Zen10

Point taken.

Ah, but what a private insurance company gives, it can just as easily take away.


!

Heaven help us all. Surely Obama must secure a second term!

snowbunny

I tend to agree with you, except that the massive unemployment was really only stopped in the 1940s when the rest of the world conveniently blew each other to bits, leaving us as the last source of goods standing.

Several Republicans have noticed this, and attempted to re-create it by unilaterally blowing other countries to bits.... but not nearly enough to help the country - only their cronies who got contracts to rebuild.

Then again, the job loss from all developed countries is horrific. With already high debt levels, can all the developed nations do a WPA/CCC?

HumphreyC

That's absolutely true - it's the U-6 rate in the U.S which is 15.3 percent. That includes people not in the labor force, but want and are available for work and had looked for a job in the prior year. The measures that are used are a real problem.

In the UK they had this argument back in February because the U6 unemployment methodology isn't used there. The TUC made an attempt at calculating it and they determined the real unemployment rate is something like 6.3 million if you apply U6. I think that's about 21.7% - which sounds too high to me - U6 is usually around 1.8 * U3 (the headline figure).

I have heard that the Spanish unemployment rate might not be as bad as made out because people have a tendency to claim jobless benefits even when they are working and there is a significant black market economy. No idea if that's true or not or what that does to the overall rate.

snowbunny

It's true, and it cuts into tax revenues. Which is why governments are concerned about unemployment rates.

Steve_

These are reasons to leave the UK, not necessarily reasons to move to the US although 30 years ago the US wasn't such a mess.

Frankly I find class distinctions to be growing quite profound in the US, not in the UK sense but definitely social mobility is limited. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer.

sir_eccles

I suspect that for many of the people who do not neatly fit into the love, job or investment categories there is some underlying personal issue which they believe can be solved by simply moving (aka running away from the problem). Sadly they will usually end up realizing that the problem will follow them where ever they go unless they seek help to fix the problem first. All these comments regarding the things they don't like about the UK are more likely symptoms of the underlying issue (such as depression) rather than deep felt feelings about the UK itself.

Amateur psychology 101.

HumphreyC

I don't know about that. 30 years ago was 1982...

The US economy was still feeling the effects of high oil prices after the Iranian revolution and sharp interest rate increases. Home sales plummeted. The industrial base was decaying (which led to the rise of the Sun belt). Unemployment was above 10%. To cap it all off Reagan was in charge.

The music was good though - Thriller, Marvin Gaye, Rocking the Casbah. Shame I was a year old at the time.

Steve_

I wouldn't say play it safe necessarily, but you should have some logical reason, I have logical reasons why it would make sense for me to move there, i.e. family and friends and the weather isn't so bad during the winter. But logically when I look at it, I'd pay way more for healthcare (on the order of thousands of percent) and also the govt. there is highly dysfunctional. They can't even agree on getting rid of the $1 bill.

It's not as if Canada is some fantastically better place either, it's not like the govt. are miracle workers, it's just that it's not badly run. I read some survey that said compared to the EU the Canadian healthcare system would rank near the bottom, but imx it's a heck of a lot better than in the US and I have a lot of experience.

Here is one example - in Canada the postal service is only subsidized by the govt. slightly, basically to provide service to remote areas. In the US, the USPS is subsidized by getting cheap US treasury loans. You get enormous amounts of junk mail, but the service is relatively quick, cheap and you have Saturday delivery unlike Canada.

In Canada also if you buy something from another jurisdiction, you have to pay your local sales tax on it, you can't avoid it like you can in the US by buying from another State.

As a result, companies like Amazon don't do so well here. Amazon is effectively subsidized by the US Govt. giving loans to USPS. This causes problems for retailers. In Canada, people go to the shops, it's quicker and cheaper (because you can't avoid the sales tax, so Amazon cannot subsidize the postage). In the US your taxes effectively subsidize the delivery of junk mail.

The US Govt. could simply pull the rug out from USPS, but will that ever happen, no because of endless lobbying from so and so about Saturday delivery, so instead there is some half ass measure that saves only a small amount of money and doesn't solve the problem.

And that is exactly what happens on US public policy issues all the time, whatever it is.

It's just this never ending general ineptness about everything that makes me wonder what the appeal of the place is nowadays. Basically there is a lobby for everything because the population is so large and people in Congress need so much money for their campaigns there is total gridlock.

Immigration laws being another perfect example, QED.

Where is it all going to end?

Sally Redux

I think a lot of Brits are actually quite sheltered and think they have it incredibly tough in the UK.

GeoffM

Agreed, but I guess it doesn't really seem like it until you move somewhere else that doesn't have the welfare and NHS backup that exists in the UK. You don't know how good you have it until it's gone!

Sally Redux

So true.

MarylandNed

Huh? The US was in a deep recession 30 years ago. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.8% in Nov 1982.

dunroving

Did you teach university in the UK? I think in some professions (like university teaching and research), working in the US is far more attractive than the UK. I was wondering whether you came from working in the UK, or US university teaching was your first experience in academia.

Derrygal

As we all know, Brits like to moan and groan about everything!! I'm not saying it's wonderful over there and I know there is a recession, but many people (including some very good friends of mine) seem to be doing okay, taking two (and sometimes three) vacations a year, eating, out, etc. My friends back home find it hard to believe that I haven't taken a week off work since 2010 since I have been saving my time off for a 3 week trip back to the UK later this month. They don't know how good they've got it back in the UK. It's just work work work here!! Gosh I really do need this vacation!!!

Sally Redux

Have a great trip