There are lots of jobs in the UK right now - in fact there is a labor shortage.

What we don't have is large domestic natural resources, or access to the global market guaranteed by force of arms. We used to have that, but we had to give it up due to the Second World War and also morality (admittedly that part came with hindsight and without prerequisite contrition and apologies).

Sacrificing public health systems and educational programs in order to enforce the largest military empire in human history might also have something to do with it.

Europe on the other hand spent their money on populist programs that kept their leftist politicians elected - and now it’s once again counting on good old USA’s help to keep the invading hordes at bay.

Both Texas and California struggle to keep the power on. They both make memes about it, too.

Correct. The UK doesn’t have a large domestic market or much in the way of resources. The US has both.

> The US is the most deregulated, pro-market, capitalist developed nation of size

Well, here in the US, I still buy electricity from the government. Consumer energy deregulation in the UK started in the late 80s and electricity has been sold through private companies for years.

It's not so much energy deregulation that's the problem, more the fact that we gave away the resources of oil and gas for peanuts and now pay through the nose for them, compared to say Norway or Saudi Arabia where they oil and gas stayed as a semi-state-owned resource.

The problem Europe has isn't regulation, it's that it doesn't have the continent-scale easily-accessed shale oil the US has. Also that it shares a border with Russia. These problems are geographic, not something a government can change.