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The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

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Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#111

Post by burningChrome »

ars wrote: post #34
MBlume wrote: post #4

I'm strongly in favor of expanding the US social safety net, but I don't want to neglect other obvious factors here. Dutch children are able to walk or bike outside unsupervised. In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. I think this kind of freedom of movement has a big effect on happiness, it certainly did for me. ETA relevant links: https://yout…

People keep saying this, and it's just not true. Sure, there are stories in the press, but the actual lived reality of kids in the US is not that. You can easily tell I'm right simply because it's in the News: The News doesn't cover the normal situation, they cover the unusual. If it's in the news, it's something that rarely happens.

To support your point, the news in the US has become far more sensationalized then what I remember growing up. In the mid aughts when I was in college, my buddy (a journalism major) told me even in their college news room they had adopted the famous adage, "If it bleeds, it leads" as their motto on what gets reported.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#112

Post by Aunche »

theossuary wrote: post #92
Aunche wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has one of the most progressive tax rates of any nation. Not only do we not have a VAT, but also the top 10% pay over 70% of all income taxes. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the American government seems especially inefficient at spending money. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-fe...

Income taxation is not a good proxy for all taxation. If you look at the effective taxation of some of the richest individuals in America, you'll see they pay far less than income tax percentages would lead you to believe [1]. [1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Sure, but that just makes it worse for high-salary earners (me and I suspect a lot of HN readers).

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#113

Post by bojan »

piafraus wrote: post #87
bojan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a good example as almost no-one has a salary that high. For software engineers you're looking at say 90-100K as an average maximum, with vast majority earning less than that. Edit to cover your edit: it's certainly not free labour, I happily pay my taxes because I believe I'm getting quiet something in return.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-salary-... > The estimated total pay for a Software Engineer is $140,779 per year in the United States area, with an average salary of $118,761 per year. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated additional pay is $22,017 per yea…

Yeah, but we were taking about the Dutch tax system, that applies to the income made in the Netherlands.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#115

Post by trgn »

rootusrootus wrote: post #100
trgn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm somewhat skeptical that the Dutch social safety net is why Dutch parents let their kids "ride their bikes in the rain unsupervised" It's blindingly obvious for anybody who has experienced both sides. Dutch parents let their children outside because the roads are safe for children to bike and walk. bikelanes, bumpouts, bollards, slow cars in town, ... American roads are a thunderdome by comparison. Most american…

> Most americans just cannot see it, fish in a bowl, surrounded by water. Alternatively, a lot of us actually live in places where it's no big deal. My kids spend an inordinate amount of time biking and walking out on the street, shooting hoops, etc.

Agreed, these places do exist, also in my metro. It's a big country.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#116

Post by bojan »

throwaway49849 wrote: post #107
sofixa wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way in hell an efficient society actually requires that level of income tax of everyone If there's no way in hell you can sure back up that claim with sources? I personally cannot think of a single country with what I would consider to be a somewhat efficient society that has a significantly lower tax rate. On the contrary, as established upthread, in the US which many Americans pride themselves on bein…

The burden of proof is on the people claiming that level of taxation is required in the first place. If taxes need to be that high, its on high tax proponents to justify it, not on everyone else to justify why we shouldn't raise them higher. If you stop to think about it, there are only 3 possibilities: 1) Taxes are perfectly calibrated to exactly what they need to be. 2) Taxes are less than they need to be. 3) Taxes…

> The burden of proof is on the people claiming that level of taxation is required in the first place

The proof is there and it's called the annual budget of the country. As far as I know it's public information, not that anyone ever bothers to look at it (and rightfully so - we are paying via taxes people to look at it, and another group of people to control it).

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#117

Post by morsch »

anon291 wrote: post #104
hooper_ wrote: post #88

I had a simmilar experiance in Iceland, compared to my home country (Australia). Some examples: * The birth of our son cost us a total of $50. That was parking fees and a bed for me in the same room as my Partner. Who had a 30 hour labor and an emergancy C-Section. * For the first couple of weeks we had a nurse coming over and checking up on the health of my partner and son. Organized and paid for by the goverment. *…

> I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!". This is just a nice boss, not a social policy. There are plenty of nice bosses anywhere; and plenty of shitty ones.

It can be a social policy, as well. In Germany, each parent is entitled to up to 10 days a year (single parents get 20) to take care of their sick child. Most people get 70% of their regular wages for those days, paid by the public health insurance.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#118

Post by dhc02 »

throwaway49849 wrote: post #107
sofixa wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way in hell an efficient society actually requires that level of income tax of everyone If there's no way in hell you can sure back up that claim with sources? I personally cannot think of a single country with what I would consider to be a somewhat efficient society that has a significantly lower tax rate. On the contrary, as established upthread, in the US which many Americans pride themselves on bein…

The burden of proof is on the people claiming that level of taxation is required in the first place. If taxes need to be that high, its on high tax proponents to justify it, not on everyone else to justify why we shouldn't raise them higher. If you stop to think about it, there are only 3 possibilities: 1) Taxes are perfectly calibrated to exactly what they need to be. 2) Taxes are less than they need to be. 3) Taxes…

I think this a great frame to examine taxes though: Are taxes perfect, too high, or too low?

Now that we have the question, how to we decide the answer? I think there are several possibilities, but one that comes to mind is happiness. A subjective and flawed metric to be sure, but a metric all the same.

Thankfully, we do not have to resign ourselves to thought experiments with no opportunity for real data collection, as in "Would the average US citizen be happier or less happy if taxes were 10% lower?" We don't even have to settle for logical exercises such as you pose here: "What is more likely, that corruption inevitably makes more government worse than less government, or vice versa?"

Instead, we can examine the beautifully diverse set of data-rich, large scale experiments known as sovereign nations to find how well taxation correlates to happiness.

And voila, your criticism of the article is an argument in favor of the article.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#119

Post by Retric »

redox99 wrote: post #40
dopamean wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a blog post a while back that had the idea that the reason so many American's remember their college years so fondly is because for many of them it was the only time in their lives where they lived somewhere walkable.

I'm pretty sure almost everywhere in the world people remember their college years fondly.

Not to the same degree. The relative freedom and stress of high school vs collage vs young adult varies quite a bit. Extreme collage debt does quite a bit to dampen the joy of many young working Americans.

Re: The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets

#120

Post by atmavatar »

anon291 wrote: post #103
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overzealous neighbors in the US will have someone's house sold out from under them when the grass is too high and they don't pay the fines to the HOA for mowing it. The idea that they'll be ok with children wandering around unsupervised is preposterous on its face. The cops might not care either way, but only until the busybodies start nagging. Especially the sort of busybodies that live in the places where any sane…

Most American homes don't have HOAs. Don't buy homes that do. HOAs should severely undervalue a property automatically. HOAs are anti-democratic. It's easier to get rid of a city than an HOA.

While that's true that many (and perhaps most!) HOAs are awful, that isn't categorically true for all of them.

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Its purpose is primarily to act as a collective for bargaining with the city government. It also negotiated a sweet deal with the local waste disposal services - they're covered by the HOA dues, which are lower than what my parents pay a mile or so away. It sends out quarterly newsletters about local events and has yearly meetings and elections for its handful of officers.

I was hesitant to buy into this neighborhood when I first learned there was an HOA, but the bylaws don't prevent me from doing anything with my property that the city ordinances don't already prohibit. I've never received any complaints from my HOA, nor have any of my neighbors to my knowledge.

tl;dr: not all HOAs are bad, but it's always a good idea to check their bylaws before committing to a residence that has one.

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