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We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

nytimes.com

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Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#31

Post by bilbo0s »

lupin_sansei wrote: post #25
electromagnetic wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a testament to the differences between perception and reality. The NHS in the UK regularly gets poor ratings, in fact they're regularly flat out abysmal on national satisfaction scales, yet all out-patient questionnaire's regularly return with satisfaction rates >90%. People perceive the NHS as this behemoth incapable of performing, but the reality is that it performs amazingly well and provides one of the best…

> one of the best health care in the world Are you serious? Check the poor cancer survival rates in UK compared to the rest of world: "Since that time, cancer survival rates in England have been steadily improving for but we (Department of Health spokesman) accept that there is further work to do to reduce the gap between us and the rest of northern and western Europe and America." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7…

Uh . . .

Had to call this one.

Full Disclosure: Cancer Researcher here. I looked into how to analyze data over time to elicit better outcomes in a former life.

Cancer is a hard problem, REALLY hard. Hematological Cancers as well, super hard. It is less than wise to judge a health care system by its ability to treat cancer. Literally, there are often times when a patient is being attended solely for the purposes of learning as much as we can before she dies. Thus, hopefully, getting us into a better position to help the next person.

Let's try to confine the discussion to areas where you get the most bang for the buck. Primary care for instance.

Further disclosure: I am American. Limited experience with using UK health system. So 'good' or 'bad' are assessments it would be out of place for me to make. This is simply a post to add context to the discussion.

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#32

Post by lupin_sansei »

bilbo0s wrote: post #31
lupin_sansei wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the best health care in the world Are you serious? Check the poor cancer survival rates in UK compared to the rest of world: "Since that time, cancer survival rates in England have been steadily improving for but we (Department of Health spokesman) accept that there is further work to do to reduce the gap between us and the rest of northern and western Europe and America." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7…

Uh . . . Had to call this one. Full Disclosure: Cancer Researcher here. I looked into how to analyze data over time to elicit better outcomes in a former life. Cancer is a hard problem, REALLY hard. Hematological Cancers as well, super hard. It is less than wise to judge a health care system by its ability to treat cancer. Literally, there are often times when a patient is being attended solely for the purposes of le…

I think it's fair enough to ask how come a country that claims to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world (the UK) has such bad cancer survival rates?

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#33

Post by hop »

fnid wrote: post #19
hop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not take it out of perspective - no one will starve here, this isn't Uganda, and Domino's has $5 Pizzas.

Actually, people do in fact starve in the united states every year. Edit: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf Page 33 says roughly 2500 people die of malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies.

1) Malnutrition is not starvation due to not affording food.

2) Thats a whooping 0.0009 of all deaths.

3) If you are poor in America, you are most likely to die from heart disease from eating to many $5 Pizzas and other high caloric food because it's so cheap!

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#34

Post by lupin_sansei »

guelo wrote: post #29

In the US the average worker works 1,777 hours per year, in Norway it's 1,328. That's a lot of extra time for family, friends, hobbies, etc. They've made a choice about their work/life balance and we (or our capitalist masters) have made a choice about what is important to us. How much salary would you give up in exchange for 25% less time at work? Also, the Norwegian bottom 10% makes twice as much as the American bo…

Could you supply some sources to back up your claims, particularly about the crime and social problems in Norway vs the US, and also work hours.

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#35

Post by michael_dorfman »

tianaco wrote: post #12

This confirms my brother's stories. He has a penchant for dating Scandinavian women--thusfar he's dated women from Denmark and Norway and has visited them and their families. Denmark was, of course, expensive by US standards. But upon returning from Norway, he remarked on the absurdly high cost of living. He made lasagna for his Norwegian girlfriend's family and it ended up costing around $60 US--just for the ingredi…

I'm an American living in Norway, and I can confirm half of what you write: the costs you describe are pretty accurate.

However, you drop the ball when you write "It's not affordable unless you're absurdly wealthy."

The fact is, the salary range in Norway is high, and quite compressed. Everyone can afford to make lasagna.

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#36

Post by pedrocr »

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #27
pedrocr wrote: post #4

The statistics are misleading and muddy: - Comparing adjusted disposable income between Scandinavia and the US is highly misleading. The disposable income in Scandinavia doesn't need to cover any healthcare, education and other public services. I wonder how much, if any, the difference is once you adjust for that. - The argument mistakes distribution of wealth with average output per capita. Portugal is in the bottom…

You cite %change in GDP as a measure of economic growth in your third point, after claiming in your first and second points that GDP itself is not a good measure for quality of life/economic well being/etc, in points one and two. Does that make sense? I think you're letting your terminology run away from you in your first point. It's true that "Disposable income" doesn't need to cover educational, medical, and other…

>You cite %change in GDP as a measure of economic growth in your third point, after claiming in your first and second points that GDP itself is not a good measure for quality of life/economic well being/etc, in points one and two. Does that make sense?

My first point was about disposable income which is a subset of GDP. My second one only said that high relative costs can just mean flat income structures independent of GDP (hence the two extreme cases of Portugal and the US with high and low GDPs both having low costs for pizza compared to Sweden. I never really argue that high GDP doesn't make you richer.

> I think you're letting your terminology run away from you in your first point. It's true that "Disposable income" doesn't need to cover educational, medical, and other social expenses in Scandinavian welfare states, but those expenses still have to be paid out of tax receipts. I don't see how the Scandinavian governments can get $35000 per person in value out of $25000 per person in income.

I agree with you that the pure GDP comparison makes the disposable income point less important. But GDP by itself doesn't seem comparable either. If the Scandinavian population consumes on average more healthcare and education on a per-service not per-dollar basis than the US one, you can have a higher purchasing power just because you buy a higher percentage of Chinese goods produced with low wage costs instead of locally supplied healthcare and education delivered by higher-earning local wages (ever increasing since you are getting richer). But now I am way out of my league. IANAEconomist

All this discussion naturally forgets the next point of how much this added GDP/wealth actually drives happiness. From what I saw from Happiness research Europe has actually been obtaining gains in overall happiness while the US has stagnated. One theory was that productivity gains in Europe were used to reduce number of work hours while in the US they were used to increase GDP. Europe would be doing the better tradeoff as both were already at diminishing returns for money but time off had a good return. An interesting theory at least.

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#37

Post by anamax »

forensic wrote: post #14
hop wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's murky about purchasing power? Go live in Copenhagen - shits expensive! Plus a 25% sales tax on top and don't even get me started on alcohol...

you're taking a middle class perspective poor people in the US can't afford pizza. poor people in scandinavia don't really exist.

> poor people in scandinavia don't really exist.

Poor Scandinavian-Americans don't exist either. (Poverty is not equally distributed.)

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#38

Post by anamax »

pedrocr wrote: post #30
jjs wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The disposable income in Scandinavia doesn't need to cover any healthcare, education and other public services. If the study's honest, those should already be factored into "cost of living", not "disposable income".

The study that compares the US to Europe (linked in another commend) does these comparisons: - Compare GDP between US and Europe and show that US is higher per capita on average. No debate there. - Compare private consumption between the US and Europe, specifically stating that it does not control for healthcare and education. From page 14: Different countries’ choices of public commitment influence, through taxation…

> So on that count Americans do appear to be richer, assuming of course they are getting equal average amounts of education and healthcare on their private purchases as the Europeans are getting on their tax dollars.

That assumption is rather dodgy on a couple of points.

One is that a lot of healthcare and education in the US is tax-supported. Another is that a rational person may choose to spend money on things other than healthcare and education. Forcing them to spend it on healthcare and education can make them poorer, aka "less bang for same bucks".

> the average over the whole population is not as good as the average in Sweden.

How about we compare average cancer survival rates?

Relevant fact: a huge fraction of the "uninsured" in the US are eligible for free govt healthcare but simply haven't signed up. (When they run into problems, they typically, but not always, sign up.)

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#39

Post by davidw »

guelo wrote: post #29

In the US the average worker works 1,777 hours per year, in Norway it's 1,328. That's a lot of extra time for family, friends, hobbies, etc. They've made a choice about their work/life balance and we (or our capitalist masters) have made a choice about what is important to us. How much salary would you give up in exchange for 25% less time at work? Also, the Norwegian bottom 10% makes twice as much as the American bo…

> or our capitalist masters

This is why I flag stories like this.

Re: We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.

#40

Post by michael_dorfman »

wisty wrote: post #18
hop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not take it out of perspective - no one will starve here, this isn't Uganda, and Domino's has $5 Pizzas.

While poor people in Scandinavia (and drugs will ensure that some people are poor) can't afford $30 pizza.

In Scandinavia, drugs don't ensure that some people are poor.

Some people choose to spend the $30 on drugs instead of pizza, of course-- but there really is no poverty here.

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