It becomes immediately apparent to any American who has the misfortune of visiting Britain how much worse of a country it is. Compared to America, everything is miniaturized and more expensive. The same probably applies to much of Europe, as well as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, but for this post I’m primarily going to focus on Britain. For the British, this is a permanent reality, and the data affirms that Britain, according to a wide variety of metrics, is a worse country than America – and not the ‘utopia’ that the American left makes it out to be.
First, Britain is significantly poorer than America, as measured in ppp-dollars (purchasing power parity), meaning a reduced standard of living:
Despite the outward opulence of the Royal Family and Buckingham Palace, Britain is even poorer than Mississippi, the poorest of all fifty states:
Fraser has used the average PPP for the US. But as we can see there’s different PPP adjustments for different States. If $100 will buy you $115 worth of goods in Mississippi this is the same statement as the correct PPP adjustment for Mississippi incomes, or in this case GDP, is 100:115. Or, if you prefer, Mississippi’s properly PPP adjusted GDP per capita is $40,400 or so: well above the UK’s $36,200.
The median household income for Mississippi, surveyed between 2010-2014, is $39,680. For the UK, a 2013/14 HBAI report gave median household income (2 adults) as £23,556. Converted into US dollars, that’s still only $30,500.
Compared to Americans, Brits pay much more for common household electronics:
Although the home ownership rate in Britain is slightly higher than in America, the homes are much smaller:
Electricity is more expensive: In the UK, it costs 22 cents per kilowatt hour; America is just 13 cents:
The CPI (consumer price + rent index) index for the USA is 66, vs. 78 for Britain:
The Nordic countries have among the highest costs of living…The same liberals who whine about wages in America not being high enough, yet sing the prasies of Switzerland and Norway, fail to realize that wages relative to living expenses for the Nordic countries is far worse than America. This means a lower standard of living because your purchasing power is so poor.
Overall, there is more crime in Britain than in America:
This maybe attributable to shorter sentences and a lower incarceration rate. The average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England. America also has its three-strikes laws.
Significantly worse stock market performance (FTSE 100 vs. S&P 500):
And Germany has those awful toilets.
In Britain (and much of Europe and the Middle East) the plumbing is weak, prone to failure, and the toilets have a narrow and shallow bowl (instead of a much larger volume of water like toilets in America), often resulting in shit frequently sticking the sides of the bowl. American toilets, especially modern ones you find in office buildings and major chains, have voluminous bowls and powerful jets, and thus nothing stays behind after flushing.
..as well as much worse survival rates for all major cancers:
America tops the list, wit the highest survival rates of all cancers.