The United Kingdom is an island nation off the coast of the continent of Europe. The nation is comprised of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The Country has a total area of 93,628 square miles. The total a total population of the United Kingdom in 2015 was 65,092,000 people, which is comparable to its neighbor France. A majority of the population are located in urban areas, only 17% of the population live in rural areas. The average life expectancy for its citizens is 80 years (“United Kingdom” Encyclopedia). The nation has had a long journey after World War 2. During in which the government owned and operates many different companies. The United Kingdom’s economy was recovering a sluggish pace. In the 1970s the UK joined the European Economic Community which has assisted them in getting them to where they are now. In addition the election of Margaret Thatcher as the prime minister in 1979, who ushered in capitalist polices which have shaped the United Kingdom’s modern economy. Arguably without Margaret Thatcher’s polices and admission in the European Economic Community the United Kingdom may still be trying to recover from World War 2.
In 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister she began to privatize state owned companies and to sell some off. Before she became the Prime Minister the government controlled all telecom services, utilities, and some of the oil companies (Seymour, Richard). In addition she also passed legislation, which took away some
Under the tyranny of Great Britain the colonist faced many hardships placed onto them by the parliament. Unconstitutional taxes were implemented for no reason other than to increase Britain’s revenue. In addition laws that disregarded man's’ natural rights were enforced by Britain onto the colonists. And because of these reasons the American colonist were justified for separating from Great Britain by declaring independence.
Whether or not there truly was a ‘post war consensus’ in British politics from 1951 to 1964 is a highly debatable topic of which historians can often appear to be in two minds about; on one hand, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson infamously described the period as ‘Thirteen years wasted’, whereas historian Robert Blake (a supporter of the Conservatives’, regards it as a ‘Golden age of growth’. The likes of Kevin Jeffrey’s even argue that consensus had even started before the war. Overall, the central issue was the idea of a mixed economy.
After WW2, Britain’s domestic life was in upheaval and most people wanted peace and to return to normal, the war also brought on an urge to broaden Britain’s wealth. This meant the new Conservative government was expected to
World War II was a period that changed many countries forever after the war ended: Germany was split in two, an iron curtain fell across the continent shortly after the war’s end, and acres of land and millions of people were destroyed and lost in the war. However, many changes happened during the war as well, and this is easily observed in Britain during the beginning of the war, when the country was constantly being bombed and attacked during the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain forced British citizens to change their mindset as a society and as a functioning economy in a split second, regardless of whether or not the people were ready for it.
Her economic policies were another success for Thatcher’s regime. Thatcher’s policies were monumental changes for Britain. Privatisation and deregulation were famous changes implemented by Thatcher. The policy of Privatisation has been called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism". After the 1983 election the sale of state utilities accelerated; more than £29 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised industries, and another £18 billion from the sale of council houses. The process of privatisation, especially the preparation of nationalised industries for privatisation, was associated with marked improvements in performance, particularly in terms of labour productivity. Some of the privatised industries including gas, water, and electricity, were natural monopolies for which privatisation involved little increase in competition. The privatisation allowed people to become more involved in the buying of shares in companies. Although this did not work as well as Thatcher would have hoped as many of the richer part of society bought as many shares at they could. Many people denounced this policy as an Elitist policy. The privatisation of public companies was combined with financial deregulation in an attempt to encourage economic growth. Geoffrey Howe Thatcher’s Chancellor of the
Britain as an Awkward Partner in the European Community Britain emerged from the war in a relatively favourable position, compared to its European neighbours. In 1946 industrial production was as high as at any time pre-war, and increasing quite fast. By the end of the year exports had regained their pre-war level along with this there was little unemployment and retail prices remained fairly stable. All this contrasted strongly with the situation in France, Germany and Italy. Indeed in the late 1940's and into the early 1950's Britain's economy performed better then it's European counterparts.
The UK is a sovereign country of almost 61,000,000 people comprising the nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A highly evolved democratic country
When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister the first thing she wanted to do was limit union power. She felt that union power applied to nationalized industrial monopolies resulted in poor service at exorbitant cost to the taxpayers. She pointed to inefficient work practices, over employment and restrictive employment
The “Great Recession” is commonly used to explain the massive economic contraction that occurred in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, the actions of the United States spanned to other nations, leaving massive effect on the global economy. One nation that took on serious financial burden during this recession was the United Kingdom. This nation first faced the effects of the Great Recession beginning in the first quarter of 2008. Overall, the initial mass effects on the nation can be attributed to the nation’s reliance on the financial sector. In fact, after partially stabilizing in 2009, the country struggled with a double-dip recession between 2010-12, and continues to struggle with some of these effects.
It provided the Allied Forces with roughly $45 billion of support, nearly $30 billion of which went to the British Empire. However, even with US aid, Britain was still devastated by bombing raids, which destroyed not only public works but private estates as well. Britain economy steeply declined and luxuries her citizens once took for granted, such as meat, bread, and tobacco, were rationed even post-war. For the first time in history, Britain was a debtor nation (“Lord of the Flies,” World 228-231). Although her economy is relatively stable in the 21st century, the United Kingdom was never as great as she was pre-World War II.
The economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Margret Thatcher since 1980’s has made the United Kingdom record steady economic growth in the 1990s. However, successive Labour governments increased government spending significantly. Since 2010, the government upheld austerity as the principal of its economic policy. In 2014, the country recorded its strongest economic growth since 2007 of 2.387 trillion dollars with GDP per capita at 39,350.64 dollars. The GDP increased significantly because of the enhanced performance of the construction, manufacturing, and services sectors. Retail sales also increased with unemployment relatively at lowest
George Bernard Shaw, a nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 once said, “If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion” (Mankiw, 1998: 34). Yet, an economic comparison between the United Kingdom and the United States could still be made to distinguish the country with the better economic growth performance. Important indicators when comparing economies is economic growth rate, which is a measure of the yearly rate of development rate of GDP using the market prices (Ros, 2013: 26). Another indicator is the GDP, which is defined as the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year (Mankiw, 2009: 521). Also, the inflation rate is used, which is a continuos increase in the prices for goods and services in the consumer price index and it is measured yearly (Herr & Kazandziska, 2011: 74). Lastly, the unemployment rate shows the percentage of people whiling and could work but do not have a job (Macdonald, 1999: 238). This report will compare the economic growth performance of the United States and the United Kingdom since 1990 using four indicators: economic growth rate, GDP, inflation, and unemployment rate.
The United Kingdom finished World War I a few years prior to the Great Depression, and was a big factor in the length of the depression. The reason why the U.K’s depression’s length was so long was because of the debt that the European countries had grossed during World War I. This debt that had to be paid, left the Europeans in a sticky situation, as they tried to rebuild their economy to what it once was. The effect of this debt and other economic problems had caused the unemployment rate to accelerate from one million to 2.5 million unemployed UK citizens, some cities even reached rates from as high as 70%. When other countries received the hit from the depression, Britain couldn’t export nearly as much as they used to. This was a chain reaction that caused the world to be effected as a whole, and what caused Britain to get hit so strongly. Great Britain didn’t use their Government revenue expansion very strongly to an extent, however later on did increase the
the United Kingdom country also known as Britain. it is called britain because the full name is. The United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland The capital of the United Kingdom is London which is one of the worlds highest in in leading commercial financial and cultural centres. With the United Kingdom being most similar to sweden in many ways like the ethicists and their nation's fiscal feachers and even their mountain ranges from their valleys however they still have their differences like their wages the United Kingdom gets paid on average six point thirty one pounds an hour which is about nine dollars and forty seven cents And some of the major countries consist of Birmingham Liverpool and Manchester also with England and Belfast
The GDP of the United Kingdom in 2016 was 2.619 trillion dollars. This represents 4.22% of the world's economy. “The GDP measures the national income and output for a given country’s economy” (Trading Economics). The GDP per capita is $39,899.39. GDP per capita is the total output divided by the number of people in the population. So you can figure out the average output per person in the United Kingdom. Per capita helps to compare one country to another, it shows the relative performance of the countries.