4 ms·
Everything you state is true, but are we really supposed to use third world countries as our baseline? If Michael Phelps used Terry Schiavo as his competition,
by dikdik 10y ago
Everything you state is true, but are we really supposed to use third world countries as our baseline? If Michael Phelps used Terry Schiavo as his competition, I doubt he would be as good as he is.
In the US we should be comparing ourselves to the best countries with the least amount of poverty, the highest socioeconomic mobility, and the healthiest populions.
We can't and won't improve if we always look for the lowest denominator then pat ourselves on the back because we are better than that.
- vanjoe 10y agoAlways comparing,never evaluating against an outside standard. We'll never break the n log(n) barrier
- adventured 10y agoShould we be comparing the US of 330 million people versus tiny nations that have artificial advantages due to their small size and homogeneous culture? Which pushes further into how you compare such dramatically different examples in the first place. Consider Finland. Five million people, 82% white, extremely anti-immigration, and they don't have to defend themselves for the most part. The US military shield has mostly taken care of that for them (thus their 1.3% of GDP military spending despite having a frequently hostile Russia on their doorstep). So you want to compare their outcome, to the US? Comparing a wildly diverse nation of 330 million against Sweden, Norway or Finland type nations, is absurd. Those are the absolute elite outcomes of the world and Europe in particular. Compare Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Minnesota, Virginia, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington, etc. to those nations. They all have median incomes equal to or higher than Switzerland (and that's before adjusting for the better cost of living in those states vs a Switzerland type nation) and are much closer on a population basis. Those are the elite outcomes of the US collection of states. Or would you rather compare various of the bottom 25 US states to the relatively impoverished half of Europe nobody ever wants to talk about? Bulgaria, Belarus, Russia, Moldova, Hungary, Ukraine, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, etc. The fact is, most developed nations struggle to match the median incomes of the poorest US states. Japan as one example has a median income 20% below Mississippi and Louisiana (and it's likely to continue losing ground to those states). Germany is about on par with Kentucky.
- temp 10y ago>Japan as one example has a median income 20% below Mississippi and Louisiana Can you provide sources for that? What are you comparing? Median disposable income? Median household income?
- xienze 10y agoMedian household income. From a couple seconds worth of Googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gallup_gross_median_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gallup_gross_med... > Japan: 34822 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi > MS: 40037
- bonzini 10y agoDoes that include health insurance?
- ezequiel-garzon 10y agoI'm sorry, but it doesn't boil down to per-capita GDP alone. The possibility that a tragedy could quickly exceed your health insurance limit and deplete your savings is something most Americans fear, while it's not an issue in Europe. Whether you would choose (if given that luxury) one system over the other is not obvious.
- pm90 10y agoWhen considering household incomes, its more useful to consider both actual income and government provided benefits as well. Like a sibling pointed out, universal healthcare is just one of the perks offered by most developed countries.