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>I have lived in China. > USA is very rich but also terribly poor. Living in the USA you see poorer people than anywhere else in a western society. And poverty

>I have lived in China. > USA is very rich but also terribly poor. Living in the USA you see poorer people than anywhere else in a western society. And poverty is rising enormously. This is a very interesting perspective; did you ever travel to rural parts of China? I have never been to china, but my Chinese lab mate says that the best translation for Chinese outside of the cities is "peasant" not farmer. One good example of the way these people are treated is the lack of public education for people in these areas. In the US some schools are much better than others, but every child is guaranteed a public education, and has the opportunity to train for a reasonable job. Similarly I have friends from Iraq and Nepal who are happy here. Pretty much everyone in the US has heat, running water, a modern dwelling... I know very little about Europe and other western societies though, so perhaps it is much worse here than in some places.

rsynnott 12y ago
> This is a very interesting perspective; did you ever travel to rural parts of China? China isn't what would normally be considered a western society; I assume they were talking about the developed world. Much of the developed world does have substantially better social safety nets that the US, and lower rates of income inequality, though probably not due to the distribution of ownership of farmland.
- zo1 12y ago
  "Much of the developed world does have substantially better social safety nets that the US, and lower rates of income inequality" Can you point me to your sources on this, I'm quite curious?
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    The better social safety nets are damn obvious. Much of Europe (including UK) has free education up to College-level, truly universal healthcare (State-Sponsored for all citizens). As for income inequality, the statistics are pretty telling. http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/08/news/economy/global_income_inequality/ http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/08/news/economy/global_income_i... But it is the goal of liberalism to have strong social safety nets and equalize pay to all. The US has a different culture with different values... tending towards the "conservative" and with great trust in market forces. "Obamacare" is seen as Socialism and half the population seems to hate it. But Obamacare only establishes rules for the free market to operate under... standardizing health care plans across insurance companies. There is no state-sponsored health care from the law, and yet people are still worried about socialism. Obamacare is closer to Credit Card reform, in that it forced all credit card companies in the US to standardize upon the "Annual Percentage Rate" / APR so that everyone can comparison shop across credit cards. With Obamacare, all insurance companies have to offer similar plans (bronze, silver, gold, platinum), and they must cover certain provisions (contraceptives make the controversy here). So now when you see a "Bronze" plan from say... Aetna Health Insurance, you know it is similar to "Bronze" plans from Kaiser Permanente. As far as the "Socialism" goes... US has had Medicare / Medicaid for nearly 80 years now. The "socialist" part of our health care system has existed for a very long time, but no Republican seems to want to attack it. But inside the US, any new laws upon the market is seen as a "Market Distortion" and is criticized as "Socialism". Because most American's don't even know the meaning of that word. The absurdity in the "Net Neutrality" argument is more proof of the free market sheeple ignoring important issues and placing their trust in the free market instead.
    - gretful 12y ago
      Obamacare is closer to car-insurance, with the caveat that even if you don't want a car you still have to buy the insurance. THAT is what has most of the nay-sayers agitated. Medicare/Medicaid are, like the student loan programs with college tuition, at least partially responsible for driving up the costs of healthcare in the US. We've backed ourselves into a very difficult corner, and getting out of it isn't going to be easy, and it won't be popular.
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        Obamacare is closer to car-insurance, with the caveat that even if you don't want a car you still have to buy the insurance. THAT is what has most of the nay-sayers agitated. I must be listening to different nay-sayers than you. http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2014/07/24/bill-oreilly-obamacare-and-socialism http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2014/07/24/bill-oreill... Bill O'Reilly, who is frankly a good conservative voice, clearly thinks that "Obamacare is Socialism"... that it is about income redistribution. Which tells us a few things: Bill O'Reilly hasn't read Obamacare, and he also doesn't understand what "Socialism" means. Otherwise, he'd be attacking Medicaid. And Bill O'Reilly is actually an overall intelligent guy. I do enjoy listening to him a lot of the time. His opinion and views are generally very reflective of conservatives. So when Bill O'Reilly gets it wrong, it reflects poorly upon conservatives as a whole. ------------- Without getting into the Obamacare debate, you have to admit that a fairly large portion of the conservative crowd doesn't even understand what "Socialism" is. That's what I'm trying to say. Obamacare is a massive example. The individual mandate has absolutely nothing to do with socialism or income redistribution, but is instead a provision to eradicate "pre-existing conditions" clauses in insurance companies. Socialism is... like the US Postal Office. The Government ownership of a service that the Free Market could take over. (ie: FedEx / UPS)
        gretful 12y ago
        Nothing? So the fact that young (presumably healthy) people HAVE to buy insurance to make ACA a success means nothing. It's pretty clear that the mandate IS Socialism.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  Much of the developed world Hardly relevant when we're comparing the USA to China however.
  - rsynnott 12y ago
    The original comment said that the US has big poverty problems compared to other western countries, not compared to China.
xiaq 12y ago
> I have never been to china, but my Chinese lab mate says that the best translation for Chinese outside of the cities is "peasant" not farmer. One good example of the way these people are treated is the lack of public education for people in these areas. I live in China, and I wonder which rural areas you are talking about. From my knowledge, primary and secondary school (known as 9-year compulsory education) attendance is virtually 100% everywhere with two notable exceptions, namely extremely mountainous areas and the autonomous regions. In extremely mountainous areas transportation is almost impossible and schools tend to be underfunded; the problem with autonomous regions is beyond my knowledge. To back my claim with statistics, a report from the Ministry of Education (http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_633/201407/171144.html http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe..., the report is in Chinese) estimated the net primary school enrollment ratio at 99.71%. A more dated UNESCO report from 2000 (http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/china/rapport_2.html http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/china/rap...) estimated the net primary school enrollment ratio at 98.5% in the year 1998.
- adventured 12y ago
  Rural China is basically one of the three poorest places on Earth, with the average person earning $2 or $3 per day. It's comparable to the poorest locations in India and Africa. I'm not sure how that's even remotely a valid comparison or point of reference to the standard for American poor.
  - xiaq 12y ago
    Yes it's very poor, but we're talking about education here. Primary and secondary education is free except for a yearly contribution that is typically 100 to 200 Yuan (16 to 32 dollars), which even the poorest family can afford. I heard that even the contribution has been cut in recent years, but I cannot verify that.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    It is not the poorest place on earth, Africa is much poorer. Even a poor farmer in Guizhou does much better than say many parts of India or Africa. Incidentally, China is a middle income country, and you can't really compare it to lower income countries anymore (even that poor farmer in Guizhou is going to have a TV and is not going to steal highway signs to make cookware as happens in Africa leading to serating just to keep them around). Just draw a thick line between lower and middle income countries (e.g. India is upper lower income). Incidentally, Guizhou, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, etc... are fairly mountainous and autonomous (based on ethnicity), so education is a problem as xiaq said. But education in China up to the 9th grade is north of 95%, most people aren't illiterate and can at least use their smart phones (which even poor farmers have now) for texting their friends.

rsynnott 12y ago

> This is a very interesting perspective; did you ever travel to rural parts of China? China isn't what would normally be considered a western society; I assume they were talking about the developed world. Much of the developed world does have substantially better social safety nets that the US, and lower rates of income inequality, though probably not due to the distribution of ownership of farmland.

zo1 12y ago
"Much of the developed world does have substantially better social safety nets that the US, and lower rates of income inequality" Can you point me to your sources on this, I'm quite curious?
- dragontamer 12y ago
  The better social safety nets are damn obvious. Much of Europe (including UK) has free education up to College-level, truly universal healthcare (State-Sponsored for all citizens). As for income inequality, the statistics are pretty telling. http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/08/news/economy/global_income_inequality/ http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/08/news/economy/global_income_i... But it is the goal of liberalism to have strong social safety nets and equalize pay to all. The US has a different culture with different values... tending towards the "conservative" and with great trust in market forces. "Obamacare" is seen as Socialism and half the population seems to hate it. But Obamacare only establishes rules for the free market to operate under... standardizing health care plans across insurance companies. There is no state-sponsored health care from the law, and yet people are still worried about socialism. Obamacare is closer to Credit Card reform, in that it forced all credit card companies in the US to standardize upon the "Annual Percentage Rate" / APR so that everyone can comparison shop across credit cards. With Obamacare, all insurance companies have to offer similar plans (bronze, silver, gold, platinum), and they must cover certain provisions (contraceptives make the controversy here). So now when you see a "Bronze" plan from say... Aetna Health Insurance, you know it is similar to "Bronze" plans from Kaiser Permanente. As far as the "Socialism" goes... US has had Medicare / Medicaid for nearly 80 years now. The "socialist" part of our health care system has existed for a very long time, but no Republican seems to want to attack it. But inside the US, any new laws upon the market is seen as a "Market Distortion" and is criticized as "Socialism". Because most American's don't even know the meaning of that word. The absurdity in the "Net Neutrality" argument is more proof of the free market sheeple ignoring important issues and placing their trust in the free market instead.
  - gretful 12y ago
    Obamacare is closer to car-insurance, with the caveat that even if you don't want a car you still have to buy the insurance. THAT is what has most of the nay-sayers agitated. Medicare/Medicaid are, like the student loan programs with college tuition, at least partially responsible for driving up the costs of healthcare in the US. We've backed ourselves into a very difficult corner, and getting out of it isn't going to be easy, and it won't be popular.
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      Obamacare is closer to car-insurance, with the caveat that even if you don't want a car you still have to buy the insurance. THAT is what has most of the nay-sayers agitated. I must be listening to different nay-sayers than you. http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2014/07/24/bill-oreilly-obamacare-and-socialism http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2014/07/24/bill-oreill... Bill O'Reilly, who is frankly a good conservative voice, clearly thinks that "Obamacare is Socialism"... that it is about income redistribution. Which tells us a few things: Bill O'Reilly hasn't read Obamacare, and he also doesn't understand what "Socialism" means. Otherwise, he'd be attacking Medicaid. And Bill O'Reilly is actually an overall intelligent guy. I do enjoy listening to him a lot of the time. His opinion and views are generally very reflective of conservatives. So when Bill O'Reilly gets it wrong, it reflects poorly upon conservatives as a whole. ------------- Without getting into the Obamacare debate, you have to admit that a fairly large portion of the conservative crowd doesn't even understand what "Socialism" is. That's what I'm trying to say. Obamacare is a massive example. The individual mandate has absolutely nothing to do with socialism or income redistribution, but is instead a provision to eradicate "pre-existing conditions" clauses in insurance companies. Socialism is... like the US Postal Office. The Government ownership of a service that the Free Market could take over. (ie: FedEx / UPS)
      - gretful 12y ago
        Nothing? So the fact that young (presumably healthy) people HAVE to buy insurance to make ACA a success means nothing. It's pretty clear that the mandate IS Socialism.
dragontamer 12y ago
Much of the developed world Hardly relevant when we're comparing the USA to China however.
- rsynnott 12y ago
  The original comment said that the US has big poverty problems compared to other western countries, not compared to China.

xiaq 12y ago

> I have never been to china, but my Chinese lab mate says that the best translation for Chinese outside of the cities is "peasant" not farmer. One good example of the way these people are treated is the lack of public education for people in these areas. I live in China, and I wonder which rural areas you are talking about. From my knowledge, primary and secondary school (known as 9-year compulsory education) attendance is virtually 100% everywhere with two notable exceptions, namely extremely mountainous areas and the autonomous regions. In extremely mountainous areas transportation is almost impossible and schools tend to be underfunded; the problem with autonomous regions is beyond my knowledge. To back my claim with statistics, a report from the Ministry of Education (http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_633/201407/171144.html http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe..., the report is in Chinese) estimated the net primary school enrollment ratio at 99.71%. A more dated UNESCO report from 2000 (http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/china/rapport_2.html http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/china/rap...) estimated the net primary school enrollment ratio at 98.5% in the year 1998.

adventured 12y ago
Rural China is basically one of the three poorest places on Earth, with the average person earning $2 or $3 per day. It's comparable to the poorest locations in India and Africa. I'm not sure how that's even remotely a valid comparison or point of reference to the standard for American poor.
- xiaq 12y ago
  Yes it's very poor, but we're talking about education here. Primary and secondary education is free except for a yearly contribution that is typically 100 to 200 Yuan (16 to 32 dollars), which even the poorest family can afford. I heard that even the contribution has been cut in recent years, but I cannot verify that.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It is not the poorest place on earth, Africa is much poorer. Even a poor farmer in Guizhou does much better than say many parts of India or Africa. Incidentally, China is a middle income country, and you can't really compare it to lower income countries anymore (even that poor farmer in Guizhou is going to have a TV and is not going to steal highway signs to make cookware as happens in Africa leading to serating just to keep them around). Just draw a thick line between lower and middle income countries (e.g. India is upper lower income). Incidentally, Guizhou, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, etc... are fairly mountainous and autonomous (based on ethnicity), so education is a problem as xiaq said. But education in China up to the 9th grade is north of 95%, most people aren't illiterate and can at least use their smart phones (which even poor farmers have now) for texting their friends.