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America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

fortune.com

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Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#181

Post by vladvasiliu »

entrope wrote: post #177
vladvasiliu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here in France, pregnant women are also discouraged from drinking alcohol because of birth defects. I don't know about aloe extract, but pregnant women are also discouraged from taking aspirin. Here's a random online store selling it, with a big warning for "usage during pregnancy and breastfeeding" (French only): https://lasante.net/nos-medicaments/douleurs-et-fievres/aspi...

Yes, but California requires prominent signs for any business premise where these materials are found, and the incentives are to not provide any further detail about which substances are present. So a gas station will have a Prop 65 sign; is there a hazard beyond automobile exhaust? It's legally less risky for the business to not say. Similarly for a store that sells alcoholic beverages; should customers take protect…

Oh, I thought those signs were on the products themselves. I was probably confused because of the "handlebars being a cancer risk" comment.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#182

Post by eudamoniac »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #179
AmVess wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is astounding how bad national brands are. Everything loaded with sugar and salt. Lowest quality ingredients in everything, and I do mean everything. I bought a package of national brand slice turkey. Threw it right away. It was dripping in chlorine. Things like national or regional brand ground beef is vile, and nothing can be done to it to make it edible. I bought a package years ago, grilled up burgers.…

I have no idea why you are getting downvoted. I don't know the specifics, but just comparing the ingredients of foods between the US and the EU really speaks for itself. Just compare something seemingly innocuous like Ketchup ffs.

US: tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, HFCS, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring

UK: Tomatoes, spirit vinegar, sugar, salt, spice and herb extracts, spice

About the same total sugar per 100g. Of course Heinz also sells "no sugar added" and "Simply Tomato Ketchup with No Artificial Sweeteners" versions in the US. Complaining about food being loaded with sugar/salt as a national issue is pretty dumb, because you can just buy the healthier stuff if you want that. What it amounts to is "US mainline premade foods are not to my tastes." That's fine, but... have you seen an American grocery store? There are infinite options all along the health spectrum. It's not hard to eat cleanly, it's just slightly less automatic.

And no, it is not cheaper to eat healthy in EU either. The cheapest US food is generally cheaper than the cheapest EU food because the quality is worse. If you buy the EU-quality-equivalent foods they are EU-price-equivalent as well. Compare across price brackets, not across the worst possible legal quality of item.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#183

Post by rjh29 »

throw5 wrote: post #87
rjh29 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding an NHS dentist is nearly impossible in most of the UK, though.

In the UK, most people simply get Bupa dental insurance. A basic plan costs like 25 pounds per month. Affordable I'd say. Many people spend more than that on beer and public transport. I know that does not help someone who has become homeless or lost their job and cannot afford the 25 pounds a month (300 pounds a year). That is why I say it is important for people who are employed to get a Bupa insurance plan. Most p…

"In the UK, most people simply get Bupa dental insurance."

Respectfully that is completely wrong, do you even live here? Nobody wants to pay for private healthcare here (takeup is ~10%) and people don't care about teeth as much as they probably should.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#184

Post by rbehrends »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #142
rbehrends wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American workers still get higher salaries than elsewhere in the OECD and growth in such industries isn't out competing those same industries in other OECD countries. I used to think that also, probably because FAANG salaries had skewed my perception, but after looking at the data, this does not seem to be actually true, at least not in general. For example, Germany has a somewhat higher annual median gross salary…

My expectation is that Germany has higher taxes than the US. What happens if you look at median net salary rather than gross?

First of all, yes, labor is taxed much higher in Germany than in the US (PPP adjustment already takes VAT on prices into account, so that doesn't matter in this case). In fact, Germany has one of the highest taxations of labor in the world.

What makes this analysis tricky is disposable vs. discretionary income. The US clearly comes out on top when it comes to disposable income (labour is taxed too much in Germany compared to capital income and wealth).

The picture gets more complicated when you look at discretionary income, which also accounts for regular bills, such as rent, college tuition, out of pocket expenses for health care, childcare, and such. All the taxes you pay in Germany do also pay for something, after all. There is unfortunately very little data for this type of comparison.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#185

Post by danaris »

petcat wrote: post #108
microtonal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in the US. In many other countries, you do not only initially get unemployment benefits, but also a form of basic income if the unemployment benefits expire and you haven't found a job, plus rent compensation, etc.

> In many other countries, you do not only initially get unemployment benefits, but also a form of basic income if the unemployment benefits expire and you haven't found a job, plus rent compensation, etc. It's the same everywhere in the US. Colloquially called "collecting unemployment".

Uh, no?

You get unemployment benefits. For a little while. In some places there may also be something like rent compensation, but generally unemployment benefits are supposed to be all-encompassing. (They are nowhere near enough to be all-encompassing.)

Once the unemployment benefits end, you better have a job.

My wife lost her job in the summer of 2020. We were incredibly lucky that the lockdowns meant extended unemployment benefits. They still lasted....I forget exactly, but I believe it was no more than about a year.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#186

Post by danaris »

FeloniousHam wrote: post #139
krapp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>yeah the hostility started recently with trump and his ilk - fighting for nationalism of a bygone era. It definitely didn't start with Trump, it just became policy under him. Trump would never have had a chance if Americans didn't already blame immigrants for the effects of neoliberalism rather than the billionaires who put it into practice, and if the rural white populace weren't already afraid losing the cultural…

[flagged]

If you want to provide new information into a conversation, source the damn information yourself. Don't tell us hallucinations.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#187

Post by rjh29 »

petcat wrote: post #73
iamben wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK: A dentist will see you for an emergency appointment pretty quickly. I can usually get a routine appointment within a few weeks, but if it's a routine check-up I don't mind scheduling it for a few weeks/a month out. If I'm going private I can usually get a routine appointment same week. For more urgent enquiries with an NHS doctor I can usually get a phonecall next day, and they'll ask me to come in if it's seriou…

Aren't NHS medical workers in a constant state of protest over low wages and bad working conditions? I know the doctor/nurse brain drain from Canada and the UK to the US used to be really bad. I haven't seen what the statistics are recently. [0] https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/02/19/uk-nhs-doctor-s...

It's complicated. They are underpaid relative to inflation, but there's also a massive queue of graduates who want to replace them. If the govt aquiesces to their demands then they may need to do the same for other unions.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#188

Post by atmavatar »

krapp wrote: post #95
dzonga wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah the hostility started recently with trump and his ilk - fighting for nationalism of a bygone era. if you can afford it - the US has excellent healthcare, you can also get organic food and dare I say better housing, private infra. what the US could/should improve on is have public clinics ie for preventative and quick care. public hospitals in the long run have many problems. in the U.K for example - I used priva…

>yeah the hostility started recently with trump and his ilk - fighting for nationalism of a bygone era. It definitely didn't start with Trump, it just became policy under him. Trump would never have had a chance if Americans didn't already blame immigrants for the effects of neoliberalism rather than the billionaires who put it into practice, and if the rural white populace weren't already afraid losing the cultural…

> Trump would never have had a chance if Americans didn't already blame immigrants for the effects of neoliberalism rather than the billionaires who put it into practice

That's by design.

The billionaires who own the media conglomerates have spent decades airing propaganda to that effect, as well as perpetuating the myth that anyone can become wealthy if they just work hard enough, with the implicit contra-positive being that the poor are poor because they are lazy, thus deserving their poverty.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#189

Post by TomK32 »

oblio wrote: post #122
TomK32 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOT has a list of interesting studies on the active transportation in the form of walking and cycling https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/active-transpo... You can also search for studies that compare the societal cost/benefit of using a car vs a bicycle. The generally accepted conclusion is that cars have a cost while cycling has a benefit for society.

That's not what I'm saying. Based on OPs phrasing, their specific bike was marked as a health hazard. Maybe their bike is painted with lead based paint. There could be a million reasons a specific model could be unhealthy.

Oh sorry, I missed that CA over-cautious warning label nonsense.
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