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US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

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Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#221

Post by PunchTornado »

rayiner wrote: post #48
Reason077 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's an entirely fair way to define poverty. In many parts of Europe you can have a relatively high standard of living without consuming (or even owning) all that much. For example, you can have a high standard of living without owning a car (and all the 'consumption' that goes along with that), in cities that have good public transport, and a good infrastructure/environment for walking and cycling. In m…

But if consumption capacity was equal in Europe, that consumption would shift to something else, such as food and entertainment. People in New York City don’t consume less because they don’t own a car—they spend more money eating out, etc. And Europeans are hardly ascetics. It’s fair to assume that in both places, if people had more means to consume they would.

I don't want to consume more, I want to consume less, because it's better for the environment.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#222

Post by ineedasername »

rayiner wrote: post #102
ineedasername wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicaid isn't bad, it's better than many bottom-tier private plans, but it's also got some problems. For one, finding a doctor can be hard. Not so much with general practitioners, but definitely with specialists. Also if you're in the higher qualified income band, you can still get stuck with 10 to 20% of the bill, and making 150% of the poverty limit doesn't make you any better equipped to deal with $100,000 in exp…

That’s what the ACA is for! For people up to 400% of the poverty line, the ACA caps premiums at 10% of income. That’s what you’d pay in health insurance taxes in France.

If we're talking about universal coverage in other countries and the potential for crippling healthcare debt in the US, then pointing to the ACA really doesn't help your argument here.

First: 400% of the poverty line is not very high, so premiums for people just over that line can still be very unaffordable.

Second and more importantly, ACA coverage is generally not very good, especially at the low silver tier covered in that %10 income cap. Pointing at the ACA ignores the fact than plenty of people with coverage still are faced with insurmountable debt, sometimes loss of home, and often bankruptcy. As long as hundreds of thousands of people each year have bankruptcies tied to medical issues, there's nothing about the US system you can point to, be it Medicaid, Medicare, ACA subsidies or anything else, that can surmount the argument that the US system fails people in this respect when compared to other countries with universal coverage.

I'm not saying those countries are always better in every respect, but one thing they have is that they don't cause their citizens to lose their entire way of life, their home, and ability to live above poverty levels when faced with treatable medical issues.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#223

Post by anthonypasq »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #201
hvidgaard wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as a tax just like on land, but for buildings. The reasoning is that housing represents an asset that should not be bought just for speculation, i.e. buy it and let it sit empty until the price is high enough for the investor to make a good profit. Of course they're free to do just that, but all housing which people can live in, are taxed as if you had that income.

I could see the argument for a second home but for a home you are living in it seems counterintuitive if not against natural justice

Generally with this system you wouldnt actually be paying a mortgage in addition to those taxes.

Its created to prevent people from accumulating real-estate and renting it.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#224

Post by C1sc0cat »

anthonypasq wrote: post #223
C1sc0cat wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see the argument for a second home but for a home you are living in it seems counterintuitive if not against natural justice

Generally with this system you wouldnt actually be paying a mortgage in addition to those taxes. Its created to prevent people from accumulating real-estate and renting it.

As opposed to real estate companies sounds like one rule for the "little" people and another for companies.

Penalises accidental land lords when you inherit property from your parents grand parents.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#225

Post by gridlockd »

trymas wrote: post #216
gridlockd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This measures "wealth", not income. You can be in the top 1% of earners, but if you save nothing, you can still have a net worth of $0. Apparently, the median Ukrainian has only $40 to their name, by whatever means they measure wealth. However, Ukraine has compulsory socialized retirement funds. Minimum wage is $160/month. The median US-American supposedly has 60,000$ to their name, which must be mostly due to IRAs.

Yes, I understand that wealth is not income, but in Ukraine there are plenty of oligarchs worth multi-billion sums. Dividing that wealth over whole Ukraine population is definitely more than 40$ per person. Though probably that's where rampant corruptions comes in and I will just guess that rich oligarchs "on paper" have little to no official wealth in Ukraine (have no clue how wealth is calculated country-wise if it…

> Yes, I understand that wealth is not income, but in Ukraine there are plenty of oligarchs worth multi-billion sums. Dividing that wealth over whole Ukraine population is definitely more than 40$ per person.

That's the arithmetic mean, not the median. The median is computed by sorting all the values from low to high and then picking the middle one. That's why it's a better measure for ordinary people. The few outliers at the top are not factored in.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#226

Post by TheCoelacanth »

rayiner wrote: post #91
Reason077 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But if consumption capacity was equal in Europe, that consumption would shift to something else, such as food and entertainment." Yes. But my point is that not all consumption can be considered equal in terms of the wellbeing and quality of life that it provides. For example, if I was spending $5000 per year on car payments and fuel for my commute to work, that's a lot of 'consumption'. But it isn't something that…

Americans could live in a city where they walk, cycle, or ride a tram to work. For the most part, they don’t want to. They used to have such cities, but they ripped up the tram lines and put in freeways. (Part of that is because most of the US is quite unpleasant to walk or cycle in from a weather point of view. The average high in Amsterdam, a famous cycling city, tops out at 72 degrees. In Atlanta, it’s 80+ from Ma…

1950s technocrats didn't want to. Ripping up trams and putting in freeways was usually done in spite of public protest.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#227

Post by mulmen »

mindentropy wrote: post #165
mulmen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see how a house can be considered an asset but if you sell your house where do you live? Sure you can downsize but it's still not purely an asset, you are using it at least in part to fulfill a basic human need.

> I see how a house can be considered an asset but if you sell your house where do you live? Give the house for rent and live in a smaller house.

Is that smaller house still an asset?

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#228

Post by trymas »

gridlockd wrote: post #225
trymas wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that wealth is not income, but in Ukraine there are plenty of oligarchs worth multi-billion sums. Dividing that wealth over whole Ukraine population is definitely more than 40$ per person. Though probably that's where rampant corruptions comes in and I will just guess that rich oligarchs "on paper" have little to no official wealth in Ukraine (have no clue how wealth is calculated country-wise if it…

> Yes, I understand that wealth is not income, but in Ukraine there are plenty of oligarchs worth multi-billion sums. Dividing that wealth over whole Ukraine population is definitely more than 40$ per person. That's the arithmetic mean, not the median. The median is computed by sorting all the values from low to high and then picking the middle one. That's why it's a better measure for ordinary people. The few outlie…

Ah. Indeed. My error and feeling dumb for this mistake. Dunno why I always mix mean and median.. (clearly English is not my first language).

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#230

Post by DanBC »

refurb wrote: post #217
DanBC wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My Apologies for my early morning grumpy post You're responding to someone who consistently misrepresents the facts about healthcare and healthcare spending in different countries, so a level of grumpiness is somewhat expected.

Rayiner’s posts tend to be some of the more interesting and well thought out posts I see on HN. I don’t always agree with his:her conclusions and I’m sure sometimes he/she is wrong, but the content is generally better than 95% of posts on HN.

Yes, most of the posts are very good.

But he consistently misrepresents information about healthcare in other countries.

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