[serious] Why is the UK so amazing?

[DaShi]

If you aren't comparing people on a world scale, you are comparing them on a relative scale, so your only observation is that in the US there is a bigger gap between rich and poor, which is not in my opinion a problem. This whole "gap" thing is a stupid thing to complain about. It's nonsense like worrying about the "achievement gap" that keeps progress from being made.

Wow, that's a whole lot of nothing.

[DaShi]

The typical poor family (as defined by the government) in the US has more living space than the average European, was able to get medical care when needed and in addition has money to meet all essential needs.

This is very inaccurate, source?

[Dinner]

It's dinodoc. He almost never lists sources even when asked.

[MikeH]

People in the US are no more or less religious than people in Canada.

Really? I thought Canada would be more secular, people in the US are definitely much more religious than people in the UK.

[MikeH]

Poor people with absolutely no social mobility do exist in the United States. I traveled through some rural communities in Oklahoma back in May and I was floored to see a lot of people suffering from treatable ailments because they are unable to afford medical care. I can't imagine living in small town America with only a high school diploma and limited job opportunities for dead end careers.

Social mobility is actually worse for Americans than it is in the UK.

[MikeH]

This whole "gap" thing is a stupid thing to complain about.

Yeah, but you're one of the lucky ones on the rich side of the gap. From birth you were virtually guaranteed a decent education followed by a decent job and a comfortable middle class lifestyle. You'd have had to royally **** up to fail at that.

I bet you've never had to worry about where money for the next meal was coming from, or how you'd pay a medical bill. You've had at least some form of parenting, you probably went to a school where the disruptive kids were a minority, where most kids didn't have serious social issues.

And you either don't have the imagination to consider how difficult those things might make life, or you just entirely lack compassion and think that those that are born poor deserve to have no hope of improvement if any change in the status quo would have any tiny impact on your incredibly comfortable life.

Either way it saddens me.

[MikeH]

It's less retarded then saying a country sucks when people earn similar wages but choose to work less hours.

I missed this.

Yes. 5 weeks+ holiday, 38.5 hour working week FTW.

[Krill]

I wonder how much of that wage is then taken up onmedical expenses/insurance.

[Hauldren Collider]

Mike, it has nothing to do with compassion. The thing I am objecting to is the idea that closing the difference between rich and poor is more important than making things better in absolute terms. Let's say we have two choices: 1) We can have the income of the rich go down by 30% and the income of the poor go up by 30%, or 2) we can have the income of the poor go up by 80% and the rich go up by 90%. Clearly the second choice is the better one, yet the "gap between the rich and poor" has increased, and liberal democrats will tell you this is tragic. This is logic, not compassion, and if compassion dictates that we make people worse off than they have to be--that we should take the first choice--then compassion is a terrible thing.

[Jon Miller]

Except in the US case, the income of the poor goes up ~0% and the income of the wealthy goes up by over 100%.

This is clearly wrong.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Face it, the disaster that is the current US economy can be entirely laid at the foot of the selfish wealthy americans, who mainly support republicans.

The rest of the country does not deserve to owe the current debt because it has not benefited them.

The wealthy should be taxed appropriately until the debt that was taken out for their profit is decreased.

JM

[MikeH]

Better choice is the rich to go up 75% and the poor to go up 300%.

[MikeH]

JM beat me to it.

[Jon Miller]

And before you give the argument that income would have been worse for the poor if the wealthy hadn't made so much money, this is obviously wrong as other 1st world countries did not have the wealth of their poor decrease in the last 20 years.

In fact, they have had (in many cases) the wealth increase, unlike the US. Which shows that the US policy just funnels the wealth that is created by society from the poor and the workers to the pockets of the wealthy.

JM

[Jon Miller]

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-last-two-decades-were-greatif-you-were-a-ceo-or-owner-not-if-you-were-anyone-else-5

JM