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US is becoming a developing country on global rankings that measure [...]

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13 pointspeter-m8034 comments

The US that you see when you’re blindingly rich is different than the one you see when you’re employed full time with a good salary. Both are different than the one when you’re struggling and lack full time employment. And all three are different than the one where you’re poor and disadvantaged.

Due to the lesser social benefits (such as health care tied to employment), the social distinctions are larger in the US than it’s western counterparts. Great place to make a pile, but weaker on looking out for others.

The author’s first and main argument for these rankings is racism. Then he references the US ranking between Bulgaria and Cuba.

I maybe would have gone with criticism of opioid epidemic, education system, debt burden (student loans), too much spending on DoD and OEF/OIF, not enough infrastructure development, etc

The lack of general care is probably largely to blame too. The workforce gets exhausted, no options for illnesses or therapy for mental illness because of cost prohibition. Constant fear of losing jobs, home, etc. That causes bad decisions and low worker output.

Occam’s razor tells us it all comes down to demographics as the root cause. In particular, the demographics of the general population and the demographics of the ruling class effectively determine a country’s government policy preferences and its ability to implement those policies effectively.

Societal issues at this scale and with this many variables are not distilled down to one simple answer. And failure point in your root cause analysis can’t be so easily identified. I listed several issues that could be explored as to why gini coefficient is increasing. Its going to be multifactorial and not just rooted in demographics - which is very vague.

I doubt any amount of benefits and socialism can solve this problem. Look into the degree of poverty in EU.

People don’t have the same abilities. That’s fundamental. There are lots of people who simply struggle to operate in today’s economy, even in an otherwise fully egalitarian society.

What can you do?!

People come from far east and work in US. The system doesn’t seem to disadvantage them.

> I doubt any amount of benefits and socialism can solve this problem.

Most EU countries are higher up the list. Most provide better social benefits and many have socialist roots. Not sure how you form your conclusions.

Which list (there are many of them, made by different groups with different political positions)? How do you measure “sustainability development goal,” or living standards of a person? Who defines these terms, provides data, publishes these lists, why is it relevant amid countless other indices, Etc. You can always define an index that would put a given country or region at any position, or to advance a point.

You do better, living and experiencing life in different countries, or ask people who have done so. Not dismissing data, but there are a lot of stuff not captured by a number (not to mention the issue with data and the method used).

For example, there are other articles that claim poor people in US are richer than the middle class in much of the Europe (like a lower class or poor family in US might only have one car, rather than several, comparable to the middle or upper class in EU):

https://mises.org/wire/poor-us-are-richer-middle-class-much-...

Regardless, the point in my comment remains.

> How do you measure “sustainability development goal,” or living > standards of a person? [...ad nauseam]

Here's a wild idea: perhaps you should figure out the answers to these questions first?

> Which list

The one referred to in the article.

It also mentions "American exceptionalism, a belief in American superiority over the rest of the world". I'm beginning to get the idea.

> > I doubt any amount of benefits and socialism can solve this problem.

This

> Most EU countries are higher up the list

How do you know you can trust that list?

When you look at both the average and the median income, even adjusting for PPP, IIRC the poorest US state is richer than the richest EU country, which says a whole lot about "the degree of poverty in EU".

Of course, Europeans don't like that so they try to tweak the rankings by doing various adjustments for happiness, or insisting on healthcare stuff (etc.) and how they have many transfer payments.

The europoors doth protest too much, methinks :)

Actually, the median income per person is higher in most of the EU than it is in the US. No tweaking needed.

With higher cost of living, taxes and less job opportunity and an economy that isn't recovering. The US with all its flaws really depends on where and how you look at it from, especially with the rise of work at home allowing more fluid movement to much lower cost areas compared to the cheapest areas of EU zone.

US is #2, only behind Luxembourg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

Then I guess it has changed?

Congrats to the smallest and richest EU country, for no longer being poorer than us!

I was looking at wealth, not income, sorry. Can't edit anymore. Then US is 26th

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...

> Actually, the median income per person is higher in most of the EU

That's factually wrong, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

But I also learned today that my simple assumption was now wrong.

So congratulations to Luxembourg, for being part of the EU yet not as poor as the rest!

Forest, meet trees: my numbers are higher, so all the things humans find important that are the very foundation of the number being important don't matter.

> People come from far east and work in US. The system doesn’t seem to disadvantage them.

This is by design. Apart from refugees, we aren’t letting uneducated people immigrate. Look at South Asians, as a whole they have a higher family income, same with other Asians (Japan, Korea etc.). This is because we favor highly educated immigrants.

the southern border would like a word with you

Illegal immigration is just that, illegal. Hispanics, especially second generation ones have lower poverty rates, higher homeownership rates, higher education, and higher income.

I left out refugees and a lot of the border crossers are refugees, from wars, cartels, and poverty.

Then I want you to explain Norway to me. Or Sweden. Or Denmark.

The Nordics are very comparable to New Hampshire in terms of demographics, education, wealth and outcomes. Everyone likes to say “the US should be like the Nordics” but no one ever says “the US should be like New Hampshire”.

Perhaps that is because Vermont is right next door and it is much prettier - I could definitely imagine someone saying that "more of the US should be like Vermont"!

Tiny, homogeneous, monocultured, de facto ethnostates that make it very easy to do business and/or have robust fossil fuel reserves are not comparable to massive, diverse, multicultural states with wildly different ethics and values across any number of demographics.

You didn't read immigration statistics. Do your homework, then come back.

You don't understand how long it takes demographic shifts to change a culture, nor the political backlash and parties being voted into power as a result of these consequences.

Again, do your homework. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

It's not very productive in a conversation to just keep telling everyone that disagrees with you to do their homework. Why not provide some points to actually look up?

Why not respect people one talks to enough to actually do homework rather than imply it is everyone else's responsibility to make up for someone else's laziness? Is it too much to ask that people mind their manners?

You’re on a forum to converse. If you have a point, say it. It’s lazy to tell someone to go do homework. Homework on what? I don’t know, it’s your point that you think is important, but won’t explain it.

Norway: population of 5M people. Incredible oil wealth. Massachusetts is larger in population that Norway. It's not a reasonable comparison.

Sweden: population of 10M people. Roughly the population of Michigan, for example. Just elected a rightward moving parliament on a law and order and immigration-restriction agenda.

Denmark: population of 5M people - again - compared to Massachusetts (which is larger by population), not a particularly exceptional place.

I admire all of these EU countries but you just can't compare them to the size, geographic distribution, and non-uniformity of the entire US.

Why is it no one ever compares Hungary, Latvia, Cyprus .. or other less prosperous EU nations to the US? And never compares highly successful states to the EU as a whole?

Lots of countries generate oil revenue. Not all oil-producing countries provide national welfare. You didn't actually think about this.

Try again. Do better.

Perhaps instead of granting inequal advantages to disadvantaged people, increasing access to self-improvement resources can help reduce the number of people struggling to operate in today's economy while maintaining equality

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