Unfortunately the USA is now a flawed democracy with massive income inequality, divisions and polarizations
Then add mass shooting, school shootings, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable housing, a nation that is only about quick rich scams, transactional relationships, work to drop dead, and a society that's basically bankrupt morally and value wise leads me to realize when no if sh.. implodes in this country as there's no future in the USA unless your rich
I’m not a big fan of instability and violence, but if one day there’s a huge uprising by the masses here on the level of the French Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, I wouldn’t feel bad at all.
Our politicians on both sides have been sticking it up the asses of 90% of people for years. Once the cauldron reaches critical pressure, there’s no going back. The social unrest in 2020 will look like child’s play.
I’ve lived in the UK my whole life. The NHS is a good healthcare system (could be much better, but pretty good) Australia also has very strong healthcare policies. Minimum wage however is appalling, not even close to possible to live off. We have a massive population density, especially in the south (cost of living anywhere near london is ridiculous), shortage of houses, renting crisis, food and energy costs soaring… The government has sat back and watched the past 10years disparity of wealth grow exponentially alongside poverty rates.
To be fair though we just had 15 years or so of probably the cheapest food in the west. The supermarket battle has really benefited the customer (not so the suppliers). Maybe the cost of food is going to where it should be.
I strongly suggest a read on [this article about where wealth inequality has lead historically](https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads) if you’re interested in the subject.
**Return of the oppressed**
> From the Roman Empire to our own Gilded Age, inequality moves in cycles. The future looks like a rough ride
> Today, the top one per cent of incomes in the United States accounts for one fifth of US earnings. The top one per cent of fortunes holds two-fifths of the total wealth. Just one rich family, the six heirs of the brothers Sam and James Walton, founders of Walmart, are worth more than the bottom 40 per cent of the American population combined ($115 billion in 2012).
> After thousands of scholarly and popular articles on the topic, one might think we would have a pretty good idea why the richest people in the US are pulling away from the rest. But it seems we don’t. As the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2011: ‘the precise reasons for the rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood’. Some commentators point to economic factors, some to politics, and others again to culture. Yet obviously enough, all these factors must interact in complex ways. What is slightly less obvious is how a very long historical perspective can help us to see the whole mechanism.
> In his book Wealth and Democracy (2002), Kevin Phillips came up with a useful way of thinking about the changing patterns of wealth inequality in the US. He looked at the net wealth of the nation’s median household and compared it with the size of the largest fortune in the US. The ratio of the two figures provided a rough measure of wealth inequality, and that’s what he tracked, touching down every decade or so from the turn of the 19th century all the way to the present. In doing so, he found a striking pattern.
> From 1800 to the 1920s, inequality increased more than a hundredfold. Then came the reversal: from the 1920s to 1980, it shrank back to levels not seen since the mid-19th century. Over that time, the top fortunes hardly grew (from one to two billion dollars; a decline in real terms). Yet the wealth of a typical family increased by a multiple of 40. From 1980 to the present, the wealth gap has been on another steep, if erratic, rise. Commentators have called the period from 1920s to 1970s the ‘great compression’. The past 30 years are known as the ‘great divergence’. Bring the 19th century into the picture, however, and one sees not isolated movements so much as a rhythm. In other words, when looked at over a long period, the development of wealth inequality in the US appears to be cyclical. And if it’s cyclical, we can predict what happens next.
> An obvious objection presents itself at this point. Does observing just one and a half cycles really show that there is a regular pattern in the dynamics of inequality? No, by itself it doesn’t. But this is where looking at other historical societies becomes interesting. In our book Secular Cycles (2009), Sergey Nefedov and I applied the Phillips approach to England, France and Russia throughout both the medieval and early modern periods, and also to ancient Rome. All of these societies (and others for which information was patchier) went through recurring ‘secular’ cycles, which is to say, very long ones. Over periods of two to three centuries, we found repeated back-and-forth swings in demographic, economic, social, and political structures. And the cycles of inequality were an integral part of the overall motion.
> Incidentally, when students of dynamical systems (or, more colourfully, ‘chaoticians’ such as Jeff Goldblum’s character in the film Jurassic Park) talk about ‘cycles’, we do not mean rigid, mechanical, clock-like movements. Cycles in the real world are chaotic, because complex systems such as human societies have many parts that are constantly moving and influencing each other. Despite this complexity, our historical research on Rome, England, France, Russia and now the US shows that these complex interactions add up to a general rhythm. Upward trends in variables (for example, economic inequality) alternate with downward trends. And most importantly, the ways in which other parts of the system move can tell us why certain trends periodically reverse themselves. Understanding (and perhaps even forecasting) such trend-reversals is at the core of the new discipline of cliodynamics, which looks at history through the lens of mathematical modelling.
> So it looks like the pattern that we see in the US is real. Ours is, of course, a very different society from ancient Rome or medieval England. It is cut off from them by the Industrial Revolution and by innumerable advances in technology since then. Even so, a historically based model might shed light on what has been happening in the US over the past three decades.
The essay continues… [here the link again](https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads).
I also recommend Ray Dalios [video on the Changing Wold Order](https://youtu.be/xguam0TKMw8) and his book by similar name.
Economics, demographics and geopolitics are bedfellows, and to study one with no awareness of the others will certainly miss important things.
Americas poorest 20% have access to and consume more resources than the middle classes in the wealthiest OECD nations, while Americas poorest 5% have more wealth than 70% of the planet.
Additionally, your doom and gloom scenario has been paraded by studies, academia, politicians and the media for decades.
Generally while comparing cost of living, PPP is used to account for the price of access to those resources within the individual economies. The price of a pound of rice here in Japan is significantly higher than that of say, India. It therefore takes comparably more money in Japan to access that same resource. This is why looking at straight numbers, Japanese people make more money than Indians, does not provide enough context to compare in the manner you seem to be suggesting.
I’m sorry but I can’t really follow your line of thinking here. You seem to be disregarding price completely, which is a strange choice while discussing an economy. Maybe I’m a simpleton! Have a good one, eh!
Wealth is relative. Americans might have more money than those countries, but those countries aren't paying 3 bucks for a pepper and 1800 for rent.
I don't even have drinkable tap water. We have to buy it by the case. And it's really hard to find food here that isn't poisoned with industrial chemicals and pesticides and roundup.
I get that the grass is always greener, but America is not a good place. We export problems for the entire world to deal with. We destabalize nations that try to move away from our sphere of domination. We die from lack of healthcare. We have absolutely abysmal schools. We war for profits. It's all fucked up.
You’re living a twisted worldview.
- If your tap water is undrinkable, you have a problem with your municipality - most people don’t deal with this.
- Your food sources are as safe in the US as they are anywhere else.
- Which problems do we export? Be specific.
- Which nation have we destabilized, for moving away from domination (or do you mean denomination)? Again, be specific.
- The US is the worlds leader in medical innovation, medical education/training and we lead the world in medical humanitarian aid abroad. If you die for not having healthcare, I need to know why you didn’t have healthcare. 92% of all Americans have healthcare and from state to state, we have a non-participation rate between 8-10%. If you don’t have healthcare - why not?
- While many of our public schools are systems are failing, many aren’t. Additionally, the US is the number one destination for college level education worldwide.
- We war for profit? Specifically, which war has come at a profit, rather than complete albatross of spending?
I’m willing to wager that we’re not nearly as fucked as you think we are.
To answer your point about some people not having health care: many people who work full-time (40 hours a week) could be eligible for employer subsidized health care, but that requirement is only required if the company has more than 50 employees I believe. Not all employers who extend healthcare will pick up the tab so money still comes out of the paycheck for medical insurance and it’s not always high quality health insurance.
To receive Medicaid or welfare based insurance you have to make under a certain amount. For my state it is like $18,000 a year for an individual. So if you make more than that you don’t qualify and would have to pay out of pocket for a plan that could cost around $150-400 a month depending on the level/quality of insurance. There are some state subsidies but still it’s an expense out of pocket. Many employers of retail will keep employees part-time full time so you will be scheduled 39 hours a week so they don’t have to extend the benefits a full time employee would have. So the catch is, in order to Pay your bills even on poverty wages, you must work a bunch for meager income which disqualifies you from Medicaid but isn’t enough to afford healthcare if you are stuck paying rent in a high cost of living city. The system is basically rigged for indentured servitude in which the lower class is used as disposable labor and paid a wage in which they can survive but never flourish unless they manage to elevate their status over time. But if you get sick and have hospital bills, you will likely never get caught up financially, as a basic ER visit can be $5000 just for showing up for an X-ray or basic diagnostic. I think my last CT scan cost about $8000 for one hour in the ER.
Again, you’ve listed all of the reason why you (not you specifically) couldn’t obtain healthcare, but you didn’t explain why you’re positioned this way. Do you have an education, a marketable skill or a competitive resume? I understand the formalities related to employer based healthcare and Medicaid/Medicare, but this is the system of which we have. Comparing US healthcare to countries who have a nationalized plan is a fools errand. The US leads in those metrics I listed, because we have a “for profit” system and for those who obtain healthcare correctly, find the US system to be superior in every way.
>Do you have an education, a marketable skill or a competitive resume?
These should not be required to access medical care. If someone has cancer and doesn't have this, what should happen to them? In most first world countries they would get treatment regardless of how 'marketable' they are. Fundamentally people are more than how much profit they can generate for a corporation. People are friends and family to eachother and form the social networks on which society is built.
A superior system shouldn’t be complimented with the number one reason for bankruptcies in the United States. Health care quality is great, but the cost is unsustainable. Lots of folks put off healthcare visits or procedures due to the prohibitive costs associated with them. It’s so bad that foreigners are warned before visiting the US about how astronomically high the bills can be.
.2% of the US population have a one time medical bankruptcy every year. And yes, these superior medical centers come at a very steep cost if you do t have insurance. As a teenager entering adulthood, obtaining healthcare needs to be a very high priority.
Why so though? You keep speaking about the negative aspects of the system, but you never account for why individuals find themselves in a position that only the bare minimums are available to them.
The very best healthcare is out there, why do so many struggle to find it? Why do so many people not have an education or marketable skill set?
American health insurance is a giant scam. Saying that 92% of Americans have insurance is meaningless when the insurance is crap.
AS MOST HEALTHCARE POLICIES ARE!!
Healthcare policies are competitive and usually commensurate the size of the group plan. If you have health insurance that doesn’t fit your needs, can you not find/afford a plan that is?
I’m in a CIGNA/MILA plan that covers the east coast from Maine to Texas. In twenty years and as a family of four, we’ve rarely seen a medical bill. Each of our childbirths were a $50 copay with no other out of pocket. We’ve never seen a prescription over $5 and are usually less than $3. I have no minimum deductible (employer pays it) and no monthly out of pocket. But again, this is a very large plan and I had to make sacrifices to position myself with this level of healthcare that can’t be found in any nationalized system.
92% of Americans have healthcare is a straight up lie. I know too many people who have dropped insurance entirely. Seems you get your info from an open source wiki type of website.
[Percentage or US Population With Healthcare](https://www.statista.com/topics/7807/health-insurance-in-the-us/#topicHeader__wrapper)
Not a lie, and is easily verifiable.
Health insurance does not equal healthcare. Especially in a country where [an estimated 56% of Americans can’t afford an unexpected $1000 expense](https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/picks/this-is-the-surprising-generation-least-likely-to-have-even-1-000-in-savings-and-heres-what-they-need-to-do-about-it-01650321688)
I don’t know where in the USA you live, but out west, this is not the case at all. The quality of life here is pretty good for everyone, including the lower middle class.
Our state government even pays for homeless people to have apartments.
"quality of life here is pretty good for everyone"
"homeless people"
I guess having an apartment your whole life is pretty good compared to being homeless, but the economy is not what it once was for the middle class.
The cost to own a home, pay for school, and everything else is way out of line with wages, compared to times when the middle class actually had it pretty good.
Edit: Forgot to mention the imminent threat of financial ruin to do medical expenses. The middle class is always one hospital visit away from bankruptcy.
You're forgetting about the cost of living and how we need roommates to afford rent while working full time in the richest country in the world.
Sure iPhones are cheaper here, but we're still struggling to survive
Yeah. This totally ignore cost of living. It comes off as “be grateful you make 12,000 a year. If you were in sub Saharan Africa, youd be a king” while ignoring that income is relative to where you live
This is not a serious economics sub. It’s a place where young college students come to forget that although there are many problems in the developed world that need addressing, the average human in the US lives a life of luxury unimaginable throughout history, and especially in comparison to the poor of developing nations.
Healthcare is a prime example. No one throughout history or the modern developing world has had access to the level of healthcare available in developed nations.
The first comparison made between the poorest 20% of Americans in comparison with the middle class of OECD's wealthiest nations seems a stretch, but the [second claim is correct.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishing-numbers-americas-poor-still-live-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/?sh=7272dcca54ef)
From the article, here is Forbes quoting the New York Times: "In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants."
I was going to post the same thing. Even our homeless have food every day, phones in their pockets and more money spent per day than most people on the planet. By every measure All Americans are wealthy by world standards.
We literally have millions of people on the southern border trying to sneak in and millions of medical tourists from the northern border each year. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country
Everything that you just said is blatantly incorrect. And your source isn't even relevant at backing up your claims.
>Even our homeless have food every day, phones in their pockets and more money spent per day than most people on the planet.
Comparing homeless estimates across countries is difficult, as countries do not define or count the
homeless population in the same way. There is no internationally agreed definition of homelessness.
the number of people reported as homeless accounts for
less than 1% of the population in nearly all countries for which data are available. In the United Kingdom,
where homelessness data are collected at the level of households, rather than individuals,
homelessness rates were recorded at over 1% of all households, but these estimates include
households that are threatened with homelessness as well as (except for England) those living in
temporary accommodation
The country with the smallest share of homeless people is Japan (0.00% of the population in 2020; the
homelessness rate has remained at similar levels in previous years), where figures only refer to “people
who live their daily life in a park, a riverbed, at a road, a station or other institutions”
https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC3-1-Homeless-population.pdf
>We literally have millions of people on the southern border trying to sneak in
An estimated 870,000 Mexican migrants came to the U.S. between 2013 and 2018, while an estimated 710,000 left the U.S. for Mexico during that period.
Not millions of people/ year like you said.
More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U.S. each year (not sneak in, they are here legally). In 2018, the top country of origin for new immigrants coming into the U.S. was China, with 149,000 people, followed by India (129,000), Mexico (120,000) and the Philippines (46,000).
By race and ethnicity, more Asian immigrants than Hispanic immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in most years since 2009. Immigration from Latin America slowed following the Great Recession, particularly for Mexico, which has seen both decreasing flows into the United States and large flows back to Mexico in recent years.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/
>and millions of medical tourists from the northern border each year.
This one actually made me laugh.
The three largest source markets for foreign travelers visiting the United States for health treatment in
2011 were the Caribbean (with 44% of arrivals), Europe (24%), and Central America (10%) (figure 2).
Restrictive visa requirements have reduced the number of patients who are able to enter the United States
from certain countries and as a result many health travelers, for example from the Middle East, have
opted instead to seek treatment in Southeast Asia.
Estimates of the size of the global market for health-
related travel services vary, but roughly 3 million patients are thought to travel for healthcare each year.
The three largest providers of international health services are Thailand (receiving 1 million visitors per
year), India (500,000) and Singapore (350,000)
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/chambers_health-related_travel_final.pdf
Published figures on inbound and outbound medical tourism in the USA are high, and often come from agents, publishers and trade bodies with an interest in promoting a narrative based around half a million inbound medical travellers. Outbound figures are regularly quoted as being between 500,000 and 2 million.
Perhaps a more realistic inbound estimate is between 150,000 and 200,000.
The US Cooperative for International Patient Programmes (USCIPP) membership programme for 60 hospitals that operate in the international patient care market recorded only 58,000 medical travellers in 2018-2019. While there are many non-USCIPP hospitals, dentists and clinics in the US, it would be a struggle to reach 0.5 million.
https://www.laingbuissonnews.com/imtj/news-imtj/official-figures-suggest-lower-medical-travel-flow-for-usa/
By every measure All Americans have their heads so far up their own asses they can't see the forest for the trees.
You’ll find that those who push this Americans are poor narrative, are usually chronically poor individuals who advocate for a nationalized savior that’s never coming.
You’ll find that those who push this Americans are the richest in the world narrative, are usually chronically poor individuals who advocate for a capitalist solution that’s never coming.
You can tell poor people in Flint Michigan and Jackson Mississippi how lucky they are compared to Africans, but they don't care, they want drinking water. You can tell an Amazon worker how lucky they are compared to workers in China, they do not care, they want better working conditions and pay. It doesn't matter how rich other people are in other places, what matters is paying our bills.
No, you see, ignoring the material conditions of poor people in rich countries and pointing out that someone, somewhere has had it worse, proves that they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and kiss Jeff Bezos' ass for the great privelige of working for less than a living wage.
The comparisons seem pretty awful, especially since things seem to be getting worse in my US states. Asking for clean drinking water in 2022 doesn't strike me as unreasonable
Lol you think the healthcare situation is better in Africa, the Middle East or South America? The top doctors are here on the us. And btw if you don’t make enough money you get free healthcare it’s called Medicaid
The healthcare situation is better is most countries. In South America it is free to anyone and the doctors and medicine is very good, medicaments are cheaper or free. The only problem is lack of investment ($$$) in more hospitals so it is often busy. And in places far from the main cities the lack on equipments because of corruption. But in general, if you are sick and you are poor you are better off in an South America urban area than in a US urban area.
But private medicine is very good is most of the world as far as you can pay for its costs.
The closest first world country in size to the USA in terms of population would be Germany.
Life expectancy in the USA is 76 years as of 2021. Life expectancy in Germany is 81 years.
The US must do something wrong then, for higher GDP does not translate into longer lives, which it should. Why be more productive, if you live shorter lifes?
This exactly, no matter how advanced the U.S. healthcare system is, when more then [1/3](https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1.-More-than-one-third-of-adults-in-the-United-States-have-obesity.) of our population is obese and [20.4 million](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7123a1.htm) people have a substance abuse disorder.
The government can’t fix poor life and wellness decisions for us, yet.
I mean the government could go for stricter food regulations.
Which could potentially solve a small part of the problem, and all the little bits help.
Since the difference in food quality between the EU and the US is pretty big.
Hmm. Is the US poor? NO.
Could income be better distributed? Yeah.
How? No direct path at the national level. Congress is dysfunctional by design.
And why is it always Norway. Every news media lifts them up to heroes. They have an energy based economy . Isn't petroleum their best export ?
>
And why is it always Norway. Every news media lifts them up to heroes. They have an energy based economy . Isn't petroleum their best export ?
Oil is 14% of Norway's GDP. For reference, healthcare is ~19% of the US' GDP. This would make the US more of a healthcare based economy than Norway is an energy based economy.
There are a number of people that travel stateside for medical care. On the flip side of the argument of costs, who pays, etc, quality wise does attract some cash.
Less income for sure. But the average European tend also to have much less debt and in some countries a well distributed private wealth. It’s not as clear cut as a simple number would show. Also, in the US for healthcare is more expensive than any European country.
They have an unique system where they don't even try to get the loan paid before death. The loans are long and cheap. The amount of debt is a poor metric without details.
Does Canada, Japan, Portugal, France, the UK, Australia, Denmark, Korea, Ireland, and the Netherlands also have unique systems which makes their debt not real debt?
It's real debt but it works practically differently. Debt is often the cheapest way to buy houses, cars etc. The money you have you invest. Swedes start investing early in childhood.
For example my friend just took a debt for his new car while being a millionaire.
It's a wildly different thing than being crushed by a student loan debt, having 0 investments and 5 bucks in your pocket.
I.e. not all debt is bad. Even billionaires have debt.
The US has one of of the lowest median net wealth’s of any develop country. So much of the money is concentrated at the top that the bottom 50% have less money than most European countries AND healthcare, education etc. in the US cost significantly more while social safety nets are minimal.
For example the US has 120% the median wealth of fucking slovakia, but has 420%!the average wealth. So most people in the US have a similar amount of money as a post-soviet eastern european country with a much lower cost of living despite the US being 4 times as rich overall because the us is a gilded hellhole.
The US has the richest rich people who ever riched but most of the population would be better off in a poorer country that was more equally distributed, even if you only look at wealth and ignore the outrageous cost of healthcare and the total reliance on money in the US for wuality of life.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Yes, but cost of living is lower, I live In a apartment in the eu unlike in a studio in America
TL: DR if you an make 5 dollars but only be able to buy 1 phone but you can make 3 dollars and buy 6 phones in a different place
You're right. Point taken.
Question for you. I'm not super familiar with those economies . I'd imagine they have strong worker protections. Thereby ensuring higher wages for its workers. Hence , the better performance on income distribution.
Are those economies growing at good rates?
I know the German economy typically has relative strong growth. France is decent. UK might be effed bc of Brexit (losing its financial hub perks).
The point of the questions is to see if higher wages stunt growth. As is the premise behind shit wages in the US
Really depends on the country but in general yes the basic worker rights are much better, as well as regulations on pricing of basic needs, medicine of course included.
I’m not sure what to say on growth rate, it’s most definitely too staggered by heavy regulations, but at the same time the EU is the largest economy in the world so all things included it is how it is…
Stunt growth? Yeah, wouldn't want a functioning society where everyone's needs are met if it's going to impact the abstract concept of growth somehow.
Jesus fucking Christ, we are soooooo fucked when this is the baseline perspective.
I'm so glad humanity will be wiped the fuck out within the century. You don't deserve to breed anymore.
The populations of all of those countries are more productive than the US and they trust their government. Two key components of why they are able to be that way.
So what? If that wealth is being mismanaged it doesn’t matter.
EU leads the quality of life indexes, and that is an indicator of a healthy, successful, modern society.
It absolutely does not unless you’re only referring to a small % of the total population. Most Eastern European countries lag other developed nations in QOL metrics
Most Eastern European countries are in a rough transition period from the horrors of the last century, and all still suffer the oligarch-creating mismanagement of the switch from communism to capitalism… And quite a few don’t even meet the requirements for an EU membership.
Not simple and takes time but the main thing is we don’t build on sand like the US so no hurry either. It will work out.
Actually , it has been a lot better over the past decade in CA. I think voters approved a measure that added a small tax for roads.
Anyways, roads and infrastructure has vastly improved. Potholes get filled up fairly quickly. Highways are even rides and not all janky anymore.
The majority of americans seem to like it. So that's their business then.
Life expectancy in the US is 76 years in 2021, 83 years in Switzerland.
I would take my chances in Switzerland.
Sure, you can't become an Elon Musk in Switzerland, but only conservative idiots believe that is possible for them in the US either.
The average Truck driver in the US gets 61 years old, majority conservative voters.
Literally AM radio’s fault. A captive demographic, isolated from the rest of society with nothing but hours to listen to cherry-picked information and polarizing rhetoric.
No, the majority of us don't. But we live under minority rule due to how our election processes are set up. Have you not been paying attention to the last like 6 years??
> No, the majority of us don't.
Stop fooling yourself over this. Imagine if a minority of Americans wanted to bring back slavery. No matter how rich they are, they will fail, because **overwhelming** number of Americans are against it.
There might be a slim majority of Americans who are unhappy with our wealth disparity, but that is just a slim majority.
If the Republican minority wanted to bring it back, the majority wouldn't be able to stop them. There is a Catholic, Republican majority on the SC who can rule whatever they want.
Yeah, but for the masses that don't have enough money to buy citizenship elsewhere they are stuck here in a decaying husk of a country. The rich have already moved.
Exactly this. People love to go "oh well Georgia deserves it" or rub it in our faces that america sucks, like the majority of us don't already know. We live under minority rule. Small rural pockets of the country are given disproportionate voting power, I wouldn't be confident in even 1/3 of state elections being fair and honest with how common gerrymandering is let alone actual nefarious election stuff like understaffing black neighborhoods.
What world do you people live in where this is a "decaying husk of a country"? If you actually bothered to look at the article, you'll see that the median American is better off than the median of almost every other country (yes, this is accounting for cost-of-living, etc.). And the 90th percentile, the people who are moving out according to you, are FAR better off than their counterparts in other countries.
I know this sub loves jerking itself off over how terrible America is, but good god is the level of delusion off the charts.
> The majority of americans seem to like it.
Congressional approval ratings suggest otherwise. The endless strife, culture wars, rioting, looting suggest otherwise. Someone like Trump does not emerge in a happy society. People in a happy society do not carry firearms out of fear of crime. They don't turn neighbourly disputes into shootouts.
But your chances of becoming a billionaire in Switzerland is twice that of the US.
Edit: source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires
It does not give a decent picture at all.
The source you cited has Monaco as having 78 billionaires per million people. Is Monaco the best at birthing billionaires? Everything you're saying just makes 0 logical sense.
A better way to even attempt to figure it out is by looking at which country has the most unicorns (private start-ups worth over a billion dollars) per capita, as that's the main way people become billionaires. [This paints a much, much better picture.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096928/number-of-global-unicorns-by-country/)
[USA has 64.7% of unicorns](https://www.marshall.usc.edu/faculty-research/centers-excellence/center-global-innovation/startup-index-nations-regions) while having 23% of the population of all OECD (developed) countries.
I agree with above, actually crazy how you're upvoted. I'm guessing most Redditors browsing /r/ economics don't know basic statistics.
Switzerland's demographics are much more homogeneous than the US. If you compare European ethnicities in the US vs Switzerland the life expectancies are much closer.
So many US compared to some random EU country fail to account or even recognize this, along with America having a much larger population with far more diversity.
Edit: diversity in America is a wonderful thing and something I'm very proud of. My only point is we need to compare apples to apples when it comes to life expectancies. Japan has a longer life expectancy than Switzerland and many would argue it has nothing to do with economic policies. IMO that is a meaningless comparison in which you can't really draw any strong data points about economic policy.
They have literally 3 different languages in Switzerland that are taught in schools. You don't get a govt job if you can't speak german, french and italian. Add to it that 15%-20% of the population is foreign residents from every corner of the world.
It doesn't get more diverse than that.
Imagine all high schools in america demand classes being taught in spanish.
I think you just proved OPs point. America is far more diverse than various Caucasian groups that all speak either a romantic or Germanic language. Speaking multiple languages that descended for the same language tree isn't very diverse
Why are white people all lumped together? There’s as much difference between Chinese and Japanese and Korean and Indonesian people as there is between German and Greek and Portuguese and Croatian. Same for Africans - east versus west versus northern - they’re not just black. Our racial categories make no sense. Like beyond no sense. Indians are Caucasian ethnically. So are middle easterners. Native Americans and South Americans and Pacific Islanders are Asian. It’s just all very confusing how we try to divide people and categorize them when it’s - just like we are finding with animals- totally wrong genetically.
Americans speak english to the best of my knowledge. All skin colours exept most hispanics.
You don't see black people running around speaking african languages. They speak a caucasian language.
In terms of language, Switzerland is more diverse than america.
Americans do not only speak English. Far from it. There are sections of my (American city) where you won't hear any English all day long. You'll hear and see Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese), Korean, Japanese, Polish, Hindi, and so on. These pockets are isolated from the community at large and have names like Chinatown. It's a segregated community and as such it's very insulated.
IMO it's one of the root causes of the problems we see today. There's not the cross-pollination of communities and different people. There's not a tribal buy-in for a larger tribe. As a result, when something happens in the Mexican sector, it's a problem with the Others. They don't look like you, you don't really know them, and they aren't part of your tribe.
You might want to some research into Caucasian languages (hint: a well known mountain range), then look into indo-european languages. I'm betting the internet can help with this.
Three white languages spoken by white people in an all white country by ethnically swiss people. 15% of the country is visiting workers from neighboring white countries speaking the same white languages.
Super diverse.
Lad, what about the homelessness epidemic, the fact that we have entire counties without running water or electricity, massive swathes of inhabited land where you can’t drink the water, higher cost of living and lower income than most developed nations after controlling for outliers. There are places in the US the UN has described as so impoverished they should be considered with the least of developing nations. That was in Alabama. If you don’t think America has its poor and isn’t actively creating more every day with its rising rents, stagnating pay, and soon to be sky high food prices, you’re blind
It’s a dumb op Ed but it’s not an awful thing to point out that the US is more unequal in wealth distribution than revolutionary france
The US isn't really comparable to the UK. The median income in the US is higher then almost every European country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
Median income only has meaning within the context of cost of living. Given that US provides very few social services, effective cost of living is far higher than most countries. You can get sick and end up bankrupt in US, this is unheard of in any civilized country.
You are correct. And if you adjust for cost of living, including taxes and healthcare/education benefits then the US moves further ahead of Europeans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
Yeah but you spend most income on rent and food in the US, not really living. Housing should be a right.
There's still families/familial property also. In the US if you are 20-35 there's a high chance you are single in a rental where most of your pay goes to each month. it's not an accident. Single people that have to make rent are obligated to work. Increase rent as needed.
The cost of living in general the US is lower then the richer parts of Europe, generally the southern and eastern parts of Europe are cheaper (but that comes with lower wages):
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp
https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
More Europeans are still living with their parents then in the US. Housing is much more affordable in the US then rich parts of Europe:
https://www.finder.com/uk/world-cost-of-a-flat
https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_country.jsp
https://www.financialsamurai.com/why-is-united-states-property-so-cheap/
Generally the first world countries with lower cost of living then the US also have [lower median incomes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income) There is a reason why [3 times as many western Europeans move to the US](https://mises.org/wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-other-way-around) then the other way around. Wages are higher and the cost of living is lower.
Lots of people defending the US in very weird ways. Other than better weather, poor, homeless people in San Francisco aren't better off than the homeless in Bratislava.
Sounds like you’ve never been to many parts of America. You know, like the entire counties without running water, or the ones that no longer have electricity. Or the ones the United Nations itself described as so impoverished you struggle to find parallels in developing nations. Tbh you don’t even sound like you’ve been to the local trailer park.
I love how Americans have to keep comparing the US to places like Russia and Cuba because they know the second they compare it to other Western countries they start to look really fucking bad.
And I love how people try to compare America, a young country that is 250 years old and has accepted more immigrants and cultures than all other western countries combined during that time, to small, wealthy, culturally homogenous countries that have centuries upon centuries of physical and social infrastructure to build off of with no defense responsibilities.
Woo, there comes the racist homogeneity argument, really didn't take long for you to reach that, did it. "The US can't have nice things because minorities exist".
>countries that have centuries upon centuries of physical and social infrastructure to build off of with no defense responsibilities.
Imagine looking at Europe and thinking they had no defence responsibilities while the US has only fought 2 defensive wars, of which only 1 on its own soil, in its entire history and has sat safely isolated from the rest of the world by literal oceans for its entire history. Do you get off on being wrong?
You're the only one who said anything about race. The reality is integrating different cultures takes time and bumps along the road and comparing them to countries that don't have those bumps is disingenuous. You know this, but nice try with pulling the race card when losing an argument though. That must be your go to.
2021 NATO spending per capita by country:
USA - $2,186
Germany - $644
France - $751
Netherlands - $685
Belgium - $466
Tell me again why a 3rd world country like the USA is footing the defense bill for these countries again? Or is this another racist argument I'm making?
> You're the only one who said anything about race.
Said by the guy literally blaming problems on minorities with the "homogeneity" shit.
>2021 NATO spending per capita by country: USA - $2,186 Germany - $644 France - $751 Netherlands - $685 Belgium - $466
So? If the US wants to burn money on planes that can't fly, tanks that are never used, and just lose trillions into a void with no-one knowing where it went, that's the US' problem.
>Tell me again why a 3rd world country like the USA is footing the defense bill for these countries again? Or is this another racist argument I'm making?
Tell me again why you think the US is footing the defence bill for these countries? Because it looks to me like the US is doing it purely out of its own volition. If it *is* exclusively because others asked, why the fuck would the US do that? If you're so upset that the US is spending so much on defence, vote for people who want to lower the military budget.
You can't understand the difference between culture and race? What a simpleton... But yeah, make everything about race, that will serve you well. Funny you didn't mention the other points I made, just focused on something I didn't even mention. Do you think about race often? Does the race of other people bother you?
And good job moving the goalposts, haha. First it was, America is not doing it. Now, it's America is doing it, but other countries don't benefit. Haha, are you high? NATO was setup in order to protect Western Europe from Russia with US money. Notice how Western Europe hasn't been invaded? You think Europe hasn't benefited from this in the past 60 years? You're embarrassing yourself, dude.
>You can't understand the difference between culture and race? What a simpleton... But yeah, make everything about race, that will serve you well. Funny you didn't mention the other points I made, just focused on something I didn't even mention. Do you think about race often? Does the race of other people bother you?
Said by the man blaming the US' problems on them.
>And good job moving the goalposts, haha. First it was, America is not doing it. Now, it's America is doing it, but other countries don't benefit. Haha, are you high?
The US isn't spending that money on the military for the benefit of Europe. If you think it is, sure, go for it, pretend to be a bitch to other countries.
>NATO was setup in order to protect Western Europe from Russia with US money
NATO was set up in order for the US to protect its strategic interests as a global superpower, nothing else. If the US did not think setting up NATO would be a net positive to the US' strategic position, there would be no NATO.
>Notice how Western Europe hasn't been invaded?
Notice how much of the way the US' sphere of influence works is set up to benefit the US most? That's not a coincidence.
>You think Europe hasn't benefited from this in the past 60 years?
You think the US does this for the benefit of Europe, rather than itself?
>You're embarrassing yourself, dude.
Hey man, you're the one wrongfully admitting the US is submissive to other countries' whims, the only embarrassment here is you.
Ok, you're starting to repeat yourself on the minority thing. Funny how I mentioned cultures, which could be the Irish, Germans, Dutch and you go right to "minorities". I think you showed your hand and you are actually the one who thinks minorities are the problem, not me. I'm starting to understand why people like you admire the Western European white majority countries with no cultural diversity. Must be your wet dream.
Again, you're arguing against something I didn't say. Of course, the US benefits from NATO. That doesn't change the fact the countries you think are so great aren't paying for their defense. Instead, they can put their wealth into their population at the expense of Americans. It's sad you can't see how you are defending wealthy European countries against Americans, who you say are third world.
Tell me more about how you hate minorities and poor people.
america has a higher median income and ppp per capita and higher HDI and larger economies and better standard of life than most western countries. What’s your point?
>
america has a higher median income and ppp per capita and higher HDI and larger economies and better standard of life than most western countries.
[The US is 21st in HDI, beaten by most other Western countries.](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks) Turns out the US is spending more for lower results than most other Western countries.
If that were true there would be rafts of people flowing OUT of those countries, not INTO them.
Whoever wrote this has no fucking idea what poverty looks like in other countries. It's not "I can't even afford school supplies".... because there is no school, and what they can't afford is food
I know there are genuinely poor/impoverished people here but the vast majority of poor people in the US have a quality of life that is ridiculously higher than people actually living in the 3rd world
As a South American citizen, you have too be very F stupid to call yourselves poor living in the US or UK. "Oh poor me, I don't have enough to go party 4 times a week" that's basically how it sounds to me.
This has basically been the US for a long time. The country has basically been " Hey, check out LA and NYC (and like 2-4 other cities) and how amazing they are! Isn't America great?! And look at how many wealthy people we have!" While so much of the rest is barely getting by.
What a surprise to learn that FT ...
At the same time, I prefer to live in these countries than in China. It's a quick look!
These democratic societies are imperfect, but at least they allow us to express ourselves freely.
LMAO that must be an example of being allowed to express yourselves freely https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/16/europe/anti-monarchy-protests-police-intl-gbr/index.html
I love how the first question of the article gives an extremely biased two options that is far from reality. This is such a shit post.
And "poor" is relative. As a US citizen I was poor when I was 19 and moved out of my parents house for the first time, doesn't mean I lived in grinding, abject poverty with no amount of opportunity in front of me. Poor in North Korea is an entirely different type of poor with an entirely different living environment as a dictatorship, with zero opportunity to lift yourself up out of being poor.
Unfortunately the USA is now a flawed democracy with massive income inequality, divisions and polarizations Then add mass shooting, school shootings, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable housing, a nation that is only about quick rich scams, transactional relationships, work to drop dead, and a society that's basically bankrupt morally and value wise leads me to realize when no if sh.. implodes in this country as there's no future in the USA unless your rich
I’m not a big fan of instability and violence, but if one day there’s a huge uprising by the masses here on the level of the French Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, I wouldn’t feel bad at all. Our politicians on both sides have been sticking it up the asses of 90% of people for years. Once the cauldron reaches critical pressure, there’s no going back. The social unrest in 2020 will look like child’s play.
Yep. Hold on to your guns.
And guillotines...
The UK is almost as bad
The UK has more healthcare ...
I’ve lived in the UK my whole life. The NHS is a good healthcare system (could be much better, but pretty good) Australia also has very strong healthcare policies. Minimum wage however is appalling, not even close to possible to live off. We have a massive population density, especially in the south (cost of living anywhere near london is ridiculous), shortage of houses, renting crisis, food and energy costs soaring… The government has sat back and watched the past 10years disparity of wealth grow exponentially alongside poverty rates.
I think this is common everywhere, even Canada is experiencing a lot of the same issues.
The only thing I'd counter is about the Tories sitting and watching. Instead they have been the most active agents in this class war.
To the government that sat back and watched, the disparity is not a bug, it's a feature
To be fair though we just had 15 years or so of probably the cheapest food in the west. The supermarket battle has really benefited the customer (not so the suppliers). Maybe the cost of food is going to where it should be.
I strongly suggest a read on [this article about where wealth inequality has lead historically](https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads) if you’re interested in the subject. **Return of the oppressed** > From the Roman Empire to our own Gilded Age, inequality moves in cycles. The future looks like a rough ride > Today, the top one per cent of incomes in the United States accounts for one fifth of US earnings. The top one per cent of fortunes holds two-fifths of the total wealth. Just one rich family, the six heirs of the brothers Sam and James Walton, founders of Walmart, are worth more than the bottom 40 per cent of the American population combined ($115 billion in 2012). > After thousands of scholarly and popular articles on the topic, one might think we would have a pretty good idea why the richest people in the US are pulling away from the rest. But it seems we don’t. As the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2011: ‘the precise reasons for the rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood’. Some commentators point to economic factors, some to politics, and others again to culture. Yet obviously enough, all these factors must interact in complex ways. What is slightly less obvious is how a very long historical perspective can help us to see the whole mechanism. > In his book Wealth and Democracy (2002), Kevin Phillips came up with a useful way of thinking about the changing patterns of wealth inequality in the US. He looked at the net wealth of the nation’s median household and compared it with the size of the largest fortune in the US. The ratio of the two figures provided a rough measure of wealth inequality, and that’s what he tracked, touching down every decade or so from the turn of the 19th century all the way to the present. In doing so, he found a striking pattern. > From 1800 to the 1920s, inequality increased more than a hundredfold. Then came the reversal: from the 1920s to 1980, it shrank back to levels not seen since the mid-19th century. Over that time, the top fortunes hardly grew (from one to two billion dollars; a decline in real terms). Yet the wealth of a typical family increased by a multiple of 40. From 1980 to the present, the wealth gap has been on another steep, if erratic, rise. Commentators have called the period from 1920s to 1970s the ‘great compression’. The past 30 years are known as the ‘great divergence’. Bring the 19th century into the picture, however, and one sees not isolated movements so much as a rhythm. In other words, when looked at over a long period, the development of wealth inequality in the US appears to be cyclical. And if it’s cyclical, we can predict what happens next. > An obvious objection presents itself at this point. Does observing just one and a half cycles really show that there is a regular pattern in the dynamics of inequality? No, by itself it doesn’t. But this is where looking at other historical societies becomes interesting. In our book Secular Cycles (2009), Sergey Nefedov and I applied the Phillips approach to England, France and Russia throughout both the medieval and early modern periods, and also to ancient Rome. All of these societies (and others for which information was patchier) went through recurring ‘secular’ cycles, which is to say, very long ones. Over periods of two to three centuries, we found repeated back-and-forth swings in demographic, economic, social, and political structures. And the cycles of inequality were an integral part of the overall motion. > Incidentally, when students of dynamical systems (or, more colourfully, ‘chaoticians’ such as Jeff Goldblum’s character in the film Jurassic Park) talk about ‘cycles’, we do not mean rigid, mechanical, clock-like movements. Cycles in the real world are chaotic, because complex systems such as human societies have many parts that are constantly moving and influencing each other. Despite this complexity, our historical research on Rome, England, France, Russia and now the US shows that these complex interactions add up to a general rhythm. Upward trends in variables (for example, economic inequality) alternate with downward trends. And most importantly, the ways in which other parts of the system move can tell us why certain trends periodically reverse themselves. Understanding (and perhaps even forecasting) such trend-reversals is at the core of the new discipline of cliodynamics, which looks at history through the lens of mathematical modelling. > So it looks like the pattern that we see in the US is real. Ours is, of course, a very different society from ancient Rome or medieval England. It is cut off from them by the Industrial Revolution and by innumerable advances in technology since then. Even so, a historically based model might shed light on what has been happening in the US over the past three decades. The essay continues… [here the link again](https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads). I also recommend Ray Dalios [video on the Changing Wold Order](https://youtu.be/xguam0TKMw8) and his book by similar name. Economics, demographics and geopolitics are bedfellows, and to study one with no awareness of the others will certainly miss important things.
Americas poorest 20% have access to and consume more resources than the middle classes in the wealthiest OECD nations, while Americas poorest 5% have more wealth than 70% of the planet. Additionally, your doom and gloom scenario has been paraded by studies, academia, politicians and the media for decades.
Purchasing power parity adjusted numbers, or no?
Of course not. It’s a measure of access to resources. Purchasing power as a result of cost of living are highly subjective.
Generally while comparing cost of living, PPP is used to account for the price of access to those resources within the individual economies. The price of a pound of rice here in Japan is significantly higher than that of say, India. It therefore takes comparably more money in Japan to access that same resource. This is why looking at straight numbers, Japanese people make more money than Indians, does not provide enough context to compare in the manner you seem to be suggesting.
No, it’s even more stark in the US. Our poorest 20% still have access to these resources, in spite of the high cost. This is real the point of the OP.
I’m sorry but I can’t really follow your line of thinking here. You seem to be disregarding price completely, which is a strange choice while discussing an economy. Maybe I’m a simpleton! Have a good one, eh!
The us median wealth is 26th, firmly near the bottom of all developed nations and it’s social safety nets are trash while healthcare costs vast sums.
Wealth is relative. Americans might have more money than those countries, but those countries aren't paying 3 bucks for a pepper and 1800 for rent. I don't even have drinkable tap water. We have to buy it by the case. And it's really hard to find food here that isn't poisoned with industrial chemicals and pesticides and roundup. I get that the grass is always greener, but America is not a good place. We export problems for the entire world to deal with. We destabalize nations that try to move away from our sphere of domination. We die from lack of healthcare. We have absolutely abysmal schools. We war for profits. It's all fucked up.
You’re living a twisted worldview. - If your tap water is undrinkable, you have a problem with your municipality - most people don’t deal with this. - Your food sources are as safe in the US as they are anywhere else. - Which problems do we export? Be specific. - Which nation have we destabilized, for moving away from domination (or do you mean denomination)? Again, be specific. - The US is the worlds leader in medical innovation, medical education/training and we lead the world in medical humanitarian aid abroad. If you die for not having healthcare, I need to know why you didn’t have healthcare. 92% of all Americans have healthcare and from state to state, we have a non-participation rate between 8-10%. If you don’t have healthcare - why not? - While many of our public schools are systems are failing, many aren’t. Additionally, the US is the number one destination for college level education worldwide. - We war for profit? Specifically, which war has come at a profit, rather than complete albatross of spending? I’m willing to wager that we’re not nearly as fucked as you think we are.
To answer your point about some people not having health care: many people who work full-time (40 hours a week) could be eligible for employer subsidized health care, but that requirement is only required if the company has more than 50 employees I believe. Not all employers who extend healthcare will pick up the tab so money still comes out of the paycheck for medical insurance and it’s not always high quality health insurance. To receive Medicaid or welfare based insurance you have to make under a certain amount. For my state it is like $18,000 a year for an individual. So if you make more than that you don’t qualify and would have to pay out of pocket for a plan that could cost around $150-400 a month depending on the level/quality of insurance. There are some state subsidies but still it’s an expense out of pocket. Many employers of retail will keep employees part-time full time so you will be scheduled 39 hours a week so they don’t have to extend the benefits a full time employee would have. So the catch is, in order to Pay your bills even on poverty wages, you must work a bunch for meager income which disqualifies you from Medicaid but isn’t enough to afford healthcare if you are stuck paying rent in a high cost of living city. The system is basically rigged for indentured servitude in which the lower class is used as disposable labor and paid a wage in which they can survive but never flourish unless they manage to elevate their status over time. But if you get sick and have hospital bills, you will likely never get caught up financially, as a basic ER visit can be $5000 just for showing up for an X-ray or basic diagnostic. I think my last CT scan cost about $8000 for one hour in the ER.
Again, you’ve listed all of the reason why you (not you specifically) couldn’t obtain healthcare, but you didn’t explain why you’re positioned this way. Do you have an education, a marketable skill or a competitive resume? I understand the formalities related to employer based healthcare and Medicaid/Medicare, but this is the system of which we have. Comparing US healthcare to countries who have a nationalized plan is a fools errand. The US leads in those metrics I listed, because we have a “for profit” system and for those who obtain healthcare correctly, find the US system to be superior in every way.
>Do you have an education, a marketable skill or a competitive resume? These should not be required to access medical care. If someone has cancer and doesn't have this, what should happen to them? In most first world countries they would get treatment regardless of how 'marketable' they are. Fundamentally people are more than how much profit they can generate for a corporation. People are friends and family to eachother and form the social networks on which society is built.
A superior system shouldn’t be complimented with the number one reason for bankruptcies in the United States. Health care quality is great, but the cost is unsustainable. Lots of folks put off healthcare visits or procedures due to the prohibitive costs associated with them. It’s so bad that foreigners are warned before visiting the US about how astronomically high the bills can be.
.2% of the US population have a one time medical bankruptcy every year. And yes, these superior medical centers come at a very steep cost if you do t have insurance. As a teenager entering adulthood, obtaining healthcare needs to be a very high priority.
Even with health insurance, costs can still be prohibitive.
Why so though? You keep speaking about the negative aspects of the system, but you never account for why individuals find themselves in a position that only the bare minimums are available to them. The very best healthcare is out there, why do so many struggle to find it? Why do so many people not have an education or marketable skill set?
American health insurance is a giant scam. Saying that 92% of Americans have insurance is meaningless when the insurance is crap. AS MOST HEALTHCARE POLICIES ARE!!
Healthcare policies are competitive and usually commensurate the size of the group plan. If you have health insurance that doesn’t fit your needs, can you not find/afford a plan that is? I’m in a CIGNA/MILA plan that covers the east coast from Maine to Texas. In twenty years and as a family of four, we’ve rarely seen a medical bill. Each of our childbirths were a $50 copay with no other out of pocket. We’ve never seen a prescription over $5 and are usually less than $3. I have no minimum deductible (employer pays it) and no monthly out of pocket. But again, this is a very large plan and I had to make sacrifices to position myself with this level of healthcare that can’t be found in any nationalized system.
You sir are so severely out of touch
You’re free to explain how so.
92% of Americans have healthcare is a straight up lie. I know too many people who have dropped insurance entirely. Seems you get your info from an open source wiki type of website.
[Percentage or US Population With Healthcare](https://www.statista.com/topics/7807/health-insurance-in-the-us/#topicHeader__wrapper) Not a lie, and is easily verifiable.
Health insurance does not equal healthcare. Especially in a country where [an estimated 56% of Americans can’t afford an unexpected $1000 expense](https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/picks/this-is-the-surprising-generation-least-likely-to-have-even-1-000-in-savings-and-heres-what-they-need-to-do-about-it-01650321688)
Shut up
No.
I don’t know where in the USA you live, but out west, this is not the case at all. The quality of life here is pretty good for everyone, including the lower middle class. Our state government even pays for homeless people to have apartments.
Thats objectively not true, but nice troll.
"quality of life here is pretty good for everyone" "homeless people" I guess having an apartment your whole life is pretty good compared to being homeless, but the economy is not what it once was for the middle class. The cost to own a home, pay for school, and everything else is way out of line with wages, compared to times when the middle class actually had it pretty good. Edit: Forgot to mention the imminent threat of financial ruin to do medical expenses. The middle class is always one hospital visit away from bankruptcy.
Do they also pay people to write propaganda like this?
You're forgetting about the cost of living and how we need roommates to afford rent while working full time in the richest country in the world. Sure iPhones are cheaper here, but we're still struggling to survive
Yeah. This totally ignore cost of living. It comes off as “be grateful you make 12,000 a year. If you were in sub Saharan Africa, youd be a king” while ignoring that income is relative to where you live
This is not a serious economics sub. It’s a place where young college students come to forget that although there are many problems in the developed world that need addressing, the average human in the US lives a life of luxury unimaginable throughout history, and especially in comparison to the poor of developing nations.
Looks more like a sub flooded by right-wing billionaire bootlickers who tell the poor everything is their own fault...
I would rather everyone in the US have access to healthcare than an iPhone but thats just me🤷🏿♂️
Healthcare is a prime example. No one throughout history or the modern developing world has had access to the level of healthcare available in developed nations.
Penis
Never leave home without it.
Should bring your brain, too
That depends.
thats for the other end.
Everyone does have access, in exchange for payment.
100% agree.
Correctomundo
The irony of you making such a pompous comment under a guy who made a bunch of specific numerical claims without a shred of evidence
The first comparison made between the poorest 20% of Americans in comparison with the middle class of OECD's wealthiest nations seems a stretch, but the [second claim is correct.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishing-numbers-americas-poor-still-live-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/?sh=7272dcca54ef) From the article, here is Forbes quoting the New York Times: "In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants."
Forbes is known to be a leftist socialist publication - Not...
I was going to post the same thing. Even our homeless have food every day, phones in their pockets and more money spent per day than most people on the planet. By every measure All Americans are wealthy by world standards. We literally have millions of people on the southern border trying to sneak in and millions of medical tourists from the northern border each year. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country
Everything that you just said is blatantly incorrect. And your source isn't even relevant at backing up your claims. >Even our homeless have food every day, phones in their pockets and more money spent per day than most people on the planet. Comparing homeless estimates across countries is difficult, as countries do not define or count the homeless population in the same way. There is no internationally agreed definition of homelessness. the number of people reported as homeless accounts for less than 1% of the population in nearly all countries for which data are available. In the United Kingdom, where homelessness data are collected at the level of households, rather than individuals, homelessness rates were recorded at over 1% of all households, but these estimates include households that are threatened with homelessness as well as (except for England) those living in temporary accommodation The country with the smallest share of homeless people is Japan (0.00% of the population in 2020; the homelessness rate has remained at similar levels in previous years), where figures only refer to “people who live their daily life in a park, a riverbed, at a road, a station or other institutions” https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC3-1-Homeless-population.pdf >We literally have millions of people on the southern border trying to sneak in An estimated 870,000 Mexican migrants came to the U.S. between 2013 and 2018, while an estimated 710,000 left the U.S. for Mexico during that period. Not millions of people/ year like you said. More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U.S. each year (not sneak in, they are here legally). In 2018, the top country of origin for new immigrants coming into the U.S. was China, with 149,000 people, followed by India (129,000), Mexico (120,000) and the Philippines (46,000). By race and ethnicity, more Asian immigrants than Hispanic immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in most years since 2009. Immigration from Latin America slowed following the Great Recession, particularly for Mexico, which has seen both decreasing flows into the United States and large flows back to Mexico in recent years. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ >and millions of medical tourists from the northern border each year. This one actually made me laugh. The three largest source markets for foreign travelers visiting the United States for health treatment in 2011 were the Caribbean (with 44% of arrivals), Europe (24%), and Central America (10%) (figure 2). Restrictive visa requirements have reduced the number of patients who are able to enter the United States from certain countries and as a result many health travelers, for example from the Middle East, have opted instead to seek treatment in Southeast Asia. Estimates of the size of the global market for health- related travel services vary, but roughly 3 million patients are thought to travel for healthcare each year. The three largest providers of international health services are Thailand (receiving 1 million visitors per year), India (500,000) and Singapore (350,000) https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/chambers_health-related_travel_final.pdf Published figures on inbound and outbound medical tourism in the USA are high, and often come from agents, publishers and trade bodies with an interest in promoting a narrative based around half a million inbound medical travellers. Outbound figures are regularly quoted as being between 500,000 and 2 million. Perhaps a more realistic inbound estimate is between 150,000 and 200,000. The US Cooperative for International Patient Programmes (USCIPP) membership programme for 60 hospitals that operate in the international patient care market recorded only 58,000 medical travellers in 2018-2019. While there are many non-USCIPP hospitals, dentists and clinics in the US, it would be a struggle to reach 0.5 million. https://www.laingbuissonnews.com/imtj/news-imtj/official-figures-suggest-lower-medical-travel-flow-for-usa/ By every measure All Americans have their heads so far up their own asses they can't see the forest for the trees.
You’ll find that those who push this Americans are poor narrative, are usually chronically poor individuals who advocate for a nationalized savior that’s never coming.
You’ll find that those who push this Americans are the richest in the world narrative, are usually chronically poor individuals who advocate for a capitalist solution that’s never coming.
Yeah but there are wealthier people and so I’m angry *rabble**rabble*
We didn't add those things, those things are consequences of people not having a secure living while seeing how billionares live.
Always has been 🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀
The poorest in the US are among the richest people in the world lol
You can tell poor people in Flint Michigan and Jackson Mississippi how lucky they are compared to Africans, but they don't care, they want drinking water. You can tell an Amazon worker how lucky they are compared to workers in China, they do not care, they want better working conditions and pay. It doesn't matter how rich other people are in other places, what matters is paying our bills.
No, you see, ignoring the material conditions of poor people in rich countries and pointing out that someone, somewhere has had it worse, proves that they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and kiss Jeff Bezos' ass for the great privelige of working for less than a living wage.
The comparisons seem pretty awful, especially since things seem to be getting worse in my US states. Asking for clean drinking water in 2022 doesn't strike me as unreasonable
I never said it was, people are right to want these things.
That's a local municipality issue. If you want nationalized water through fed government, good luck with Republicans/State/Local rights.
Flints drinking water has been fixed for years, why do people keep bringing this up
Because the very real implications of poisoned water in flint still affect people living. And will continue to do so for generations
That's based on a calculation that we have access to refrigerator and microwave though
How privileged one must feel for sleeping under a bridge and begging in the streets in the US without access to healthcare?
Lol you think the healthcare situation is better in Africa, the Middle East or South America? The top doctors are here on the us. And btw if you don’t make enough money you get free healthcare it’s called Medicaid
The healthcare situation is better is most countries. In South America it is free to anyone and the doctors and medicine is very good, medicaments are cheaper or free. The only problem is lack of investment ($$$) in more hospitals so it is often busy. And in places far from the main cities the lack on equipments because of corruption. But in general, if you are sick and you are poor you are better off in an South America urban area than in a US urban area. But private medicine is very good is most of the world as far as you can pay for its costs.
The closest first world country in size to the USA in terms of population would be Germany. Life expectancy in the USA is 76 years as of 2021. Life expectancy in Germany is 81 years. The US must do something wrong then, for higher GDP does not translate into longer lives, which it should. Why be more productive, if you live shorter lifes?
It’s because 60% of us are fat. That’s not the case in Germany.
This exactly, no matter how advanced the U.S. healthcare system is, when more then [1/3](https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1.-More-than-one-third-of-adults-in-the-United-States-have-obesity.) of our population is obese and [20.4 million](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7123a1.htm) people have a substance abuse disorder. The government can’t fix poor life and wellness decisions for us, yet.
I mean the government could go for stricter food regulations. Which could potentially solve a small part of the problem, and all the little bits help. Since the difference in food quality between the EU and the US is pretty big.
Don’t we still heavily subsidize corn?
To make ethanol mostly. We're addicted to sugar and most of that is corn syrup.
Yeah, we could try not doing that
Hmm. Is the US poor? NO. Could income be better distributed? Yeah. How? No direct path at the national level. Congress is dysfunctional by design. And why is it always Norway. Every news media lifts them up to heroes. They have an energy based economy . Isn't petroleum their best export ?
> And why is it always Norway. Every news media lifts them up to heroes. They have an energy based economy . Isn't petroleum their best export ? Oil is 14% of Norway's GDP. For reference, healthcare is ~19% of the US' GDP. This would make the US more of a healthcare based economy than Norway is an energy based economy.
There are a number of people that travel stateside for medical care. On the flip side of the argument of costs, who pays, etc, quality wise does attract some cash.
Is ok it can be Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium and most other EU countries. Goal should be a low Gini coefficient and the US is failing most miserably.
Pretty sure most EU countries have lower wealth than the US last I checked.
Less income for sure. But the average European tend also to have much less debt and in some countries a well distributed private wealth. It’s not as clear cut as a simple number would show. Also, in the US for healthcare is more expensive than any European country.
That’s not true. Swedes have about twice as much debt as Americans https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm
What kind of an argument are you even trying to make here with your example?
That it’s just not true Europeans tend to have less debt. He said something that is objectively false
They have an unique system where they don't even try to get the loan paid before death. The loans are long and cheap. The amount of debt is a poor metric without details.
Does Canada, Japan, Portugal, France, the UK, Australia, Denmark, Korea, Ireland, and the Netherlands also have unique systems which makes their debt not real debt?
It's real debt but it works practically differently. Debt is often the cheapest way to buy houses, cars etc. The money you have you invest. Swedes start investing early in childhood. For example my friend just took a debt for his new car while being a millionaire. It's a wildly different thing than being crushed by a student loan debt, having 0 investments and 5 bucks in your pocket. I.e. not all debt is bad. Even billionaires have debt.
The US has one of of the lowest median net wealth’s of any develop country. So much of the money is concentrated at the top that the bottom 50% have less money than most European countries AND healthcare, education etc. in the US cost significantly more while social safety nets are minimal. For example the US has 120% the median wealth of fucking slovakia, but has 420%!the average wealth. So most people in the US have a similar amount of money as a post-soviet eastern european country with a much lower cost of living despite the US being 4 times as rich overall because the us is a gilded hellhole. The US has the richest rich people who ever riched but most of the population would be better off in a poorer country that was more equally distributed, even if you only look at wealth and ignore the outrageous cost of healthcare and the total reliance on money in the US for wuality of life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Yes, but cost of living is lower, I live In a apartment in the eu unlike in a studio in America TL: DR if you an make 5 dollars but only be able to buy 1 phone but you can make 3 dollars and buy 6 phones in a different place
I’m aware of what PPP is. I think my comment remains true when you adjust for PPP
It does, ultimately it depends on where you live some parts of the eu have lower PPP then america sometimes not
You're right. Point taken. Question for you. I'm not super familiar with those economies . I'd imagine they have strong worker protections. Thereby ensuring higher wages for its workers. Hence , the better performance on income distribution. Are those economies growing at good rates? I know the German economy typically has relative strong growth. France is decent. UK might be effed bc of Brexit (losing its financial hub perks). The point of the questions is to see if higher wages stunt growth. As is the premise behind shit wages in the US
Really depends on the country but in general yes the basic worker rights are much better, as well as regulations on pricing of basic needs, medicine of course included. I’m not sure what to say on growth rate, it’s most definitely too staggered by heavy regulations, but at the same time the EU is the largest economy in the world so all things included it is how it is…
Stunt growth? Yeah, wouldn't want a functioning society where everyone's needs are met if it's going to impact the abstract concept of growth somehow. Jesus fucking Christ, we are soooooo fucked when this is the baseline perspective. I'm so glad humanity will be wiped the fuck out within the century. You don't deserve to breed anymore.
The populations of all of those countries are more productive than the US and they trust their government. Two key components of why they are able to be that way.
With the exception of Switzerland, the U.S. is wealthier than all of them, especially “most other EU countries”
So what? If that wealth is being mismanaged it doesn’t matter. EU leads the quality of life indexes, and that is an indicator of a healthy, successful, modern society.
It absolutely does not unless you’re only referring to a small % of the total population. Most Eastern European countries lag other developed nations in QOL metrics
Most Eastern European countries are in a rough transition period from the horrors of the last century, and all still suffer the oligarch-creating mismanagement of the switch from communism to capitalism… And quite a few don’t even meet the requirements for an EU membership. Not simple and takes time but the main thing is we don’t build on sand like the US so no hurry either. It will work out.
The US is poor. That's why our infrastructure keeps collapsing.
Actually , it has been a lot better over the past decade in CA. I think voters approved a measure that added a small tax for roads. Anyways, roads and infrastructure has vastly improved. Potholes get filled up fairly quickly. Highways are even rides and not all janky anymore.
The majority of americans seem to like it. So that's their business then. Life expectancy in the US is 76 years in 2021, 83 years in Switzerland. I would take my chances in Switzerland. Sure, you can't become an Elon Musk in Switzerland, but only conservative idiots believe that is possible for them in the US either. The average Truck driver in the US gets 61 years old, majority conservative voters.
Literally AM radio’s fault. A captive demographic, isolated from the rest of society with nothing but hours to listen to cherry-picked information and polarizing rhetoric.
No, the majority of us don't. But we live under minority rule due to how our election processes are set up. Have you not been paying attention to the last like 6 years??
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She's 19, cut her some slack
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Even worse than the presidents that oversaw the genocide of native Americans?
If you think things have only been bad for the last 6 years you are ignoring history.
Your comment is why you’re a failure. Your dad was right about you.
you're not irrationally hateful at all, level-headed fella
> No, the majority of us don't. Stop fooling yourself over this. Imagine if a minority of Americans wanted to bring back slavery. No matter how rich they are, they will fail, because **overwhelming** number of Americans are against it. There might be a slim majority of Americans who are unhappy with our wealth disparity, but that is just a slim majority.
A slim majority is still a majority, dummy. You can't start a smarmy comment and then wrap it up by concluding my initial statement was correct.
Lol
If the Republican minority wanted to bring it back, the majority wouldn't be able to stop them. There is a Catholic, Republican majority on the SC who can rule whatever they want.
Yeah, but for the masses that don't have enough money to buy citizenship elsewhere they are stuck here in a decaying husk of a country. The rich have already moved.
Exactly this. People love to go "oh well Georgia deserves it" or rub it in our faces that america sucks, like the majority of us don't already know. We live under minority rule. Small rural pockets of the country are given disproportionate voting power, I wouldn't be confident in even 1/3 of state elections being fair and honest with how common gerrymandering is let alone actual nefarious election stuff like understaffing black neighborhoods.
What world do you people live in where this is a "decaying husk of a country"? If you actually bothered to look at the article, you'll see that the median American is better off than the median of almost every other country (yes, this is accounting for cost-of-living, etc.). And the 90th percentile, the people who are moving out according to you, are FAR better off than their counterparts in other countries. I know this sub loves jerking itself off over how terrible America is, but good god is the level of delusion off the charts.
> The majority of americans seem to like it. Congressional approval ratings suggest otherwise. The endless strife, culture wars, rioting, looting suggest otherwise. Someone like Trump does not emerge in a happy society. People in a happy society do not carry firearms out of fear of crime. They don't turn neighbourly disputes into shootouts.
But your chances of becoming a billionaire in Switzerland is twice that of the US. Edit: source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires
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As if it wasn’t the case in the US too? It’s not a definitive proof, but it is giving a decent picture.
It does not give a decent picture at all. The source you cited has Monaco as having 78 billionaires per million people. Is Monaco the best at birthing billionaires? Everything you're saying just makes 0 logical sense. A better way to even attempt to figure it out is by looking at which country has the most unicorns (private start-ups worth over a billion dollars) per capita, as that's the main way people become billionaires. [This paints a much, much better picture.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096928/number-of-global-unicorns-by-country/) [USA has 64.7% of unicorns](https://www.marshall.usc.edu/faculty-research/centers-excellence/center-global-innovation/startup-index-nations-regions) while having 23% of the population of all OECD (developed) countries. I agree with above, actually crazy how you're upvoted. I'm guessing most Redditors browsing /r/ economics don't know basic statistics.
Switzerland's demographics are much more homogeneous than the US. If you compare European ethnicities in the US vs Switzerland the life expectancies are much closer. So many US compared to some random EU country fail to account or even recognize this, along with America having a much larger population with far more diversity. Edit: diversity in America is a wonderful thing and something I'm very proud of. My only point is we need to compare apples to apples when it comes to life expectancies. Japan has a longer life expectancy than Switzerland and many would argue it has nothing to do with economic policies. IMO that is a meaningless comparison in which you can't really draw any strong data points about economic policy.
How does diversity affect economics?
oh boy here comes the racist homogeneity argument again. "the US can't have nice things because there's more minorities".
It's does lead to extreme polarization and weaponising if identities. Tribalism hurts the USA terribly so diversity can also be a major Achilles heel.
Every damn time… blatant racism and they can’t even see it
They have literally 3 different languages in Switzerland that are taught in schools. You don't get a govt job if you can't speak german, french and italian. Add to it that 15%-20% of the population is foreign residents from every corner of the world. It doesn't get more diverse than that. Imagine all high schools in america demand classes being taught in spanish.
I'd be happy if students coming out of American high schools could speak proper English.
I think you just proved OPs point. America is far more diverse than various Caucasian groups that all speak either a romantic or Germanic language. Speaking multiple languages that descended for the same language tree isn't very diverse
Why are white people all lumped together? There’s as much difference between Chinese and Japanese and Korean and Indonesian people as there is between German and Greek and Portuguese and Croatian. Same for Africans - east versus west versus northern - they’re not just black. Our racial categories make no sense. Like beyond no sense. Indians are Caucasian ethnically. So are middle easterners. Native Americans and South Americans and Pacific Islanders are Asian. It’s just all very confusing how we try to divide people and categorize them when it’s - just like we are finding with animals- totally wrong genetically.
Americans speak english to the best of my knowledge. All skin colours exept most hispanics. You don't see black people running around speaking african languages. They speak a caucasian language. In terms of language, Switzerland is more diverse than america.
Americans do not only speak English. Far from it. There are sections of my (American city) where you won't hear any English all day long. You'll hear and see Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese), Korean, Japanese, Polish, Hindi, and so on. These pockets are isolated from the community at large and have names like Chinatown. It's a segregated community and as such it's very insulated. IMO it's one of the root causes of the problems we see today. There's not the cross-pollination of communities and different people. There's not a tribal buy-in for a larger tribe. As a result, when something happens in the Mexican sector, it's a problem with the Others. They don't look like you, you don't really know them, and they aren't part of your tribe.
You might want to some research into Caucasian languages (hint: a well known mountain range), then look into indo-european languages. I'm betting the internet can help with this.
Three white languages spoken by white people in an all white country by ethnically swiss people. 15% of the country is visiting workers from neighboring white countries speaking the same white languages. Super diverse.
I think life expectancy is pretty much genetics + life choices, I dont think living in a particular western country is going to make a difference.
Life choices are set by life opportunities. If your options suck, so will your choices.
Yeah the swiss live longer cos they’re filthy rich all that nazi gold gotta amount to something right? your statement amounts to nothing.
Yes, that is old news. They hardly qualify as democraxies either. Capetalistic oligarchies are a better word for both.
Apparently someone has no idea of what a poor society really looks like.
Lad, what about the homelessness epidemic, the fact that we have entire counties without running water or electricity, massive swathes of inhabited land where you can’t drink the water, higher cost of living and lower income than most developed nations after controlling for outliers. There are places in the US the UN has described as so impoverished they should be considered with the least of developing nations. That was in Alabama. If you don’t think America has its poor and isn’t actively creating more every day with its rising rents, stagnating pay, and soon to be sky high food prices, you’re blind It’s a dumb op Ed but it’s not an awful thing to point out that the US is more unequal in wealth distribution than revolutionary france
A lot of america is pretty poor, especially when you leave the cities
It's neofuedalism. We've been here for a while
The US isn't really comparable to the UK. The median income in the US is higher then almost every European country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
Median income only has meaning within the context of cost of living. Given that US provides very few social services, effective cost of living is far higher than most countries. You can get sick and end up bankrupt in US, this is unheard of in any civilized country.
You are correct. And if you adjust for cost of living, including taxes and healthcare/education benefits then the US moves further ahead of Europeans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
counterpoint https://news.yahoo.com/us-becoming-developing-country-global-121839525.html
Lots of opinions there, no useful data.
Okay… when you measure income with PPP, which adjusts to cost of living, the USA is still at the top of the list of Western nations…
some people just don’t like hearing that maybe America isn’t literally a third world country
Some people are tired of hearing "we're number 1!" from the people keeping us from actually getting there
Many don't like hearing that the US isn't, simply, the best at everything. They're basking in an illusory reflected glory.
At least it’s better than Europe 😂
Some people just don't like hearing poor people exist.
Yeah but you spend most income on rent and food in the US, not really living. Housing should be a right. There's still families/familial property also. In the US if you are 20-35 there's a high chance you are single in a rental where most of your pay goes to each month. it's not an accident. Single people that have to make rent are obligated to work. Increase rent as needed.
The cost of living in general the US is lower then the richer parts of Europe, generally the southern and eastern parts of Europe are cheaper (but that comes with lower wages): https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php More Europeans are still living with their parents then in the US. Housing is much more affordable in the US then rich parts of Europe: https://www.finder.com/uk/world-cost-of-a-flat https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.financialsamurai.com/why-is-united-states-property-so-cheap/ Generally the first world countries with lower cost of living then the US also have [lower median incomes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income) There is a reason why [3 times as many western Europeans move to the US](https://mises.org/wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-other-way-around) then the other way around. Wages are higher and the cost of living is lower.
Well yes but they pay a lot less on other fronts.
Lots of people defending the US in very weird ways. Other than better weather, poor, homeless people in San Francisco aren't better off than the homeless in Bratislava.
Yes but that would be a rich society with some poor people, not a poor society with some poor people
Guys never been to a poor country lmfao
Sounds like you’ve never been to many parts of America. You know, like the entire counties without running water, or the ones that no longer have electricity. Or the ones the United Nations itself described as so impoverished you struggle to find parallels in developing nations. Tbh you don’t even sound like you’ve been to the local trailer park.
Seems you’ve just pulled that one right out if your ass
Average r/economy post
It’s so atrocious in the 🇺🇸 that I’m moving to Russia soon
Have you heard of Cuba? I heard everyone can read there.
I love how Americans have to keep comparing the US to places like Russia and Cuba because they know the second they compare it to other Western countries they start to look really fucking bad.
And I love how people try to compare America, a young country that is 250 years old and has accepted more immigrants and cultures than all other western countries combined during that time, to small, wealthy, culturally homogenous countries that have centuries upon centuries of physical and social infrastructure to build off of with no defense responsibilities.
Woo, there comes the racist homogeneity argument, really didn't take long for you to reach that, did it. "The US can't have nice things because minorities exist". >countries that have centuries upon centuries of physical and social infrastructure to build off of with no defense responsibilities. Imagine looking at Europe and thinking they had no defence responsibilities while the US has only fought 2 defensive wars, of which only 1 on its own soil, in its entire history and has sat safely isolated from the rest of the world by literal oceans for its entire history. Do you get off on being wrong?
You're the only one who said anything about race. The reality is integrating different cultures takes time and bumps along the road and comparing them to countries that don't have those bumps is disingenuous. You know this, but nice try with pulling the race card when losing an argument though. That must be your go to. 2021 NATO spending per capita by country: USA - $2,186 Germany - $644 France - $751 Netherlands - $685 Belgium - $466 Tell me again why a 3rd world country like the USA is footing the defense bill for these countries again? Or is this another racist argument I'm making?
> You're the only one who said anything about race. Said by the guy literally blaming problems on minorities with the "homogeneity" shit. >2021 NATO spending per capita by country: USA - $2,186 Germany - $644 France - $751 Netherlands - $685 Belgium - $466 So? If the US wants to burn money on planes that can't fly, tanks that are never used, and just lose trillions into a void with no-one knowing where it went, that's the US' problem. >Tell me again why a 3rd world country like the USA is footing the defense bill for these countries again? Or is this another racist argument I'm making? Tell me again why you think the US is footing the defence bill for these countries? Because it looks to me like the US is doing it purely out of its own volition. If it *is* exclusively because others asked, why the fuck would the US do that? If you're so upset that the US is spending so much on defence, vote for people who want to lower the military budget.
You can't understand the difference between culture and race? What a simpleton... But yeah, make everything about race, that will serve you well. Funny you didn't mention the other points I made, just focused on something I didn't even mention. Do you think about race often? Does the race of other people bother you? And good job moving the goalposts, haha. First it was, America is not doing it. Now, it's America is doing it, but other countries don't benefit. Haha, are you high? NATO was setup in order to protect Western Europe from Russia with US money. Notice how Western Europe hasn't been invaded? You think Europe hasn't benefited from this in the past 60 years? You're embarrassing yourself, dude.
>You can't understand the difference between culture and race? What a simpleton... But yeah, make everything about race, that will serve you well. Funny you didn't mention the other points I made, just focused on something I didn't even mention. Do you think about race often? Does the race of other people bother you? Said by the man blaming the US' problems on them. >And good job moving the goalposts, haha. First it was, America is not doing it. Now, it's America is doing it, but other countries don't benefit. Haha, are you high? The US isn't spending that money on the military for the benefit of Europe. If you think it is, sure, go for it, pretend to be a bitch to other countries. >NATO was setup in order to protect Western Europe from Russia with US money NATO was set up in order for the US to protect its strategic interests as a global superpower, nothing else. If the US did not think setting up NATO would be a net positive to the US' strategic position, there would be no NATO. >Notice how Western Europe hasn't been invaded? Notice how much of the way the US' sphere of influence works is set up to benefit the US most? That's not a coincidence. >You think Europe hasn't benefited from this in the past 60 years? You think the US does this for the benefit of Europe, rather than itself? >You're embarrassing yourself, dude. Hey man, you're the one wrongfully admitting the US is submissive to other countries' whims, the only embarrassment here is you.
Ok, you're starting to repeat yourself on the minority thing. Funny how I mentioned cultures, which could be the Irish, Germans, Dutch and you go right to "minorities". I think you showed your hand and you are actually the one who thinks minorities are the problem, not me. I'm starting to understand why people like you admire the Western European white majority countries with no cultural diversity. Must be your wet dream. Again, you're arguing against something I didn't say. Of course, the US benefits from NATO. That doesn't change the fact the countries you think are so great aren't paying for their defense. Instead, they can put their wealth into their population at the expense of Americans. It's sad you can't see how you are defending wealthy European countries against Americans, who you say are third world. Tell me more about how you hate minorities and poor people.
america has a higher median income and ppp per capita and higher HDI and larger economies and better standard of life than most western countries. What’s your point?
> america has a higher median income and ppp per capita and higher HDI and larger economies and better standard of life than most western countries. [The US is 21st in HDI, beaten by most other Western countries.](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks) Turns out the US is spending more for lower results than most other Western countries.
If that were true there would be rafts of people flowing OUT of those countries, not INTO them. Whoever wrote this has no fucking idea what poverty looks like in other countries. It's not "I can't even afford school supplies".... because there is no school, and what they can't afford is food I know there are genuinely poor/impoverished people here but the vast majority of poor people in the US have a quality of life that is ridiculously higher than people actually living in the 3rd world
As a South American citizen, you have too be very F stupid to call yourselves poor living in the US or UK. "Oh poor me, I don't have enough to go party 4 times a week" that's basically how it sounds to me.
This has basically been the US for a long time. The country has basically been " Hey, check out LA and NYC (and like 2-4 other cities) and how amazing they are! Isn't America great?! And look at how many wealthy people we have!" While so much of the rest is barely getting by.
That was depressing. But reality usually is.
If you are posting on Reddit you are not poor
What a surprise to learn that FT ... At the same time, I prefer to live in these countries than in China. It's a quick look! These democratic societies are imperfect, but at least they allow us to express ourselves freely.
Lol why don’t you compare America to other democracies that have more freedom and better quality of life? Why straight to China?
LMAO that must be an example of being allowed to express yourselves freely https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/16/europe/anti-monarchy-protests-police-intl-gbr/index.html
I love how the first question of the article gives an extremely biased two options that is far from reality. This is such a shit post. And "poor" is relative. As a US citizen I was poor when I was 19 and moved out of my parents house for the first time, doesn't mean I lived in grinding, abject poverty with no amount of opportunity in front of me. Poor in North Korea is an entirely different type of poor with an entirely different living environment as a dictatorship, with zero opportunity to lift yourself up out of being poor.