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Coming from Eastern Europe, which used to be dangerous in the days following the fall do communism, and coming to the US, the richest country in the world, you

Coming from Eastern Europe, which used to be dangerous in the days following the fall do communism, and coming to the US, the richest country in the world, you expect it to be safer than your poor European country. The reality however is very different.

resolutebat 3y ago
The US barely squeaks into the top 10 richest countries (GDP per capita), and even during the worst days of post-Communist chaos I doubt there was ever a case of a camera crew getting robbed at gunpoint in Prague.
- ozr 3y ago
  This simply isn't true. Looking at the IMF numbers in 2023, the US is number 7. Every country ahead of the US has something that is massively distorting their GDP per capita. Tax havens, nationalized oil, etc.
mplewis 3y ago
[flagged]
- SenAnder 3y ago
  The US is #10 in the world in PPP-adjusted social spending per capita, at $9734. The Czech republic is #25, at $5799: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_we... Edit: To compare further: By median PPP-adjusted income, the US is #2, at $46k, while the Czech Republic is #26, at $21k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income By homicide rate, the US is #53, at 6.8, while the Czech Republic is #184, at 0.4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Let this be a lesson on the importance of economy for a people's well-being.
  - runjake 3y ago
    I wonder how much US healthcare prices skew that figure.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Spending is a very bad metric. You can spend all your money with nothing to show for it.
  - imjonse 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#... By democracy index in 2022, CZ is 25th place, US is 30th.
    - SenAnder 3y ago
      Right below the US, #31, is Slovenia, with a 0.4 homicide rate. #34 is Italy, with a 0.5 homicide rate. Singapore is #70, with a 0.1 homicide rate, and China is #156, with a 0.5 homicide rate.
      - imjonse 3y ago
        the democracy index is computed based on 5 categories, the homicide rate is not directly related to any of those.
        SenAnder 3y ago
        I was addressing the perceived implication that a lack of democracy worsens crime.
  - cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
    The US spends the most money while getting the worst results in many areas. It's a corrupt, unequal, third-world country with homeless favelas in most major cities and no universal healthcare.
- nailer 3y ago
  It’s been described as an entire country that Gucci belts.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  My take is that the US is just very violent compared to the other rich countries. It's by some margin, the richest of the "regular" rich countries.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    US cities are very violent compared to other prosperous countries, for a large part due to the politics of those places. The rest of the US is not nearly as violent.
    - the_third_wave 3y ago
      To the down-voter: Instead of clicking that down-vote arrow in a (tiring) attempt to get this post greyed-out it would be far more enlightening to learn why you do not agree with what is written here. What, if anything, is incorrect about what I wrote here?
  - NoImmatureAdHom 3y ago
    It's very violent on average, but that violence isn't evenly distributed. Most middle-class Americans have nothing to fear on a daily basis. The violence is driven almost entirely by poor black and brown men living in cities and often involved in violent crime. If you remove Black Americans from the system, U.S. murder rates look like much of Western Europe. Some people can't handle this, so I'll say up-front: I think ignoring the problem means you are part of the problem, and a problem of this magnitude (the murder rate in the U.S.) deserves a solution. Part of that solution is changing social norms so that we can actually, you know, figure out what's going on...right now honest research into this is de facto banned. Anyway, I've done a deep dive into the numbers. Murder rate data from the FBI has a large "unknown" category, so I'll handle that in a few ways for simplicity. Focusing on murders rather than other violent crime is the best thing to do because, while there may be a lot of ambiguity about what constitutes "assault", how often it's reported, etc., there really isn't much ambiguity about murder. We don't lose track of bodies very often. Here's the murder rate in the U.S. broken down by race. All numbers are murderers (offenders) per 100,000 people: White (simple, ignoring "Unknown"): 1.8 Black (simple, ignoring "Unknown"): 13.3 White (assuming all "Unknown" are White): 3.7 Black (assuming all "Unknown" are Black): 23.2 White (splitting up "Unknown" by existing proportion of total): 2.6 Black (splitting up "Unknown" by existing proportion of total): 18.8 The difference is stark. Using the 2.6 vs. 18.8 raw numbers, probably closest to the truth, Black people in the U.S. are about seven times more likely to murder in a given year than are white people on average. The number becomes even more stark if you compare Black to non-Black (because Asians are less likely to murder than Whites), and yet more stark if you just look at men (women murder at something like 1/8 the rate of men, so having them in the system dilutes all differences). Hispanics are also included in "White" by the U.S. census (and they murder at higher rates than non-Hispanic Whites). Insofar as cities don't report to the UCR (like New York), if they were to report it would make the Black murder rate go up. Murder clearance ("solved") rates are abysmal in the U.S., 60-something percent on average, but are low where young black men do a lot of killing and higher elsewhere; Black Americans are more likely to get away with murder than non-Black Americans, so adjusting for that drives the Black murder rate still higher. It depends on your assumptions, but Black American men 15-35 murder at something like 50x the rate of the rest of the population. FBI UCR murder offender data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Census data: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2020/population-estimates-detailed.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2020/population-e...
- onionisafruit 3y ago
  I think you are mistaken. By the original definition the US could never be anything but a first world country. In modern usage first-world and third-world are anachronistic ways of saying developed or developing economies. I don’t see any possible argument for the US not having a developed economy as long as the dollar is the world’s benchmark currency.
balls187 3y ago
Why would you expect that?

resolutebat 3y ago

The US barely squeaks into the top 10 richest countries (GDP per capita), and even during the worst days of post-Communist chaos I doubt there was ever a case of a camera crew getting robbed at gunpoint in Prague.

ozr 3y ago
This simply isn't true. Looking at the IMF numbers in 2023, the US is number 7. Every country ahead of the US has something that is massively distorting their GDP per capita. Tax havens, nationalized oil, etc.

mplewis 3y ago

[flagged]

SenAnder 3y ago
The US is #10 in the world in PPP-adjusted social spending per capita, at $9734. The Czech republic is #25, at $5799: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_we... Edit: To compare further: By median PPP-adjusted income, the US is #2, at $46k, while the Czech Republic is #26, at $21k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income By homicide rate, the US is #53, at 6.8, while the Czech Republic is #184, at 0.4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Let this be a lesson on the importance of economy for a people's well-being.
- runjake 3y ago
  I wonder how much US healthcare prices skew that figure.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Spending is a very bad metric. You can spend all your money with nothing to show for it.
- imjonse 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#... By democracy index in 2022, CZ is 25th place, US is 30th.
  - SenAnder 3y ago
    Right below the US, #31, is Slovenia, with a 0.4 homicide rate. #34 is Italy, with a 0.5 homicide rate. Singapore is #70, with a 0.1 homicide rate, and China is #156, with a 0.5 homicide rate.
    - imjonse 3y ago
      the democracy index is computed based on 5 categories, the homicide rate is not directly related to any of those.
      - SenAnder 3y ago
        I was addressing the perceived implication that a lack of democracy worsens crime.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
  The US spends the most money while getting the worst results in many areas. It's a corrupt, unequal, third-world country with homeless favelas in most major cities and no universal healthcare.
nailer 3y ago
It’s been described as an entire country that Gucci belts.
BurningFrog 3y ago
My take is that the US is just very violent compared to the other rich countries. It's by some margin, the richest of the "regular" rich countries.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  US cities are very violent compared to other prosperous countries, for a large part due to the politics of those places. The rest of the US is not nearly as violent.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    To the down-voter: Instead of clicking that down-vote arrow in a (tiring) attempt to get this post greyed-out it would be far more enlightening to learn why you do not agree with what is written here. What, if anything, is incorrect about what I wrote here?
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y ago
  It's very violent on average, but that violence isn't evenly distributed. Most middle-class Americans have nothing to fear on a daily basis. The violence is driven almost entirely by poor black and brown men living in cities and often involved in violent crime. If you remove Black Americans from the system, U.S. murder rates look like much of Western Europe. Some people can't handle this, so I'll say up-front: I think ignoring the problem means you are part of the problem, and a problem of this magnitude (the murder rate in the U.S.) deserves a solution. Part of that solution is changing social norms so that we can actually, you know, figure out what's going on...right now honest research into this is de facto banned. Anyway, I've done a deep dive into the numbers. Murder rate data from the FBI has a large "unknown" category, so I'll handle that in a few ways for simplicity. Focusing on murders rather than other violent crime is the best thing to do because, while there may be a lot of ambiguity about what constitutes "assault", how often it's reported, etc., there really isn't much ambiguity about murder. We don't lose track of bodies very often. Here's the murder rate in the U.S. broken down by race. All numbers are murderers (offenders) per 100,000 people: White (simple, ignoring "Unknown"): 1.8 Black (simple, ignoring "Unknown"): 13.3 White (assuming all "Unknown" are White): 3.7 Black (assuming all "Unknown" are Black): 23.2 White (splitting up "Unknown" by existing proportion of total): 2.6 Black (splitting up "Unknown" by existing proportion of total): 18.8 The difference is stark. Using the 2.6 vs. 18.8 raw numbers, probably closest to the truth, Black people in the U.S. are about seven times more likely to murder in a given year than are white people on average. The number becomes even more stark if you compare Black to non-Black (because Asians are less likely to murder than Whites), and yet more stark if you just look at men (women murder at something like 1/8 the rate of men, so having them in the system dilutes all differences). Hispanics are also included in "White" by the U.S. census (and they murder at higher rates than non-Hispanic Whites). Insofar as cities don't report to the UCR (like New York), if they were to report it would make the Black murder rate go up. Murder clearance ("solved") rates are abysmal in the U.S., 60-something percent on average, but are low where young black men do a lot of killing and higher elsewhere; Black Americans are more likely to get away with murder than non-Black Americans, so adjusting for that drives the Black murder rate still higher. It depends on your assumptions, but Black American men 15-35 murder at something like 50x the rate of the rest of the population. FBI UCR murder offender data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Census data: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2020/population-estimates-detailed.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2020/population-e...
onionisafruit 3y ago
I think you are mistaken. By the original definition the US could never be anything but a first world country. In modern usage first-world and third-world are anachronistic ways of saying developed or developing economies. I don’t see any possible argument for the US not having a developed economy as long as the dollar is the world’s benchmark currency.

balls187 3y ago

Why would you expect that?