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Notes -
Britain was exceeding the US standard of living in the middle 2000s. This was largely an artefact of exchange rates and over financialisaton but it was common place for middle class families to not just holiday in the US but specifically go there for shopping trips. Semi-regular trips to Florida, shopping in New York and so on was within reach for swathes of the PMC and even upper-blue collar workers as the exchange rate was 2:1. I distinctly remember video games that would cost £30 costing $30 (and thus being half price). This era, combined with the standard "free healthcare and no shootings" mantra that Europeans love, meant we could genuinely argue for a better standard of living than our cousins over the pond. This all collapsed from 2007-2009 and never recovered. Obviously it was an unsustainable period in retrospect, fuelled by sell offs and credit, but you didn't hear of people leaving to go to Australia and such in that New Labour era. Now that world seems a million miles away.
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