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I haven't been to Scandinavia, but I have been to some of the "wealthy" European countries, including Ireland. I now live in its GDP counterpart, Colorado. I wo
by pluto9 8y ago
I haven't been to Scandinavia, but I have been to some of the "wealthy" European countries, including Ireland. I now live in its GDP counterpart, Colorado. I would say their quality of life is comparable.
It would be helpful for you to explain how life in, say, Sweden is vastly better than life in Georgia. Before you cite poor uneducated Georgian hillbillies, keep in mind that Georgia is home to Georgia Tech, not to mention Atlanta, which was quite prosperous last time I checked. And if you're going to cite Sweden's "free" universities, you might as well go ahead and throw in a side-by-side comparison of Georgian/U.S. Federal and Swedish tax rates as well.
- lexs 8y agooh no contributing to society with taxes oh noooooo
- pluto9 8y agoUtterly pointless and idiotic comment. I made no judgement as to whether those higher taxes or the things they pay for are good or bad. I am merely saying that these things are trade-offs, and if you're going to count the benefits, you must also count the costs.
- lolsal 8y agoAre you intending to add anything to the discussion or was your comment accidentally not contributing anything?
- maxerickson 8y agoIt comes down to how you measure. People doing well have a high quality of life in pretty much the entire United States. People at the bottom, less so. The US does have an awful lot of support for people, but our society is also hostile to poor people and we have awful workplace regulation for low quality jobs.
- pluto9 8y agoYeah, life sucks when you're poor. More so in many of these countries than in the U.S, and less so in a few. You've said nothing. Every country has economic strata. Pointing it out only in the case of the U.S. is specious.
- maxerickson 8y agoWell no, pointing out that the US strata are unusually and unnecessarily capricious isn't specious. The US is a rich country and the lack of resources for people at the bottom is more likely to be arbitrary than it is to be contributing to that wealth.
- pluto9 8y agoIt is when you conveniently fail to mention the vast list of countries, many of which are on this map, whose stratification is far worse than that of the U.S.
- kungtotte 8y agoComparing specifically to Sweden, there is no similarity at all between the US and Sweden when it comes to economic classes and their differences. We have our upper class and working class too, but even those who are working poor here manage with one job and they still enjoy benefits like day care and health care. How many people are hustling two or more jobs to make ends meet in the US? How many of them afford day care? What happens if they break a leg and can't work for a month?
- pluto9 8y agoI never said the U.S. deals with economic strata better than every other nation on Earth. In fact, I explicitly said that there are countries who handle it better. So what's your point?
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago