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Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

euronews.com

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Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#121

Post by wat10000 »

toasty228 wrote: post #59
wat10000 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which metrics are those? Things don’t look great for the poorest Americans, but the average American isn’t living a life that’s even remotely third world.

Childbirth mortality, lifespan-healthspan, murder rate, paid vacation, worked hours per year, job security, etc.

Maternal/infant mortality, lifespan, and murder rate are all in a realm I'd call not-great-not-terrible, where we're toward the tail of wealthy countries, but not close to the average of the third world. Those also tend to correlate poorly with what we'd generally consider "first/third world." For example, #1 in maternal mortality is Belarus, not generally a country to be envied or emulated. Indonesia has one of the lowest murder rates in the world. Jordan is ahead of many first-world countries.

I can't find any info about paid vacation by country. Everyone wants to talk about legislated minimums, which doesn't tell the whole story. The US legal minimum is zero, but the average is definitely not zero. The top country by that metric is Iran, and some other countries near the top of the list include Cambodia, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Overall it appears to correlate very poorly with first-worldness.

Worked hours per year, the US is at around the same level as countries such as Italy, Australia, and Ireland, and substantially lower than places like Greece, Poland, and Taiwan.

Job security also appears to be on the same level as peers. According to https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/oecd-countries-by-job-se..., the US is a bit worse than Denmark and New Zealand, and a bit better than Ireland and Finland.

I'm not seeing it.

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#122

Post by wat10000 »

ajuc wrote: post #86
wat10000 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently HN commenters have difficulty with the concept of "metrics." What are the numbers? The US system sucks in a lot of ways, but it works OK for most Americans. If you're very poor, you'll have Medicaid and it'll cost you nothing. If you're an average middle class person, you'll have decent health insurance and your costs will be affordable. There's a slice of people in the middle who don't qualify for medicai…

US life expectancy is 79.76 years. That's 62nd in the world, lover than EU average, lower than many less wealthy countries. It's objectively not "working OK" for most Americans, especially when you consider how much you spend for subpar results. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/ Now you can blame it on bad lifestyle, addictions, car culture, crime rate, etc. All true, and idiotic hea…

Please don't abuse "objectively." There's no objective measure of what "working OK" even means in the first place, let alone objective information that says whether or not we meet that bar.

EU life expectancy was 81.7 in 2024. Two years makes one of them OK and the other not? What do we call a place like Hungary which is quite a bit below the US here? Or maybe it's OK because they don't spend as much?

I also said for most Americans. Bad life expectancy is concentrated in the poorest Americans. Which is not a good thing to say about this country, but it does mean that most Americans live longer.

Again, I'm not a defender of our system. But the average American gets decent care and is not bankrupted by major illness.

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#123

Post by wat10000 »

sscaryterry wrote: post #90
anon291 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply wrong in most states.

Most? This kinda affirms my point. Where healthcare is free at point of use, the problem is non-existent.

No it doesn't. You said "probably will bankrupt your family." This is not true.

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#124

Post by dismalaf »

nozzlegear wrote: post #118
dismalaf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.moderndream.cz/katalog-domu/ Some of these models are pretty modestly priced (~$500k USD) but more modern than any house you'll find in North America until you reach a price point in the several million range. Certainly higher quality, nicer and more modern than any McMansion.

Interesting, thanks for the link. For comparison, here are the "top of the line" houses in my area (Iowa, not Mississippi): https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Okoboji_IA... This is largely lakefront property in a somewhat touristy area of my state, so that influences the prices a lot.

The link I provided is a builder and the standard cost for what's considered somewhat high end modern construction. Tons of new homes like this BTW.

Your link is just expensive homes on real estate with varying levels of build quality by the look of things so not exactly comparing apples to apples...

If you just want to see expensive real estate in Czech Republic (I know, not Poland, but still Eastern Europe) here: https://www.sreality.cz/hledani/domy?razeni=nejdrazsi&cena-o...

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#125

Post by dismalaf »

stufffer wrote: post #117
hdgvhicv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American houses are made of paper. They need reroofing so often the cost always comes up in discussion of house ownership.

Europeans think they have it hard worrying if their elderly family will die from the summer heat, but they will never know the pain of maintaining a 10 ton, 4 zone HVAC system for your mcmansion.

[flagged]

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#127

Post by cindyllm »

dismalaf wrote: post #125
stufffer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans think they have it hard worrying if their elderly family will die from the summer heat, but they will never know the pain of maintaining a 10 ton, 4 zone HVAC system for your mcmansion.

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#128

Post by nozzlegear »

dismalaf wrote: post #124
nozzlegear wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks for the link. For comparison, here are the "top of the line" houses in my area (Iowa, not Mississippi): https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Okoboji_IA... This is largely lakefront property in a somewhat touristy area of my state, so that influences the prices a lot.

The link I provided is a builder and the standard cost for what's considered somewhat high end modern construction. Tons of new homes like this BTW. Your link is just expensive homes on real estate with varying levels of build quality by the look of things so not exactly comparing apples to apples... If you just want to see expensive real estate in Czech Republic (I know, not Poland, but still Eastern Europe) here: h…

Ah, I can't read Czech so I didn't know :P

P.S. I'm not trying to prove anything, I just thought it'd be interesting to compare. I think my original comment about top of the line houses in Eastern Europe came across as combative/challenging when I didn't mean it to.

Re: Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

#130

Post by _DeadFred_ »

wat10000 wrote: post #40
rwmj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not facing the choice of dying or going bankrupt?

What’s the metric for that? The average American has decent health insurance. Our system can be painful and I'm not advocate for it, but the average American is not going bankrupt due to medical issues.

100,000,000 American owe $220 billion in medical debt. https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/scheinman-institute/blog/healthc...

In the US medical bills are half of all debts sent to collections.

41% of US adults have health care debt, 14 million had medical debts over $1,000 and 3 million had debts over $10,000. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/the-burden-of-medi...

65% of US bankruptcies are due to medical debt https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/medical-b...

530,000 American families file for bankruptcy due to medical bills every year https://balancingeverything.com/medical-bankruptcies-statist...

Debt burden is strongly associated with increased likelihood of suicide attempt https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33989465/

I lost my medical insurance due to the big beautiful bill. It's an interesting change in patriotism when your country says 'you know what, just fucking die because you are rebuilding your life. We don't believe in second chances in the USA'. For millions and millions this country is a ghoulish nightmare.

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