If you doubt any of the facts, please click on the links held within the article:

uk.news.yahoo.com/national-health-must-preserved-074900530.html

The reason why it should be kept is simple, the govt will NOT reduce taxation if it goes, if anything they'll raise it just as they have always done.
It must be remembered that Americans have way wayyyy more disposable income than the Brits hence why it's nothing like as painful for them on the whole.
There are ofc still poor people in the US but they are not buttraped anything like as much as Brits who are stuck with their situation IMHO

andyh wrote: Good point, yes, that's true. Don't forget that there are nearly 50 million Americans on food stamps, though.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
And most working families in Britain reliant on tax credits even with an income, so the situation in the UK is quite dire IMHO

andyh wrote:
Not to mention all the single boys and girls reliant to credits to top-up their 'part-time' earnings...'part-time' being all they can find.

The UK is far worse than it looks at first glance because so many people are reliant on state top ups.
Without them it would look like a third world country ffs lol.

The wages are so shit...I keep getting pestered with job offers in the UK for linux sys admins and they're offering like 30k and I keep having to tell them not to phone me unless they triple it.

is it so bad now? what has happened to this world.. used to be you nad a passion for something and you could make it your job, or you find a job you like. now theres people fighting for jobs and everyone is part time 2or 3 jobs. fuck you banks.

batou wrote: It's hard to judge whether the employment situation is worse in the UK or US. Certainly, the economic situation is worse in the UK, we are totally fucked. But what makes a big difference is that everything costs bare minimum 25% more in Britain than the States. Petrol / gasoline is in the region of 250% more expensive as well, which obviously makes a massive difference. There are European nations with a worse employment situation that Britain (Spain and Greece in particular), but Britain is a very odd, ancient, fundamentally undemocractic, class-ridden society in which absolutely bizarre things happen all the time that are considered to be normal.

I realise that doesn't make it sound that different to the US...