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Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

economist.com

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Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#451

Post by mandmandam »

anon291 wrote: post #441
mandmandam wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has 13 million hungry children, whether OP is from Europe or the Moon. That's cool your church throws away food and your local homeless people aren't literally starving, but we don't need to rely on anecdata for this one.

My mother was a public school teacher in a very poor district. Realistically, the social science researchers that study these things are often well-off academics who have no idea about the reality on the ground. The majority of hungry children are due to flat out parental neglect. Should the parents be interested in availing themselves of the resources, they would have food for their kids. Unfortunately, the social s…

Parental neglect is a real problem, I have no doubt.

However.

13 million hungry children are 13 million hungry children. A government can't just blame their parents and avoid any responsibility; they still gotta feed them.

You don't get to just ignore the problem by pointing at all the food wasted in America either - the 13 million kids are still hungry.

Those children won't learn properly, they won't feel safe, they'll have lifelong problems. We'll all have problems because of their problems.

We'll end up paying for it as a society, in 13 million ways; far more than it would cost to just _feed them_.

And the point - if you remember - is the inequality of it all. There are neglectful wealthy parents, just as there are neglectful poor parents - but only the poor kids are going to school hungry. In a country of such incredible wealth!

If we spent as much money feeding the hungry as we did on interest alone for the "war on terror", we'd have the whole planet fed 7 times over. The money is there - but it's dangerously unequally distributed.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#452

Post by telotortium »

Quarrel wrote: post #139
wyager wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many outcomes (including medical outcomes) the differences do not go away when conditioning on wealth/income, so if there's a separate "root" causal factor, we have not yet found it.

In most we have found it and it is slavery.

It's too bad we don't in the US break down Black population statistics into those who are descendants of slaves vs. more recent immigrants - the differences in life outcomes would probably be significant, even at the same income level.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#453

Post by boc »

erodommoc wrote: post #274
boc wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say “significant portions of the population” and then reference a segment of society that could collectively all fit inside one college football stadium, it feels like hyperbole. Despite what you read online, the amount of Americans who see unsheltered homeless on a daily basis is very low.

Off by over 5x: - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress. The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022 ( https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HU... ) - Largest college football stadium: Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, Mich.) 107,601 ( https://www…

Experiencing homelessness for one night is very different than the chronic homelessness which people are picturing. That second population is much smaller and way more visible.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#454

Post by fnordpiglet »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #292
fnordpiglet wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US care, particularly specialist care, is both expensive and de facto rationed by lack of supply. Need a psychiatrist? No insurance accepted and a 3-6 month wait.

Hmm, not true in my experience. Family members have insurance paid psychiatric care and got their first appointments within a couple of weeks. I get that this is variable in different areas and insurance plans, but you stated no insurance and 3-6 months wait as general facts. That is incorrect.

Definitely variable - I am in Seattle and this is the state of affairs. When I was in NYC the same or worse. In WA state there are effectively zero in patient beds to the extent people in crisis are warehoused in ERs or jail. Where are you? Not specifically about wait time, curious where you rank. My experience in WA and NY ranks 11 and 15 in the US, so most Americans fare worse:

https://mhanational.org/issues/2022/mental-health-america-ac...

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#455

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #212
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's healthcare is so bad that if you are not immediately dying, you get no healthcare whatsoever.

This is not the case.

It is. Add that with the rest of the problems Canada has, it might be the worst of the first world countries.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#456

Post by CydeWeys »

tambourine_man wrote: post #448
coryrc wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are all available to the ultra-wealthy. For your last example: https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-...

That's why I prefaced the statements with “most decent countries”, etc. The U.S. health care system doesn't qualify as decent for the richest country on earth in the XXI century, unfortunatly.

No True Scotsman arguments aren't particularly interesting.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#457

Post by dopidopHN »

WalterBright wrote: post #279
pigsty wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because every powerful economy of the past 6 centuries got there due to strong trade, which the US has gone out of its way to prevent Cuba from doing. No country with a strong economy got there by being forcibly isolated from the world.

And yet the same people say that protectionism is good for the economy.

Protectionism takes many form and is controlled by the country doing it.

For instance subsidies for US EV véhicules in 2023 is protectionism and will probably benefit US company.

The US do that a lot for a free market proponent.

As opposed to sanction where it’s something that is imposed to you.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#458

Post by dopidopHN »

WalterBright wrote: post #284
dopidopHN wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean sanctions?

That's what sanctions are. Protecting another country from your economy.

Cuba can’t control those sanctions. Protectionism imply that it’s a choice to bootstrap a sector.

For instance : Biden subsidies on EV véhicules apply to US companies only. That’s protectionism.

EU subsidies for EV works with any brands. So the subsidies money are currently going to Chinese EV manufacturers.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#459

Post by dopidopHN »

WalterBright wrote: post #236
awesome_dude wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> suffered from decades of economic sanctions > Protecting an economy is the same thing as economic sanctions. You can't claim that one results in prosperity while the other explains economic malaise. Uh, no. Hard no. > BTW, I wrote that it was a free market. Yes, I realised it after I posted, but did not care to update what other people can see for themselves.

Embargo - hitting the other guy's foot with a hammer Protectionism - hitting your own foot with a hammer

How do you understand US subsidies on EV, only applying to US manufacturers?

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#460

Post by ido »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #440
ido wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course the biggest (in scale) economic success story of our time is China the last couple decades - which is not a democracy at all as well as having massive government intervention and ownership.

China was an economic backwater until they implemented free markets. The Chinese miracle is probably the biggest and most obvious example of how important free markets are to growth.

Not just free market, and not completely free markets (there’s a lot of government regulation, intervention and ownership). More specifically they followed Singapore’s model.
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