10 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

Let me ask something...

 

You have 2 people. One is modest man, who has paid off home, no credit card or other debt, and 100,000 $ of savings.

 

The other is a wealthy man, who has a lot of bank loan access, but no real cash in hand, all properties are owned by companies of which he owns shares, and he has a significant credit card spending to keep up the image.

 

Which is richer?

 

The bank manager

3 hours ago, Mike_Hunt said:

 

America, <deleted> Yeah!

 

 

The conversation examines why the US economy has dramatically outpaced the EU since 2008, with America's GDP skyrocketing ahead while Europe stagnated. Barclay discusses his team's research trip to America to understand what drives their economic success and how Britain can learn from their pro-enterprise culture and policies. The discussion reveals how America's bipartisan celebration of the "American Dream" creates a culture where aspiration and wealth creation are rewarded across political lines. Barclay explains how the US tax system is structured to favour long-term wealth creation, with features like tax deferrals for property developers who reinvest profits and capital gains incentives for start-up investments. He contrasts this with Britain's complex tax code filled with cliff edges and disincentives, such as the VAT threshold that actually encourages businesses to stay small, and argues that America instinctively views regulation as increasing costs on business rather than helping it.
 

 

Socialism  Sucks, Capitalism Rules! Get busy livin or get busy being Stagnant 

25 minutes ago, Dcheech said:

Reading this OP, one wonders if people here travel much.

I think most of them are posting from their parents' basements in Ohio and have never been to Tennessee, never mind the UK or Thailand.

Then we have this

 

Mississippi, the poorest state in the United States, is close to surpassing Europe's largest economy Germany's GDP per capita. Euronews Business compares US states with European countries.

The poorest US state's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is higher than that of Europe's top five economies, except for Germany. However, Mississippi competes closely with Germany, with a difference of just €1,500. 

GDP per capita, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), in the US also surpasses that of all EU countries, except for Luxembourg and Ireland, which are outliers.

 

 

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

1 hour ago, TedG said:

CA has the largest population in the USA.  

 

 

Hmm... seems like the place a lot of people want to live and do business -- in addition to having the largest economy....

 

And although California is the third largest state by geographic area AFTER Alaska and Texas, both of those larger states have smaller populations, smaller economies and lower per capita GDP.

 

 

California is very wealthy due to-so

 much business, 

Motown must be the poorest ,dereliction every where ,the only bizzness is narcotic dealing in motown

3 hours ago, BLMFem said:

Because it's subsidized by Magastan's richest state.

 

Say, "Thank you, Gavin"!

 

 

Same would apply to the last 20 republican or democrat  governors.  Nice pic though!

4 hours ago, Will B Good said:

The statement kind of holds true , but only on a narrow metric (PPP GDP per capita), but totally falls apart when you broaden the lens to include:

 

•  Wealth distribution

•  Public services

•  Health and education outcomes

•  Real purchasing power for the median household

 

Yours is the most important point. The gap between the haves and the have nots in the USA is sowing the seeds of unrest. The USA has a growing population of marginalized people and history shows that such disparity never turns out well.

33 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

Motown must be the poorest ,dereliction every where ,the only bizzness is narcotic dealing in motown

Detroit has experienced a revival. Your ignorant comment shows that you have not been there in the past 7 years. The revival started a decade ago. Ford and Dan Gilbert were key to investment in the infrastructure. Yes, there is still poverty and there are high crime districts, but it is not a zombie city.  You obviously have little knowledge of the US economy otherwise you would know that Detroit remains the epicentre of the automotive sector's research, engineering and design activity. As a port and border city, logistics is a major activity too.  Critical IT and robotics activity is based in Detroit. What did you expect to accomplish making ignorant inaccurate comments?

2 hours ago, TedG said:

That's not true at all.   It's another stupid leftist narrative pushed by non-thinking people. 

 

 

Nonsense does that state contribute more to the federal funds or does it receive welfare from the fed to help prop it up?that’s my tax dollars supporting a failing retrumplican run state.

5 hours ago, TedG said:

Mississippi has a higher GDP per person than Mississippi

Typical MAGA nonsense.

3 hours ago, Mike_Hunt said:

GDP per capita, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

You need to relook at this after the tariff smoke settles. Things WERE cheaper in the US because the tariffs were very low. Now that that has changed, the PPP numbers will be mych different.

7 minutes ago, gargamon said:

Typical MAGA nonsense.

Why is the minimum wage in the USA one of the lowest in the developed countries better to ask this question  

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/au.svg

Australia

$18.12

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/nz.svg

New Zealand

$16.42

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/gb.svg

United Kingdom

$15.67

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/lu.svg

Luxembourg

$15.43

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/de.svg

Germany

6 hours ago, Tug said:

Nonsense does that state contribute more to the federal funds or does it receive welfare from the fed to help prop it up?that’s my tax dollars supporting a failing retrumplican run state.

Considering the deficit is 1.8 trillion,  CA is not paying enough nor sending money to other states.

10 hours ago, TedG said:

 

 

Mississippi has a higher GDP per person than Mississippi.  The GDP of Miss is $ 53,061 in 2024 compared to the UK's $52,636.79 in 2024.   This means that the people of Mississippi have more purchasing power than those in the UK.  

Mississippi has a higher GDP per person than Mississippi.

 

Huh?

5 hours ago, still kicking said:

Why is the minimum wage in the USA one of the lowest in the developed countries better to ask this question  

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/au.svg

Australia

$18.12

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/nz.svg

New Zealand

$16.42

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/gb.svg

United Kingdom

$15.67

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/lu.svg

Luxembourg

$15.43

https://worldpopulationreview.com/images/country-flags/svg/de.svg

Germany

That's one of the reasons Australia is uncompetitive. If it wasn't for iron ore,gas and coal, the country's economy would be in dire straits. It's pretty well buggered now anyway.

Once more Panamax ore carriers come online and China buys iron ore from Brazil ( and soon from Africa) you can pretty well shut down the Pilbara. There is an argument that the ore will be more expensive, but when has that ever bothered China - they are quite happy to use economics as a political weapon.

Australia's predicted budgets in the negative for the next 40 years.

11 hours ago, TedG said:

Nice opinion piece.   USA > UK.   Learn from your failures and move forward. 

 

This is all you will get from him (or it / bot). Unsupportive links that often have little or nothing to do with the issue. Absolutely infamous for using notorious mediabiasfactcheck as source of *fact*. Also uses additional bogus websites with leftist fake facts. 

 

This poster created a legion of dis and misinformational posts during the COVID-19 crisis. 

 

Do yourselves a big favor and totally ignore.

 

Here, he sites Medium which is just a blogging platform. I could or you could have a Medium account and post pretty much whatever you want as well. 

12 hours ago, Mike_Hunt said:

Then we have this

 

Mississippi, the poorest state in the United States, is close to surpassing Europe's largest economy Germany's GDP per capita. Euronews Business compares US states with European countries.

The poorest US state's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is higher than that of Europe's top five economies, except for Germany. However, Mississippi competes closely with Germany, with a difference of just €1,500. 

GDP per capita, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), in the US also surpasses that of all EU countries, except for Luxembourg and Ireland, which are outliers.

 

 

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

From AI gathered sources below including US Census - nearly half of all Tennessee households struggle with financial hardship. Higher poverty rate than 80% of the nation. Also, not mentioned here, is that the auto sector - that was created to bust the unions 30 years ago - resulted in foreign companies like Nissan and VW opening factories there and paying less than union wages (compared with the auto belt in the north). In Agriculture, a major, staple crop for farmers is soya - OOPS? China ain't buying it!

 

'The poverty rate in Tennessee was 13.8% to 14% in 2023, which is higher than the national average. In addition, another 30% of households are considered "ALICE" (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed), meaning they have income above the official poverty level but still cannot afford basic expenses. This puts a total of approximately 44% of households in the state below the ALICE threshold, struggling with financial hardship.'  

 

 

18 hours ago, nauseus said:

 

 

Think how much money the USA threw after Covid. Then think about the resulting increase in debt over that time.

 

Most of this is an unreal rebound due to the above. Now the US debt is being "discussed" far more than in 2019.

 

This chart does not even appear using the link.

 

Prices for everything in the US are double or triple what they should be.

 

The US is severely out of whack, 

Yes....

Incredibly OFF-KILTER....

 

It's like TULIP MANIA...

 

Houses are overpriced by a factor of TEN.

 

Also, who in their right mind would want to live there, anyway?

Quality of Life?....

There is none.

 

 

16 hours ago, TedG said:

Here are some of the countries with the most pet cats: 

United States: Around 95.6 million

China: Over 53 million

Russia: Approximately 23 million

Brazil: Roughly 22 million

Germany: About 16.7 million

France: Around 15.1 million

United Kingdom: Approximately 12 million

Italy: About 10 million

But China eats more cats! 🙂

On 10/10/2025 at 5:33 PM, impulse said:

 

How much of that GDP growth was real growth, and how much was the giveaways in the Inflation Reduction Assurance Act?  How many of those projects have gone tits up, and how many of them are not viable without perpetual subsidies?

 

Good questions. But since you don't offer any evidence-based answers, they're just empty rhetoric.

On 10/10/2025 at 5:15 PM, Mike_Hunt said:

 

America, <deleted> Yeah!

 

 

The conversation examines why the US economy has dramatically outpaced the EU since 2008, with America's GDP skyrocketing ahead while Europe stagnated. Barclay discusses his team's research trip to America to understand what drives their economic success and how Britain can learn from their pro-enterprise culture and policies. The discussion reveals how America's bipartisan celebration of the "American Dream" creates a culture where aspiration and wealth creation are rewarded across political lines. Barclay explains how the US tax system is structured to favour long-term wealth creation, with features like tax deferrals for property developers who reinvest profits and capital gains incentives for start-up investments. He contrasts this with Britain's complex tax code filled with cliff edges and disincentives, such as the VAT threshold that actually encourages businesses to stay small, and argues that America instinctively views regulation as increasing costs on business rather than helping it.
 

 

First time I've heard a video described as an article. But no matter. I suspect it t takes no account purchasing power parity.  For those who don't know what PPP is, it's a way of comparing how much your money can purchase in different countries. It's the reason why so many emigres from the West come to Thailand. Their money goes further. And after, isn't that what matter to people. Not the nominal rate, but what you can buy with your money? When you go that route, the figures are startlingly different.

Here are some tables from an article linked to here:  https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

The one on the left shows nominal GDP (exchange rate values). The second one shows GDP per capita in purchasing power parity. As is customary when measuring PPP the unit is dollars. That means that dollar figures remain constant in both cases.

 

 

The images are a bit small, but you can always use the link to see more clearly. What they show is that in purchasing power, Mississippi ranks below Spain but just above Lithuania.

 

In addition, according to the World Bank, adjusted for PPP, the GDP growth of the EU and the USA are actually very close.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?end=2024&locations=EU-US&start=2007&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

 

And to make matters worse for the USA, what really matters to people is how  healthy is the situation of middle class and working class people. In other words, income equaliity. That's measured by something called the Gini Coefficient. It can be measures in 2 ways. As a range from 0 to 1 or as a percentage, In either case, the lower the number, the greater the income equality.

For Mississippi the Gini Coefficent is 48% or0.48

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/10-us-states-most-income-inequality

For the UK the Gini Coefficient is 32.9% or O.329

https://www.statista.com/statistics/872472/gini-index-of-the-united-kingdom/?srsltid=AfmBOopI9Et86CI9XGytfJqtJVlb2YwoiSYkZ5BYzImy8AaiLWOgUJh3

 

And when the UK was in the EU, it had the highest gini coefficent of all members. 

 

So, all in all, despite the UK's economic problems, the average citizen is still far better off there than in Mississippi.

 

 

 

 

I've decided to include both charts comparing GDP in a larger size one above the other.

 

23 hours ago, In Full Agreement said:

 

 

The Beetles, got it right with the lyrics to their song.

Strawberry Fields Forever ?

 

Yes, when you're on acid it certaintly connects you to a timeless realm.

7 hours ago, candide said:

But China eats more cats! 🙂

 

That's why there are less, especially per catipa.

On 10/10/2025 at 7:15 PM, TedG said:

The USA has a debt problem, and Joe Biden didn't do the US any favors. 

And in that regard 2 Trump's tax cut bills did? 

6 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

And in that regard 2 Trump's tax cut bills did? 

It’s the spending stupid.  Try reading some CBO reports.  

22 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

I've decided to include both charts comparing GDP in a larger size one above the other.

 

The USA is the clear winner.

7 minutes ago, TedG said:

It’s the spending stupid.  Try reading some CBO reports.  

Wow. me being accused of being stupid by someone who doesn't understand that decreasing revenues also  means an increase in deficits. That isn't just stupid, that's moronic.