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The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

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Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#111

Post by Retric »

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.

Ahh, looks like the PPP column does not mean what I thought it did.

^2 　PPP is calculated by dividing GDP (nominal) by GDP (PPP), expressed as a percentage.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#112

Post by klipt »

xiaoma wrote: post #79
jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social mobility measures based on income (PPP) percentiles are misleading because they don't account for the hugely different income variances between countries. In countries with low income variances like Denmark, a small change in your absolute income will be deemed "socially mobile" whereas a much larger increase absolute income in countries with high income variances like the US will be deemed as not "socially mo…

> "Individuals don't care about their ability to change their percentile, they care about their ability to change their total income" This is completely wrong. People care intensely about their pecking order (looks, money, accolades, etc). Beyond this, there are purely functional reasons to care about your relative income. Limited resources lead to competition. Nobody cares if their GPA is higher than their parent's…

But these percentiles are a zero sum game (the distribution of percentiles is always uniform 0-100).

Which makes me wonder why one would laud upward mobility in percentiles, when any such upward mobility must be balanced out by equal and opposite downward mobility.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#113

Post by jazzyk »

lumberjack wrote: post #78
jandrewrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social mobility measures based on income (PPP) percentiles are misleading because they don't account for the hugely different income variances between countries. In countries with low income variances like Denmark, a small change in your absolute income will be deemed "socially mobile" whereas a much larger increase absolute income in countries with high income variances like the US will be deemed as not "socially mo…

>Individuals don't care about their ability to change their percentile, they care about their ability to change their total income. I think most individuals would prefer a "non-mobile" $60k increase in income versus a "mobile" $40k increase in income. You can't spend percentiles. I highly dispute this. Take it as a completely different world view but I think if people were given a choice: 1 >a nominal income of $100k…

Yes, the Economist has an article on this relativity every two years or so :-)

There are two reasons for why people invariably choose 2>

- people are competitive and want to feel superior to others (or at least above average)

- the price of everything adjusts to median income, so if you live in a $60K state/country with a $75K income, everything is more affordable for you.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#114

Post by uola »

ajmurmann wrote: post #29
adamnemecek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that the Nordic model can't scale?

Having moved to the US from Germany, not a Nordic country, but a country with a much tighter social net that works comparatively well, I agree that it probably wouldn't work in the US. I think a social net works best if there is enough empathy in society to keep people happy with paying for those who need the net as well as keeping people from exploiting it too much. Of course there will always be someone unhappy wit…

The Nordic countries aren't spontaneously homogeneous though. It's because we (social democracy mostly) worked hard to make it so. As the Nordic countries are becoming more like everywhere else we also see the rise of things like populist parties and racial divides.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#115

Post by CalRobert »

vecinu wrote: post #98
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…

Could you share a little more about your transition to Europe from California? I'm interested in doing such a move myself but I'm not sure if I can justify it yet. Were you working in SF? Where in Europe are you now? Were you making an above average salary?

Hi,

I'd be happy to talk. Drop me a line at (what you can guess is my first name)@robertlawson.net. Public key at http://robertlawson.net/my-public-key/ .

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#116

Post by jazzyk »

adventured wrote: post #107
ori_b wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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

Careful here...

You need to subtract:

- cost of health care (even if you are a W-2 employee, you still have to pay, typically 30% of the cost, self-employed people may end up $25K/year for a family of 4)

- cost of higher education - $250K/child for private college, $!20K/child state college

- additional taxes, like real-estate, excise taxes

- hidden taxes: telecom, airport/FAA (sometimes half of the price of the ticket), etc.

- absurd real-estate prices (on the coasts)

While the US is probably still ahead, the difference is not as big as you stated.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#117

Post by wila »

bloodorange wrote: post #76
gr3yh47 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the US detests cyclists and disregards their deaths. to be fair, many cyclists in the US ignore traffic laws wholesale

That is no excuse for a death sentence. Many cyclists do this in the Netherlands too and in the period that I have lived there, I haven't seen them treated that way on the roads.

If a car hits a cyclist or pedestrian in Holland, the car is -by definition- at fault. See [1] link in dutch.

Free translation of the first part: Cyclist or pedestrians are seen as the weaker traffic participants. Because they are fragile in traffic the law has a special rule on collisions with a motorized vehicle. The driver in the car is responsible for the damage of the cyclist without his guilt having to be proven.

[1] http://www.anwb.nl/juridisch-advies/aanrijding-en-dan/aanspr...

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#118

Post by drabiega »

nickff wrote: post #99
dharma1 wrote: post #83

Finn here (though lived the past 12 years in the UK). In my experience, the one thing that by far works best to enable social mobility, and that I think Nordic and some central European countries have done quite well, is free, high quality education - from primary school to university. Especially as we move further and further to knowledge based economic growth, this is crucial, not just for social mobility, but well…

There is a great deal of information (in studies and research) that shows post-secondary schooling is a good investment for the individual, but that does not mean that increasing the average amount of schooling is good for the country. A number of people are now making the argument that greater 'educational' achievement is mostly just signalling status, intelligence, socialization, and work ethic, not actually teachi…

> If this view is correct, increasing the amount of education that the average citizen receives is just wasting their time (as most people do not enjoy their time in class), at great expense to them and the average taxpayer.[1]

Even accepting your first premise, this does not follow. Even if degrees are 100% signalling and 0% actual education, it's still the right choice for the individual because that signalling has value. The alternative is that people who have the positive qualities that are signaled but not the money for the degree cannot get the jobs which require those characteristics and have good pay.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#119

Post by drabiega »

klipt wrote: post #112
xiaoma wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Individuals don't care about their ability to change their percentile, they care about their ability to change their total income" This is completely wrong. People care intensely about their pecking order (looks, money, accolades, etc). Beyond this, there are purely functional reasons to care about your relative income. Limited resources lead to competition. Nobody cares if their GPA is higher than their parent's…

But these percentiles are a zero sum game (the distribution of percentiles is always uniform 0-100). Which makes me wonder why one would laud upward mobility in percentiles, when any such upward mobility must be balanced out by equal and opposite downward mobility.

Because the lack of downward mobility suggests the same problem as the upward mobility: your success in life is based on your parents income not your own merits.

If you want a meritocracy you have to accept that untalented/unmotivated kids of rich parents may become relatively poor.

Re: The American Dream Is Alive in Finland

#120

Post by drabiega »

mc32 wrote: post #37
robert_foss wrote: post #2

The American dream mantra as it is currently being regurgitated in America is little more than a cheap slogan at best and calculated lie at worst. What it is said to represent are qualities like social mobility in which America ranks amongst the very worst of the other 48 developed nations.

Hmmm. I think if the dream were killed, then there would be nothing for people to lodge a complaint against. Nothing to look forward to and so people might grow comfortable in their poverty, for example. Imagine, there is no dream. You get what you have. There is no chance for anyone who has not achieved. Don't even try, there is no chance. I think we'd be worse off with that mindset. I imagine Russia, Venezuela, etc…

I've seen plenty of this mindset in America already and honestly they're not wrong.
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