If the UK was a US state, it would be the poorest in the country: Mississippi wages, with Californian housing prices.
So, Spud tells us why:
Third, the consequence is the dominance of the financial services sector and rental income within our economy, both of which indicate extractive activity since neither creates added value of any consequence.
My guess is that some work on OECD GDP datasets might illuminate this, but I doubt I have time to do that today. If anyone else has the data though, please let me know.
Finance 8.3% of US economy. Finance 83% of UK economy. From Mr. Google.
Well that typo didn’t make too much difference……
Ah but what %age of the Mississippi economy is finance? The answer will demonstrate why Mississippi is poorer than NY state.
Third, the consequence is the dominance of the financial services sector and rental income within our economy, both of which indicate extractive activity since neither creates added value of any consequence.
A rather remarkable claim, even for Spud.
Added Value
Does Murphy have the intellectual capability of being a Marxist ? Does he cling to the old boy’s theory of production ?
Can’t help but think he might have hit on something, inadvertently. Since there are only goods & services & the tokens of value we use to aid exchanging them, “finance” is largely about who in particular temorarily possesses the tokens.
@ bis
The “finance sector” includes insurance, without which many businesses would be unable to operate. Without insurance to guarantee payment in the event of an unexpected disaster (expected disasters are rarely covered), many businesses would need capital backing in the form of easily liquefiable assets in excess of six months turnover in order to gain credit on reasonable terms from suppliers. A Civil Engineering business might need capital backing of three or four year’s revenue to support a major project.
An expert on the way to minimise tax liabilities for actors and entertainers may not be aware of this.
John. I’m probably aware of the benefits of what some financial services provide as well if not better than you do. Particularly what beneficial uses premium incomes can be put to whilst awaiting payouts on claims. Having spent some years at the sharp end.
dearieme. Much of New York’s finance industry is, of course, in New York City. New York itself is a large state and much of it is a pretty hardscrabble place, though New York City’s average income may pull the state up above Mississippi’s, but without NYC I wonder how much higher it really is.
@ bis
Yes, but is Murphy?
Murphy is clearly an idiot. Retweeted him, including him by name, pointing out his errors the other day. It’s just factually wrong in so many ways. He practices ‘argument by assertion’ and gets invitations as an expert as he says a little more than people think is true so he has the air of credibility in their eyes.
It’s the underlying dynamic that makes it so damaging.
If the UK was a US state, it would be the poorest in the country…
And it would be full of wogs who talk funny, can’t cook and don’t understand the concept of dentistry.
W. Virginia?
West Virginians don’t talk as funny as you’d think, can cook with the best of them, and do understand the concept of dentistry (though a certain percentage just don’t care about it all that much).
They may be poor and a bit backward, but they’re smart enough to know that a slice of cucumber between two bits of bread isn’t a real sandwich.
Of course it won’t be anything to do with the UK government taking around 35% of GDP in tax, against the US’s less than 25%. No, no, I’m sure Murphy will find that’s utterly irrelevant.
Spud, here is spot on! All readers are encouraged to read Brian Hodgkinson’s “How Our Economy Really Works”.
@ John Pablo
UK Financial Services 8.3% of economy, including Lloyds of London which gains most of its value-added from (re-)insuring foreigners.
Firstly that does *not* amount to dominance. Secondly the 91.7% of the economy is generating much less per head than the 91.7% of the US economy that is not financial services.
The UK public sector amounts to 45.6% of GDP, more than 5 times as much as financial services and much of it is appallingly inefficient, acting as a drag on the private sector.
My (pretty long) experience of working in the US compared to Europe, as an Englisher:
– Americans are much more businesslike about business. There’s no shame about trade, and all levels “make” rather than “earn” money
– HR is directly involved in HR, and basically work for the operations managers. #LazyGirls need not apply. There’s corporate level baloney on top, but even that tends to be positive
– They’re battling the same Creeping Gibs syndrome that the Europeans are, but are actively battling
– HQ in Germany explains East Germany very neatly
–
Exactly how much added value does Spudmania Blog create? Or does his living on unearned income constitute what the socialists call parasitism?
Disclosure: I am a fierce critic of that other pseudo economist-philosopher and oxygen thief Murray Rothbard whose sources of income were blatantly parasitic owing to his being unemployable.
Footnote to previous comment.
Example of Dartford Crossing, BBc (not an ASI supporter) reports some poor guy spending *ten hours* trying to pay his Dart Charge online without getting to the top of the queue and having to try again the next day. It takes less than 5 minutes to cross the bridge but public sector incompetence means it tokk more than one hundred times as long to pay for it.
“If the UK was a US state, it would be the poorest in the country”
So instead of all this tax-and-spend welfarism we’ve been pissing our wealth away with over the last century, we should copy what made America rich, right? Business-friendly regulation, laissez-faire, and low taxation.
Right?
Oi, Spud… right?
John, you are absolutely right. Being a Dart Charge account holder, I was told that I was told I would have to update my account details to remain on the system. But I could not do so until the day it changed. So, predictably, thousands and thousands of people (there are 150,000 crossing per day) tried to up date their details at once. Hence the difficulty. So, so predictable. I filed a complaint. Not yet addressed. When I asked why the charge had not been scrapped, I was told it was a congestion charge! Grrr! Just where else do they expect people to travel? And I’d have thought 4 mile queues to cross was enough of a deterrent.
Whenever there’s the (regular) cry to impose tolls on the M25 (in addition to Dartford), I point out that there’s nobody whatever on the thing that doesn’t absolutely *have* to be there. “It’s a lovely day today, dear, lets go for a drive round the M25” said nobody, ever.
We had a day out in Cambridge (from Bucks) a couple of weeks ago, and Google calculated the fastest route was round the top of the M25. It’s the fastest until there’s a shunt 5 miles ahead of you, when it suddenly becomes the slowest.
@ john re Dartford crossing fees
Last time I was UK side. (8 years back?) I hadn’t a clue how to pay it. No payments at the tunnel. There was some online thing but it didn’t like my foreign debit card. The website says look for your nearest Paypoint(?) outlet. There wasn’t one in Dartford. Think the nearest one was in Kent where I’d just crossed from. The only one I could think of in London, for certain, was at the bottom of the A10 in Tottenham. The service just isn’t a popular money transfer mechanism. So few outlets. Why’d they use it? Anyway thought foreign registered car. Trafico’s not going to falling over itself to supply ownership details UKwards, fuck ’em. Never heard no more about it.
And for regular M25 users: There’s about 30 km of highway loops round Malaga from here to the other side of the city. Including the 8 lane Churriana tunnels at 2.5 km long. Most of it’s 4 lane in each direction, except where it widens to 7 in the vicinity of junctions. Mostly it’s 9 /10th’s empty.
No doubt you paid for that, via the EU. Thanks (heart emoji)
@ bis
Foreign registered – not on the DVLA database, so they can’t trace you (unless they and your country of registration are willing to spend a multiple of the fine for non-payment to do so and your country of registration is almost certainly unwilling to do that unless you’ve mortally offendeda senior bureaucrat).
@BiS
Mostly paid for by the Krauts, though they did get to sell your countrymen more Beemers on the back of it. Just wait till the Dagos realise they’re going to have to start coughing up to support Rumania.
Biden is showing he is good for the economy, compares to the Tories.
‘Biden is showing he is good for the economy, compares to the Tories.’
I try for sarcasm Gareth. But here I must bow to the master!!!