Comment by troebr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by troebr | Hacker News Reader

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I'm French living in Jersey. I have been to San Francisco, even though it's blatant when you walk here, everywhere in the US I have that feeling that the poor are really forgotten. And they live in third-world country conditions. In France, the average rich is not as rich, and it's probably a lot harder to become successful and wealthy than here; but the poor are not left behind as much. It feels more like a society where you take a significant chunk from the rich to make sure the poor can get by. Sure there are abuses, high taxes and whatnot, but the old and the poor can afford to go to the dentist, and retire when the time comes.

The way I see it, European countries have a kind of nation-wide health insurance, vs individual insurance here. We have a nation-wide student loan, versus individual student loans. That helps controlling the costs and profits, and helps making sure that everybody who needs care or education can get it.

But whether it is related or not, America is more daring, more exciting, and there are more opportunities when you have the right cards to do something. But if you had a bad hand to start with, then you're royally screwed.

Put simply, it's better to be born poor in Europe than in the US, and better to be born rich in the US than in Europe.

> America is more daring, more exciting, and there are more opportunities when you have the right cards to do something. But if you had a bad hand to start with, then you're royally screwed.

This seems a little contradictory. Being daring and exciting as a country and an economy would be more like how America used to be, where the upside of having people dying in the street was that if you came here and you had drive and talent, you were much more likely to become wealthy and successful. This is in contrast to the way much of Europe functioned at the time, where a more entrenched and institutionalized class system meant that your position in life (by and large) was set at birth.

As it stands now (I believe over the last couple of decades), America performs _worse_ than every comparable developed country but Great Britain when it comes to income mobility[1].

[1] From a study done by the London School of Economics: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/about/news/intergenerationalmobility.pd...

Maybe that only applies to my specific field, working in tech is a lot more exciting here.

"third-world country conditions"

No.

Even a porta potty cleaned infrequently is more sanitary than the conditions in the third world. There won't be a cholera outbreak. Food is available and nobody is going to starve to death.

Heck, a simple clean water fountain in some third world countries can improve the lives of an entire village. Even in the most horrible cities in america there are dozens of sources of free water.

> There won't be a cholera outbreak. Food is available and nobody is going to starve to death.

None of these really reflect how poor communities in the US are. Food insecurity is a real thing that affects a good number of households and individuals. Access to adequate medical care, including vaccinations, is difficult. Health and water conditions can vary greatly and may be unsanitary.

I agree that saying the US is like a third world is overblown, but we aren't exactly a shining beacon of care for all of the people that exist in our society.

    The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries 
    that remained non-aligned with either NATO, or the Communist Bloc.

That's more than half of the world, while what you're describing applies mostly to sub-saharan Africa.

> while what you're describing applies mostly to sub-saharan Africa

And many parts of China, India, Western Asia, Southeast Asia, Central America, and parts of South America...

There certainly is a very real cholera risk in the poorest communities in the US.

Take, for example, the colonias in southwestern Texas, where ~400k people live in informal housing without access to basic infrastructure or services, and where diseases like cholera and dengue fever have far higher rates of incidence. These aren't all illegal immigrants or anything, either -- the Texas secretary of state reports 64.4% of Texan colonias residents are US citizens[1].

It's easy to assume there's no poverty that deep in this country when, by and large, our standard of living is better than most of the world, but unfortunately there really are places in the US to which the descriptor "third world" is applicable.

NYT has some good coverage of the conditions in the colonias, if you want to read more. Here's a start: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/us/10tthealth.html?_r=0

[1] http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/colonias/faqs.shtml

Well not sure a poor Algerian kid in the banlieues would totaly agree with you on that unfortunately or a Roma in eastern Europe for that matter.

Yeah, did you hear that TAL about the chicago school whose students basically live in a warzone?

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/h...

"it's better to be born poor in Europe than in the US, and better to be born rich in the US than in Europe"

Absolutely fantastic comment.

"it's probably a lot harder to become successful and wealthy than here"

One thing that is often forgotten is that in Europe it's generally much easier (or less burdening) to become successful in something that doesn't necessarily make a lot of money in the beginning or ever. It can also be a lot easier to feel rich. If you make three times the average income on consulting, you can pretty much take half the year of and still increase your living standard quite a bit if you wanted to.

The US is pretty middle of the road if you are going to be born rich somewhere. Russia is certainly further along that path than the US.

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