Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA • Hacker News Board

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#71

Post by munk-a » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

the_economist wrote: post #46

ixtli wrote: post #4

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests. (This was observed by Engels long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness )

They aren't completely wrong. 76% of Americans spend a year of their life in the top 20%, 56% in the top 10%. https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-i...

That study, and the corresponding NYTimes article, present serious issues with their presentation - no effort was made to identify or refute potential non-standard sources of that income. This came up just recently on HN and it was mentioned that inheritance could offer this momentary bump - I am much more suspicious this "golden year" is the one where retirees realize the accumulated value of their real-estate in a working city - turning it into cash and a much more affordable property in a retirement area (florida, arizona etc...)

So I disagree, they're pretty completely wrong.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#72

Post by narrator » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

ixtli wrote: post #43

yardie wrote: post #32

In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact…

Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going…

The thing about American healthcare is that the solution politicians offer is to spend more money on it when the cost is vastly higher than what it should be. Spending more money on it will only increase costs, but this is what we get. Other high income countries have semi-private health care and have much much lower costs than we do. A politician who can figure out why the COSTS are so high and make concrete proposals to do something about it will have my vote. I think there was an idea around that said that the maximum you can bill for anything is 150% of the medicare reimbursement. Sounds reasonable.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#73

Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #40

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #8

I have a real, honest to goodness question. I live in the Bay Area. I make $200,000 a year. I just had a mini-exit where I netted about $300K after taxes. I still rent for $2700/month. I don't want to buy an overpriced home in the bay in the suburbs (I wish we had for-sale condos like Toronto everywhere... still don't know why) I do well. I'm 32. I'm on an upwards path. But I don't feel upper class. I feel middle cla…

“Upper class” is defined, in most modern usages I’ve seen, as someone who does not so much work to earn money as they work to earn favor , where “favor” is the ability to access various sorts of line-of-credit drawn from wealthy people’s bank accounts because of your connection to them. In est: the upper class are courtiers. Courtiers for investments, placements onto boards of directors, management roles of other peo…

>If you’ve ever read the Charlie Stross book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

That's by Cory Doctorow, not Charlie Stross.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#74

Post by m0zg » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

Middle class is a meaningless term even within the US, let alone in comparison to other countries. What is "middle class"? Nowadays it seems that if you can afford to buy a house and reliably put food on the table, and have a couple of kids, while putting any money away for retirement you're considered "upper" middle class at least. To me that's just a baseline requirement for not being poor.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#75

Post by whatever_dude » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #57

ixtli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going…

I don't have anything to prove it but I swear countries like Japan and Germany are very good at this sort of thing because the people have a culture of strict obedience to authority be it the government or whatever. They love having and following well defined rules and are nonplussed (in the original sense of the word) when people break the rules. People in USA have the opposite attitude towards authority and rules.…

The USA's ethos in based in the motto of doing it their own way. Sometimes that's good: when everybody is doing the same, it breaks from the status quo and can become a leader in an industry, or just generally break ground in scientific and civil progress. That has happened many times in the past.

The flipside is that there are many things are a consensus worldwide because they _are actually better_ but that the US still refuses to adopt, generally because it would mean following others' lead, or because there are special interests in keeping the current status quo.

To me nothing is more emblematic of this problem than the country's refusal to adopt the metric system: the alternative is objectively worse, but the country is pretty much the last developed country on earth to refuse to use it.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#76

Post by afarah » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #32

In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact…

A larger government is the characteristic of the poorer countries in the graph

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#77

Post by ska » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #57

ixtli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going…

I don't have anything to prove it but I swear countries like Japan and Germany are very good at this sort of thing because the people have a culture of strict obedience to authority be it the government or whatever. They love having and following well defined rules and are nonplussed (in the original sense of the word) when people break the rules. People in USA have the opposite attitude towards authority and rules.…

I don't think your analogy holds unless you cherry pick a bit - neither the French nor the British are particularly known as rule followers in the sense you are suggesting. Both have good (even great, in Frances case) health care.

The line you are drawing probably has at least as much to do with economics as culture.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#78

Post by darksaints » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #32

In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact…

The alternative view is that most Americans have only ever known one type of government: an incompetent one. We spend more per capita on Medicare than most first world countries spend on their universal health care, but we only cover 15% of the population. We build roads, railroads, pipelines, and other basic infrastructure at 4-10x markup over the costs that other first world countries are paying. We spend more on education than other countries but get worse outcomes.

If you ask any underperforming manager why they are underperforming, they'll all say the same thing: not enough resources. Give me more staff, give me more budget. But they don't get it because they squander the budget they do have.

Other countries might be getting 30% more funding than the US gives their government, but the returns on that spending are 1000% more than what the US gets from their government. Fix that problem first and I think you'll be surprised at how willing people will be to fund their government appropriately.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#79

Post by huffmsa » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #57

ixtli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going…

I don't have anything to prove it but I swear countries like Japan and Germany are very good at this sort of thing because the people have a culture of strict obedience to authority be it the government or whatever. They love having and following well defined rules and are nonplussed (in the original sense of the word) when people break the rules. People in USA have the opposite attitude towards authority and rules.…

Oh I bet someone in Italy got visited by a doctor with a cigarette (30 minutes late, lunch) today.

And yes, the systems work in Germany and Japan because they're culturally and racially homogeneous (Japan).

The United States was founded by people who didn't like their home country and decided to leave, rather than bend the knee.

As such, we fight about everything. It's inefficient for some stuff.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#80

Post by derefr » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #73

derefr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Upper class” is defined, in most modern usages I’ve seen, as someone who does not so much work to earn money as they work to earn favor , where “favor” is the ability to access various sorts of line-of-credit drawn from wealthy people’s bank accounts because of your connection to them. In est: the upper class are courtiers. Courtiers for investments, placements onto boards of directors, management roles of other peo…

>If you’ve ever read the Charlie Stross book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom That's by Cory Doctorow, not Charlie Stross.

Oops! Fixed.