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People think government is better at it, because that's what the evidence overwhelmingly points to. The U.S. routinely top's the list of the world's most chari

People think government is better at it, because that's what the evidence overwhelmingly points to. The U.S. routinely top's the list of the world's most charitable nations (private charity): http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/20/144035063/survey-u-s-takes-top-spot-as-most-charitable-nation http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/20/144035063/sur... While we also top the list of OECD countries for child poverty http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/CO2.2%20Child%20poverty%20-%20update%20270112.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/CO2.2%20Child%20poverty%20-%20up... Now compare those poverty rates with the amount of public and private social spending: http://www.oecd.org/media/oecdorg/directorates/directorateforemploymentlabourandsocialaffairs/Chart2_SOCXWeb2012.JPG http://www.oecd.org/media/oecdorg/directorates/directoratefo... More public social spending has a higher effect on poverty than more private social spending.

dnautics 13y ago
since when does the amount of spending have anything to do with its effectiveness? And anyways, by what criterion is the OECD judging what constitutes "social spending"? Finally, the child poverty rates in that graph is a really fine comparison. The US has a lower child poverty rate than australia or japan, which would have been surprising to me. I'm not terribly embarassed by living in a country whose child poverty rate is equivalent to New Zealand's.
- quinnchr 13y ago
  There is a pretty clear link between amount of social spending and poverty: http://www.epi.org/publication/ib339-us-poverty-higher-safety-net-weaker/ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib339-us-poverty-higher-safet... I'm not sure what graph you are looking at, according to Chart CO2.2.A there are only five countries with higher child poverty rates: Chile, Turkey, Romania, Mexico and Israel. This is their methodology for determining social spending: http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/SOCXAnnex-DescriptionProjections.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/SOCXAnnex-DescriptionProjections...
- krrrh 13y ago
  Some of that surprised me as well. But... these sorts of micro-rankings of countries that all have similar "operating systems" are not very useful. The real lesson here is that OECD countries which by and large practice liberal democracy and free markets are tightly clustered on most quality of life measurements, while countries that don't tend to cluster lower down. This is true of countries with vastly different cultural legacies, and even countries like Japan that has liberal demoracy successfully forced on them at gun point. It makes you wonder just what Buffet thinks he's talking about. I doubt he knows.

dnautics 13y ago

since when does the amount of spending have anything to do with its effectiveness? And anyways, by what criterion is the OECD judging what constitutes "social spending"? Finally, the child poverty rates in that graph is a really fine comparison. The US has a lower child poverty rate than australia or japan, which would have been surprising to me. I'm not terribly embarassed by living in a country whose child poverty rate is equivalent to New Zealand's.

quinnchr 13y ago
There is a pretty clear link between amount of social spending and poverty: http://www.epi.org/publication/ib339-us-poverty-higher-safety-net-weaker/ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib339-us-poverty-higher-safet... I'm not sure what graph you are looking at, according to Chart CO2.2.A there are only five countries with higher child poverty rates: Chile, Turkey, Romania, Mexico and Israel. This is their methodology for determining social spending: http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/SOCXAnnex-DescriptionProjections.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/SOCXAnnex-DescriptionProjections...
krrrh 13y ago
Some of that surprised me as well. But... these sorts of micro-rankings of countries that all have similar "operating systems" are not very useful. The real lesson here is that OECD countries which by and large practice liberal democracy and free markets are tightly clustered on most quality of life measurements, while countries that don't tend to cluster lower down. This is true of countries with vastly different cultural legacies, and even countries like Japan that has liberal demoracy successfully forced on them at gun point. It makes you wonder just what Buffet thinks he's talking about. I doubt he knows.