Last week US Vice President J.D. Vance pointed out a home truth about the politicians who have run Canada and Britain this last decade or so. They’ve made some terrible calls, especially as regards mass inwards immigration.
To start, Vance pointed to my native Canada and noted that it now has the highest foreign-born share of the population of the entire G7. And its living standards have flatlined. Take the start of 2016 as your baseline for GDP per person. Remember, then ignore, that at that time the US was already noticeably wealthier than any other Anglosphere country. So its starting baseline was higher. But ignore that. And then deem 2016 wealth per person to be 100 in each country. Know what? Nine years later you find it is 117 in the US.
But in Canada it’s just 103 – virtually no per-person GDP growth in a decade. And, the US Vice President also pointed out that Britain is barely any better. The UK is languishing at about 108. (As Vance didn’t mention Australia I looked up the stats and did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and we seem to be between Britain and Canada, call it 106, and then thank God for Canada or we’d be bottom of the table – and these are the Turnbull, Morrison, Albo years.)
That is basically negligible economic growth per person in the non-US Anglosphere because the Kiwis are woeful too – which is why all of our Keynesian overlords and supposed experts who trot out economic data always, always, insist on trumpeting on solely about overall GDP. Because that measure is biased towards government spending and massive immigration.
Live on an island of 100 people and let in 100 more in one year and your GDP can’t help but go up big time while everyone’s personal prosperity tanks. Remember, GDP measures global economic activity. It’s the per person component that tells you how individuals like you have been faring. In the US, wealthier to start with in 2016, the per person GDP growth has been 17% in a decade. A much poorer-to-start Britain’s has been half of that American per capita growth. We in Australia are less again. And Canada, during all the years when the Leftie-luvvie Justin Trudeau was PM, has barely seen any per-person increase....<<<Read More>>>...
