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False. 'Social Mobility' cannot be compared between USA and small Euro nations. 'Social Mobility' within Denmark, a country smaller than Los Angeles, is prett

False. 'Social Mobility' cannot be compared between USA and small Euro nations. 'Social Mobility' within Denmark, a country smaller than Los Angeles, is pretty good. What if you compared 'Social Mobility' across the EU. Do you think that poor people in Croatia, Sicily and Greece are 'mobilizing' up past the Swedish middle class? No. Also - America has large ethnic groups. America is really 5 nations: Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Blacks, and 'everyone else'. By almost every measure, America is different for these people, it's tough to compare. I'm not saying it's right, rather alluding to what it is. Finally - I would say having lived in the US and Europe - that there is without a doubt more opportunity in America than in Europe overall. No question about that. The elite in most European nations come from pretty good families. They go to the top schools and have their careers guaranteed. Anyone in America can be successful. Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. Anyhow - the gini coefficient for 'all of Europe' I suggest is definitely lower than the US, and this is because it's nary impossible for poor Spaniards/Greeks/Sicilians to rise to higher than the European upper middle class.

jomamaxx 10y ago
"as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes" FYI I'm not blaming them, rather indicating that for whatever reason, opportunity is not grasped.
aleksei 10y ago
> Anyone in America can be successful. As can anyone in Europe, no? EDIT: must have read too fast, above point stands.
dilann 10y ago
US is more like Russia by the gini. Multi-nationality is not unique to the US.
- adventured 10y ago
  And the reason the gini is a bad joke: the median US standard of living is four to five times that of Russia.
  - drabiega 10y ago
    That's not the point of the Gini index. You could use this logic on anything, because you're just saying that it doesn't measure something that it doesn't measure.
cplanas 10y ago
The fact that you are putting Spain, Greece and Italy as example of poor EU countries already shows you have an alarming lack of knowledge about the EU at least. Spain and Italy are average countries in the EU, GDP per capita-wise. Greece is lower than average, but far away from the poorest ones (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/3/31/Volume_indices_of_GDP_and_AIC_per_capita%2C_2015_%28EU-28%3D100%29vJune.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/3/3...) In Europe anyone can go to a top school. In my case, my mother is a cleaner and my family is low-middle class: I was able to go to the best university of my country anyway. Most of people in my university were like me. In most of countries of Europe the money just doesn't matter for education purposes: if you are good enough for that university, you go there. And for a Spaniard is quite possible to rise higher than the European upper middle class. I know many, many cases.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  > if you are good enough for that university, you go there. As someone who grew up in EU but now I live in the US, this is something that seriously bugs me. What lesson should I teach my kids when they go to college? "Son, no matter how hard you study, or you don't study, all that matters is daddy's money to get you into college."
  - vasilipupkin 10y ago
    this is just really not the case in the US. Top universities have need blind admissions - they will subsidize for you to attend. There are in state tuition universities that are affordable, there are grants, scholarships, etc. Percentage of Americans with college degrees is really not any lower than in Europe
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      Yes. Just about everybody at the elite schools (e.g., Harvard) gets a significant amount of financial aid.
      - 10y ago
jacquesm 10y ago
My friends are from all over Europe, and America, India and China. > Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. Ah, it's their fault. > impossible for poor Spaniards/Greeks/Sicilians to rise to higher than the European upper middle class. I'm sure you'd argue they don't work towards 'great outcomes'. But you know what. I really don't see anything super good (or super bad) about living in the US versus Europe. Governments are roughly equally ineffective at solving real problems, people are on average nice. All in all, it's a toss-up.
- IanDrake 10y ago
  >> Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. >Ah, it's their fault. That's not what he said. There are many reasons for this, mostly parenting and culture.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    That's exactly what he said: that they don't work towards great outcomes.
  - uola 10y ago
    Social mobility is by definition that your own future shouldn't be determined by your parents. So "parenting" is not really a valid excuse if you want social mobility.
getgoingnow 10y ago
Great point. Nordic countries and other rich European countries owe large part of their success to colonization in the past. For example, Belgium performed mass genocide in Congo, enslaved the people and stole the natural resources in the country. So, today people in Belgium live comfortably, since the modern Belgium is built on top of African slaves' pile of bones. About half of GDP of Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, Austria is taxes. It's easy to talk about redistribution after you've pillaged the entire world.
- cplanas 10y ago
  > Nordic countries [...] owe large part of their success to colonization in the past. The Nordic countries had no (or negligible) colonies. The Nordic countries are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.
  - fleitz 10y ago
    lol. Please tell me more about how Nordic people never established any colonies. The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic colonies in and of themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans
    - dalke 10y ago
      Sweden had colonies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies . Sweden also had slave trade. Denmark/Norway had colonies as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire . Greenland and the Faroe Islands are what remain of the Danish colonial empire. Finland is another Nordic country, though not a Scandinavian country. Finland has never had an empire. It was too busy being controlled by Sweden and Russia. This means the Finns are Nordic people. Hence getgoingnow's statement cannot be true for all Nordic countries. That said, cplanas is correct. Finland had no colonies, and for the other Nordic countries the colonies provided only a small revenue source. They surely did not "owe large part of their success to colonization in the past" as getgoingnow claims. Eg, Sweden's wealth historically comes from copper and iron, and Sweden was a poor country. Norway's w I see you switched from "Nordic countries" to "Nordic people" and then to "Normans", to then imply that successful Norman conquests and colonization lead to a significant economic gain to the Nordic countries. I do not think that's a meaningful connection for the current discussion. First, I do not like how you imply there is only one type of colonization. There's settler colonialism, like how the Bantu migrations displaced the Pygmy populations in early Congo history, or how the Norse/Danes controlled the region known as the Danelaw, or how the Norse settled in France, and assimilated (switched to Catholicism and to the French language), or how the Norse colonized Iceland. There's also exploitation colonialism, which England and Spain are two of the best known examples. But the Norse conquest of England, which might have enriched some of the Norse in France, never went back to "the Nordic countries". Where then is the source of the revenue stream that getgoingnow implied was a basis for the success of the modern Nordic countries? Second, the connection from "Normans" to "Nordic countries" doesn't work that way. The term "Nordic" is a relatively recent term that refers to a list of modern countries and territories; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries . It does not refer to Brittany, where the Normans lived, nor to Britain or southern Italy, which the Normans conquered. Third, "Nordic people" has a variety of meanings (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people ). It can refer to the Germanic people as a whole, or the people who live in the specific Nordic countries, or a term from scientific racism from the late 1800s, or the Norse, or more specifically the Vikings. I think your introduction of that term confuses the topic more than it helps. Which definition do you mean to use, and why not stay with "Nordic countries"? Fourth, the Normans are only one link in history. Why stop with them? The Normans come from the Norse. The Norse are Germans. Why not simply say it's all due to German colonization? Then again, you wrote "The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic colonies". I must have missed that part of history where they covered how the Normans colonized the Islamic Iberian Peninsula and lead to the Portuguese colonies.
jazzyk 10y ago
I don't have the link handy, but The Economist had a cover story a while ago about how Europe (Nordics in particular) has now much higher social mobility than the US.

jomamaxx 10y ago

"as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes" FYI I'm not blaming them, rather indicating that for whatever reason, opportunity is not grasped.

aleksei 10y ago

> Anyone in America can be successful. As can anyone in Europe, no? EDIT: must have read too fast, above point stands.

dilann 10y ago

US is more like Russia by the gini. Multi-nationality is not unique to the US.

adventured 10y ago
And the reason the gini is a bad joke: the median US standard of living is four to five times that of Russia.
- drabiega 10y ago
  That's not the point of the Gini index. You could use this logic on anything, because you're just saying that it doesn't measure something that it doesn't measure.

cplanas 10y ago

The fact that you are putting Spain, Greece and Italy as example of poor EU countries already shows you have an alarming lack of knowledge about the EU at least. Spain and Italy are average countries in the EU, GDP per capita-wise. Greece is lower than average, but far away from the poorest ones (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/3/31/Volume_indices_of_GDP_and_AIC_per_capita%2C_2015_%28EU-28%3D100%29vJune.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/3/3...) In Europe anyone can go to a top school. In my case, my mother is a cleaner and my family is low-middle class: I was able to go to the best university of my country anyway. Most of people in my university were like me. In most of countries of Europe the money just doesn't matter for education purposes: if you are good enough for that university, you go there. And for a Spaniard is quite possible to rise higher than the European upper middle class. I know many, many cases.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> if you are good enough for that university, you go there. As someone who grew up in EU but now I live in the US, this is something that seriously bugs me. What lesson should I teach my kids when they go to college? "Son, no matter how hard you study, or you don't study, all that matters is daddy's money to get you into college."
- vasilipupkin 10y ago
  this is just really not the case in the US. Top universities have need blind admissions - they will subsidize for you to attend. There are in state tuition universities that are affordable, there are grants, scholarships, etc. Percentage of Americans with college degrees is really not any lower than in Europe
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Yes. Just about everybody at the elite schools (e.g., Harvard) gets a significant amount of financial aid.
    - 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

My friends are from all over Europe, and America, India and China. > Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. Ah, it's their fault. > impossible for poor Spaniards/Greeks/Sicilians to rise to higher than the European upper middle class. I'm sure you'd argue they don't work towards 'great outcomes'. But you know what. I really don't see anything super good (or super bad) about living in the US versus Europe. Governments are roughly equally ineffective at solving real problems, people are on average nice. All in all, it's a toss-up.

IanDrake 10y ago
>> Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. >Ah, it's their fault. That's not what he said. There are many reasons for this, mostly parenting and culture.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That's exactly what he said: that they don't work towards great outcomes.
- uola 10y ago
  Social mobility is by definition that your own future shouldn't be determined by your parents. So "parenting" is not really a valid excuse if you want social mobility.

getgoingnow 10y ago

Great point. Nordic countries and other rich European countries owe large part of their success to colonization in the past. For example, Belgium performed mass genocide in Congo, enslaved the people and stole the natural resources in the country. So, today people in Belgium live comfortably, since the modern Belgium is built on top of African slaves' pile of bones. About half of GDP of Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, Austria is taxes. It's easy to talk about redistribution after you've pillaged the entire world.

cplanas 10y ago
> Nordic countries [...] owe large part of their success to colonization in the past. The Nordic countries had no (or negligible) colonies. The Nordic countries are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.
- fleitz 10y ago
  lol. Please tell me more about how Nordic people never established any colonies. The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic colonies in and of themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans
  - dalke 10y ago
    Sweden had colonies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies . Sweden also had slave trade. Denmark/Norway had colonies as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire . Greenland and the Faroe Islands are what remain of the Danish colonial empire. Finland is another Nordic country, though not a Scandinavian country. Finland has never had an empire. It was too busy being controlled by Sweden and Russia. This means the Finns are Nordic people. Hence getgoingnow's statement cannot be true for all Nordic countries. That said, cplanas is correct. Finland had no colonies, and for the other Nordic countries the colonies provided only a small revenue source. They surely did not "owe large part of their success to colonization in the past" as getgoingnow claims. Eg, Sweden's wealth historically comes from copper and iron, and Sweden was a poor country. Norway's w I see you switched from "Nordic countries" to "Nordic people" and then to "Normans", to then imply that successful Norman conquests and colonization lead to a significant economic gain to the Nordic countries. I do not think that's a meaningful connection for the current discussion. First, I do not like how you imply there is only one type of colonization. There's settler colonialism, like how the Bantu migrations displaced the Pygmy populations in early Congo history, or how the Norse/Danes controlled the region known as the Danelaw, or how the Norse settled in France, and assimilated (switched to Catholicism and to the French language), or how the Norse colonized Iceland. There's also exploitation colonialism, which England and Spain are two of the best known examples. But the Norse conquest of England, which might have enriched some of the Norse in France, never went back to "the Nordic countries". Where then is the source of the revenue stream that getgoingnow implied was a basis for the success of the modern Nordic countries? Second, the connection from "Normans" to "Nordic countries" doesn't work that way. The term "Nordic" is a relatively recent term that refers to a list of modern countries and territories; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries . It does not refer to Brittany, where the Normans lived, nor to Britain or southern Italy, which the Normans conquered. Third, "Nordic people" has a variety of meanings (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people ). It can refer to the Germanic people as a whole, or the people who live in the specific Nordic countries, or a term from scientific racism from the late 1800s, or the Norse, or more specifically the Vikings. I think your introduction of that term confuses the topic more than it helps. Which definition do you mean to use, and why not stay with "Nordic countries"? Fourth, the Normans are only one link in history. Why stop with them? The Normans come from the Norse. The Norse are Germans. Why not simply say it's all due to German colonization? Then again, you wrote "The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic colonies". I must have missed that part of history where they covered how the Normans colonized the Islamic Iberian Peninsula and lead to the Portuguese colonies.

jazzyk 10y ago

I don't have the link handy, but The Economist had a cover story a while ago about how Europe (Nordics in particular) has now much higher social mobility than the US.