Rip off Britain stinks

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In theory Bill should not affect the median much.
However the tens of thousands of multi-millionaires created by Silicon Valley would.

However, I would imagine the median amount of inherited assets held might be more in the UK than US due to our aristocracy.

I think I would be paid less in the USA, but would pay less taxes, property would be cheaper, most goods would be cheaper and food would cost half as much as the portions are twice as large there.

Tempting, but friends and family and my businesses are based here.

We get BBC HD, less adverts, milder weather, cheap flights to Europe, proper beer, real chocolate, and don't have to travel hundreds of miles to get to somewhere different.
Overrall I prefer London to New York or LA.

Would be nice to have a holiday home in the USA and a TiVo series 3 though!

 

Sounds great - but I keep reading how the price of gas in the US has gone up alarmingly recently ... to about ... wait for it... 36p per litre!

 

Even your own Statement puts those in England in a better position:

As of Today:

1 GBP = 2.0 US Dollars. SO:

Median Household Income converted would be:

UK: $42k US: $48k

Keep in mind that the US has many many more People AND all the Wealthy ones like Hollywood Stars, Bill Gates etc, whcih throws out the Median Income alot.

Realistically, atleast 60 % of the population makes no where near $48k a Year.

We also have High Health Costs, No Employment Contracts like those in the UK (Holidays etc) and yes Gas is getting expensive. Today it is $2.89 a Gallon here in KY. It may not sound bad, but compare it to a Year ago when it was $1.79 a Gallon.

 

...and in the UK it's $7.53 per US Gallon (£0.98 per litre x 3.78 litres per US gallon x 2.03 dollars to the pound)

 

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As is my petrol

 

Er, yes that was my point?

No, I quoted median income - exactly 50% of the population earns that much or more. that's what median means. You are think of mean which does have the distortion effect you menation.

And your tax rates are way lower as a result. It's hard to make exact comparisons, but the income tax rate at earnings of £50k ($100k) is 25% in the US; here it's around 50%. The differential is similar at other pay levels. And we don't have "deductibles" in the same way you do either.

 

Well Tax Rates vary according to State. It also depends on which City, County etc you live in. For example here in Kentucky:

I pay: Federal Tax, State Tax, County Tax, City Tax. Ands thats before I even see a dime of my Pay Check.

Then there other Taxes, Petrol, Food, Internet, Phone etc. Hell they want to raise Ciggi tax up 125% on what it currently is.

But even still. Try finding someone making $100K here where I live, and its a City with 80,000 People. Somewhere along the lines you have been grossly misinformed.

 

Even the UK plays the "multiple taxes to disguise the true cost" game. You have income tax, national insurance, then local taxes. It all adds up to a pretty penny overall.

That's something I really like about Sweden, they have "Skatt" and that's it. It includes your national and local taxes, and once done, it's done. One rate you see and it's easy to understand.

 

You're forgetting one thing:

USA

We Love Bill! Let him put whatever he likes in the OS!

UK (well Europe really)

We Hate Bill!, Make him spend millions on his Attorneys as we bombard him with anti-trust suits

See, it's Brussels that makes Vista so expensive, not Microsoft

 

Correct !!!

We used to get Win2k for £23 a copy as we didn't install Netscape, AOL etc etc and we purchased in volume. If you want to install other non MS apps you would pay more (£36 per copy if you supplied Netscape I think).

After Brussels deemed this differential price charging illegal MS set a fixed price regardless of quantity and what you installed. It was £86 per copy !!!

So this is why Vista Business (equivalent of Win2K) is about £90 rather than £23 !!!!

This is also why new machines supplied nowadays are filled with so much other software crap evaluation/demo/sign-up/old versions etc.

 

Same here; we have local tax (split and varied by county and parish) and a blanket 17.5% sales tax for good luck.

I know nothing about your city obviously, but the average figures I quoted are US government sourced.

I have US friends who do very "normal" working persons jobs who have large houses and pools who would be living in ex-council estates if doing the same thing here.

I don't deny the existence of the American poor, but the American "doing OK" is much better off than their opposite number here.

 

It's more a case of the practice of segmenting markets and closing out competition allows companies to charge as much as they can get away with charging in each region.

It's something of a dilemma for me as I hate anti global competitive tactics like this, especially the practice of blocking the consumer from purchasing outside of their region, but I work for companies that do exactly that and the practice pays my salary ultimately.

The upshot of this is that we in the UK are perhaps more tolerant or resigned to paying huge prices so that's what they charge.

Thankfully some of these practices are at least illegal within the EU although it still doesn't stop them charging more in the UK, but we can at least buy from elsewhere in the EU without hindrance, issues with warranty or have import retailers threatened with legal action for importing (as Sony do to importers to the UK).