Earlier quoted context omitted.
The socialism in Sweden has not killed anyone.
Capitalism + welfare does not equal socialism.
Well, then "state capitalism" shouldn't, either.
Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
121–130 of 202 posts
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#122Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#123Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#124I've moved between countries with different work habits and cultures a few years ago. In the old country, I arrived in the office in the morning and routinely stayed there until 10 or 11; in the new, work shuttle made sure that I never stayed in the office longer than 8 hours. Instead of weekends of crunch time, I got labour laws. Instead of everybody around me constantly talking about work, I got relaxed people going to the beach every day, discussing art, just "living the life".
For a couple of years, it was a great, relaxing experience. But on the third year I travelled back for a few days to realize that I miss it like hell - and moved back a month later.
As I'm typing this, I have worked two weeks of crunch time without weekend, in the office late in the evening. For the holidays (which are government mandated off-days), everybody's going on away on vacation, while I'll be coming back to office to finally work on a new thing in silence. I'm full of energy drinks, coffee and sleep deprivation.
I chose this. Not everybody wants a relaxed life. I will die in about 50 years, and I have even less productive ones - I want to spend them making something, not waste them relaxing, lying around. I'm happy like this.
May be that's what's special about America, too?
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not following you -- even in your quote I don't mention the EU.
The article does. I don't have time for this.
Exactly. Not sure why you replied to my original comment with "calling EU collectivist is a stretch" when I didn't mention the EU. You should reply to the top most post, not me, it sounds like. It's really not a big deal, :).
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article. Also, those European countries don't have tax rates much larger (if at all) than the US. It's just that in the US, it gets wasted.
Oh but they do. You'll pay up to 2/3 of your income in taxes in Germany for instance.
Isn't the maximum percentage for singles with no kids in tax category 0, which is around 40%?
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Individual rights are what makes the West successful compared to the rest of the world. We're talking about Western-style democratic socialism, as found in Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, etc. here. Terrifying totalitarian hellholes they're not.
I agree with what you wrote, but why does the US have be the same as those countries? Why can't there be a variety of implementations of government such that different humans can choose different situations for their own needs? I'd still like to see Cuba change to a fully democratic communist state, for example.
It shouldn’t and it doesn’t.
But when you discover that a system has way better objective outcomes, e.g. in the case of drug policy or healthcare policy, it’s a shame not to upgrade to a similar system.
Really, the US has a lot of good systems, but healthcare isn’t one of them.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#128> There is a myth of exceptionalism in America that prevents it from looking outward, and learning from the world In my experience, this is not exclusive to America. It seems to be a feature of very large and diverse countries. I’m an immigrant from Brazil and I saw the exact same thing there. When a country is large and diverse enough, people seem to think that all that there is to be seen is in their own land, and…
I wonder if religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, has anything to do with this?
America is deeply enthralled in it; in fact, atheists are considered "lowest of the low" in certain polls (like whether one would vote or elect such a person, for instance).
Brazil - correct me if I am wrong - has a similar enthrallment, but more of the "evangelical Catholicism" variety. It is (like many "south of the border" countries, if you will) is highly religious and Christianity is on display.
I tend to wonder how these similar trends play into the disparity, as Europe (as a whole) is known to not be as religious, and what religion there is, is relatively downplayed...?
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#129This article starts off terribly. It does not get contain enough real substance till it gets to the point about the differential in life expectancy and discusses the point about 'the myth of exceptionalism in America'. The whole line about the difference in entertainment is utter drivel. Big Brother started in the UK, there is plenty of garbage culture coming from Europe. For the record I've met quite a few Europeans…
Do they ever qualify or quantify what is meant by “more opportunity”?
Keep in mind everything I'm about to tell you refers to those in the corporate world, where many people have college educations, etc. This is not finding or losing a minimum wage job in retail. If you are of lower education or working a low wage job you might have less stress in a place like Europe. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, just like you should with the author of this article.
The most recent conversations about that issue was with a Frenchman who told me that seniority and hierarchy is very inflexible in Europe. There are a lot of people who are bad at their jobs but have a good position and will hold on to it for quite some time. No one ever loses their job for being terrible at it. And it makes it difficult for young people to move up the ladder where that ladder is.
And I found it very interesting that I read an article about the making of the American version of the Office versus the UK version. Ricky Gervais said specifically that the character of Michael had to be good at his job. This was due to the fact that in the US if you were as bad at your job in the US as Ricky was in the UK Version of the Office you'd be fired. It seems to be a common theme of the handful of French people I've met - there are a lot of laggards with high level positions in France.
I knew another French woman who was a consultant for a company that had a US office and spent a year here in Chicago. She did a lot of 'change management'. This refers to a few things, but one of those changes is 'layoffs'. And she walked me thru the whole process of when people lose their jobs in France and how different it is in the US.
In France if you are the victim of corporate downsizing you get a year of pay. You get job training. You get services to find a new job. And she told me how demoralized most of the French people were, how'd they'd feel sorry for themselves or be lazy. Some of them would not look for jobs at all.
Meanwhile when she had the experience in the US typically the layoff transition period some of these people only got 3 months of pay. However most of them had some hope, at least some of them had found another position before that period of time had run out.
Keep in mind this is mostly information based on France, the UK and Germany. I can't speak to other nations. I've heard nothing but good things from Norway and Sweden, and I've heard terrible stories in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, etc. In all honesty I wish we had some sort of federalized health care. The lack of security scares the crap out of me. If I were to die quickly my family would have some life insurance that would keep them afloat for a time. But I'm also a cancer survivor, it was only stage one. The US is filled with stories of people getting sick and hanging on for years and suffering and then losing their job. In that situation my family would probably be better off if we lived in the UK with the NHA. I just hate to empty drive about crossiants and better entertainment in Europe makes it a utopia.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#130This article starts off terribly. It does not get contain enough real substance till it gets to the point about the differential in life expectancy and discusses the point about 'the myth of exceptionalism in America'. The whole line about the difference in entertainment is utter drivel. Big Brother started in the UK, there is plenty of garbage culture coming from Europe. For the record I've met quite a few Europeans…
> The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. What kind of safety net? No you're not going to lose your job and draw unemployment benefits equal to your salary for years on end. This is also the land of personal responsibility. It can be scary at times. My 6 year old son has a chronic illness (type 1 diabetes) and his supplies cost an exorbitant amount of money. If somehow I was unable to fin…
Medical bankruptcy isn't really a thing in the rest of the world. That's part of the safety net, and it's hard to reconcile with the notion of 'personal responsibility'.
> I don't expect everyone else to pay for my family's bad luck / misfortune
If you take out an insurance contract, that's exactly what you're doing.