Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

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Except the US is rolling in wealth and has real class mobility. Countries with top-level hoarding like many in South America countries or oligarchies like Russia are better examples.

I know HN is US-centric and all its criticisms centered on the US, but its asinine to use the US as an example of "feudalism" when we're seeing much, much worse elswhere. With a 5.5% unemployment rate and median household income of $55k, there's a lot of opportunity.

France, and other Euro states, has twice the unemployment rate and almost half the household income. Yet it always gets a free pass in these discussions.

In Russia 111 people control 19 percent of all wealth. This is a country with a $1.5T GDP and 145m people! One fifth of it controlled by a mere 111 men? Yes somehow Russia also gets a free pass during these discussions. Hell, in Brazil the bottom 10% of the population lives on about $1 a day and the top 10% owns almost half of the wealth!

Yeah, a lot of countries have fallen into near feudalism, but the US isn't one of them. At least its not the best example for breathless exposes of wealth inequility.

The US hasn't fallen into feudalism, but it is increasingly much harder for people with interest and capabilities to get to college because of the cost - unless their own parents "gifted them" with a good edu & economic background. I went to a moderately good southern university but was able to get a phd in cs, and then was able to work for many of the leading tech companies in the world (like facebook, google, microsoft or amazon). I followed in the footsteps of my parents, both of whom had college degrees. If instead I was the first person in my family to make it to college, and my parents had been uneducated or suffered from being drug addicted, or I had gone to a terrible public school, it would have been tremendously harder for me to succeed. And I can help my own kids to succeed.

Your parent's educational and economic background is a huge factor in your personal success. We should strive to make it so that intelligent people with interest can succeed (educationally and personally), and strive to make it so that people see this is an opportunity not preserved for the rich. We should not (as someone suggested) make it society work such that wealth is randomly moved between people, as then there would be no benefit to learning and trying to better the world; somehow this has to be balanced with a good and decent life for everyone, people shouldn't just die if they don't happen to have health care (or their parents are poor).

My parents were poor immigrants. We didn't die when we got sick, we went to the public hospital and/or went to a cheap doctor who specialized in the immigrant community and had pricing to reflect that. We were taught a certain work ethic by seeing the people around us try to improve themselves and their situation.

We didn't go to good schools, but they were good enough and student loans go us into decent state colleges (and later private school via the same loan system). So yeah, your hypothetical hopeless sob story kinda pisses on the many people who rose above economic hardships. Many immigrants rise ahead in the US due to all the opportunity here. Ironically, the minorities we coddle with welfare, political correctness, and never-ending social programs that do next to nothing but drain tax dollars tend to be the ones who don't thrive and degenerate into multi-generation poverty. Maybe the white liberal mid/upper class political thought should focus on jobs and incentives and not-hand wringing about how hopeless everything is.

>wealth is randomly moved between people,

Everyone I know has a job/wealth via some level of meritocracy. I don't know anyone who randomly ran into money. If money was this easy to get then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The anti-US bias on sites like Reddit and HN is just ignorant. I don't think people appreciate what they have and the praise of places like Russia or China as being better or more free or more economically viable is hilariously ignorant. Or the masive ignorance of how bad Europe's finances and employment situation is in many of its countries, especially places like Italy, Spain, France, and of course Greece. Life is a lot more complex than "omg the US is the worst country ever." Seriously, if you guys want a conversation about oligarchies and inequality then Russia or Brazil are probably the best examples around. The US is very far from those levels of inequality. Pointing this out, sadly, gets you mega downvotes here. I'm curious why this forum needs to have this hysterical and furious anti-US bias all the time? Why are you being socially rewarded by this narrative? Have you ever questioned this narrative the types of people who are constantly selling it to you? Or their motivations?

You're never addressing anything, only diverting by baiting about Russia and China and how all criticism of the U.S. is unfounded because "What about country X?" and some rants about the Protestant work ethic. That's not an argument, it's tu quoque.

I'm skeptical as to your characterization of Italy, Spain and France. It sounds like you're just observing some macroeconomic forecasts without taking into account societal microfoundations like mobility, legislation and culture. These can make immense differences in ensuring a greater subjective feeling of freedom or a greater real resilience against cyclical factors.

Pretty sure France and most EU states have higher class mobility than the US most entirely due to much more accessible education and larger welfare states.

http://www.oecd.org/eco/labour/49849281.pdf

maybe in the last few decades, but increasingly unemployment is rising in Europe.

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