Equivalency

From the Times Online: UK living standards outstrip US.

LIVING standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy.

The calculations suggest that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century of playing second fiddle to the Americans.

It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year, compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of the pound against the dollar but also the UK economy’s record run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s.

I know that these newspapers exist to go rah-rah-rah now that the Empire has gone bust but these people are morons.

What matters is not GDP/capita but how much that GDP/capita will buy you. In short, purchasing power.

After all, you can't eat pounds any more than you can eat dollars or eat gold. What matters is what you can buy with it, and it is a generally well known fact that things are priced much higher in the UK than they are in the US. Typically, they are somewhere between 1.5X and 2X more expensive, and hence, I'm willing to bet that the average UK family is far worse off than the average US family.

Eat that!