 10 and 16 percent of vehicles in outer London that were non-compliant at the end of 2022.
(And it has presumably fallen since then, by both natural turnover and pre ULEZ buying.)
So it could shift a tightish election, but what about an election where the previous incumbent was deposed for being outrageously morally corrupt, and the incumbent party is utterly discredited at this moment in time?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Bet you a plugged nickel to a purloined groat, that there are more regimental flags displayed in public places in the UK than in USA.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
Umpteen regimental flags hanging from the average cathedral, certainly.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
You can get a tshirt with a stylized doll on it with the logo below...show me on the doll where you want the tsa agent to touch you....it ensures your exposure to americans is brief
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Bet you a plugged nickel to a purloined groat, that there are more regimental flags displayed in public places in the UK than in USA.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
“Regimental” was a shorthand
The ones I remember were the Marine Corps, US Navy, Coastguard, the POW/MIA association and so on.
Plus all military get to board planes first and “thank you for your service” every way you turn.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Yes, Norway is painfully boring
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
What is the opposite to a doppelgänger? I think we’re whatever that is.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
The greatest uptick in house prices was about 2000 - 2007, and the greatest non-financial driver in living memory was the leap in immigration over about the same period. Tories suck but I don't see how they are more blameworthy than nulab on this particular issue.
Brexit is estimated to have cost 5.5% of GDP so far (some think it a bit lower, some higher).
That really is a fuck-ton when you think about the state of the country’s finances and you wonder why Britain doesn’t seem to be able to afford anything anymore.
Re-entry into the Single Market, seems inevitable.
The problem is that Britain is now a significant rule-taker, and nothing short of Rejoin really fixes that. Brexit has resulted in an astonishing loss of meaningful sovereignty.
Hahahaha.
You are deluded if you think being a member of the EU made us anything other than a rule taker anyway. That is the whole point of QMV. We don't get to choose.
I accept your Brexit. You said it might be s*** but your perceived return of sovereignty is fair enough a reason to encourage a leave vote. I don't agree, but it is a good enough justification for me.
The ones that get my goat are those lying toerags like Johnson who sold Brexit as being an economic opportunity.
What annoys me most about that is that it actually didn't (and doesn't) have to be that way. Yes there was always going to be a hit on the economy - all change is disruptive but that is not a good enough argument not to change. But May and Johnson chose the very worst forms of change whilst smiling and telling us it was all fine.
It hasn't changed my view of Brexit one iota. Funnily enough it hasn't really changed my view of Johnson or May either. I always knew they were shits and one or two extra data points confirming that view doesn't change anything.
Brexit in theory, doesn’t and never will exist. A more level headed approach might have been to have appraised the proposal in the light of the people who were most likely to be charged with implementing it. Since Brexit in practice, implemented by Tories, was always going to be crap.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
Nobody thought there was a serious prospect of losing the pound. They do think there's a serious prospect of ULEZ being introduced, because there is.
But who does it negatively impact, in terms of numbers? What I am asking is how many voters have pre- Euro 6 diesels?
Depending how you count, it's between 10 and 16 percent of vehicles in outer London that were non-compliant at the end of 2022.
(And it has presumably fallen since then, by both natural turnover and pre ULEZ buying.)
So it could shift a tightish election, but what about an election where the previous incumbent was deposed for being outrageously morally corrupt, and the incumbent party is utterly discredited at this moment in time?
That's my (distant) guess. Enough to noticeably reduce the swing, but not enough to save the seat.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
The greatest uptick in house prices was about 2000 - 2007, and the greatest non-financial driver in living memory was the leap in immigration over about the same period. Tories suck but I don't see how they are more blameworthy than nulab on this particular issue.
But they are always claiming to be totally different from NuLab, mind. And they have had a chance to do something about it for the last 13 years, but instead come up with such schemes as support fort petty landlordism.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Yes, Norway is painfully boring
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
What is the opposite to a doppelgänger? I think we’re whatever that is.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Yeah I know you are and I still plan to go for a holiday. I have travelled a bit, but not far afield and I have quite a few places on my bucket list to get through. Nothing like you obviously.
On another topic, I don't know whether you saw, but earlier there was a link to PB posts from 2006. There we both were. You probably don't remember (I'm definitely not as memorable as you) but we used to have conversations here then, although unlike now I never experienced the barb of your wit in those days. I think that is down to me deliberately tweaking your tail more these days, which I should stop.
I like the banter! PB would be a bit dull if we didn’t cross swords from time to time
America is a great place for holidays. Especially road trips - the ultimate way to see it. The best way
I’d recommend the Deep South or the southwest deserts. Wonderful. The people are half the charm. So friendly and open
But living there? No. No no no. I am too European. Or rather: too Old World
I also love the fact I can be here in Warsaw - a totally different culture, history, language - within 2 hours from Heathrow. Just 2 hours!
2 hours from most American cities puts me in a very similar American city, with the exact same strip malls
Nice post.
Both my trips are planned to be road trips. East Coast first and then West Coast but then driving up to Las Vegas via Death Valley. Pretty standard tourist stuff I am afraid. The latter was previously cancelled due to covid.
Of course THE Great American Road Trip is - and will always be - east to west, or other way around.
Been that way since way before Lewis and Clark.
For notable late 20th-century example (real thing still a thing) check out clips from;
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
The greatest uptick in house prices was about 2000 - 2007, and the greatest non-financial driver in living memory was the leap in immigration over about the same period. Tories suck but I don't see how they are more blameworthy than nulab on this particular issue.
Because after prices were stable-ish from 2009/10 to 2012/13 George Osborne created Help To Buy and the whole thing took off again.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
It is something of the last resort of scoundrels. Like the Tories give a flying **** about poor people and their non-compliant diesels. It is sold as an extension of the nanny state so despised by Boris Johnson, who of course detests ULEZ. Now remind me which Mayor developed ULEZ?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Yes, Norway is painfully boring
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
What is the opposite to a doppelgänger? I think we’re whatever that is.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
Very strict alcohol laws and still very socially conservative/authoritarian in some ways.
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
Yes, Norway is painfully boring
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
What is the opposite to a doppelgänger? I think we’re whatever that is.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It’s not just “standard of living” it’s quality of life
Yeah great you earn $120k a year but you have to drive everywhere, everyone is obese, your local downtown is a car lot, the local suburb is full of dangerous tranq addicts, you get one week holiday a year, the food is execrable, the landscapes are often dull, you have to fly ten hours to get anywhere that isn’t America and your kids have a 17% chance of being shot dead in kindergarten
I am thinking of a couple of holidays to the USA. You're not selling it to me
I’m clearly trolling. But who would choose to be born in America, now? It is no longer the shining city on the hill
The people banging on the door in Mexico now are very poor, from LatAm, Haiti, Africa. Very few East Asians, Europeans, Australians now go to America just coz it is America. They go for a top university place, or a great job offer, that’s it
So where is THE place to be born, these days? The answer is not clear at all
Norway, if you can tolerate the weather.
It’s a fantastic country. And everything just works.
Stunning to think that within some of our lifetimes it was a relatively backward country mostly dependent on farming, fishing, and logging. They’re proud of it, and there are black and white photos of old Norwegians standing by piles of fish in every hotel and in most towns. And tales of hardship in every museum.
Oil was only discovered here in 1969. And my, haven’t they put the proceeds to good use.
First non-English speaking country to get the internet. 5G is now everywhere. The highest proportion of fully electric cars on the road of any country in the world. Almost all radio is DAB. I’ve been up and down and out to sea and there’s always a mobile connection.
Whenever I get into conversation with Norwegians, I ask about the winter. They bear it, in an almost British way. But it’s more than that. At school they have some classes outside all year round, even in pouring rain. They’re brought up to cope with crap weather. I was on a ferry just last Thursday, it was grey, not much wind, but we hadn’t seen the sun all day and although it wasn’t raining, there was a little water in the air, as is often the case in Norway. But the fjord was calm and we weren’t getting drenched. I got chatting to a crew member and he was genuinely expressing what a fine day it was.
Everything is relative, I guess. When the sun does come out, all of Norway certainly does come out to enjoy it.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
The greatest uptick in house prices was about 2000 - 2007, and the greatest non-financial driver in living memory was the leap in immigration over about the same period. Tories suck but I don't see how they are more blameworthy than nulab on this particular issue.
Because after prices were stable-ish from 2009/10 to 2012/13 George Osborne created Help To Buy and the whole thing took off again.
Let's try to understand the difference between "equally" and "more".
A few percentage points here and there on the economy, whether Brexit caused it, what would’ve happened if we’d remained, actually it’s better that we left, we’d all be riding unicorns if it wasn’t for Covid, Ukraine, whatever, it’s all noise. It’s for the anoraks. It doesn’t matter to 98% of people.
People were told Brexit would only have considerable upsides, no downsides. We would have our cake and eat it. The easiest trade deal in history. All the advantages of the single market. Frictionless trade. German car manufacturers something something. A free trade deal with the US. Better unilateral trade deals.
It was all horseshit.
And beyond the ideological, leave-at-any-price it-might-be-shit-but-it’s-our-shit-glorious-sovereignty ocular rotators, everyone now knows it was bollocks. It’s made us poorer, it’s made everything more expensive, and we have fewer rights. Everyone knows it. It hasn’t improved anything other than the wages of HGV drivers. That’s why it’s the accepted wisdom amongst an ever growing majority that Brexit was a mistake. And it will only become more obvious as time passes. It will become unarguable.
Yes, everything is going beautifully in the EU, that’s why the Swedes have voted for Nazis, the Italians have voted for post Fascists, the Hungarians and Poles are ruled by the racist hard right, the new Nazis are second in the polls in Germany, the Spaniards are about to elect Francoites, and the French may well make Le Pen president
Soon it will become “inarguable” that we must rejoin this healthy, wholesome, entirely progressive polity
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Fentanyl and guns
The one thing that always strikes me about the US is how militarised as a society they are. Walking through JFK on Thursday, for example, they have dozens of regimental flags hanging from the ceiling
Bet you a plugged nickel to a purloined groat, that there are more regimental flags displayed in public places in the UK than in USA.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
“Regimental” was a shorthand
The ones I remember were the Marine Corps, US Navy, Coastguard, the POW/MIA association and so on.
Plus all military get to board planes first and “thank you for your service” every way you turn.
It’s not a bad thing. Just very noticeable
Thanks for info. So major branches of US military plus vets.
You are correct re: "thank you for your service". Which was NOT a thing in USA until the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Is consequence of two inter-related factors:
> lingering sense of guilt at how badly returning Vietnam War veterans were treated by fellow Americans, and NOT just left-wing pinkos;
> fact that since the effective end of military conscription in USA from 1973 until today, the percentage of Americans currently serving in military OR who served in the past, has nosedived in past half-century; to point where a small minority are bearing the burdens of US defense and foreign policy - which also engenders some at least subliminal guilt.
Seems like a small price to pay for freedom AND armchair generalship, to give some poor soldier boy or girl priority boarding or a coupon for free meal at Denny's.
I think what I'd love for any new government to do in 2025 after the election is investigate all of the anti growth regulation and legislation the country has in place that other countries don't bother with. Stuff like ULEZ, which though I personally favour, is undoubtedly a drag on growth, a lot of the agricultural regulation is a huge drag on growth (pro-badger policies that other countries laugh at) in our farming sector, lack of competition in key sectors and a swathe of planning regulations and eliminating council control over any project that drives continual positive GDP.
Why is ULEZ a drag on growth? It encourages additional spending and transactions in the auto retail sector, and it will lead to improved health outcomes and thus higher productivity. The biggest drags on growth right now come from inadequate government spending on health and education, which is leaving people too ill and too poorly-educated to be as productive as they could be. And too little spending on infrastructure that could unlock new housing development (eg in my neck of the woods, failure to fund the Bakerloo Line extension that could allow for loads of new housing down the Old Kent Road). At the moment it feels like the government has a deliberate policy to impoverish us.
It prevents some number of people driving in outer London and we're a net importer of vehicles so we're not going to benefit as a country from new vehicle sales outside of the sales chain, most of the value chain exists outside of the UK, especially for cars being bought in wealthy outer London suburbs.
My biggest issue, however, isn't ULEZ, which as I said I do support because I live in London and the summer air quality is atrocious. The biggest issue is local planning and local councils. They are the biggest barrier to growth in the country, they seem to exist to snuff out all enterprise in the nation a thousand paper cuts at a time.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
It is something of the last resort of scoundrels. Like the Tories give a flying **** about poor people and their non-compliant diesels. It is sold as an extension of the nanny state so despised by Boris Johnson, who of course detests ULEZ. Now remind me which Mayor developed ULEZ?
It is Khan who is extending ULEZ to the London suburbs from inner London, not Boris
That's a gross oversimplification, but... basically yes. No Boris, No Brexit and certainly not the Brexit he manovered us into for personal ambition.
We know that for Gove, there was an element of it that was personal (his father's fish business and all that- whatever the reality, it was the story Gove seems to have told himself). Stanley Johnson was an MEP for a while; has anyone tried to link that to Johnson's euroscepticism?
And even if Boris wasn't responsible for Brexit, it's likely that he gets the blame in the history books. Much easier to blame a hasbeen when the country decides to move on, whatever form that takes. And Boris always wanted to go down in history.
I live in outer London and only occasionally hear people even mention the Ulez-x. The vast majority of the whining I encounter is from the bumpkins on PB.
In my anecdote of one, my New York based company appears to get *more*, not *fewer* holidays than I did in Britain.
But there’s a different pattern. And overall, I can well believe that Americans work 16% longer overall.
I think that's highly atypical. Americans get a raw deal when it comes to bank holidays and annual leave.
Not so much these days
New Years Day Presidents Day MLK Easter Memorial Day Juneteenth Independence Day Labor Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Christmas
Wiki has 11 vs UK of 8-10
Thanks for doing this comparison. Not only this, but some holidays do not fall on a Monday and so there is a culture of “making the bridge” as well, whereas a majority of British bank holidays are statutorily designed to keep on a Monday.
Americans are less likely to take long holidays (2 weeks is slightly decadent) but between the above, and a general tendency to take the entire summer slowly, I’m convinced Americans have *more* time off than Brits.
I’m exchange, they work longer/harder on the days they’re supposed to be at work.
Just got back from campaigning in Uxbridge today. Conservative vote holding up better than I expected, some waverers considering Labour but even most of them anti ULEZ. Labour also out in force and Rejoin EU at the station.
On national swing Labour should take it but anti ULEZ feeling could squeak a narrow Tory hold
Is ULEZ expansion such a big issue outside Nick Ferrari's head?
It is either a seismic event or wishful thinking by Tory activists.
the only people I know who are bothered about it would have voted tory anyway.
ULEZ was mentioned at every other door in Uxbridge today, including by undecideds
Did you lead with it though on the doorstep, or have you been highlighting it in your leaflets. By the way I am not saying you shouldn't. If it is a vote winner you should, but are you biasing the feedback?
It could work, although it could also be a reworking of the hopeless "save the pound" campaign of 2001. Lots of promise and no delivery.
In outer Outer London (much of Hillingdon, most of Havering, Bromley except for the bits round Crystal Palace, southern Croydon) ULEZ will remain unpopular until about the end of September. By then, the scare stories will have settled down, people will have adjusted and there will be benefits to notice. There will be a lot less pressure to revert.
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
It is something of the last resort of scoundrels. Like the Tories give a flying **** about poor people and their non-compliant diesels. It is sold as an extension of the nanny state so despised by Boris Johnson, who of course detests ULEZ. Now remind me which Mayor developed ULEZ?
It is Khan who is extending ULEZ to the London suburbs from inner London, not Boris
In my anecdote of one, my New York based company appears to get *more*, not *fewer* holidays than I did in Britain.
But there’s a different pattern. And overall, I can well believe that Americans work 16% longer overall.
I think that's highly atypical. Americans get a raw deal when it comes to bank holidays and annual leave.
Not so much these days
New Years Day Presidents Day MLK Easter Memorial Day Juneteenth Independence Day Labor Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Christmas
Wiki has 11 vs UK of 8-10
Thanks for doing this comparison. Not only this, but some holidays do not fall on a Monday and so there is a culture of “making the bridge” as well, whereas a majority of British bank holidays are statutorily designed to keep on a Monday.
Americans are less likely to take long holidays (2 weeks is slightly decadent) but between the above, and a general tendency to take the entire summer slowly, I’m convinced Americans have *more* time off than Brits.
I’m exchange, they work longer/harder on the days they’re supposed to be at work.
Again, anecdote of 1.
While that list may be accurate for federal employees, is it true for everyone else?
I live in outer London and only occasionally hear people even mention the Ulez-x. The vast majority of the whining I encounter is from the bumpkins on PB.
In my anecdote of one, my New York based company appears to get *more*, not *fewer* holidays than I did in Britain.
But there’s a different pattern. And overall, I can well believe that Americans work 16% longer overall.
I think that's highly atypical. Americans get a raw deal when it comes to bank holidays and annual leave.
Not so much these days
New Years Day Presidents Day MLK Easter Memorial Day Juneteenth Independence Day Labor Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Christmas
Wiki has 11 vs UK of 8-10
Thanks for doing this comparison. Not only this, but some holidays do not fall on a Monday and so there is a culture of “making the bridge” as well, whereas a majority of British bank holidays are statutorily designed to keep on a Monday.
Americans are less likely to take long holidays (2 weeks is slightly decadent) but between the above, and a general tendency to take the entire summer slowly, I’m convinced Americans have *more* time off than Brits.
I’m exchange, they work longer/harder on the days they’re supposed to be at work.
Again, anecdote of 1.
While that list may be accurate for federal employees, is it true for everyone else?
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
That's a gross oversimplification, but... basically yes. No Boris, No Brexit and certainly not the Brexit he manovered us into for personal ambition.
We know that for Gove, there was an element of it that was personal (his father's fish business and all that- whatever the reality, it was the story Gove seems to have told himself). Stanley Johnson was an MEP for a while; has anyone tried to link that to Johnson's euroscepticism?
And even if Boris wasn't responsible for Brexit, it's likely that he gets the blame in the history books. Much easier to blame a hasbeen when the country decides to move on, whatever form that takes. And Boris always wanted to go down in history.
He is certainly going to do that. He might not like what the historians say though.
Before spouting shit about this supposed loss of 5.5% gdp please explain why the UK should have grown by 7.4%+the mythical 5.5% when the eu didn't even manage 7.4%
The 5.5% is a made up counter factual no one can prove spouted by remainers to make them feel like they were right.
I used actual figures included the sources not a number that some shit for brains economist plucked out of thin air and remainers jumped on
So we have slightly outperformed the EU since 2019, are predicted to do so over the next 4-5 years but Brexit remains a disaster. This is so endemic and such an unequivocal fact in our media I do not find it surprising that many have been persuaded it has been a mistake. But it is really nonsense. Our successes and failures are a consequence of our own decisions good and mad. The fact that a significant percentage of the latter has still left us ahead says a lot about the EU but not much about our decision to leave it.
Personally, I think the real questions people should be asking is why both the UK & European growth rates have been so terrible since 2008, whilst the US has gone from strength to strength.
Lack of investment in infrastructure due to misguided implementation of austerity? Labour supply issues? Planning issues?
Whatever it is, either it’s Europe-wide or the same malaise has multiple different causes in different countries & that lack of growth is one of the major macro economic issues that’s driving the politics of Western Europe today.
& it’s not due to population drops either - you see the same stagnation whether you plot GDP or GDP per capita.
An entirely fair point. Much of the argument is two bald men fighting over a comb. Neither the UK, nor most EU nations, are achieving more than weak growth.
Although, a further issue with the US is why does its impressive growth rate simply not show up in the living standards of so much of its population? So many complaints one hears from the US about stagnant real wages sound very familiar.
It does, but it is inordinately soaked up by the 1%.
There may be a clue here somewhere about what happens to economies when income is concentrated in a gilded elite.
It's extraordinary how the benefits of growth have been captured by the elite.
The median standard of living in the USA is 25% higher than here. It simply should not have a life expectancy that's four years lower.
Yes, you look at a country that’s as wealthy as the US & their life expectancy & wonder what on earth is going on.
Last time I looked, IIRC a good chunk of it is people killing themselves with guns, to which they have very easy access. The legally prescribed opioid epidemic is another large chunk, again something that’s unique to the US in scale.
The rest is the consequences of US healthcare issues, which show up almost everywhere. This is why it’s also worth remembering that the US spends 20% of it’s GDP on healthcare, a vast sum compared to peer nations, when making these comparisons. Even when taking this waste into account, the US is still considerably richer on a GDP per capita basis than Western Europe though.
I've explained the difference on here before, but to repeat:
- Americans work about 12% longer on average than we do - Americans piss away almost three times as much on healthcare as we do per head, for much worse outcomes - the dollar is unusually strong, at the moment, maybe 20% overvalued
These three factors together explain almost all the difference. Added to that a much more skewed income distribution and you see why, when you visit the US, unless you hang out with the vastly wealthy, living standards aren't that different.
(Except in housing, where American houses are 2.5x as big as ours, but there's no way to defend our terrible record in this area, just as there's no way to defend America's gun laws or healthcare).
When you look at attempts to decompose these differences (which are real), they do not by any means explain “all” the difference.
Your maths needs work.
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price
Because of deliberate inflation by your party, with catastrophic results for the UK economy.
Who cares about the UK economy if Tory voters are rich?
It's also bizarre that HYUFD compares extreme values in the UK (Surrey or London) with the average US house price. Like comparing NYC house prices with the average UK price. One might think he's trying to persuade us of something.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
This is not a good thing, given that the average US buyer gets a whole lot more square footage for their $.
In the UK the older property owning generation is holding the next hostage & forcing them to pay through the nose for shelter in order to line their own pockets to pay for their expensive cruises.
Economically this is not productive & it’s far from obvious why a fortunate subset of the population deserve this unearned income.
Comments
Please Sir I did, and Chart 3 looks pretty compelling and model free.
Either the UK really messed up COVID or something else happened in 2020. Or a bit of both.
We already grew the fastest of all Western European economies over the period (accepting it’s too short).
To add an additional 5.5% would mean we grew at 12.9% vs the US at 10.8%
On another topic, I don't know whether you saw, but earlier there was a link to PB posts from 2006. There we both were. You probably don't remember (I'm definitely not as memorable as you) but we used to have conversations here then, although unlike now I never experienced the barb of your wit in those days. I think that is down to me deliberately tweaking your tail more these days, which I should stop.
Eastern Europe was one of the worst places on earth to have been born beween 1900 -40, however.
challenge if you believe in democracy and want it to spread around the world. If you are a developing economy and see USA as one model to aim for, or China as another, which do you choose?
People were told Brexit would only have considerable upsides, no downsides. We would have our cake and eat it. The easiest trade deal in history. All the advantages of the single market. Frictionless trade. German car manufacturers something something. A free trade deal with the US. Better unilateral trade deals.
It was all horseshit.
And beyond the ideological, leave-at-any-price it-might-be-shit-but-it’s-our-shit-glorious-sovereignty ocular rotators, everyone now knows it was bollocks. It’s made us poorer, it’s made everything more expensive, and we have fewer rights. Everyone knows it. It hasn’t improved anything other than the wages of HGV drivers. That’s why it’s the accepted wisdom amongst an ever growing majority that Brexit was a mistake. And it will only become more obvious as time passes. It will become unarguable.
https://www.cer.eu/insights/are-costs-brexit-big-or-small
Remember (although admittedly it is now 40 years ago) Sweden advertised 'The Life of Brian' under the headline 'So funny they banned it in Norway'. And the Swedish telecoms minister nearly caused a diplomatic incident by referring to Norway as 'the last fucking communist country in the world' after a series of frustrating meetings about setting up the Scandinavian telecoms system.
America is a great place for holidays. Especially road trips - the ultimate way to see it. The best way
I’d recommend the Deep South or the southwest deserts. Wonderful. The people are half the charm. So friendly and open
But living there? No. No no no. I am too European. Or rather: too Old World
I also love the fact I can be here in Warsaw - a totally different culture, history, language - within 2 hours from Heathrow. Just 2 hours!
2 hours from most American cities puts me in a very similar American city, with the exact same strip malls
American GDP per head is about 70% higher than ours ($76,398 vs $45,850 in 2022), so they make $17 for each $10 we make.
If you cut their hours by twelve percent, they lose $2.04, giving them $14.96.
If you cut their remaining GDP of $14.96 by twelve percent to give them the same level of healthcare spending per capita as ours, that's another $1.80 or so.
So they are now making $13.16. Then if you cut their GDP by 20% to allow for dollar overvaluation, that's another $2.28 so they are now making $10.52, which is basically the same as us.
That's before you allow for the skewed income distribution, or the ridiculous expense of eating well there, or the extra costs necessary because the poorer public transport or the more extreme climate.
We have nothing to envy in the bastard child of the Empire.
I always like to think Munch’s The Scream is simply a portrait of a guy waking up in small town Norway and realising he is a guy who lives in small town Norway. Nothing to do with existential anguish in a Godless world. He’s simply bored to the point of suicide
My typing needs work.
Both my trips are planned to be road trips. East Coast first and then West Coast but then driving up to Las Vegas via Death Valley. Pretty standard tourist stuff I am afraid. The latter was previously cancelled due to covid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66216782
And economically more liberal but that may change too, with populist parties on the rise in the West, especially in Europe, which are economically more statist but socially more authoritarian
New Years Day
Presidents Day
MLK
Easter
Memorial Day
Juneteenth
Independence Day
Labor Day
Veterans Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Wiki has 11 vs UK of 8-10
Soon it will become “inarguable” that we must rejoin this healthy, wholesome, entirely progressive polity
My views are coloured by spending my honeymoon there, but I couldn’t get over the fact that there were no chain stores of any real description outside Oslo, you’d turn up in a small town to find only one restaurant that served exquisite food, and wild camping was positively encouraged.
There was also a very healthy distaste of braggadocio and narcissism amongst the Norwegians I got to know.
Perhaps it’s the place that has done communism properly?
ETA: sorry for messing up blockquotes!
If, for some crazy reason, there were to be a by election in Hornchurch & Upminster (NB NOT Romford, despite today's papers) I doubt that "scrap the ULEZ in place" would get traction.
Heck, just for you will sweeten the loads for you, raising plugged nickel to one thin dime.
IF possible, could you be more specific, for example, which regiments? Am thinking perhaps NY State units deployed overseas?
Also wondering IF maybe flags you noted were actually state flags? Or something other than regimental?
Quasi-vexillology walking hand-in-hand with pseudo-psephology!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/thousands-drivers-ulez-expansion-greater-london-sadiq-khan-tfl-b1082057.html
(And it has presumably fallen since then, by both natural turnover and pre ULEZ buying.)
The biggest drags on growth right now come from inadequate government spending on health and education, which is leaving people too ill and too poorly-educated to be as productive as they could be. And too little spending on infrastructure that could unlock new housing development (eg in my neck of the woods, failure to fund the Bakerloo Line extension that could allow for loads of new housing down the Old Kent Road). At the moment it feels like the government has a deliberate policy to impoverish us.
PS Just for the record, this is what he said, before he edits it: "And home owners in Surrey or London have assets almost double the US average house price"
Incidentally I saw two Teslas in a car park today. Next to B&Q.
The ones I remember were the Marine Corps, US Navy, Coastguard, the POW/MIA association and so on.
Plus all military get to board planes first and “thank you for your service” every way you turn.
It’s not a bad thing. Just very noticeable
There really are some stunning old manhole covers here.
Unless anyone knows any different.
£1= $1.3.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/
https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/housing-prices/
Been that way since way before Lewis and Clark.
For notable late 20th-century example (real thing still a thing) check out clips from;
Cannonball Run (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X86OwKkme0&t=697s
I suggest you buy some Cuisenaire sets. Very illuminating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisenaire_rods
Stunning to think that within some of our lifetimes it was a relatively backward country mostly dependent on farming, fishing, and logging. They’re proud of it, and there are black and white photos of old Norwegians standing by piles of fish in every hotel and in most towns. And tales of hardship in every museum.
Oil was only discovered here in 1969. And my, haven’t they put the proceeds to good use.
First non-English speaking country to get the internet. 5G is now everywhere. The highest proportion of fully electric cars on the road of any country in the world. Almost all radio is DAB. I’ve been up and down and out to sea and there’s always a mobile connection.
Whenever I get into conversation with Norwegians, I ask about the winter. They bear it, in an almost British way. But it’s more than that. At school they have some classes outside all year round, even in pouring rain. They’re brought up to cope with crap weather. I was on a ferry just last Thursday, it was grey, not much wind, but we hadn’t seen the sun all day and although it wasn’t raining, there was a little water in the air, as is often the case in Norway. But the fjord was calm and we weren’t getting drenched. I got chatting to a crew member and he was genuinely expressing what a fine day it was.
Everything is relative, I guess. When the sun does come out, all of Norway certainly does come out to enjoy it.
You are correct re: "thank you for your service". Which was NOT a thing in USA until the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Is consequence of two inter-related factors:
> lingering sense of guilt at how badly returning Vietnam War veterans were treated by fellow Americans, and NOT just left-wing pinkos;
> fact that since the effective end of military conscription in USA from 1973 until today, the percentage of Americans currently serving in military OR who served in the past, has nosedived in past half-century; to point where a small minority are bearing the burdens of US defense and foreign policy - which also engenders some at least subliminal guilt.
Seems like a small price to pay for freedom AND armchair generalship, to give some poor soldier boy or girl priority boarding or a coupon for free meal at Denny's.
My biggest issue, however, isn't ULEZ, which as I said I do support because I live in London and the summer air quality is atrocious. The biggest issue is local planning and local councils. They are the biggest barrier to growth in the country, they seem to exist to snuff out all enterprise in the nation a thousand paper cuts at a time.
We know that for Gove, there was an element of it that was personal (his father's fish business and all that- whatever the reality, it was the story Gove seems to have told himself). Stanley Johnson was an MEP for a while; has anyone tried to link that to Johnson's euroscepticism?
And even if Boris wasn't responsible for Brexit, it's likely that he gets the blame in the history books. Much easier to blame a hasbeen when the country decides to move on, whatever form that takes. And Boris always wanted to go down in history.
Not only this, but some holidays do not fall on a Monday and so there is a culture of “making the bridge” as well, whereas a majority of British bank holidays are statutorily designed to keep on a Monday.
Americans are less likely to take long holidays (2 weeks is slightly decadent) but between the above, and a general tendency to take the entire summer slowly, I’m convinced Americans have *more* time off than Brits.
I’m exchange, they work longer/harder on the days they’re supposed to be at work.
Again, anecdote of 1.
When you compare average prices, UK house prices are barely ahead despite frantic inflation by your party. Which means the true worth is LESS.
All US presidents were descended from King John.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_royal_candidate_theory
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8epsI5-3HRo
In the UK the older property owning generation is holding the next hostage & forcing them to pay through the nose for shelter in order to line their own pockets to pay for their expensive cruises.
Economically this is not productive & it’s far from obvious why a fortunate subset of the population deserve this unearned income.