Donald and Elon: two immature guys running the entire US economy.

The Adam Smith Institute is as right wing, free market, small state etc. as Liz Truss. Adam Smith himself would be horrified at their interpretation of his work.. They are trying to prove that their economic vision brings great prosperity to a nation....

There's a £9k difference between those figures. Where did Truss's £25k come from?

The US has 38 million citizens living below the poverty line of $13.788 p.a. (roughly £10.66) There must be a helluva lot of very wealthy people to bring average individual wealth $58,136. But the US does have 735 billionaires and 22 million millionaires...

It’s an easy cliche to automatically trash Liz Truss. After all she wasn’t the chancellor and what freaked out the market was Kwartang’s (backed by Truss as Starmer backs Reeves) wanting to borrow so much to pay everyone help through the energy crisis. The drop of 5% of higher earners tax from 45-40% was negligible. She’s become the knee jerk go to for every financial slur. Yet she had held 8 cabinet posts was liked by her teams for her hard work. I’m not a Tory, I never voted for her but am sick of this unthinking rubbish. Do you think if Reeve’s budget fails Starmer will be jeered at forever? Or perhaps it would be the woman.
Going back to Trump and Musk, it is very silly to try and belittle them as childish fools when their overriding characteristics are as extremely successful men. This is not a fluke. The democratic will of the people was overwhelming, and Musks entrepreneural gifts are legendary. What made him back Trump was his horror of the power of the ‘progressive Left’ in California that had persuaded his gay son that he was trans and given him puberty blockers and hormones when he was still a child (16 in the States) enforcing compliance by Musk under the threat of so called risk of suicide. (‘ better a live girl than a dead son’) He will stop that. Good.

Thank you for doing the maths, Maisie. Had suspected as much.
I am in no doubt about who will suffer under Trump.

Oh, come on, David grin How long do you think it will take to make a difference?

I would say the US has got a better chance of achieving their aim than the UK, I wish Starmer well but there will be too much opposition from his own party to do what is needed.
He has to take notice of the leftwing Trump will just ignore them.

The other reason is that the UK is intending to pursue an environmental agenda and needs to borrow to do it. Maybe that is the right long term aim, Trump is doing the opposite “pump, pump, pump” oil and gas, he's planning to use home resources to boost short term improvement.

schnoodlelove Your version of Elon Musk's child doesn't correspond with what the child herself claims:

www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665

MaizieD

growstuff

Something which might affect the UK is the export of cars. The UK exported $7.5 billion worth of cars to the US in the year ending June 2024.

I have read somewhere recently that UK exports to the US are worth £300billion. Tariffs on everything will affect a bit more than car manufacturing..

Despite Truss's figures the election results seem to tell us that a great many Americans feel poor. The top reason given by most for their vote was 'the economy'.

Given that, I'd still like to know how Trump's plans are going to improve the US economy.

Yes, I agree. The US is the UK's biggest single export market. Cars are the second most valuable export and the US is a huge export market for the UK. If the 'rust belt' is regenerated and the number of home-produced cars increases, there's no way that the UK won't be affected.

I picked on cars because it's such a big chunk of the UK's exports. Other exports will no doubt be affected, but to a smaller extent for each product/service.

“The US has 38 million citizens living below the poverty line of $13.788 p.a.”
That’s around 10% of the population

The UK has 22% below the poverty line according to Joseph Rowntree Foudation

Wyllow3

Thank you for doing the maths, Maisie. Had suspected as much.
I am in no doubt about who will suffer under Trump.

I'm not totally confident about my maths'. I'm not sure if Truss's figure was per capita wealth for each of the whole population of any age or just adults, and I don't know if the Adam Smith figure is income. If it's income, is it average or median (they are different..)? There is no doubt that a 'middling' US citizen has more wealth than an equivalent Brit, but I doubt if it's quite so much.

A large number of UK cars sent to the US will be Jaguar Landrover, unlike many other brands they don’t have a US manufacturing plant, European cars built in the US have a big advantage

Median income in the US is $84k that’s £67k the lowest group is Black with £44k, highest are Asians with £100k

I think the UK median is around £32k? So I’m pretty confident they are considerably better off.

David49

A large number of UK cars sent to the US will be Jaguar Landrover, unlike many other brands they don’t have a US manufacturing plant, European cars built in the US have a big advantage

A steep increase in tariffs and heavy nationalistic marketing could change all that relatively easily.

Disaster economists think it impossible to reduce the size of the State. But the entrepreneur will show them otherwise.

Let's deal with facts. NASA, a government agency estimated a budget of $ 4 billion to develop a partially reusable rocket. Musk's SpaceX built and successfully demonstrated one for $400 million - 1/10th of what NASA projected, an that's assuming that they even managed to build it for the estimate. The same likely applies to every single aspect of government.

This duo of Musk and Ramswamy will FINALLY attack horrendous government waste and inefficiency.

Meanwhile in the UK public spending is set to grow ever larger.
Of that I am convinced.

nanna8

Give them a chance, they haven’t even started yet. Financially I think Trump will actually be better than Biden though not in other ways.

Why would you think that ? His businesses were for the most part failures . He will once again enrich his wealthy friends with tax cuts for the uberwealthy .

Well we have to agree to disagree then. The UK needs its own Elon Musk. The overmanning, waste and inefficiency in government departments is off the scale.

Why, for example, does the MoD require 63,000 civil servants, when the army is down to 72,000 and the Navy and RAF half that number each?

Why does the NHS need 650,000 non-medical staff accounting for 48% of its workforce?

Why does HMRC fail to collect £10 billion in taxes annually? The list goes on, sadly.

We get the likes of Paula Vennells. I’m so jealous.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Disaster economists think it impossible to reduce the size of the State. But the entrepreneur will show them otherwise.

Let's deal with facts. NASA, a government agency estimated a budget of $ 4 billion to develop a partially reusable rocket. Musk's SpaceX built and successfully demonstrated one for $400 million - 1/10th of what NASA projected, an that's assuming that they even managed to build it for the estimate. The same likely applies to every single aspect of government.

This duo of Musk and Ramswamy will FINALLY attack horrendous government waste and inefficiency.

Inefficiency is a characteristic of many governments including the UK, they simply have no grasp of economics in the real world. Empire building is rife, the more you employ the more important you are

Trump and Musk may well be immature, but at this moment they are rich, successful and powerful, by their own efforts.
That doesn't mean I support them, but you ignore them at your peril.

mae13 Who says they are immature and what is your definition of immatirut? Two very successful businessmen who have made a lot of money nd at least one of which wasn't very fussy how he made it.

I cannot see any immaturity in that. or do you just mean you do not like them. In which case say what you mean.

eazybee

Trump and Musk may well be immature, but at this moment they are rich, successful and powerful, by their own efforts.
That doesn't mean I support them, but you ignore them at your peril.

Didn’t Trump inherit his money from his father. And hasn’t he been bankrupt several times?

And hasn’t Twitter/X devalued greatly since Musk bought it?

Yes to both.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Well we have to agree to disagree then. The UK needs its own Elon Musk. The overmanning, waste and inefficiency in government departments is off the scale.

Why, for example, does the MoD require 63,000 civil servants, when the army is down to 72,000 and the Navy and RAF half that number each?

Why does the NHS need 650,000 non-medical staff accounting for 48% of its workforce?

Why does HMRC fail to collect £10 billion in taxes annually? The list goes on, sadly.

We get the likes of Paula Vennells. I’m so jealous.

Evidence please!

What's your occupational background? I bet anything you like it's not in policy or anything very senior. If it were, you'd know what you're talking about.

Found this today from the Open Britain Team

"But now, Elon Musk will help head up the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with former Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The irony of the “efficiency” department having two co-leaders is not lost on any of us.

Technically, it’s not an actual department, more of an advisory bureau.

That means, surprise surprise, Musk will not have to go through the arduous Senate-approval process for his new position

DOGE’s role, aside from boosting the value of a dodgy cryptocurrency, is to advise Trump on dismantling the regulatory state.

Will the richest billionaire in the world specifically target the regulations that limit his own profits? It’s hard to see how he wouldn’t

There’s a word for this phenomenon: oligarchy

A billionaire president and his billionaire friend are laying out their plans to strip the country for parts.

Musk has no electoral mandate to be involved in this process in any shape or form, and it’s no wonder he’s opted to dodge even the flimsy accountability processes the US has in place

Things are about to get dark Stateside, and quickly. Rep Matt Gaetz (convicted sex-trafficker) will run Trump’s law enforcement, Tulsi Gabbard (known purveyor of Putin propaganda) will be the nation’s intelligence chief, and a former Fox News host will run Defence. What could possibly go wrong

Now why did they get to be millionaires? Bull crap and bluster may be part of it but it isn’t the whole story- they know how to make money. The jury is out as to whether this can be broadened to cover their country. Either way I think my country and your country will be worse off because they will focus purely on the USA and won’t give a rats about us except, possibly,where they might gain a benefit.