Which economy is thriving more? Great Britain, Japan, France or Mississippi? The answer, of course, is Mississippi. In 2024, our state’s per capita output reached $53,872, surpassing Japan ($32,859), France ($47,954), and even Great Britain ($52,369).
This year, Mississippi is poised to overtake Germany, whose output is declining amid recession, while our state grows fast. When I point this out to some of my Euro friends, someone often asks about Purchasing Power Parity. “Surely”, they say, “if you take into account the purchasing power of a dollar on our side of the Atlantic, Mississippi’s lead over Europe disappears”. Not so. Actually, if you consider the different purchasing power of a dollar in our state, Mississippi’s lead over Europe grows even longer. Europe is falling behind not due to any statistical sleight of hand, but because of bad public policy. Taxes in Europe and Japan are too high. Labor markets are inflexible. Energy costs in Europe are insanely high thanks to decades of renewable dogma. Mississippi is now one of the fastest growing states in America thanks to good public policy. In 2021, our state implemented significant labor market reforms (as proposed by MCPP). In 2022, Mississippi implemented flat tax reform (again, MCPP led the way).
Our state has kept energy costs low by avoiding the renewable boondoggle. In 2024, our state adopted school funding reform that gets more money into the classroom (again, MCPP policy). This year, our state legislated to eliminate the income tax. (Modesty precludes me from pointing out that this, too, was MCPP policy being implemented). Thanks to these free market reforms, our state is on a roll. Disposable income per person in Mississippi now exceeds that of all the major European economies like the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, too. There is so much inward investment pouring in that this week, when another $6 billion project in Rankin County was announced, it barely raised a ripple of comment. As I keep pointing out, we’ve had more economic growth in Mississippi in the past five years than over the previous fifteen. This year, Mississippi and Alabama, once dismissed as the economically backward south, will manufacture more cars (about 1.5 million) than France or Britain or Italy. Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and former member of British Parliament.
This post is a paid advertisement.
24 comments:
Quality of life is diminishing in both MS and Europe. I've been all over Europe from the Mediterranean to inside the Arctic Circle, from London to Paris, from Spanish beaches to Austrian Alps, as a backpacking teenage tourist with a 1st class Eurail Pass, before the massive influx of Muslim migrants.
The vistas, art, and ancient architectural splendor, the simple pleasure of village cuisine was all better than you've ever seen in photos or read about.
In the 30 years I've been here, MS has remained a backwater of crime, utility poles and mostly ugly visuals enveloped in swamp miasma. Exceptions abound if you stay out of Jackson and other deteriorating ghetto towns, but in between are Hwy 49 South, the stink of greasy Fair food, racist rants of bouncing belly brigades and bloody murder maps documenting how 'Sippians treat each other. Some here are killers and I have cleverly sidestepped the business end of a man's shotgun that he pointed at me for 200 yards walking to a dove field, until he laid the gun over his shoulder and fired at my head with his fkg thumb! OK he missed, but I felt the whoosh of the pellets just miss the side of my head! So I trust very, very few here in MS, never hunted again, love my family, and enjoy trips to Texas.
Which one is closer to a recession?
Propaganda
@2:52 nailed it
I have a problem with Mr. Carswell's organization being named Mississippi Center for Public Policy, Mississippi's Free Market Think Tank", which could be construed as he and the organization are in some official state capacity and being responsible for Mississippi policy. It's all his opinion.
if mississippi is just taking the world like gangbusters , why are we still the runaway per capita leader when it comes to federal welfare?
Biggest industry in MS is federal dollars flowing into the state.
“Mississippi is now one of the fastest growing states in America thanks to good public policy”
This is not true.
Mississippi is losing the young and educated to better destinations.
We were all told that changing the state flag would get companies lined up to come to Mississippi. SEC Championships would be played here. Fortune 500 companies would build g here in droves.
All we have gotten is a Bucees, an Amazon distribution center and a few data centers.
Mississippi has a terrible quality of life and a crappy airport in it’s capital city.
2:52 and 4:12 And yet you’re still here. Your presence belies your words. I personally love our state, warts and all
Excellent and accurate assessment. Mississippp is deliberately kept a backwater because of its backwater leadership that is corrupt to the bone.
... and accurate assessment.
Accurate according to you?
I don't recall being sold that Fortune 500 companies would locate here "in droves" but I agree with you completely that JAN is a dump.
Hog Wash! Japan's GDP is $4.49 trillion vs Mississippi's 122.4 billion. The per capita looks better (and not by much) ONLY because we have a smaller population.
Indeed, there is no economic measure or education measure you want to make with Japan.
You are clearly a propagandist not an economist. Try to learn something about the subject opining. Good " lobbyists" are smart enough to lie by omission only or a competent legislator will never believe a word they utter again.
7:30 pm I don't agree that the airport is "crappy". It is not for a city or state of this size and the amount of traffic. I've flown into airports all over this country and internationally. If you think comparing Jackson to Atlanta or any other "hub" is rational, you are nuts. I find our airport to be quick and efficient and the ladies' room is always clean. The employees are pleasant and the luggage comes out quickly. We don't qualify in size/traffic for some amenities like a Sky Club. If we did, I hope they wouldn't let you in.
Mississippi has improved a lot but still has a long way to go. Continue to improve education and lower taxes to draw in more opportunities. One thing Mississippi cannot overcome is the heat and humidity. It’s just not an enjoyable place to be outside, except in Fall and winter.
Well said. I’ve seen far more poverty in third world- just outside the resort gates.
There are smaller cities all over this country that have nicer airports than Jackson's. Your appeal to being a travel authority is weak boosterism since you are trading outright falsehoods about Jackson's airport condition.
Americans don’t travel. And before you go there with it, spending a few hours ashore at a cruise ship port of call is not travel. Military service abroad is not travel.
If Americans went to Japan or China, Singapore, Moscow, they would begin to get an inkling of what a turd world backwater the US has become. Shit works there. It’s clean. People aren’t loud and obnoxious. And they’re typically not fat asses.
I’d live in any of the above-mentioned, hell, this evening. But none of those have an immigration system in which one wades a muddy ditch in the morning and goes to work later the same day. Enjoy your Netflix, your porn, burgers and ballgames, though, while you’re able.
What is per capita “output”? It’s not GDP or income. Is the “output” the college graduates leaving the state for good jobs in other states.
Japan and north korea and china pay 2.50 per day with no benefits. Move yo ass.
@4:08 PM, Japan paying workers $2.50 per day is the biggest pile of — I was going to say horseshit, but I won’t call your horseshit declaration horseshit. Rather, that’s the lyingest assertion ever made here. Average Japanese salary is about $2300 monthly. Minimum wage is $6 to $8 an hour, depending on where one lives since minimum wage is set by the prefectural government and not the national government.
9:05- Elevators and escalators that often don’t work. Extremely limited food and drink choices. Luggage that take three forever to get off plane and to the belt. Employees with bad attitudes.
Extremely limited routes with rare direct flights. Expense flights.
I travel weekly for work out of the dump at JAN and it’s terrible. I have flown into bog and small airports across this great nation, and JAN is by far one of the worst.
A “clean” bathroom isn’t where it starts and ends, you silly goose.
State needs to take the air over and upgrade it to the. 21st century.
It’s a JOKE, just like the leadership in Jackson.
You forgot to mention the shrimp, frog legs, nutria and tilapia that are bred, raised and harvested in shit ditches in all those countries....and we grab ten pounds of that radioactive crap by the box at Kroger and can't wait to order that crap with our wine at the 'top o the line' fine dining 'stablishments here.
Do you not know the meaning of 'per capita' and that your 'smaller population' remark is nullified by the very definition of 'per capita'?
Post a Comment