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Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

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Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#181

Post by GiorgioG »

thecolorblue wrote: post #180
GiorgioG wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say this to demean these people but I would guess that a majority of that 16% are low-skill/minimum wage jobs. When you don't have skills that are in demand, employers less likely to offer benefits. Businesses are just like people, if they can get away with paying less, they will. I'm not saying it's right. I'm hoping the Republicans manage to screw things up enough to lose Congress in 2018. If that happens,…

> When you don't have skills that are in demand, employers less likely to offer benefits. And there is the difference. The US is about survival of the fittest.

Edit: I originally responded to the wrong parent.

This isn't about survival of the fittest, if you have no skill, then you are going to have trouble finding a job that has good benefits. No one is stopping you from acquiring a skill (outside of cases when you're sick...obviously.) You can become a plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. and make a decent living.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#182

Post by AstralStorm »

hartator wrote: post #47

Except hapiness statistics are superior in the US than in EU [1] while suicide rates are higher in the EU than in the US [2]. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report 2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/suiciderate.html Maybe we shouldn’t use vacation anedoctes to try to find what the best political system is?

Happy people tend to not choose demagogues as their leaders.

Please read the actual report with its casual analysis rather than look just at the numbers. Aspirations play a huge part here. perceptions of stability and social net too. (As opposed to actual quality thereof.) Input data for numbers is additionally flawed by taking averages, which is unfortunate.

As for suicides, take a peek at all cause mortality instead and you will find a less interesting though much more informative picture. (Homicide rate in the US for one.)

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#183

Post by aesto »

cthalupa wrote: post #167
aesto wrote: post #161

As a German living in the US, I wholeheartedly agree with this article, especially the bit about everything being somewhat lower quality. And despite the lower quality, things usually are considerably more expensive anyway. If I might just add one more example: housing. Rent prices in the U.S. are generally about twice what they are in Germany for comparable units, and yet the houses here are incredibly flimsy (walls…

Your claims are not backed by reality. http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/Uni... You can dive into each individual metric, but the purchasing power is probably the single best one to look at for determining how economically empowered people are, and the US is significantly better than Germany - 2nd in the world, in fact, beaten only by Switzerland. Looking at housing in particular, "Double" is f…

I will concede that you make some good points, however:

These statistics simplify things a little because they rely on measures of central tendency - mostly the mean, from what I can tell. Purchasing power is the best example of that. Yes, salaries in the U.S. are on average higher than in Europe, even Germany. However, as we all know, the mean is heavily influenced by extreme values, which occur far more often in the US due to greater inequality. So yes, you can buy more with the average salary, but there are less people who have an average salary.

As for the housing stuff: Yes, 'double' was probably an exaggeration (it just happened to be true in my case - although I'm not living anywhere near a major city). However, depending on the size of the apartment, the stats you posted show that the difference can be up to 35%, and as I said, the SIZE of the apartment doesn't necessarily correlate with quality. Apartments and houses can more easily be bigger in the US because there is more space.

You are correct that some things are more expensive in Europe. Buying houses, definitely (although it also depends on the country, Germany is a particularly extreme example in that regard (so is the US, though)). However, it doesn't always work out that way. For example, the metrics you posted show that power is 40% more expensive in Germany. That does reflect my own experience. HOWEVER, appliances etc. here in the US are often so crappy (i.e. power hungry), that in the end, you somehow end up paying more anyway.

On paper, the US compares pretty well against Europe in terms of standards of living, but my experience is that in practice, this is only true for people from the upper middle class onward.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#184

Post by mnm1 »

golergka wrote: post #124

I'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 goin…

Sure, it's a great place for workaholics in just the way you describe.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#185

Post by johndevor »

Koshkin wrote: post #87
johndevor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What socialist government has ever reduced in size? They grow and grow to become fully socialist ala Cuba.

Socialism and bureaucracy are not exactly the same thing.

They're pretty close to being the same thing.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#186

Post by golergka »

mnm1 wrote: post #184
golergka wrote: post #124

I'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 goin…

Sure, it's a great place for workaholics in just the way you describe.

I have only been in US for two weeks in my life, so I don't really know much about this. But different countries are different, people living in them value different things, and they optimize their lives for different values.

So, may be it's a national character of people living in this country, and an attempt to make it more like other counties with other cultures may be a little misplaced?

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#187

Post by grasshopperpurp »

GiorgioG wrote: post #179
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have a reasonable amount of money in the bank (no matter the number it's never enough) and the only debt we owe is the mortgage on the house. This is an extremely unhealthy perspective.

> This is an extremely unhealthy perspective. Well, consider that I am not what I would consider "rich" (this is not a complaint!) The number would have to be $2m+ for it to be "enough" in the event I couldn't provide for my family - enough to more or less guarantee that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves (15-20 years worth.) Given that it's highly unlikely that I will reach $2m+ in my lifetime, the n…

Ah, I understand. I thought you were speaking in more general terms. You want security. Everyone does, and I think everyone should have it. The idea that some people aren't good enough or haven't worked hard enough to have a place to stay, food to eat, and medical treatment they need is - to me - inhumane. America is, as a nation, inhumane.

Once someone has reached financial security, money can no longer improve his/her happiness - except in short bursts. Understanding that, I can't imagine why anyone would ever need more than 50M (which is still way more than anyone would ever need). For me, it's embarrassing to live in a country where some have tens of billions while others scrape by - and some fail to do even that.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#188

Post by benjohnson »

uoaei wrote: post #153
ckinnan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 20th century, the political implementation of collectivism involved the deliberate murder-- often through starvation-- of at least 100 million people.

Authoritarians hiding as collectivists has given a bad name to the latter, but let's be sure to not conflate or causally link the two.

How can you have state-wide collectivism without authoritarian control?

There's always going to be a few people who want to be independent - and you can only squish that at the point of a gun.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#189

Post by kgwgk »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #136
rhino369 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal. We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable. And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax. People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,5…

>One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal. It was just an example, but it's pretty clear that costs would be cut. >We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable. We already ration care, we just do it by how much money you have. Price controls? Pretty politically viable, just march some…

Yes, go tell physicians that you’ll cut their income to less than half of what they are getting now. Why wouldn’t they like the plan? The US healthcare system is very bad, but not easy to fix.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#190

Post by mgkimsal »

GiorgioG wrote: post #181
thecolorblue wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you don't have skills that are in demand, employers less likely to offer benefits. And there is the difference. The US is about survival of the fittest.

Edit: I originally responded to the wrong parent. This isn't about survival of the fittest, if you have no skill, then you are going to have trouble finding a job that has good benefits. No one is stopping you from acquiring a skill (outside of cases when you're sick...obviously.) You can become a plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. and make a decent living.

and... we'll just give a big 'fuck you' to everyone else who gets sick at some point, and can't go back to work, or has skills that get passed by in the marketplace. hey - just go back to school for a few years, juggling some low wage jobs while you get more skills! so that you can win some approval from some employer where yay you can pay extra money to have some insurance so you can afford medicine to keep yourself alive. whew! That doesn't sound like "survival of the fittest" AT ALL. not sure that the OP was thinking about.

The word "benefits" just irks the hell out of me in the first place. Maybe the entire concept of "benefits" being synonymous "things that give you access to something that keeps you alive and healthy", and tying said stuff to "employment" (something very much at the whim of people and factors often outside your control - handicaps, geography, family obligations, etc) we could think about the issue a bit differently.

Also... society needs people to be doing low-end crappy work. Are they just deserving enough to find a job that has "good benefits"?

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