4 ms·
If you’re a “professional” (engineers, lawyers, doctors etc) in any capacity; you will be given more - but for the majority of the workforce in retail, hospital
by _s 5y ago
If you’re a “professional” (engineers, lawyers, doctors etc) in any capacity; you will be given more - but for the majority of the workforce in retail, hospitality, services - you are much worse off; the European social support is geared towards a more even society.
- alanbernstein 5y agoThat aligns with the Steve jobs unicorn story; a more even society sacrifices the extreme high outliers like him. Interesting to think about it as trading social welfare for the chance at more successful moonshots. If you believe in always-increasing returns on technological progress, it probably sounds like a fair trade...
- dv_dt 5y agoWhile it’s an easy concept, if you look at billionaires per capita, Norway and Sweden edge out the us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...
- oneplane 5y agoOn the other hand, billionaires are just concentrations of wealth and power which hardly helps the masses. That is a general pattern in the USA anyhow, a few concentrations here and there but everyone else seems to be screwed in various ways (be it basics like healthcare, education, safety).
- dv_dt 5y agoSure, mainly I wanted to point out that, there is no conflict between providing a strong social safety net policy and having billionaires. The only reason to avoid the safety net would seem to be a myth that somehow others have to suffer for success to be possible.
- jessedhillon 5y agoI'm not familiar with the wealth situation in Scandinavia, but I just want to point out: what matters is the numbers of millionaires/billionaires created, not just the number existing. For example, these higher numbers could be leftover nobles or aristocracy. Also, it's a pretty unconvincing comparison to pick a small population country to benchmark the US against.
- dv_dt 5y agoSurveys of some eu nations rank them as friendly for business creation - Sweden Denmark and Switzerland rank pretty high. Universal healthcare at half the cost of the US and built into, but independent of your taxes is pretty nice for starting businesses. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/open-for-business-rankings https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/open-for-business...
- jessedhillon 5y agoAll of which is an entirely separate set of points from the point you were making about the number of billionaires.
- dv_dt 5y agoIf one is concerned about wealth creation as your reply to my original data brought up, it would seem that sentiment about friendliness of business creation would be relevant. Not necessarily accumulation of wealth from winning bets a decades ago.
- jessedhillon 5y agoYes, well on the one hand you shared evidence of actual outcomes and presented that as meaningful, and that's what I challenged. Weaving theories about how social benefits are good for entrepreneurship is not much of a counterpoint here, unless you can connect it back to the same outcomes in question.
- mannerheim 5y agoA significant share of the wealthiest individuals in Sweden are from the nobility.