4 ms·
One of the things that ruffles my feathers about this genre of made-for-mass-consumption clap-trap is this sort of proclamation: > Other nations are suffering
by bvanderveen 6y ago
One of the things that ruffles my feathers about this genre of made-for-mass-consumption clap-trap is this sort of proclamation:
> Other nations are suffering less from COVID-19 because they made better choices
Which other nations? As someone who regularly reads francophone european news, I can assure you it isn't any nation in Europe. OP goes on to cite minimum wage, overtime pay, state-funded healthcare/childcare/education, and more powerful unions as choices Americans could make to improve their economic standing.
But broader economic outcomes such as wealth inequality in Europe has followed a similar trajectory to that of the US over the past 40 years, and since the start of the COVID crisis, civil liberties have been decimated by the technocracy's crisis response, medical outcomes even with their much-vaunted state healthcare systems are not significantly better than in the US, and small businesses are failing and people are falling into poverty at astounding rates. The ECB prints euros in lock-step with the Fed's dollars.
My intent isn't to make an argument for or against Euro-style social security features, but merely to remind that even with those features, Europe is not presently faring better than the US. Arguably coronavirus-related economic and social outcomes (medical outcomes notwithstanding, depending on the nation/state) in Europe are even more onerous than in the US at present.
Furthermore, this whole episode could sweep far-right parties into power in Europe. It's essentially a given, for example, that Marine Le Pen will run against Macron again in 2022, and not at all certain that she will lose…
- Dumblydorr 6y agoOne small point, medical system of the US is only vaunted for the rich. For average citizens, who are very unhealthy due to a crappy American diet, healthcare is worse than European nations for the unhealthy here.
- buzzert 6y agoPresumably the "other nations" are the tiny island nations (New Zealand, Singapore) who implemented extremely strict measures to re-open sooner. An extremely unfair comparison, in my opinion, considering the population difference, physical location, and trade obligations of the US and other countries in the EU.
- bvanderveen 6y agoMy thoughts exactly.
- kaishiro 6y agoIs Australia a "tiny island nation"?
- Sophistifunk 6y agoPretty much, we just happen to be on a big (empty) island.
- kaishiro 6y agoAfter having lived through the lockdown in Melbourne myself, I think it's pretty unfair to the people here to suggest that the reason the cases are so low is because it's just "a big empty island", and not the result of the fairly hard lockdown that the people here had to endure.
- sitkack 6y agoThink of the Wallabys!
- CRConrad 6y agoThe GP didn't say it was because Australia is geographically large, it said it was because Australia is geographically isolated and population-wise comparatively “tiny”.
- Sophistifunk 6y agoProbably a coincidence that overzealous governments are locking people down the world over and it's only working in AU/NZ then.
- buzzert 6y agoYes. The population of Australia is about the same as the greater Los Angeles metro area (25.36 million vs. 23.86 million)
- DeRock 6y agoCanada is probably the most apt comparison here. They have about 4x less coronavirus cases per capita [source](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=USA~CAN®ion=World&casesMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=total_cases&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...) IMO, a lot of this had to do with the federal response and cohesive messaging they provided. It wasn't perfect, but they at least took action with things like CERB payments, enforced travel quarantines, etc. On the other hand, the US is way ahead on vaccinations (due to, I would guess, them being developed in country). It does seem like a very US outcome to solve problems with technology and private enterprise in the face of government ineptitude.
- alacombe 6y ago> Canada is probably the most apt comparison here. Oh come on... Canada is less populated than California with 25x more land...
- dlp211 6y agoYou'd have a point if people were evenly distributed. They aren't.
- zaptheimpaler 6y ago90% of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border. Most of Canada is very cold and uninhabited. So a straight up population density comparison doesn't make much sense. The meaningful measure is something like population density in inhabited areas, and that is pretty close to Euro/US density.
- alacombe 6y agoCanadian cities population density don't even register compared to US cities... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... vs. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=205&S=3&RPP=50 https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hl...
- Andaith 6y ago> Which other nations? The ones doing really well are: China, Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Iceland, Ireland, Thailand. For some pure numbers comparison: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Sort by "Total Cases/1M Pop, ascending". USA is 215 out of 221. Sort by "Total Deaths/1M Pop, ascending". USA is 213 out of 221. Sort by "Active Cases, ascending". USA is 221 out of 221. Sort by "Total Deaths, ascending". USA is 221 out of 221. So, uhm, most other nations? Every time this gets discussed we hear how the USA couldn't do what other countries did because the USA is: Bigger/Smaller/Not an island/Testing too much/Not testing enough, etc etc.