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The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

theatlantic.com

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Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#51

Post by gr3yh47 »

chris_va wrote: post #14
Mendenhall wrote: post #11

The american dream seems to have changed more towards taking from others to give to ones self. I notice a difference in "safety nets" now compared to say end of ww1. Very different times, and it affects many things.

Don't conflate political rhetoric with quality of life. Quality of life has never been higher for any social class, even with unfortunate income inequality.

>Quality of life has never been higher for any social class

even if this were true (source?) it doesnt matter when there is a steady move toward lower social class on average for the overwhelming majority of Americans

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#52

Post by nisse72 »

sremani wrote: post #16

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any seriously any more.

Why do you think you have nothing to learn from any society that is smaller than yours?

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#53

Post by Turing_Machine »

Retric wrote: post #18
jomamaxx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I look at the US and see a system that seems designed to breed crime, poverty and prostitution." While at the same time producing the highest GDP per captia in the world, the most number of people with college education, and leadership in probably 80% of global industries? The US doesn't 'breed' anything - communities 'breed' themselves. I suggest the US could do a little better with the social safety net, and possi…

Well ignoring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... United Nations (2014)[6] lists US as 12th, which is not bad. But, has been falling for a while. Norway for example seems to be ahead by ~30% despite a huge safety net. Of course by PPP we seem to be stuck at ~25: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_b...

Norway has a) a tiny population and b) a gigantic supply of oil.

All the countries above the U.S. on that Wikipedia list are tiny countries that have a specialized economy (oil for Norway and Qatar, financial services for Switzerland and Liechtenstein).

You see exactly the same pattern when you look within the United States:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per...

The top of that list is also dominated by oil (Alaska and North Dakota) and financial services (Delaware, New York).

Note that Alaska has a per capita GDP considerably higher than Norway, Switzerland, or Qatar (only being beaten by Luxembourg).

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#54

Post by vasilipupkin »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #39
cplanas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you are putting Spain, Greece and Italy as example of poor EU countries already shows you have an alarming lack of knowledge about the EU at least. Spain and Italy are average countries in the EU, GDP per capita-wise. Greece is lower than average, but far away from the poorest ones ( http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/3/3... ) In Europe anyone can go to a top school. In my case, my…

> if you are good enough for that university, you go there. As someone who grew up in EU but now I live in the US, this is something that seriously bugs me. What lesson should I teach my kids when they go to college? "Son, no matter how hard you study, or you don't study, all that matters is daddy's money to get you into college."

this is just really not the case in the US. Top universities have need blind admissions - they will subsidize for you to attend. There are in state tuition universities that are affordable, there are grants, scholarships, etc. Percentage of Americans with college degrees is really not any lower than in Europe

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#55

Post by cplanas »

sremani wrote: post #16

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any seriously any more.

> homogeneous society [...] Scandinavian fetish

Foreign-born population of Sweden: 16% Foreign-born population of Norway: 13.9% Foreign-born population of USA: 13.1%

https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#56

Post by gr3yh47 »

CalRobert wrote: post #50
jomamaxx wrote: post #3

60% personal income taxes after big payroll tax and 20% VAT? I don't think so.

I dunno, I feel richer in Europe than I did in California. Rent in places I like living is cheaper, and I save a good $300-$600 per month on automobile costs. I also save several thousand a year on flights to Europe, since that's pretty much where I like to vacation anyway. Also, I'm fortunate enough to work in tech which has pretty good PTO policies (for now), but my spouse does not, and 4+ weeks of vacation for her…

>the US detests cyclists and disregards their deaths.

to be fair, many cyclists in the US ignore traffic laws wholesale

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#57

Post by yoloswagins »

jomamaxx wrote: post #13
jakub_h wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's also about what it buys you? Also, https://www.nordisketax.net/main.asp?url=files/suo/eng/i07.a... claims it's at worst 31.75%, not 60%, and that's not even the average. Plus if you're rich, not all or even most of your wealth comes from personal income anyway, so there's that. And ~20% VAT or equivalent seems quite common over the developed world.

32% national, 22% municipal and 8% social security = 62%. 20% payroll tax. 24% VAT. That it is 'common' does not mean it is fair. If a company has $100K allocated to pay you, $20K goes to payroll tax. Of $80K remaining, you take home 40% of that, which is $32K. Suppose 2/3 of your take home goes towards consumer goods meaning that you're paying an additional $5K on VAT ~= $25K direct take home. So for $100K salary, y…

For Finland, the inheritance tax is payable by the beneficiary upon the receipt of the asset, and maxes out at 20% for estate valued at €1MM.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#58

Post by douche »

getgoingnow wrote: post #27
jomamaxx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. 'Social Mobility' cannot be compared between USA and small Euro nations. 'Social Mobility' within Denmark, a country smaller than Los Angeles, is pretty good. What if you compared 'Social Mobility' across the EU. Do you think that poor people in Croatia, Sicily and Greece are 'mobilizing' up past the Swedish middle class? No. Also - America has large ethnic groups. America is really 5 nations: Europeans, Asian…

Great point. Nordic countries and other rich European countries owe large part of their success to colonization in the past. For example, Belgium performed mass genocide in Congo, enslaved the people and stole the natural resources in the country. So, today people in Belgium live comfortably, since the modern Belgium is built on top of African slaves' pile of bones. About half of GDP of Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finl…

If you want to talk about pillaging the world, you have to talk about Spain, whose mines in Mexico and Peru supplied the bullion that powered the entire world economy for hundreds of years.

Leopold II's ineffective and bloody adventures in a part of Africa everyone else had already ignored hardly rate.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#59

Post by madeaccountnow »

sotojuan wrote: post #19
sremani wrote: post #16

Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish any seriously any more.

I've always wondered how the people that live there feel about the constant "I wish we were like them!".

Don't really know how to feel. It's kinda like it's disingenuous hype. Sure most of all these "omg look at Finland" facts are mostly true, but they come at a cost.

It's a pain in the ass to have a business or a high salary here. Everything is expensive and you could end up paying 60% taxes of your salary, after the employer pays taxes on your salary. The bureaucracy can get ridiculous too, it's like they don't want to have businesses here. The system works with a small population but I don't think it could ever scale.

Basically, if you're ok with being nothing more then middleclass, it's a great place to live, but the ambitious people who really bring in the money and pay the majority of taxes aren't living nearly as good as they could elsewhere.

I keep looking at the salaries of US jobs with my title and I'd make so much more money there, and have more left after all the taxes. Then again I had a free education and the healthcare is pretty much free and decent.

Maybe it's one of those "grass is greener etc." type deals.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#60

Post by matwood »

DasIch wrote: post #40
douche wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social issues are easy when you have a 99% ethnically homogeneous population without any serious religious divisions either.

The problem isn't that the US is heterogenous, the problem is that the US has a massive problem with racism, freedom of and from religion. Maybe even worse than that though are people like you, who can't even openly admit that obvious problem and only mention it in some euphemistic indirect way.

Hate to break it to you, but racism is everywhere. The Nordic countries are not somehow magically excluded, and according to some reports it is worse.
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