But we never ask, “how could we make the whole US like New Hampshire?” and probably for good reason! I don’t think we’d want the whole US to be that way. The US is big and diverse and that’s a good thing.
Second, pretty sure I’d argue the recent riots in Sweden would back up exactly the author’s theory around poorly behaved young males.
But hey, your nutritional rate is high!
From the article, a quote: even those who cohabit, believe that as long as they are not married, it is acceptable for either partner to walk away at any time, and for virtually any reason.
See Vienna 1683.
By metric of happiness and self fulfillment, it seems Greece is much better than Norway.
In other words, your impression that EU culture, statistics or law are different from USA is not verifiable in measurements. I agree however, that we think we are immune to USA problems when we live in EU.
If you want billionaires then the US model is much more successful.
If you want a wide middle class then the Swedish model is more successful.
If you want happiness then the Danish model is more successful.
If you want to eliminate poverty then the Finnish model is more successful.
Incomes are nominally higher in Massachusetts and costs for certain staples (energy, food, automobile) are nominally lower, compared to Western Europe. Yet I can’t say the outcome is better (note I have lived in France, Germany and Massachusetts).
The fact is life is more precarious in MA: it appears that you have more disposable income but crucial things like health care (perhaps best in USA), school (crucial for keeping your head above water) and such means you spend more of your time and money looking after your life and less actually living it.
You can see this in the numbers, too: not just life expectancy but in things like money available (and spent) on vacations and other leisure, reported levels of stress and debt.
I’m not trying to claim that any country is some sort of utopia. My root comment was simply that the analysis of the post we are discussing was simplistic and ignored confounding examples of countries with the claimed “bad” things doing better by their citizens.
We’re talking about countries and the claim that the USA is too big for decent social systems is just about the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.
Either you have enough GDP for each state that it could be it’s own country, or you don’t. But it feels picky and choosy to say “we are extremely wealthy” and then later say “ah. But we’re too big for social programmes. It would cost too much”.
It’s a weird kind of double-speak that might have an iota of truth in either direction, but those positions cannot be simultaneously held.
Yes, you may have to exclude some very anomalous countries that have models that couldn't scale - Luxembourg for instance - but a country like Sweden is a mix of cities, suburbs, and rural areas with a mix of primary resource production, manufacturing, and services. It's big "enough" that you would expect normal country scaling laws to apply.
Seeing that the US is nearly a quarter of the global economy, nearly 30% of world's billionaires does not sound unreasonable.
Their success is defined by their peoples' socioeconomic status.
Even Massachusetts would be superior than every European country per capita.
However, even if the US shows better outcomes when controlling for socioeconomic status, the distribution of people within socioeconomic status is relevant.
If the US has 1000 impoverished people and 10 middle class people, and Germany has 10 impoverished people and 1000 middle class people, the relevant comparison is the German middle class to the US impoverished class.
In other words, you'd want to compare outcomes based on percentiles regardless of socioeconomic status.
I.e. unless they accept 30% immigration over the next 50 years, the system will be extremely stressed and may fracture.
There’s no reason to expect that not to happen. Countries like Germany already been have a higher immigration rate than the US, and once had a much higher rate when they needed workers post war.
European political decision making is primarily bullshit muddle and and absurd “compromise” yet in the end is surprisingly pragmatic. Unfortunately for the US it’s become high conflict rather than vapid muddle, which makes it harder for people to move their positions.
And the AfD notwithstanding, Germany has the pragmatic Gastarbeiter precedent.
The larger precedent, for all cultures, is that idealistic views (immigrants good! Immigrants bad!) fade dramatically and rapidly when pragmatic issues emerge.
It's a pretty good generalization, however. I see it over and over again in US political discussions a total, and possibly (probably?) deliberate, blindness to the idea that health card could be socialized, UI and welfare could be better, access to education could be universal and things like job training or maternity leave could exist, etc.
It is true that if you watch network or cable TV from the US, you will not find the actual left represented, other than perhaps Bernie Sanders. What they will call "the left" is mostly centrist Democrats whose position can be summarized as "things as basically OK but we need to be nicer in a few specific ways".
I doubt the US left knows what left is :)
Interesting assumption. I'm far to the left of most Canadians, let alone Americans.
> It is true that if you watch network or cable TV from the US, you will not find the actual left represented, other than perhaps Bernie Sanders.
That was my point, albeit poorly expressed; very few actual leftist thinkers get any kind of mainstream exposure so all "US thinkers" are right of centre unless you specifically go looking for the left leaning ones.
However if someone is in that subset that does, the chances are much better that they are aware of left-ish ideas.
Don't think said lower classes live in fear of a "major health event".
I live in SV so can afford a level of health care well above the usual middle class. Yet I have a literal A/B test: my kid broke his arm in Germany and also in the US and the ordinary treatment he got In Germany was significantly superior to that at Stanford Hospital — ant at a fraction of the cost.
I always get that for holidays, it costs peanuts. Sometimes you don't even have to pay upfront if you use it, sometimes the treatment gets refunded.
Absolutely false. Most people don't understand that the wait depends on priority. If you need urgent care you get urgent care.
Could you provide a source for that?