Thread: UK standard of living rises above that in America for the first time in a century

Originally Posted by Begbie

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by Frankenstein

Agree they're a bit of a dark horse but they've been climbing steadily up the list since the early nineties, and have had among the strongest growth rates in Western Europe.

I just wonder how much the UK could've done with all the money we gave to Ireland...

As Scotland has been subsidising england for the last 30 years you shouldn't begrudge a bit of cash that doesn't belong to you being passed to the Irish.

Don't you mean Aberdeen has been subsidising Scotland?

Don't fret Marmite. Once David Cameron gets in he'll ensure that America once again has a higher standard of living than the UK.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Scotland has been subsidising England for a lot longer than that!

Really? And which pearl of wisdom are you going to twist to prove this?

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Scotland has been subsidising England for a lot longer than that!

Really? And which pearl of wisdom are you going to twist to prove this?

North Sea Oil.
Best soldiers in the British Armed Forces.
Textile Factories.
Culture.
Etc...

^
You forgot bagpipes. We really appreciete those.

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

^
You forgot bagpipes. We really appreciete those.

Bagpipes fell under "Culture".

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

]

1 North Sea Oil.
2 Best soldiers in the British Armed Forces.
3 Textile Factories.
4 Culture.
Etc...

1 - Ok
2 - Canon fodder thats all
3 - Total bollux
4 - Mmmm deep fried mars bars, Glasgow kiss, Men in skirts, etc etc

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Best soldiers in the British Armed Forces.

Which of course are only used to project England and English interests.

Showing your idiocy yet again...

^
Heh...another rather snort-worthy post...

Originally Posted by NickA

Originally Posted by sabang

I think Australia's standard of living would beat both places hands down, but I doubt that is reflected in economic reports.

it is...

1. Iceland 0.968 ( 1)
2. Norway 0.968 ( 1)
3. Australia 0.962 ()
4. Canada 0.961 ( 2)
5. Ireland 0.959 ( 1)
6. Sweden 0.956 ( 1)
7. Switzerland 0.955 ( 2)
8. Japan 0.953 ( 1)
9. Netherlands 0.953 ( 1)
10. France 0.952 ( 6)
11. Finland 0.952 ()
12. United States 0.951 ( 4)
13. Spain 0.949 ( 6)
14. Denmark 0.949 ( 1)
15. Austria 0.948 ( 1)
16. United Kingdom 0.946 ( 2)
17. Belgium 0.946 ( 4)

from Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm surprised New Zealand is not in that list, unless they take cricket into consideration

As to the OP, I don't think it is a case of the UK standard of living overtaking the US, but rather the US standard of living sinking below the UK's. IOW, the UK standard of living has not got that much better, but the US standard of living is falling. And that I can believe.

Originally Posted by William

I'm surprised New Zealand is not in that list

It is, ranked 19th.

Originally Posted by William

unless they take cricket into consideration

Ranked at 19th, they must've!

As stated before, standard of living is very subjective.

Japan ranks four places ahead of the US. I lived in Japan for many years, both in Japanese neighborhoods and on US air bases. I'm very fond of many social aspects of Japan -- but standard of living?

I can tell you very few people preferred to live in the tiny shoebox apartments, with no parking, plastic compartment cube toilet/shower/sink combo, sky-high phone rates, no lawns, no sidewalks, poxy little parks where 30,000 dogs shit daily, garbage pickup issues, neighbors so close you can hear them snoring -- if they had the option of living on the US-standard air base.

Maybe I'm equating the word living to housing/work environment.
I'd personally not consider unemployment or homelessness as a factor in standard of living. My definition is how does the average person in a country live his daily life? Quality of life issues like:

transportation
housing
health care
crime
food
entertainment
work environment
pollution

Originally Posted by chitown

I have heard some stories about that FREE healthcare in the Uk. It sounds....eerm....uhhhh.......superb

Yes, that's a common misconception - it isn't actually free. We pay tax and national insurance to cover it - a lot of tax and national insurance.

Then there are the stealth taxes. Petrol is a good example. When you buy a litre of petrol you actually pay 47.1p in fuel tax - then just to add insult to injury VAT is charged after that - so you are actually paying tax on a tax!

This picture explains it:

Price of Petrol in the UK - PetrolPrices.com

I think fuel duty has gone up more since that picture was made. To put that in perspective when I fill up with £50 of petrol, the government is taking £33 of that directly in tax!

My basic deductions are around 35% per month, but when you take into account stealth taxes, poll tax, VAT I reckon the deductions are well over 50%. You then have capital gains tax (now without taper relief), inheritence tax and stamp duty (tax on house purchase). It goes on and on...

But back to the original topic...

The report quoted says our GDP (in UK) is higher than USA and equates that with us being better off than people in USA. It's cobblers. The cost of living in USA is much lower generally. Housing for example is a lot cheaper than in UK and generally things are cheaper in USA. Additionally, there are far fewer stealth taxes in the USA. It's not about what you've got coming in, it's what you've got going out.

Also, I don't believe GDP really has a good correlation to standard of living, because standard of living is much more complex than just GDP.

I believe what's more important than GDP or standard of living is quality of life - so I take much more notice of quality of life surveys. Countries that have much lower GDPs than UK often have a much better quality of life - Portugal is a good example of that.

The Economist quality of life index illustrates this quite nicely. You'll notice there's very poor correlation between the GDP ranking and QOL ranking:

http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf

Again it's all very subjective. Ireland scores top place - but I would hate to live there (I have lived there in the past) because the weather sucks - same for Norway and Sweden. And don't get me started on Finland - when I was last there the f*****g sea was frozen solid!

Thailand performs badly (even though I think the quality of life is quite high there) because of its political problems and widespread poverty (Isaan et alia).

So how do you define quality of life? I'm not sure you need to. The bottom line is if you are happy living in a particular place that's the only survey that counts.

America's middle-class just getting by?
Rethink that paradigm, eh? The difference between reality and so-called 'news' coverage.

reason.tv - Videos > Living Large

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Scotland has been subsidising England for a lot longer than that!

Really? And which pearl of wisdom are you going to twist to prove this?

North Sea Oil.
Best soldiers in the British Armed Forces.
Textile Factories.
Culture.
Etc...

I rather think the point here should be conceded.

Like the Irish, the Scots make damn fine soldiers...provided of course they have white officers.

^
Don't know where you came from gent but you are definitely one of the lamest Trolls aboard here right now...

Could he be an Aussie in Phuket...?

Originally Posted by Bluecat

Could he be an Aussie in Phuket...?

Naw, this isn't my old bud, The Gentleman, since this gent writes significantly better than PUD!

Oh for goodness sake I am not a troll and my provenance was made clear yonks ago.

I am most certainly not anyone else resurrected and in fact posted in TV under the moniker of " the gent " for 2 years until finally hitting my 10th warning a couple of weeks ago courtesy of the anally fissured mod,Endure.

Usual syndrome I'm afraid, get banned by TV and seek succour here ......

However, I think it fair to say that " the gent " is not necessarily me but a creation of mine whose style, in part, was tempered so as to provoke without lapsing into crudity, etc., etc.. Unfortunately, the majority of the mods I encountered adversely lacked the ability to either appreciate my worth or to deal with it constructively without seeking recourse to puerile sanctions.