Is this where the whole Europe bashing on social media comes from? US needing to believe that a better society, rule of law, social services isn’t real in Europe and impossible in general?
The typical US prisoner 1) did their crime; 2) did many other crimes besides the one they're in prison for; 3) is very likely to commit additional crimes upon their release.
Small, homogenous European countries have absolutely no idea how to solve our crime problem and their criticisms reflect an irritating combination of ignorance and arrogance.
We can just observe the society you have and wonder how you can simultaneously not take responsibility for your outcomes, and bash others who make different choices and have better outcomes.
From your post it sounds like you feel that you do know better, and the only issue you’re having isn’t your policy, but your “lack of homogeneity”, which makes it impossible to improve anything.
i can tell you being physically strong comes with it violence and is at the fabric of being an American. so i’d say the issue is complicated and nuanced as is most.
breaking the law (through violence) is also American. we stand up for what we believe in. even if it means breaking the law and going against our government. this is America.
the fact that you have better outcomes for crime is great. how’s your investment system? how’s your sports teams? how’s your military? how’s your stock market? how’s your currency?
In general life in Europe is pretty good and could be better, thanks for asking. We can invest, we watch different sports than you do and we don't have a comparable military. The stock market is fine, the currency is fine.
I guess the social media campaign is addressed at those of you, who would like less crime, and who would like rule of law, and less aggression, and a safer lifesytle. To lie to them and tell them that having these things leads to downfall or something.
and i did also say it was complicated and nuanced so please do not ignore that detail of my comment.
i’m glad to hear life is good, and to hear you’re humble enough to acknowledge it could be better. it could be better over here, too. are we doing it right or are you? i have no idea. :)
we’re probably both doing things right and wrong. should it even be solved? are we just living a Memento (great movie) like existence where we’re keeping ourselves busy and at war because if we all got along we would over-populate the planet and destroy earth?
what if our ignorant violent human behavior is actually an environmental mitigation technique?
Obviously in Europe there will be more variety because there’s more cultures and independent countries.
We have the advantage that we can take good ideas from each other, because people can travel easily and observe that certain things work well.
The US doesn’t have this benefit, since it’s so inward oriented. That’s fine, but don’t go saying Europeans don’t have freedom if you can only look at Europe through the domestic lens.
True, but, interestingly, we can travel thousands of miles within the United States and in so doing observe that different US states have wildly different outcomes while living under the same federal government and very similar state governments.
Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Minnesota live under the same Constitution, the same federal government, and with very similar state governments -- and yet we see that they have very different outcomes on a variety of measures.
Norway and Louisiana have very different crime rates, but so do New Hampshire and Louisiana. This tells us, at a minimum, that the form of government isn't likely to be the primary factor.
That's correct. We should have a lot more people in prison than we do. We are far too soft on repeat offenders and we've allowed courts to deem unconstitutional practices that literally nobody at the founding would have thought were questionable.
When you talk to people about "mass incarceration" in the abstract, they think it's bad. But when you show them what the modal prisoner and the modal prison sentence is actually like, they think it's too soft. Opposition to "tough on crime" policies is based on the myth (the lie?) that most US prisoners are innocent or, if not innocent, guilty only of harmless crimes like drug possession -- that the system is racist and unfair.
But that's not what the data show.
What the data show -- again -- is that the modal prisoner did the crime, and many others besides, and that they are very likely to commit more crimes once released.
Criminal justice is not a mysterious science. You identify repeat offenders and then you execute or otherwise permanently incapacitate them. This works because a large share of all crime is committed by repeat offenders.
But of course that's probably not what you mean when you say that our solution to crime isn't working well.
I think this is because effectively influencing European politics as a whole (as opposed to individual countries) is much more complicated than the US because of the diversity of languages, cultures and media, but then the EU-level politics will also influence state politics. But also every country has a commissioner in the commission and a vote in the EC, so there are several levels of feedback. Of course many internal and external actors are trying to own or destroy the EU, I just hope they won't be succesful.
In other words, the European welfare systems are actually a great tool of theirs to keep the competition down: if you're taxing the upper-middle-class workers at a ~50% rate, they need to out-earn you 2:1 to build wealth at the same rate.
Because there was an active socialist & communist movement -- with massive trade union support -- on the continent forcing them to.
That is basically non-existent in the US, and very weak and closer to non-existent in Canada. (We only have universal healthcare here because of the actions of the social democratic CCF/NDP in the 60s in Saskatchewan, winning against a doctor's strike and showing the centre-left in the rest of the country that it was possible. At that moment in time. I don't think such a thing could ever be won now. Not against an established insurance industry.)
Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed lower by having a higher proportion of recent immigrants with lower earning potentials.
Our food is not riddled in toxic waste because of those horrible regulations that Americans don't like, our air is breathable because of those same horrible regulations, companies are not allowed to just steal and sell all of our data or keep it indefinitely, because of those horrible regulations, which makes American tyrants mad because they can't make their billion dollar startups here so easily since they're used to breaking the law, abusing people, or paying off governments to get what they want, which is a lot harder to do here. Much sad, many tear, for the poor American startup founder.
Europeans by and large don't share the same values as Americans. Being filthy rich isn't our goal, our goal is good health, spending time with our loved ones, having plenty of time to rest and dedicate on our hobbies, and being treated fairly and with respect. Americans on the other hand care about money at all cost, doesn't matter if it's at the expense of working class people, and they view people who work less than 80 hours a week as lazy.
I also don't know what freedom of speech you are talking about since I read the news and USA seems to have everything, BUT freedom of speech. Your education is down the toilet, crime is rampant, police murders minorities on a regular basis, school shootings everywhere, a government as corrupt as can possibly be, people fired en masse everywhere for not replying to an e-mail ...
Heck, Americans see Americans through the lens of reporting and social media.
Look at the incredibly polarized climate. Why is it a novelty to just bring together people of "opposite sides" to talk? When political "debate" is just a grounds to get your sound bites out to the media, democracy is in danger. And not just from the current administration.
In my last startup in Germany, I worked with a bunch of ex-management consultants who had all worked in a famous consultancy in the USA (you've definitely heard of it).
They all shared stories of Americans staying 12+ hours in the office but not actually doing anything. It was all performant "we're working really hard", mostly chatting to each other and scrolling social media. The Germans were incredibly frustrated because getting anything actually done was really difficult, and they ended up mostly sharing the work amongst themselves so they could actually get it done. Needless to say, their American colleagues thought they didn't work hard because they left the office after only 10 hours or so.
I've seen this in American-influenced startup culture, too - a tendency to use hours spent moistening a chair as a productivity measure, because measuring actual productivity was "too hard".
And I much prefer not needing to exercise my rights to self-defence in the first place, than to have to worry about carrying a gun around all the time, and whether or not a child might get accidentally get access to it. See also gun shooting figures.
They don’t. Americans earn something like 1/3rd more than the average European. They have substantially larger houses and own more cars.
> And I much prefer not needing to exercise my rights to self-defence in the first place
The vast majority of people will never need to use a gun whether they are in the US or Europe. The position you’re taking is one that it is convenient for you to take because you are not currently the victim a violent crime. This is akin to someone talking about all of the money they are saving by driving without insurance.
Likewise for "substantially larger houses". This is just not a relevant metric - Europeans generally live in denser cities, with more apartment living, more cycling, more parks. That's a preference. It's got nothing to do with wealth. Europeans don't have smaller houses because they can't afford them, but because they prefer living in smaller, denser, more walkable cities.
It’s not like that as we were discussing tangible measures of wealth. Can you provide any evidence that Europeans are materially wealthier than Americans? That is, that Europeans earn, own, and / or consume more than Americans?
I don´t want to own a car and drive 2 hours to work every day, and consume more car ownership - I want to cycle or walk, and stay fit and enjoy the sun.
You see the mistake you're making?
I lived in the US for 6 years, and could have stayed. It was an easy decision to go back to Europe.
As someone of moderate wealth (high earner, investments), I still live in the same small house in the same inexpensive city I did when I was earning a quarter of what I do now. Americans talk about "starter houses" and moving up, but that's a consumptive pattern I don't value. Instead, I value the financial freedom of not having a mortgage and having stable, well-constructed housing that I continuously improve. I could afford the bigger house but I don't want it.
As for cars, I have 2 but they rarely get used. One is a business van for transporting large equipment and the other is a cheap hatchback. I bike most places though, and drive only a couple times a week. I understand their utility as a tool, but if I could get away without owning one I would.
Money is nice, but financial security with social safety nets and public healthcare is a trade-off I'd gladly make.
In theory.
Articles like this are about how it works in practice.
That is true. However Europeans tend to believe that restricting some freedom leads to higher overall freedom: I can exercise a lot more freedom when I don't risk a gun pointed at me. I'm a much freer thinker when religious agenda pushed (overtly or subtly) on me (directly or through societal influence). Same for misinformation and other propaganda.
From a European perspective, "american freedom" seems like "free as in free-for-all", which certainly doesn't lead to the highest level of personal freedom. It's a local optimum at best.
> They are also substantially poorer than Americans
According to this random source (first result for "poverty rate by country") https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r..., America has a similar or worse poverty rate than a lot of Europe (not that European countries can easily be compared).
Salaries tend to be higher in the US of course, that doesn't translate directly to living conditions and poverty.
Regardless, I don't think that Europe's path to improve poverty level is US-style individual freedom.
What are you guys so scared of?
It's a literal fact that a gun is much more likely to be used to kill its owner (or a member of the owner's own family) than any intruder or external threat [0]
Why is this such a thing in the USA? Why do you guys hold gun ownership up as this amazing freedom when owing a gun is literally, provably, way more of a threat to you and your family than anyone else?
But the parent is talking about the USA having more self-defence freedoms, and gun ownership is definitely part of that. It's not about suicide, it's that weird "you gotta protect your family" that non-Americans find a bit worrying - what are you so scared of? I've lived in a few countries and nowhere I've lived has this level of fear. I've never felt that I would be safer if I owned a gun. I have no idea who I'd use it against (except myself, obviously).
Also, lack of police services is probably commensurate with the low levels of taxation that so many Americans desperately want and vote for.
Is there something unique about the USA's history with slavery that would cause this?
“God created man. Sam Colt made them equal.”
Denying self defense isn't a core part of human history and desire for political reasons is very unscientific.
The two answers I've read so far are: mexican cartels (ok, but if you don't live on the border what are you scared of?) and "all the other terrified people with guns" which I think is intended to be joking (but many a truth said in jest).
If you have a different answer, I'd love to hear it.
All the other terrified people with guns.
But if you’re poor and have an easily treatable illness, say type 1 diabetes, you’ll die begging for insulin.
It’s very easy to lose everything within a few months.
You get sick, lose your job, your entire family loses health insurance. We have this stupid prosperity gospel idea which conversely means poverty is your fault. Can’t afford medicine for your kids, well I guess it’s their fault for having a loser dad.
Taxes are still absurdly high in America for what you actually receive. Have any serious medical issues and you’ll be spending thousands upon thousands per month on top of 600 to 700$ for essentially useless health insurance.
We’re also a fear based society. When I visited London it’s perfectly normal to see single women waiting for the bus at 2am or whatever. Here as a grown man I got freaked out when I was approached by a stranger around 7pm. Was he going to rob me ?
He actually was a local politician passing out flyers , but we live in paranoia land.
America is closer to a developing country in both medical care and violent crime. I know I’d rather raise a family in Berlin than almost any American city.
> He actually was a local politician passing out flyers, but we live in paranoia land.
Sounds like you're a part of the paranoia. Violent crime happens mostly in small pockets but quite densely where it happens. But generally, most places are perfectly safe.
I've had so many experiences of telling friends I'm off to walk the dog around midnight or whatever and I get responses like "oh is that safe?" Of course it is! I do it all the time. People seriously think if you walk outside at night nearly anywhere, you're likely to be assaulted despite never having such a thing happen to anyone they know.
So many people are scared to ride public transit thinking "what if I'm attacked?!" And yet hopping in their car is the least safe thing they'll do that day with over 100 people dying in car accidents every day. You're way more likely to die a painful death in that car than you are riding the bus, and yet people question if it's safe to ride transit.
Most Americans cannot.
You have no idea what you’re talking about and there is no statistical basis to the claims you are making. The only two metrics Europeans win out on is life expectancy (by around 4 years) and (narrowly) on home ownership rate (around 5 percentage points higher in Europe). Americans are overwhelmingly wealthier than Europeans by every other metric.
Are you really arguing that Americans (and especially Americans below the median) don't have higher levels of medical debt, higher rates of medical bankruptcy, and get/take less vacation than Europeans.
> Most Americans cannot: Never take on medical debt, travel more than a month out of the year, have a couple kids and educate them in good schools, and retire.
Most Americans do these things, with the possible exception of month-long vacations.
$1.21 trillion in credit card debt, $1.66 trillion in car loans and $1.6 trillion in federal student loans - yes, Americans are overwhelmingly wealthier.
I note that you didn’t provide equivalent figures for the EU, however, so I imagine you’re less interested in making an actual argument than you are in looking clever.
Credit cards and car loans are also not that popular.
PS: if you buy 30k van you are down more than that as you need to get an insurance, gas, parking lot, pay tax, etc.
If you’re implying that student debt doesn’t exist in Europe because schooling is “free” for everyone you are wrong. Plenty of European countries don’t provide free schooling and even the ones that do such as Germany often have a parallel private system for those who fail to get into the more exclusive public schools. Europeans who do graduate are then faced with substantially higher tax rates - education, like healthcare, doesn’t just fall out of the sky for free.
Europeans also own credit cards; they probably have lower levels of debt than Americans (who have a fairly unique culture of credit-financed consumer spending), but they also aren’t capable of servicing the debt that an American can service, for the simple reason that they earn less than Americans.
> PS: if you buy 30k van you are down more than that as you need to get an insurance, gas, parking lot, pay tax, etc.
This is a red herring. When you eat dinner you not only have to pay for the food but also spend time purchasing, preparing, and eating it. This doesn’t prevent people from eating because they derive utility from eating which exceeds the opportunity costs associated with purchasing, preparing, and eating it.
Vacation time itself might be a good metric for quality of life (which I am not disputing is probably comparable if not better in Europe if you discount the importance of material wealth), but time abroad is not since Americans have access to a lot more variety within America than a European would have within their own country; it’s the same reason more Europeans have passports.
Isn't this purposefully minimizing what essentially amounts to a poor-people-torture machine.
The purpose of the system is what the system does.
In the US we have deeply ingrained perverse financial incentives in criminal justice with wildly variable sentencing that depends on the mood of the judge that day.
Stray any amount from the fine line of legal, and if you're unlucky you could be plunged into a system where you'll be put into massive debt, while also losing your job, home, important documents, etc. We claim to want to reform criminals, yet we kick out their feet at every turn and expect them to say "thank you".
And then the people who face the smallest amount of risk to being victimized by this system like to say "Yeah, it's not perfect".
Similar things are uttered by the same people about Canada, but with more denigrating comments.
In absolute terms the US is much wealthier than either. But like always with statistics it's important to look at the distribution, not the average.
Staying on topic: the Canadian legal system is probably about as bureaucratically dysfunctional as the US, just without the private super-prisons and the monetary shakedown. Which is to say it's dysfunctional and broke.
Ukraine started to get closer to European Union: more transparent, more democratic, less corrupt and richer.
When Russians saw that it was possible in Ukraine, they would get rid of Putin. So he invaded.
It amazing how US billionaires managed to have a majority vote against their interest and endure this shitshow. Time for the US to realize that their governments are meant to represent them and not the other way around.
Sure, there might be actual Nazis who would like to lose everything if it just allowed them to force their beliefs on others as was historically the case. But most people who vote for right wingers do so because they believe they will have tangible benefits.
But if your premise is false, your conclusion is also false.
atoav called the government a "a neo-nazi connected right wing party". It won't actually be neo-Nazi because that's surely illegal in Austria. So it's probably some kind of propaganda that led him to believe that or exaggerate its significance as being against the interests of non-Nazis. Maybe they offer something their voters want and their voters don't care about whatever media-hype-hate-frenzy label they're given.
yes, American exceptionalism relies on a comparing itself to the worst countries in the world and ignoring that developed nations exist and work out decently.
but there really is a skepticism about some Europe nations, can they - and the bloc - sustain its 21st century advances and social safety nets while adequately paying for its own defense? inquiring minds would like to know, and now we don't have to debate it anymore. Is the budget really balanced if all commitments were funded as agreed? Can European nations really tolerate each other with the rearmaments?
stay tuned
There are 2 absolutely basic pillars of modern free society worth living in - 1) how it takes care of its weak and injured ones (healthcare and social services); 2) and how it builds a better future via good available public education. US fails in most if not all of those. There are aspects it excels in but they are not primary markers of happiness, life fulfillment, low stress and such.
There is more consensus on accessing these things - healthcare and higher education - via wealth, or programs within the state of residence. Some individual states/cities do offer free higher education, and free healthcare. Segments of the population also get healthcare subsidized from the national federal government, the same experience as if it was universal. Private options are available for all, just like many European nations have or even mandate, to complement a public system.
The consensus is very similar to what JD Vance wrote in the group chat: that it remains to be proven that Europe can solve its own problems while gloating about what they've built up domestically by appropriating their budgets towards advances we aren't willing to do. and its "pathetic" that we subsidize their defense, while we do experience squalor and infrastructure problems. The American perspective is very similar to what JD Vance - the vice president - wrote, even if its oversimplified or even inaccurate.
Vance didn't just appear from the void, he is a 40 year millennial, who briefly lived in Bernal Heights, San Francisco for more than a year while working at a Menlo Park-based biotechnology company in Silicon Valley, was in the army, from the middle of the country, who openly criticized Trump like anyone else in the SF Bay Area would before finding it more favorable to seek power. His perspectives are not fringe in any way. He is just saying them outloud and with journalists around now.
Also, its not just US throwing money into black pit of Europe - the money came back with interest in form of global power projection with additional half a billion people standing by you even in your most fucked up invasions like Iraq, thats over for good. We mistakenly bought tons of military hardware from US to the tune of hundreds of billions USD - thats over now too, and it doesn't matter who will be the next guy, the trust is broken for good (for what - some additional negotiation pressure on Ukraine to force them into some minerals deal? Bravo, this is how things are when you give too much power to a bipolar narcissistic person).
I am not holding my breath that US will fix half of the issues I've mentioned, although they are pressing issues now.
Also, every time I mention healthcare costs in US somebody comes and tells how its almost a fixed issue already. then I read how people give 20k or 40k for a birth, how open heart surgery costed them 60k on top of insurance, how some long term medicine is crushingly expensive. Compare it to here - 0, our 2 childbirths, wife was twice off work for 6 months, full salary kept coming. Even in most capitalistic country in Europe - Switzerland. Also I've had paragliding accident last year with both legs broken, been off work, on wheelchair, tons of MRIs, physiotherapies and so on. Cost - 0, also salary fully compensated by mandatory employer's insurance.
Where jdv comes from and his background is irrelevant, he is ass licking amoral pos and showed it to whole world live numerous times. If he represents half of US population, well then the division is just naturally following discord between our continents, cultures and philosophies.
I’m aware, this is the best inception I’ve ever seen because Europeans are acting like its their own idea because they're scared of the US / Russia now
and not that the people in the current US administration have been demanding Europe to do this for 8 years straight.
less talking, and just scare people into action. Same result, at the expense of some relationships that wore out its welcome. and everyone investing into their local economies.
sidenote: I like Switzerland. Way to go guys.
Nobody is forcing US to field the largest army in the world. It is their own choice. We all would much rather if they didn't have such an incentive to arbitrarily start wars just to justify their defense budget.
BTW, if US is such a mighty nation as they advertise themselves, they should have no problem providing safety net for their citizens. The problem is that they just don't want to do that. They don't care about their citizens. All administrations just want to avoid taxing the rich and shift the blame to made up external enemies.
US has been destroying Middle East for decades. Where do you thing that migrants from those regions run to?
Wars in Middle East are not something that EU needs or wants. We just went with it because of all the "we are allies and we respect each other" lies that were used by US administrations to swindle EU and get what they want.
Or do you propose that US pays for the costs of immigration problems around the world?
It is obvious that only reason US doesn't have safety net for their own citizens is US.
It will be interesting to see how long EU support for Israel will last without the pressure from US.
As for America starting wars in the region, if you think America started the wars Russia has waged and is waging against Georgia and Ukraine, you've been huffing Kremlin retard gas. You lot have a problem on your border, America didn't make it and its not America's responsibility to fix it. Maybe the American people would be more eager about helping Europe if Europeans didn't take every opportunity they could to gloat about how they're better than America, how Americans are stupid to spend so much on the military. Doesn't matter now though, the damage is done. Take care of yourselves.
Russian thing is all EU fault. Glut for cheap oil made putin think he has a big bargaining chip against EU and that this will all be a simple task.
I don't know what propaganda media you get your information from, but people of Europe are not gloating or thinking you are stupid. I work for a company that has US offices (as many Europeans do) and we work very well together. We travel a lot between countries and work face to face and there have never been any problems.
I think this is a mixed bag, but also I think the perception is there. There is a lot of "Scandinavia does this perfectly" talk that creates the perception in the US, even if perhaps no one in Scandinavia is the least bit bothered either way!
If you think this is the only problem that Europe has at the moment, we most likely do not live in the same Europe. Europe has an energy crisis, a demographic crisis, a budget crisis, a housing crisis and an illegal immigration crisis.
> We already started across most Europe, to the tune of half a trillion of additional spending just now. Most of that money will come back to our economies, so expect EURO value to rise.
Sure, let's just keep adding to the debt of the EU countries who most of them are already broke. I bet our children and grand-children will thank us for spending their money to buy weapons so that we can defend ourselves against an hypothetical war again Russia. Russia who by the way has trouble holding on to a 5th of Ukraine but who somehow miraculously will have it's tanks roll around Paris and Berlin in just a few years if we believe out dear European leaders.
> Compare it to here - 0, our 2 childbirths, wife was twice off work for 6 months, full salary kept coming. Even in most capitalistic country in Europe - Switzerland. Also I've had paragliding accident last year with both legs broken, been off work, on wheelchair, tons of MRIs, physiotherapies and so on. Cost - 0, also salary fully compensated by mandatory employer's insurance.
The fact that you think all of this costs 0 tells me all I need to know. There is nothing free in this world. If you are not paying then someone else is. Usually it's done through taxes which are paid by companies and people.
When people talk about universal/socialized healthcare as free healthcare, they simply sweep under the rug the real cost of healthcare. And when the economy is doing poorly and companies are leaving, most of the cost will be shouldered increasingly by the middle class who will start wondering why they should be the only ones paying for all this.
The fact of the matter is that even France which ranks second as the most taxed country on the planet, had a 6% budget deficit last year. But it's got "free" healthcare so it's all good.
EU supported US war on terror, or whatever you call last 25 years of US invasions, with our own troops and what did we get out of that? Immigration crisis. We basically had to spend huge amounts of money on handling immigrants because of all the wars US (our so called ally) started.
Also, EU banks invested a lot of money in US scam financial institutions and our saving got wiped out in 2008. All of that money dissapeared in US economy.
US doesn't charge you for services by issuing an itemized bill, but instead they suck it out through different venues. Like a leach. I guess you can easily ignore things like that if it doesn't fit your narrative.
You are at the same time complaining that the EU is too dependent on US and that it doesn't pay its' share. The main problem with dependence is that you don't develop your own industry and instead you rely on imports and send money to other countries for services. So how can EU at the same time be both dependent on US and not sending money to US? That doesn't make any sense.
Citizens of EU have been complaining about reliance on US to our governments for years, but our bureaucrats ignored it and kept sending money over seas because it was the easiest thing to do. Current US administration has finally shown that this dependence is dangerous, and now hopefully instead of sending money to US they will divert it into EU economy.
Europe 2025: Fuck the US.
This definitely isn't true. American healthcare has vast amounts of public funding of it. It's the mixture of private companies working within a Byzantine regulatory framework (or multiple frameworks) that's causing the issues.
The US health system is excessively regulated. It’s anything but unrestricted capitalism. I would argue that the regulation is what makes the system so broken.
Isn't America spending the most per capita on healthcare in the world with horrible outcomes (life expectancy 4 years behind poor countries like Portugal)? Aren't there public healthcare systems outside of Europe?
Doesn't America have an insane amount of natural resources and the benefit of controlling world's exchange currency to make up for any additional defence (and offence) expenses?
Seems to me a like story to help cope with a subconscious inferiority complex.
Demographics has a big impact on life expectancies. Asian Americans have a life expectancy of 84 years for instance. Which is better than Portugal by 3 years. Comparing life expectancies on a per country basis is fraught with error if attempting to attribute differences to health systems. Genetics, climate, diet — all have huge impacts on life expectancy.
Puerto Rico has a life expectancy of over 82 years and has the same system as the U.S. It’s a year higher than Cuba in fact. Why does Puerto Rico do better than Cuba when the Cuban system is often claimed to have a better health system? Puerto Rico also has a higher life expectancy than Portugal.
Where are you getting that figure from? I’m seeing 79 years, which is still higher than I would have guessed, but not higher than Portugal at 81.
Yes. The EU's defence is a political unity issue. Not a spending one. It needs a unified foreign policy where that makes sense and the like. Not countries receiving preferential gas pricing and pusyfooting when it comes to giving arms to Ukraine or the like. It's greatest single threat is russia. One may think they spend a far greater share on it's military and so Europe should too. But it's economy is smaller than Italy's and it has no capacity to fight the block.
Europe might need more spending to launch major military adventures on the other side of the globe, which is what the US does quite a bit and why we "need" so much military spending, but for defense? LOL, no. Adjustments in procurement strategies, maybe a little more spending, given the US can no longer be regarded as a solidly reliable supplier and so Europe's going to have to de-globalize some of its military supply chain, but... lots more spending? Why???
https://kyivindependent.com/europe-could-face-russian-occupa...
When it comes to occupational health and safety you can't say European standards are better.
The established process for making plutonium fuel is to grind uranium oxide together with plutonium oxide in a high energy ball mill, then pack the powder into pellets, sinter them, and then have somebody stick the pellets into a fuel rod with gloves. The process creates Pu nanoparticles, once of which could give you lung cancer if it gets deep into your lungs.
In the factory Karen Silkwood worked at they couldn't control the dust to the extent that people could work without wearing respirators. The factory successfully made fuel for the Fast Flux Test Facility but being forced to wear respirators was a "normalization of deviance" that regulators would not grant to subsequent MOX (mixed-oxide) facilities in the US. In France on the other hand, wearing respirators was seen as just fine.
It was a difficult problem to determine the occupational hazard at that kind of factory, confused by the "Healthy Worker" effect such that people who work in almost any job are healthier than the average population. Circa 2015 the evidence was clear that MOX workers really do get lung cancer, I think it's no coincidence that the US shuttered a planned MOX factory around this time.
> When it comes to occupational health and safety you can't say European standards are better.
First off, US food labels aren't nearly as strict as most people think. There are a number of exceptions and cases where things simply don't have to be listed, and in others the label can outright lie. Tic tacs somewhat famously are listed as having "zero calories." They do not. But because tictac says the serving size is one and it has below a certain number of calories, they're allowed to round down to zero. But there are also allowances for simply not listing ingredients.
Another example is that US food manufacturers were required to label if a product contained allergens, but the whole thing has been watered down because they lobbied for an additional rule, which was that they could just slap a warning that a product might contain allergens and not have to test for allergens at all. Similar to CA' widely mocked Prop 65 labels. The reason those labels are worthless is because the industry lobbied to be allowed to just slap the label on everything and not have to test their products for toxic materials.
Speaking as someone who lives in the US: US food labels contain more because there's far more allowed to go into the product, because corps have said "let the market decide, if they don't want RED40 in their food they won't buy it." The industry also incessantly fights the FDA on what's considered toxic, and even if it is, trolls over "well there's only a very tiny bit of it, so you have to prove it'll ACTUALLY have an effect on people" which of course is very difficult if the risk is statistically small and there's a million other things that can be the same or greater risk.
In the EU, toxic crap for the most part isn't allowed in the food period, so there's less need to be so strict about what does or doesn't go into a food label, because EU consumers don't have to both educate themselves in what's toxic and check a label to see if it's got something that is toxic in it.
EU regulators seem less bothered by psychiatric medicines that have serious side effects (agranulocytosis) or might make you have your liver enzymes checked periodically. What you find is that EU regulators permit things that US regulators won't accept and vice versa.
"Who allowed them to live so well?".
When you measure wealth, it makes a huge difference how exactly you calculate it. Having a few astronomically rich oligarchs in your country increases the arithmetic mean, but does nothing about the median.
This is how Russia can have better numbers in national statistics, and yet the average Russian soldier can feel the other way round in Ukraine.
[del: Most Russian soldiers are paid over $100,000 a year to volunteer to fight in Ukraine. :del] In contrast, most of the Ukrainian soldiers are conscripts.
Here's a Youtube channel by a Brit who moved to Russia in 2002 or 2003:
https://www.youtube.com/@SamsRussianAdventures/videos
At the current time, the top video (i.e., the latest video) in that list is titled, "I'm Much Happier Here in Russia - Here's How Much it Costs".
Sadly, I haven't been able to find out (after watching about 5 of his videos) how much he earns and how he gets his money.
Russia's Gini coefficient is 35.1 whereas the US is at 41.3. Zero means perfect equality whereas 100 is the most unequal society possible.
Remember that wealth distribution in Russia is extremely skewed and many people don't even have access to luxury such as an indoor toilet (roughly 1/4th of the population).