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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

#101

Post by cplanas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #92
cplanas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity, as understood as a possible problem for social cohesion, is not about race: it's about culture. And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. The exception for this is first (and sometimes second) generation immigrants. That's why I use the native vs foreign born statistic.

> And the vast majority of Americans in the US have only one culture: the American one. I don't think there is one unifying American culture. There are some common cultural elements, but there are fairly distinct regional (as well as racial/ethnic) cultures in the US.

I think those common cultural elements form the American culture. Having fairly distinct regional cultures, and even languages, is not uncommon.

If the US would not share a culture, intra-US migration would be a big issue, as it is in the EU.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#102

Post by niftich »

aetherson wrote: post #94
Retric wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, redid my math. Even if you assume 5.4k/person from oil with zero costs there is a 30k/person per year difference in nominal GDP. And a much larger gap in PPP.

Well, sure. And Sweden and Denmark have pretty comparable GDPs to the US, and Finland is notably lower than the US. What's your narrative here? Is the Norway vs. Sweden difference due to something OTHER than oil? They're very similar countries! If you're seeing the Norway vs. Sweden thing as due to something other than oil, what are you arguing is unique to Norway? If you do agree that Norway's GDP/capita advantage o…

Norway and Sweden are different in a few ways. Norway is a NATO member but not an EU member, meaning it participates in a military alliance while protecting its large fishery and insulating its oil economy from the EU. Sweden is the opposite, it's an EU member but not a NATO member, favoring military independence and looser cooperation while being an integral part of the EU. Consequently, Sweden has been historically much more welcoming of immigrants (including, to borrow Canadian terminology, 'visible minorities'), while Norway has been less so. Despite this, since Sweden has almost double the population of Norway, Norway's percentage of immigrants per total residents is actually slightly higher.

In Norway's case, oil makes a wealth of difference.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#105

Post by rconti »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #56
CalRobert wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, that's a disingenuous use of "to be fair".

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#106

Post by uola »

IanDrake wrote: post #49
jacquesm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friends are from all over Europe, and America, India and China. > Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. Ah, it's their fault. > impossible for poor Spaniards/Greeks/Sicilians to rise to higher than the European upper middle class. I'm sure you'd argue they don't work toward…

>> Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great outcomes - but this is the reality. >Ah, it's their fault. That's not what he said. There are many reasons for this, mostly parenting and culture.

Social mobility is by definition that your own future shouldn't be determined by your parents. So "parenting" is not really a valid excuse if you want social mobility.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#107

Post by adventured »

ori_b wrote: post #8
chrischen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but if you are coming from a developing or third world country it is not a lie.

It might be worth striving for more than "America: It's better than a tin pot dictatorship"

How about:

America: one of the highest median household disposable incomes on earth. 25% higher than Norway, 30% higher than Germany and 50% higher than Sweden.

America: owner of 45% of all global private wealth.

America: half the unemployment rate of the EU and Eurozone.

America: a higher median income than Finland, with half the unemployment rate. Finland I'll note has been in a soft-depression for nearly a decade, with net negative growth over that time. Their economy is a disaster.

America: median house two to three times larger than what's typical in Scandinavia, at a much lower median cost as well.

America: drastically lower household debt to income ratio than Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands.

America: where more people have moved up and out of the middle class, than have moved down out of it, for 40 years running. So much so, that it's contracting the middle class, and the majority of those people are moving upwards.

America: nearly twice the GDP per capita of the Eurozone.

America: adding an economy the size of Germany in the time - eight years - that Europe's economy has had zero growth.

America: household poverty line nearly twice as high as the EU and Eurozone. A line so high, that 70% of all UK households would fall short of the US household poverty line (per the guardian).

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#108

Post by adventured »

cplanas wrote: post #25
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…

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…

In Europe anyone can go to a top school? Oh really.

And what results has that supposed premise produced? It's obviously not accurate to begin with: Romanians aren't all going to the best European schools and they do not have access to such.

Let's see the results: half of Europe is so impoverished, the median incomes in those nations wouldn't come close to reaching the poverty level in the US in terms of standard of living. The poverty levels in countries like Moldova, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary etc. are nearly third world they're so bad.

Spain is still struggling to pull itself out of a nearly decade long depression. What results has the supposed free amazing education produced? None that can't be easily bested or matched by the worst economic zones in the US.

Italy has had three (or four depending on how you count it) recessions in the last ten years. Now their entire nation is about to go bust and threatens to take down half the banks in Europe. What results are we seeing from the supposed amazing free education there?

When you actually calculate the end results of what you're proclaiming, the net outcome is horrendous. So what benefit has any of it produced? Absolutely nothing worthwhile.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#109

Post by [deleted] »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #81
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

List of IMF ranked countries by GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_b... Has different numbers. Though, several other places don't seem to agree with those numbers. So, they may be off.

Sort the GDP (PPP) per capita column in descending order. It's Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, Brunei, Kuwait, Norway, United Arab Emirates, San Marino, Switzerland, United States.

[deleted]

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#110

Post by adventured »

dilann wrote: post #23
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…

US is more like Russia by the gini. Multi-nationality is not unique to the US.

And the reason the gini is a bad joke: the median US standard of living is four to five times that of Russia.
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