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Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

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Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#51

Post by jimaway123 »

marcuskane2 wrote: post #48
WarmWash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual problem in the US is housing costs, but most people are around social media knowledge level in this area, and just blame the first thing in front of them. Raising wages will do nothing to ease housing costs, which eat the largest chunk of everyone's pay.

It's particularly sad that we just proved this with the massive Covid-era stimulus and yet didn't collectively learn the lesson. We gave millions of people unemployment checks that were larger than their actual income had been, gave low and mid income workers stimulus checks, gave business owners forgivable debt for payroll and a year later we didn't have increased quality of life, we just had fast-food that cost twi…

There is a good proportion of the planet that will look at that and say "well we just needed to write bigger checks."

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#52

Post by cwbuilds »

autoexec wrote: post #33
cwbuilds wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure we do have better quality of life in Europe. We may have in the 2000s, but we're in decline relative to the US. Even if you take things like healthcare into account: US average disposable income is $51,000, while it's $32,000 in the UK (with higher rents in the UK than the US).

The UK is still better a lot of ways but there's a reason it's called "the America of Europe"

Depends who you are. 16% of the UK is in absolute poverty (20% if you account for housing costs), while only 10% are in absolute poverty in the US.

I'd rather be an American on an average salary paying for healthcare than in the UK on a much lower average salary. Property costs/rents are much higher and our public services like healthcare are crumbling (my dad nearly died in a hospital corridor because there were no beds left).

I know that last bit is anecdotal, but it's a country-wide problem.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#53

Post by xhkkffbf »

ahartmetz wrote: post #41
johnvanommen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author writes for Jacobin. Of course it’s promoting Communism.

Stop the hyperbole. Jacobin is more like social democrat (what most nominally social democrat parties used to do, but aren't doing anymore). That's about two significant notches less communist than communism.

Two tiny notches.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#54

Post by shinjitsu »

WarmWash wrote: post #30
amazingamazing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that you cannot force someone to hire anyone at a given wage what is the solution? At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum, but often this results in no job at all.

The actual problem in the US is housing costs, but most people are around social media knowledge level in this area, and just blame the first thing in front of them. Raising wages will do nothing to ease housing costs, which eat the largest chunk of everyone's pay.

I think also the ridiculous nature of the automobile market is a significant secondary problem in the US. When the median new vehicle is $49000 and the median annual salary (pretax) is ~$65,000 that isn't sustainable.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#55

Post by alistairSH »

cwbuilds wrote: post #50
alistairSH wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? Median earnings is less than that. And median household income is only marginally more. the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the median annual earnings for all workers (people aged 15 and over with earnings) was $51,370; and more specifically estimates that median annual earnings for those who worked full-time, year round, was $63,360. According to the CPS, the median household income was $70,784 in 2021.…

That's income, not disposable income. It's also median, instead of mean. It's also wrong. Median income in the UK is £39,039 which is about $49,500.. You linked to the US Wikipedia page twice. OECD is the source for disposable income. US: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie... UK: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie...

Yeah, OECD is saying the mean disposable income is the US is almost the same as median household income.

Either some of the numbers are wrong, or your (OECD’s) use of mean is misleading… the mean of Bezos’ and my disposable incomes is a very large and mostly useless figure.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

alistairSH wrote: post #55
cwbuilds wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's income, not disposable income. It's also median, instead of mean. It's also wrong. Median income in the UK is £39,039 which is about $49,500.. You linked to the US Wikipedia page twice. OECD is the source for disposable income. US: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie... UK: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie...

Yeah, OECD is saying the mean disposable income is the US is almost the same as median household income. Either some of the numbers are wrong, or your (OECD’s) use of mean is misleading… the mean of Bezos’ and my disposable incomes is a very large and mostly useless figure.

Mean personal disposable income being comparable to median household income isn't too surprising and doesn't necessarily indicate any error. Mean is much higher than median, individual is much lower than household, disposable is much lower than total. You are comparing numbers that are different in all three axes (in ways which do not point in the same direction), so really any relationship between them would be plausible without detailed knowledge of the exact distribution of all the relevant components.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#57

Post by cwbuilds »

alistairSH wrote: post #55
cwbuilds wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's income, not disposable income. It's also median, instead of mean. It's also wrong. Median income in the UK is £39,039 which is about $49,500.. You linked to the US Wikipedia page twice. OECD is the source for disposable income. US: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie... UK: https://oecd-better-life-index.truth-and-beauty.net/countrie...

Yeah, OECD is saying the mean disposable income is the US is almost the same as median household income. Either some of the numbers are wrong, or your (OECD’s) use of mean is misleading… the mean of Bezos’ and my disposable incomes is a very large and mostly useless figure.

They're completely different metrics. If you want to compare median income:

UK - $49,500 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...)

US - $83,750 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N)

I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to prove other than that you don't understand statistics.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#58

Post by dlcarrier »

alephnerd wrote: post #2

> Where redistribution runs vertically and broadly, the welfare state absorbs global finance shocks... If this was true, then the Eurozone crisis would not have been as severe as it was in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and France - all countries with broad and large social assistance programs. --- Also, the HN title is editorialized, the correct title is "Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial…

Fun fact: The 2008 financial crises resulted in the US bailing out foreign banks more than domestic ones. They prevented a larger Eurozone crisis, because it would have brought down the US, too.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#59

Post by dlcarrier »

amazingamazing wrote: post #7
ck2 wrote: post #5

in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...

Given that you cannot force someone to hire anyone at a given wage what is the solution? At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum, but often this results in no job at all.

It's just like housing regulations. Someone might try to build a shack with power outlets more than 12 feet apart, and we can't permit that, so they're better off homeless.

Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness

#60

Post by ahartmetz »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #53
ahartmetz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop the hyperbole. Jacobin is more like social democrat (what most nominally social democrat parties used to do, but aren't doing anymore). That's about two significant notches less communist than communism.

Two tiny notches.

One is a dictatorship (well that is how it turns out every time), the other is a democracy, for starters. If that is not a huge difference to you...
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