"Oh, to be in England, now that April's there," Robert Browning wrote nearly two centuries ago in Home Thoughts from Abroad, but this April, Britons might pine for the riches of... Mississippi?
Yes, Mississippi, if they take just a brief gander at the new Institute of Economic Affairs report on the comparative wealth between Britain, American states, and Britons' sad delusions about where they stand. According to the IEA, ask the typical Brit where his country ranks, income-wise, if it were a state. And the typical answer is "Seventh place."
Not quite, old chap. The sad fact is that if Britain were a state, it would rank at the very bottom, below Mississippi.
It's one of those ego-crushing studies because it's words and delusions of worth that tell the story, not the dry economic figures. No wonder, as the same IEA study found, 67% of Brits think their country is moving in the wrong direction. And a whopping 87% said they believe the UK should focus more on economic growth.
Sorry, but that's not going to happen with Keir Starmer's Labour Party in charge. Everything that one British government after another did wrong — starting probably with Gordon Brown almost 20 years ago — Starmer looked at and said, "Hold my bitter."
But here's the thing. 30 years ago, Britain would have ranked fifth among U.S. states, just behind Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Those Northeastern states dominated per-capita income rankings in 1996, driven by finance, insurance, and other high-earning professions.
By the early 2000s, Britain slipped out of the Top 10 American states, and its relative decline only accelerated. So here are today's Britons, looking up at last-place Mississippi's typical income of $55,877, yet somehow thinking they're still ranked somewhere near Connecticut.
What happened? Not to put too fine a point on it, but Britain — just like the rest of Western Europe — essentially outlawed innovation and growth. Importing endless numbers of Third World "migrants" who are net drags on the economy isn't helping, either.
British economic growth was unlocked by Margaret Thatcher and her Tories starting in 1979, and successive governments (including Tony Blair's New Labour) didn't muck up her success formula very much.
After the economy flat-lined during the 2008 global financial crisis, both Labour and Conservatives kept it stamped down with growth-killing policies like "net zero." The IEA found that today's GDP per capita is roughly £11,000 lower (that's $14,883) than it would have been had pre-2008 growth trends continued.
That extra income would put Britain back in or near the Top 10 American states.
Over at City AM — a UK publication — Callum Price asked readers to "Look at Argentina, where there is currently underway the sort of economic revival that politicians dream of delivering on the back of fundamental free market reforms." And now, back to your regularly scheduled examination of Britain's woes.
"But pre-Milei," Price went on, "Argentina was wrestling with inflation in the triple figures – do we have to get there before we can take our own chainsaw to the state and unleash the market to deliver the prosperity we want and need?"
Almost certainly, yes.
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