7 ms·
Checks? France loves checks and use them more than Americans. No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care. Ano
by briandear 7y ago
Checks? France loves checks and use them more than Americans.
No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care.
Another legitimate peculiarity of Americans is the vastly higher disposable income compared to most other countries. Even with all of the “free” stuff, the French have lower wages and far less disposable income than Americans.
- useerup 7y ago> No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care. I think you know that "public healthcare" was referring to universal healthcare in this context. US is the only western democracy without universal healthcare.
- H8crilA 7y agoYeah that's what I meant. Too late to edit comment!
- patrickaljord 7y agoSwitzerland and the Netherlands healthcare is private though people are obligated to get a plan. Works great and cheaper than here in France which is horribly expensive for anyone with a decent wage.
- mcv 7y agoThe Dutch and especially Swiss healthcare systems are actually among the most expensive in Europe. France is cheaper per capita.
- patrickaljord 7y agoYes per capita, that's why I said "for anyone with a decent wage". France has one of the highest unemployment rate in OCDE, so for all these people it is indeed cheap, in fact free. But for those actually making more than the minimum wage (and for anyone making close to a SV salary or the French equivalent), you end up paying way way more than the Dutch and the Swiss.
- exergy 7y agoThe French have the RIB system, wherein you can send a snapshot of what your account details are, and the bills are automatically deducted from there. In practice, that means you need to use cheques MUCH less frequently than in the US. What's worse, the US doesn't have an easy way to transfer money electronically between banks! Thus requiring even more cheques.
- krzyk 7y agoWhy would you need checks at all if you can just pay by card or transfer money using your bank online page?
- exergy 7y agoIt's often the other way around. Companies sometimes prefer to pay you, reimburements etc, via a cheque.
- novok 7y agoIt's because the USA decided paypal was the way to do C2C transfers between banks and decided not to develop their own as a result. You also have venmo, square cash, fb messenger, etc.
- tom_mellior 7y ago> The French have the RIB system When living in France I never came across the use case you describe, at least not in this form. But I did often come across people wanting money from me sending their RIB as an image attachment to emails rather than copying and pasting their IBAN into the body of the mail like elsewhere in Europe.
- exergy 7y agoThat's more or less what I meant, except with utility companies instead of people. Apologies if I made it sound fancier. Having lived in the US and France, I think the places where cheques were used a lot was in bills-type things. That's why I brought this example up.
- padobson 7y agoDon't forget we also spend less on feeding ourselves than anyone else in the world[0]. [0]https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-much-each-country-spends-on-food/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu...
- n4r9 7y agoThat's partly due to lower food standards, surely? Salmonella causes hundreds of deaths per year in the US but I believe almost zero in the US.
- padobson 7y agoMy guess would be agricultural subsidies more than food standards.
- n4r9 7y agoReally? The US spends about 1% of its budget on agricultural subsidies compared to the EU's 40%.
- mcv 7y agoThe EU's budget is tiny, though. It doesn't maintain armies, police, infrastructure, health care or any sort of social security. Farm subsidies are among the few things the EU spends money on. The rest is paid by member states. So this is not a meaningful comparison.
- Signez 7y ago> Checks? France loves checks and use them more than Americans. I am afraid your data is outdated: it is now used for less than 15% of payments, mainly by old people or for C2C payments. I am in my late twenties and have emitted only 3 checks from my account, in my entire life.
- toyg 7y agoI had to use them years ago to pay some club for the kids (UK), and every time I was sweating - where do i write the amount? Where the name? Is it readable? Did I mark the end correctly?... Thank $deity banks phased them out.
- mcv 7y ago15% is still a lot more than in many other countries. Checks are certainly on the way out, but in rural southern France, there are still places where you can pay with check but not with pin card.