Private opulence, public squalor: How the U.S. helps the rich and hurts the poor | Hacker News Reader

Private opulence, public squalor: How the U.S. helps the rich and hurts the poor

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90%+ of Americans have it overall much worse than in any other modern economy.

Also, the amount of homeless people and violence is shocking.

Edit: educational material:

- "Where to Invade Next?" by Michael Moore

- "Wealth Inequality in America" infographic video https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

- "Think Grocery Prices Are High Now? Just Wait" https://youtu.be/0_WB84fA7i0

Have any facts to back up that statistic? Ideally objective -- Moore and Reich are notorious anti-Western Leftists.

You're going to apply that moniker to any criticism of the status quo if it comes from an opponent of said status quo so why bother engaging with you at all?

What facts do you have to show you're even capable of detaching from you own bias enough to properly determine what is and is not objective or even bother reading the evidence if it came from someone the colonial capitalist hegemony dislikes?

You ask for facts yet discount the provided evidence without even reading it. Seems you dont actually want facts at all.

Hold on, hold on.

joemazerino wrote:

> notorious anti-Western Leftists.

deserialized wrote:

> colonial capitalist hegemony

We're running forward with a weird binary. Things are lumped together that shouldn't be, and things are put in opposition that shouldn't be.

What makes "Leftism" anti-"colonial" or anti-"Western"? Why should the words "Western", "colonial", and "capitalist" go together?

The West gave us Leftism.

Leftism, in its internationalist flavors, is a universalist ideology that tries to spread everywhere -- to "colonize" the world.

And what even is "capitalism"? Is it trade and commerce? These have been practiced ubiquitously outside the West forever. What is uniquely "Western" about them?

And if we're going to be talking about "The West", what is the other side of the dichotomy here? Are we restricting attention to Eurasia and saying "The East", like "The Occident and the Orient"? Surely there is nothing especially "Leftist" about East Asia -- yes it has China and Vietnam, but it also has Japan and South Korea. Or are we actually restricting attention to Europe, so "East" means "Russia"? Is there anything "Leftist" about that? Last I saw, their propaganda featured Orthodox icons. Or by "West" do you actually mean something like "Europe" or even "white people", in "colonial" opposition to, say, Africa, in which case the opposite of "West" actually becomes "South", as in "Global South"? Remember you're talking about Michael Moore, who is borderline unacceptable in those circles. Or, remember the phrase this started with, "private opulence and public squalor". Does this phrase not describe the very "south" that is supposedly its opponent? And isn't it Europe where there is public opulence, and where squalor is hidden and made private?

So then which people, ideas, and words actually belong together? Which are in natural opposition?

Maybe we don't need to do all this associating to "West" and "Left" and "colonization". Maybe we should just stick to the paired dichotomies in the title: "public vs. private" and "opulence vs. squalor". Surely that's enough?

What words would you prefer to describe adherents to an ideology that seeks to use colonization as a means to capture the public assets of another sovereign nation into private ownership for the benefit of a small number of capitalists then? And what words would you prefer to use to describe those who seek to undermine their efforts?

The Moore film is about adopting practices from other "Western" nations so it's weird to describe that as anti-Western:

> In the film, Moore visits a number of countries and examines aspects of their social policies that he suggests the United States could adopt.[7] He visits Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Tunisia, and Iceland; respectively, the subjects covered are worker benefits, school lunches, early education, college education, worker inclusion, decriminalized drugs, low recidivism, women's health care, and women's inclusion and leadership role in society. These countries and supporting facts are listed on the film's website.[8]

90% is a a poorly chosen threshold for making America look bad vs other countries. American has a ridiculous number of upper middle class.

The 90% percentile income in America is around $200,000 per year. (Pre-tax). The 90% percentile household wealth in the US is around 1.5 million.

So, what $200K is not a lot of money nor is $1.5 million. In Australia, some one earning $200,000 (US$133,000) gets a *MUCH* better life than anyone in America earning $200,000. Also, $US 1,500,000 does even by a house in a good neibourhood. The average house in all of Sydney is A$ 1,600,000 (US$,070,000)

Here are some of the reasons most Western countries are better than America:

1. Gun violence - I have offices in Sydney, London and in Sunnyvale. The American accepttance of violence is unique in the Western world.

2. No one is one sickness away from bankruptcy. My wife had a brain hemorrhage that paralysed her. Months in ICU with mulply brain surgeries followed by 18 months in world-class rehabilitation. Total cost, zero.

3. Compusury Employee paid pension. About 12% of all wages are paid into compusury superannuation. This means Australia has the4rd largest pool of investable funds in the world at USD 3.5 Trillion. Also, even the poorest have thousand in savings.

4. Education - Even in the worst schools the resources are better than most American schools.

America is a borderline failed state.

The USD 90% income is 200K USD. That's 300K AUD. The Australian 90% percentile income is 131,000 AUD per tax office stats. [1] That's less than half that of the US 90%. In fact, the threshold to move to a 99% income in Australia is lower than the US 90% income.

And that's even before taxes. Even a high tax US state like California has a lower total tax Australia.

But it's not just income, outside of health care, things are much cheaper in the US too. Sydney is an odd choice for talking about cheap housing. As you said, a median house price of 1 million USD. My local US city of comparable size has a median home price of $375K USD. I spot checked comparable vehicles, and they cost about 33% about more in Australia after currency conversion than in the US. Food, electricity, petrol, all more expensive than the US averages.

Government retirement plans is a similar story. As far as I can tell from [2] the maximum Australian pension payouts for a couple is 41,704 AUD per year. The US equivalent maximum social security would be 74,356 AUD. But Australian pension payments reduce based on your assets. As far as I can tell, having 1.5 million USD (2.2 million AUD) would zero out your pension payments.

[1] https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_1240/t_resize_width%2Cq_...

"It's good to be the king".

There are a lot of people on HN who think Bill Gates is a phylantropist. /s

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