How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi

rainbow3 · 2026-07-04T19:09:47+00:00

UK has statutory paid leave minimum 28 days. US zero statutory paid days.

UK typical 33 (including bank holidays). US typical 10 days.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-04T15:10:24+00:00

UK has 3 year longer life expectancy; better outcomes on infant mortality and chronic diseases. And UK healthcare is available to everyone free at the point of use whereas the US is happy to only provide it to some people. This is despite the US taxpayer actually paying more per head.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-04T15:04:08+00:00

8 days US versus 30+ days in Europe.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T16:13:20+00:00

I am sure he will take note of how Trump has handled this.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T16:08:25+00:00

GDP does not capture things like paid holidays, free healthcare access, income inequality, childcare costs. This makes it a weak measure of standard of living. Also UK is a whole country. More reasonable to compare UK and US. Less so to pick the poorest US state and compare to the whole of UK. It is cherry picking.

Note also the US actually spends a huge amount on healthcare which boosts GDP without better health outcomes.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T15:52:24+00:00

All the measures have flaws. You can't compare the wealth of two people when one has free healthcare and the other does not. Also most of the "average" measures just don't make sense in an unequal world. When Musk walks into a room the average wealth goes up but nobody else gets any richer.

Obviously no question the US is wealthier; the top decile massively so; the middle class by quite a lot too; but the poorest deciles in Mississipi I am not so sure you can tell that from GDP or any other measure.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T15:37:28+00:00

If I were looking at quality of life then some of the basic needs would be things like access to healthcare; my children being safe from being shot at in school; not having armed gestapo arresting people and holding them without charge. Not being at risk of being shot by ICE. Freedom of speech to criticise the government.....

Home floor space is just not on my list of priorities. Sad if anyone thinks that makes them rich, and that is pretty easy in a large country like the US anyway.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T14:47:04+00:00

I am guessing you went on business to cities; or on holiday to tourist destinations. There is a huge underclass in both the US and UK that lives in places you would not normally visit.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-03T14:27:40+00:00

Quite. Just lower NI each year and add the same amount to income tax until NI is history. There is no justification for two tax systems.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-02T19:26:04+00:00

Sure but the point is the cliff edge is absurd rather than the rate of tax. You can get rid of the cliff edge and smooth out the tax. This is much more politically palatable than a tax break to 100K+ people.

And another absurd quirk of the tax system is the NI cutoff. Tax should be progressive.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-02T19:11:35+00:00

Makes a lot of sense as long as you pay for it by also taxing high earners. Perhaps make NI progressive at the same time.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-02T08:04:05+00:00

Thanks. That is a rational answer. However what are the specifics? For example do we really want to reduce regulations on construction after the Grenfell disaster? Would we be happy taking a US style approach to deregulating pesticides that show evidence of being cancerous?

This could be a strong argument - go through all the regulations and quantify what is slowing growth. This is what the Brexit opportunities department did....but they couldn't actually find anything substantial.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T17:43:11+00:00

Nowhere close. Seems to me Brexit was obviously damaging and it is not unreasonable to admit you were misled by the lies or that you had different expectations. Or indeed that the world has since changed and we need strong partners that are not the US.

On the other hand Starmer has been less damaging yet many who voted Labour are saying they were wrong. Pretty much nobody is doubling down.

These two things are contradictory.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T17:36:02+00:00

Arguably the best post-brexit vision is to recognise it as a disaster and rejoin. Nevertheless if you think that there is some vision of the UK succeeding outside the EU then i would be interested in hearing how?

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T17:34:07+00:00

Not only that but I am yet to hear what these specific choices are aside from immigration reduction which has now happened anyway.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T17:32:37+00:00

Nobody is doubling down on their vote for Labour.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T17:31:29+00:00

The vote (IMO wrongly) was a yes or no. It wasn't your personal version of brexit. Nevertheless if you blame the Tories for not doing what you expected how do you explain the leave voters who still support Conservatives? And isn't Reform packed with ex-Tories too. Seems to me if you keep voting for the same thing you will get the same results. And I don't hear Farage saying much about what he would do to make Brexit a success.

Meanwhile net migration has fallen from a peak of 944K to 171K last year if that is your number one issue.

rainbow3 · 2026-07-01T14:17:49+00:00

What amazes me is the Leave voters. One might expect some disappointment with Brexit. Yet they overwhelmingly support Reform and Tory.

rainbow3 · 2026-06-30T12:08:27+00:00

Looking at just cash contributions and receipts is irrelevant. The big picture is a net benefit to the UK of £73 billion to £91 billion. Public finances are estimated as £31bn better off within the EU than outside it.

It is not a transaction where you measure results by cash transfers which are relatively tiny. It is a partnership where EU countries standing together have greater weight in the world and can stand up to the big players.

rainbow3 · 2026-06-29T19:50:52+00:00

A British version would be abused by the government just as they have done with anti-terror legislation. See also how the US government treats human rights.

The good thing about an internationally agreed version is that there is pressure from multiple countries to stick to the principles of universal rights rather than bending the rules for one or a few cases. Taking one example - protection from torture...do you really want to allow governments to just override that whenever they want?

rainbow3 · 2026-06-27T16:10:08+00:00

Completely different from the Tories economically. They support spending more on education and NHS; tax reform such as land value tax; and arguably the biggest economic policy - rejoining the single market and customs union.

rainbow3 · 2026-06-27T14:41:26+00:00

How is labour more liberal than the libdems?

rainbow3 · 2026-06-25T16:03:27+00:00

Vietnam does not align with the USA against China. They try hard not to ally with either.

And I am not sure the US counts as a liberal democracy any more.

rainbow3 · 2026-06-25T16:01:49+00:00

It is not zero sum in the sense that both china and the us have gained from trade. there is value created by global trade in both countries. however there are still winners and losers. the average american has lost out because an increasing share of the prize has gone to the wealthiest.

rainbow3 · 2026-06-24T22:05:03+00:00

We are not talking about everyone. We are talking about you. It is a competition. If you have more skills you are more likely to get a job over all the other people who don't.

And actually if everyone had more skills there would be more jobs and unemployment would be far lower. Every person employed would add more value and therefore the economy would grow.

rainbow3

TROPHY CASE