1) A leader in freedom of speech, press freedom, property rights protections, general freedom of movement, and is low on the corruption index. One of the few countries with extraordinarily well protected freedom of speech rights enshrined at the core of the nation.
2) Has a rapidly adaptive culture, able to implement changes at a fast pace despite its immense scale. That includes things like legalizing and decriminalizing drugs, which is now underway across numerous states, and marriage equality.
3) Has one of the highest median household incomes on earth, and one of the highest disposable incomes. Both of which just got a 20% booster shot against the rest of the world courtesy of the dollar.
4) Has one of the highest standards of living on earth, for both the poor and the rich. See: OECD better life index.
5) Has some of the most generous welfare state policies of any nation. The US has free healthcare, and very large food and housing programs for the poor. Which is why America's poor are better off than all but half a dozen nation's poor.
6) Actually has stable economic growth and vast opportunity. Neither Europe nor the EU have grown in eight years. China is imploding rapidly with non-stop chaos socially and economically, Japan hasn't grown in 25 years.
7) Has a relatively low unemployment rate, and a vast supply of available jobs (presently at ~15 year highs, at nearly six million openings). This is counter to most of the world, with emerging markets in desperate shape, and the rest of the developed world rolling from recession to stagnation to recession again.
8) Is a leader in science, innovation, invention, general technology, aerospace, pharma/biotech, farming, manufacturing, software, Internet, space tech, gaming, and pretty much every other category.
9) Has 45 of the top 50 universities, and the best university system across the board of any nation. With a median student loan debt of $13,000 - which is half the price of a car these days.
10) Where the median household net wealth is higher than Germany, Italy, or Sweden. And where household debt to income ratios are lower than nearly all of developed Europe.
11) Where the murder rate for 99% of the population in cities is closer to 2/100k (and half that in rural areas), on par nicer urban parts of Europe. The US has a hundred nice cities with very low murder rates, pick where you want to live.
12) Where unarmed minorities are not regularly shot dead by the police.
13) Where minorities have a greater opportunity for success than in nearly any other nation. See: the vast wealth and prosperity of Asians in America, they're the best off of any race of people here. In fact, American Asians are among the best off of any people anywhere on this planet.
14) Where you have more opportunities than in any other nation, to make any kind of life for yourself that you want. Fortunately life in America is the exact opposite of a gamble, given the vast success of America's middle 50%. Few nations can claim the kind of success that America's middle class has managed, despite how large it is.
I'd contradict you by saying that the poor have it much better in Germany than in the USA (same great health insurance as everyone else, no masses of homeless people like in US cities) and I'd also say the educational system here is better for the average person (free universities with high standards - not in the Top50 of the world maybe, but still great). But in general I think you have many valid points on your list.
Saying the poor have it better in Germany, would not be contradicting me. I openly acknowledge that there are numerous nations in which the poor are clearly better off than in America (eg: Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Germany etc).
There are exceptionally few large nations in which the poor are well off however. Nobody would want to discuss the poverty in Indonesia, Pakistan, China, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Iran etc. In the top 20 large nations, there are only four countries that aren't mired in extreme levels of poverty: France, US, Germany, Japan. When I say extreme, I mean levels so horrible, that if you attempt to compare the standards to the US, people stop wanting to talk about it and consider the comparison to be inherently unfair.
The parent comment for example was being almost comical in their standard, given China has half a billion people living on $3 / day (people with few rights, that by law can't even own the farming land under their feet). Those half a billion people have seen very little improvement in 50 years if you inflation adjust that $3 backwards, and they've seen very little improvement in rights.
Germany is an exceptional nation, without a doubt. Just to be in the same neighborhood as Germany, while having 330 million people and to be as diverse as the US is, is a compliment.
Germany however is also in trouble, with poverty becoming a serious problem. Their lack of economic growth since 2007 is probably playing a big factor.
> 2) Has a rapidly adaptive culture, able to implement changes at a fast pace despite its immense scale. That includes things like legalizing and decriminalizing drugs, which is now underway across numerous states, and marriage equality.
The US is able to implement seemingly big changes quickly, but they're not necessarily as big as you think them to be. "Marriage equality" (a name many disagree with, by the way) is not a massive change, for example. It's a tiny change that, while providing some benefit to some gay people, does not fundamentally change power structures. In fact, it strengthens an existing one: the cultural institution of marriage.
> 11) Where the murder rate for 99% of the population in cities is closer to 2/100k (and half that in rural areas), on par nicer urban parts of Europe.
If you exclude the places where murder happens most, of course you appear to have a low murder rate.
> 12) Where unarmed minorities are not regularly shot dead by the police.
Perhaps you have not paid attention to the news. Quite literally hundreds of black people have been shot by US police this year so far. People who, if their skin was a different colour, would not have been shot.
> 13) Where minorities have a greater opportunity for success than in nearly any other nation.
This statement would be amusing were it not so terrifying. Minorities in the US, once in the poverty trap, have virtually no chance of getting out of it. Even those outside it face significant obstacles in getting anywhere.
> See: the vast wealth and prosperity of Asians in America, they're the best off of any race of people here. In fact, American Asians are among the best off of any people anywhere on this planet.
Asians in America are a relatively privileged minority. Now look at how other ethnic groups fare. Not so rosy.
> 14) Where you have more opportunities than in any other nation, to make any kind of life for yourself that you want.
> If you exclude the places where murder happens most, of course you appear to have a low murder rate.
There is no "of course" about it. If the murder rate were uniform throughout the US then excluding any handful of locations would have minimal effect, but excluding those locations causes it to drop precipitously.
That isn't to say it isn't a problem, but it's a localized problem. So if you're moving here and are worried about being murdered, all you have to do is live in New York and not Baltimore.
In fact marriage equality, and the increasingly broad acceptance of homosexuality in America, is an extraordinary accomplishment. And it's only going to keep getting better. That contrasts sharply with the majority of the world, that is the exact opposite and opposed to marriage equality.
> If you exclude the places where murder happens most, of course you appear to have a low murder rate.
Not excluding at all. The whole of the US has a murder rate 1/3 that of Russia, and on par with Amsterdam. Few Americans as a percentage live in very high murder rate neighborhoods or areas. Those areas have extremely high murder rates, the other 99%+ of America where most people live does not. That's an exceptionally critical distinction. The worst areas of eg Chicago do not threaten most of the people that live in Chicago, most of those citizens are under very little risk of being murdered or harmed by that crime. It's context dropping to pretend otherwise. To pretend that all of Chicago suffers from an equally high murder rate is absurd.
> Perhaps you have not paid attention to the news. Quite literally hundreds of black people have been shot by US police this year so far.
In fact I do more than just watch the headlines, I read the stats. Police caused deaths have been falling for 40 years. The US is almost so diverse at this point, that it will soon have no majority. The parent comment claimed unarmed minorities were being killed left and right. In fact, there are typically around 500 police caused deaths per year in the US, a small fraction of which are unarmed minorities that are shot, and a fraction of which are unjustified in terms of use of force. Nearly half of those deaths are white people, not minorities. To put these numbers in context, China executes 2,500+ people per year, with some record execution years that are truly astounding. They've executed more people in the last 10 years, than cops have killed in the US total in the last 100 years.
> Asians in America are a relatively privileged minority. Now look at how other ethnic groups fare. Not so rosy.
I find it fascinating how you excuse the success of Asian Americans by slandering them as privileged. Fact: Asians in America are among the richest Asians on earth; Blacks in America are the richest blacks on earth; Latinos in America are the richest Latinos on earth.
> If you're rich.
Nope, America has the world's largest middle class, and has good upward mobility:
"A surprising and increasing number of middle-skill workers are moving up rather than down the economic ladder."
The fact that the US has one of the highest standards of living, median incomes, and median disposable incomes, proves the point easily. You very clearly don't have to be rich at all to do well in America. The US also has one of the highest rates of college degree acquisition in the world.
I want to add that Amsterdam is TOTALLY NOT dangerous. It's got a high murder rate because it's a capital for drug lords and assassinations happen. Civilians are completely unaffected by this. In my neighbourhood multiple people were assassinated while I was a kid, nobody ever talked about it, nobody was scared or anything, it's a non-topic really. In fact most of them used to happen in the wealthiest part of Amsterdam where all the rich people live and where I'd happily and safely cycle to school by myself at age 8 every day.
Again this is a street where virtually everyone living is a millionaire, and the primary school she's 1 minute away from is one of the best in the country.
Nobody I knew ever witnessed anything, you'd just read it in the newspapers. The people who got assassinated were high level drug bosses who'd been in organised crime for decades. We're not talking about civilians here.
Beyond that, these are eurostat numbers and they're a bit shitty. The murder rates include drumroll abortion, dangerous driving and euthanasia. In short, it has nothing to do with crime or safety. So even the homicide rate of the Netherlands (a mere < 1 per 100k) is overstated. (as it probably is for American cities which have high abortion rates due to socioeconomic issues and poor sex ed)
Amsterdam is a super safe city I've lived all my life. (and I've traveled and lived in 4 continents so I can compare.) In terms of safety, sadly no developed country compares to the US, it's that bad.
I'll tell you the actual murder rates for Amsterdam and the Netherlands for 2014. Amsterdam 20, the Netherlands 137.
Per 100k that's about 1.5 for Amsterdam (for comparison, 1.3 in 2010, 1.5 in 2011), the most dangerous city in the Netherlands, and 0.8 for the Netherlands.
It's not dishonest in the least. For a country supposedly as violent and dangerous as the US, with the vast number of guns that we have, to have a murder rate on par with Amsterdam is worth noting - it's also worth noting that it has been improving for decades almost non-stop. As we gradually end the war on drugs, it's likely to drop a lot further.
If we get that 4.x rate down to a high 2.x rate in the next 20 years, would that not be a solid accomplishment given the guns in America? At the rate violent crime has been dropping over time, that's likely to be the outcome.
And as I've noted previously, America in fact has a lot of cities with extremely low murder rates. If you want to live in a very safe city, there are plenty of options.
Let's look at San Diego versus Amsterdam: nearly twice the population and nearly half the murder rate.
1) you're comparing the safest US cities to the 'murder capital' of Europe. That's a total joke. It's like comparing the standard of living of a European billionaire to an American homeless person and saying 'look!'. That's why he's saying it's dishonest.
2) Even if the comparison was reasonable, you completely fail to understand the cause of the numbers and what they say. And they say nothing about safety for ordinary people living in Amsterdam, I can tell you that right away.
1) San Diego isn't the safest US city. The safest US cities are on par with the safest eg Scandinavian cities. There are US cities with 100k+ people that regularly have 1.x annual murder rates. If you want to live in a very safe city, the US has plenty to choose from.
2) Nothing you've said refutes or alters Amsterdam's murder rate. Nor is what you said very effective, watch: your statement says nothing about the average safety of someone living in New York City. You completely fail to understand the murder rate in New York City and how it impacts the quality of life of the typical citizen there.
Oh my god, it's the LOWEST. Yes, the lowest of big cities. San diego has a population of a little over a million, quite comparable to Amsterdam (which has a smaller population, but roughly a million).
And what's the murder rate in 2014? 32. Amsterdam's murder rate in 2014? 20.
Alright so, the safest big city in the US, has a murder rate comparable with the most dangerous city in the Netherlands, or as you call it the murder capital of Europe.
(2) Yes I did refute your claims. Are you not listening?
1) Again, the 4.4 number includes abortions, dangerous driving and euthanasia. You can make a claim for dangerous driving (although it's mostly self-murder, so doesn't impact my safety), but euthanasia and abortion doesn't affect my safety AT ALL or anyone else's. Virtually every year the actual murder rate in Amsterdam is below 2, again comparable to the SAFEST city in the US, and this is supposedly the most dangerous city. So someone aborts a baby, or a 95 year old with a great life who went blind, bed ridden and in constant pain from a chronic disease wants to die and is requests euthanasia, makes my life less safe? It's a joke.
2) And those are murder rates of who? Organised crime. 90% of the murders in Amsterdam are assassinations of organised criminals, people who generated +$100m in drug money and get assassinated by a competitor. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with my safety. It doesn't affect me at all. Drug crime isn't like it is in the US, every month or so one or two people get assassinated in a targeted attack. I've never witnessed this or heard the gunshots or seen the blood or the bodies, despite living my entire childhood in neighborhoods in Amsterdam where this happened. (the richest neighbourhood by the way because these drug lords are all multi millionaires who live in expensive villas. The fact someone goes to their home and kills them and spikes the murder rate affects ordinary people in no way whatsoever. As opposed to gang violence in the US which takes the lives of many innocent people, and takes the lives of young small time petty criminals who have few opportunities, as opposed to 50 year old millionaires who've been in crime for decades). It's like saying if a police officer kills a dangerous criminal and the murder rate goes up by 1, that this makes your life less safe, it's a joke.
3) Actual crime (whether it's assault, rape, theft) is all much lower because Amsterdam is extremely safe and the murder rate is only high because virtually all victims are high level criminals. If you actually look at safety (whether it's from murder or any other crime) for ordinary civilians, it's nowhere near the safest US city. The comparison is a total joke.
> In fact marriage equality, and the increasingly broad acceptance of homosexuality in America, is an extraordinary accomplishment.
It is an accomplishment, for sure! The Western world (not just America) has become much more tolerant of gay people.
And yet, while the US has had white people getting more tolerant or even accepting of white gay people, white people have not been getting more tolerant of black people.
In fact, the US has recently stepped backwards in some places, such as the end of the Voting Rights Act.
By all means, celebrate the progress that some people have made in the US. But bear in mind others have made none.
> The US is almost so diverse at this point, that it will soon have no majority.
Majorities and minorities matter less than who holds power. In Apartheid South Africa, black people were the majority.
> The parent comment claimed unarmed minorities were being killed left and right. In fact, there are typically around 500 police caused deaths per year in the US, a small fraction of which are unarmed minorities that are shot, and a fraction of which are unjustified in terms of use of force.
Only a few of which are unjustified? Really? In most civilised nations, police shoot orders of magnitude less people.
Also, the idea that it only matters if unarmed minorities are shot in the US is abhorrent. In the US, you may legally carry arms.
> Nearly half of those deaths are white people, not minorities.
The fact poor white people are also shot is itself alarming.
> To put these numbers in context, China executes 2,500+ people per year,
China isn't a rich, Western nation. It's not a fair point of comparison.
> I find it fascinating how you excuse the success of Asian Americans by slandering them as privileged.
It's not slander, and I don't mean to say they face no discrimination, but they do face a much easier time than, say, black people in the United States.
> Fact: Asians in America are among the richest Asians on earth; Blacks in America are the richest blacks on earth; Latinos in America are the richest Latinos on earth.
Yes, but absolute (if you can even call it that: exchange rates vary) wealth doesn't matter. US Black and hispanic people are living in poverty by US standards.
> Nope, America has the world's largest middle class, and has good upward mobility:
It also has a massive number of people in poverty who cannot move up the latter.
> You very clearly don't have to be rich at all to do well in America.
The whole "upward mobility" concept relies on you eventually being rich. If the metaphorical ladder never reaches you (and for millions of people, it never does), no, you don't do well.
And by "rich" I do not mean upper class. Middle class people are, relatively speaking, rich.
of course, everyone knows that it's a problem that white people get shot by cops too. But bringing it up frustrates the white American liberal because they can't get truly mad about police shooting unless it disproportionally affects (non-asian) minorities. I mean, they'll talk about it, but everybody wants to pretend they're on the front of a new civil rights movement and signal how progressive they are. It gets old.
The problem is that when you take away the racial angle, you might discover that America's pretty violent, and that fact might have an impact on how many police shootings there are.
> 5) Has some of the most generous welfare state policies of any nation. The US has free healthcare, and very large food and housing programs for the poor. Which is why America's poor are better off than all but half a dozen nation's poor.
Not to start an argument. I'm hoping you know something I don't and that will be a huge help.
I keep hearing about this free healthcare, yet I have friends and family members who can't afford the medication that keeps (kept) them alive. There was no other option even after chasing programs offered by the drug companies for "free medication" and applying to state programs. Do you mean they can go to an emergency room? That's not free either, you end up getting calls from collection agencies for the rest of your life, just like any other debt. And the emergency rooms are never a good idea unless you're actually bleeding out. My former father-in-law sat in the waiting room with a ruptured appendix for 12 hours because he was obviously poor and had no insurance. The nurse explained, if you have insurance, you have a Primary Care Physician to get you admitted, you can get right in. He didn't, so they told him to go home and take some ibuprofen. When he didn't (he couldn't physically get up) they got to him when they could.
For myself, health insurance is the single highest cost item in my budget. It costs more than my car payment or rent. I'm on the least expensive Affordable Care Act insurance in Texas. There is no subsidy unless you make 400% of the poverty level. As a business owner with a new business, I have zero revenue or income. I would be fine with that cost as a tax on income, it could grow with me. But as a flat rate, I will only be able to afford this a few more months unless our business becomes profitable, then I'm in the same boat as all the other poor, unless I go running back to some established employer. My wife has Type II diabetes. So I'm going to do whatever I have to. Her prescribed medication costs ~$400 per month, but after much searching we found a different combination that was $40/mo. Hopefully it works as well, we'll have to see.
I'm not complaining. I've had high paid jobs and and made alot of money over my life. We have it easier than most of the people we know. We are both young(ish) and healthy enough to still work. We have some savings, but I've spent most of it pitching in on healthcare for the family members I mentioned including my daughter. One of the reasons we started a business is we want to have something that will support us when we aren't able to do it ourselves, because we don't have anyone to do for us what we did for them. We don't have other options that I know of.
Tell me you do. I want to live in the America you do.
One has to wonder how the US became what it is... I mean, for example, how do US people get cheap oil? By having their own government invade countries, right?
(4) is total bs though. If you look into the better life index, it's a total joke. Here's one quick tidbit, it rates the bottom 10% in Poland as having a better standard of living than the bottom 10% of France or Japan.
You think that's a joke? It gets better! It rates the TOP 10% of Poland as better than the top 10% of France or Japan, too!
If you know anything about these countries you'd laugh (with all due respect to Poland, great country for the resources they're working with right now and the history they've endured).
(5) is partially false. You can find an equivalent population in Western Europe (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia) the size of the US population, whose welfare state policies make the US look poor. Of course on a world scale it's great, when you figure there's more than a billion in all of Africa, China and Asia, where the story is quite different. But compared to the best in the world, the US doesn't rank at the top, and we don't have to look at countries of 5 million to make that comparison.
(6-7) Least important. Long-term, yes, but you're mostly referencing a snapshot in time that's not very meaningful without context. After all, if you see your economy drop by 50%, high growth rates after aren't anything special, you're simply returning to where you were years ago. And if you come from a low position like China, getting growth rates that outpace e.g. the US by gigantic amounts isn't very special either, as you're merely catching up slowly to where others have been for decades. The growth number in and of itself is a small indicator without context. Don't forget, Greece and Spain and Ireland's 2015 and 2016 growth forecasts are double that of Germany (guess where you want to live. Germany). And China's is more than 2x that of the US (guess where I'd want to live, the US). Besides the claim that Europe hasn't grown in 8 years is false. Look at Real GDP per Capita, that removes inflation and population changes. You'll find Europe grew a tiny bit. The US isn't really any different, barely any higher than in 2007 [0].
(9) Partially true, partially not true. So for one, rankings wildly differ. The QS rankings have 18 out of top 50 universities in the US. Just 2 in the top 5, compared to the UK (a country with a population 5x smaller) which has 3 in the top 5. Other rankings are more favorable to the US, it depends. But what I think is important is that a lot of these rankings have little to do with education, and a lot to do with your point (8), which is research by 1% of the student base. Almost all of these rankings put a gigantic weight on peer review and citations. So if Chomsky is at MIT, well that boosts up the rate by a gazillion because he's one of the most cited people in the world. Even if he doesn't teach, or even if he teaches in a field that only 10 students in that university actually study.
You'd be surprised that quality of education isn't at all really measured, only by crappy proxies. So for example for QS (it's a horrible ranking, but very popular), 40% is peer review (i.e. almost completely irrelevant to the majority of bachelor/master students), 20% is citations, 10% is faculty/student ratio (have a lot of non-teaching research staff? Well you get peer review, citations and a high faculty/student ratio, without any of that directly translating to students getting taught. Have a popular professor who teaches a wonderful class to 200 students instead of 100? Your rating on this variable just got halved.) And another 10% is international students/staff, which I think is super important in some ways (internationalisation of education is a big deal!) but can also be completely meaningless. i.e. a university which has amazing education and happens to be in a low-immigration country, isn't any less amazing.
In short, rankings differ wildly, rankings are crap, and rankings often don't say much about the quality of education. I can say this because I studied at a top 50 university, top 20 actually, as well as 3 other ones not ranked even in the top 100, and the top 20's quality of education wasn't remarkable (actually had the best grades with the least effort there, too). The difference? The top 50 uni had a load of money, reputation and had brilliant PhDs doing amazing research and got cited a lot, which did 0 for my education but everything for its reputation, the other ones simply had great education without deep and well funded PhD programs.
So what must you do? Look at educational outcomes. More importantly, not look at the top universities, either. Does it matter for a typical student to study in the US if Harvard is in the US when it only takes in 2.000 students per year? The answer is mostly no. 99% of the population goes to different schools, so let's look at them.
You'll find the US does quite poorly compared to the aforementioned European region of equivalent size. And you'll find that whereas in most of Europe education is free or de facto free. (e.g. in Germany, free, in France a few hundred bucks per year, in the Netherlands $2k but you get $2k from the government as a loan, which turns into a gift if you graduate, i.e. free etc) And average student debt is $35k for 2015 in the US.
Having universities like MIT or Harvard is important for point (8), being a leader in science, innovation etc etc. But it's not for point (9), quality of education for a normal person, at a particular cost. You can get better quality cheaper in Europe. My education in the Netherlands compared great with having studied in America, for example.
(10) It's really hard to compare nations, income is a particularly tricky one to rely on. My healthcare is free, my education is free, sports and arts are heavily subsidised, cities are built so I don't need a car etc etc. In short, you can get a much better standard of living with less money. Would you like if your income was $1m per year if your health insurance was $250k, your education was $250k etc? It's an exaggerated example but you get my point. I find if you talk to people who've lived in Western Europe and the US (like I did), that standards of living aren't better in the US.
Household debt to income is rarely used, it's household debt to disposable income. And that's my point, if my healthcare is paid for me for example, does it matter disposable income is a little less? It wildly varies, too. Countries that are usually wonderful to live in have high ratios (Denmark the highest, then the Netherlands, Switzerland of all places comes in fourth. Who comes in last? Slovenia, Poland, Slovak Republic. Not places you want to live. It also masks the fact that Net Household Wealth to Income in the Netherlands (remember, the 2nd worst country on your debt to disposable income rating) is much better than that in the US.) You also have to understand where it comes from and what it entails. Two thirds of household debt reduction in the US was because of defaults. So the number is low because the US had an epic fail, defaulted on the majority of debt reductions and lost people a lot of money. That's not a great situation is it? Beyond that it's important to look at the type of debt. In the US household debt consists of a lot of credit card debt (i.e. empty debt at ridiculous 20% interest rates per year.) In Europe it's a lot more because of recent housing price crashes (i.e. people owing the bank on much lower interest rates on long-term, asset-backed loans, whose value is forecasted to bounce back in the coming years as the housing market picks up as it did this year already). It's important to look into the statistics, I can name a million and one empty statistics that make the US look poor. For example the US owes a ridiculous shit ton of money, $18 trillion, people always like to say. But nobody mentions that the rest of the world owes the US about the same amount.
(11) I think everyone knows that crime rates in a typical American city aren't as good as those in a typical European city. Hell the notion that there are deep issues with even feeling safe around police in the US for substantial portions of the population is insane. I agree fully with you that if you want, you can find very safe cities to live in in the US. But that's cherry picking cities, and if I did that for any of the other points you mentioned it'd be easy peasy, that's why we're having a discussion about countries no?
(12) I just don't see how the US compares to Western Europe in this regard. I mean it's on a completely different scale. I'll cherry pick one number real quick if you allow... it's that the US shot and killed 59 people in the first 24 days of 2015. In the last 24 years, the England & Wales shot and killed fewer, 55. Just think about that. Police shot and killed more people in 0.33% of the time, despite the population being barely 6 times bigger. Or Iceland, a population that is bigger than that of Stockton, California. They had 1 fatal police shooting in 71 years. Stockton? 3 in the first 5 months of this year alone. In I mean I'm cherry picking here obviously but I really think you should scrap this point from your list, cause I can go on and on here and it gets worse.
(13) Absolutely ridiculous. I'm a minority in Europe, my girlfriend is a sociologist. From my experience and the academic perspective, social mobility in the US is not the best in the world, not even close.
> You can find an equivalent population in Western Europe (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia) the size of the US population
If we're going to compare the top 25% of Europe versus the US, then let's use the top 25% of the US for the comparison, and use the bottom 25% of Europe to compare against the bottom 25% of the US. Given the population numbers are a lot closer for that comparison, it makes drastically more sense than trying to compare Finland to the US. It also makes far more sense on a diversity basis, given across all of Europe you get a lot of diversity, and the same is true for the US (with ~140 million minorities, and a vast number of national and cultural backgrounds).
It's absurd to compare solo countries like Norway to the US. There's no scenario under which that can ever make sense.
How does Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, etc compare to the bottom 25% in America?
How does all of Sweden compare to even the top 50% in the US? (that's 165 million people, so I feel like I'm giving you an extraordinary benefit there, comparing against tiny countries)
It's blatantly obvious what happens when you use a full European comparison, instead of just picking the top European nations. I've been accused a lot in this thread of cherry picking data, well only picking the top European nations is extreme cherry picking.
I think you missed my point. I'm talking about bundling all those countries so you can get an equivalent population and then make comparisons. I wasn't comparing Norway to the US, I mentioned it as part of a bundle of countries that get to an equivalent size of the US population. If you take the countries I mentioned you get something close to 300 million. The US population is a little less than 320m. Western Europe has a population of 400 million for example.
I didn't miss the point, I disagreed with the premise of picking the top outcomes in Europe, while ignoring the other half of Europe that represent quite poor outcomes.
When comparing the US vs European nations, there are certain requirements to get a positive outcome for Europe. You have to drop most of the medium countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Turkey from the comparison - to say nothing of Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia, Belarus, Russia, Albania, Moldova.
The focus has to be on: France, Germany, UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium.
If you deviate from that exact list, Europe's ratings on everything implode rapidly.
It points to the persistent intellectual fraud in most comparisons to the US that you see with regards to Europe. People always want to stick to talking about just a few nations. They never want to do even a EU vs US comparison (eg twice the unemployment rate of the US, with next to zero GDP growth for eight years and with only ~60% the GDP per capita). US life expectancy is also as high as the EU, despite our supposedly inferior healthcare system. Median incomes are quite higher in the US than the EU, and median household wealth is also higher. The US also produces greater total output in terms of science, innovation and nobel prizes than the EU does.
Well if you're not missing the point then why make an unfair comparison? Even western europe alone has a population much, much bigger than the US. So if you want to include all of Europe you're comparing apples to oranges just as much as comparing Germany to the entirety of the US.
Now it depends on what comparison you want to make. I'm telling you you can find a portion of Europe that's all next to eachother and is the developed part of Europe, that has a population that is comparable to the US, and is an interesting basis for a discussion.
If you want to include previous Soviet Union countries, or countries that have been independent states for since 2008 like Kosovo which you mentioned, go for it.
I'm not interested in that discussion, nobody is, nobody is talking about how we should all move to Kosovo or how the US can learn from Kosovo, it's a joke of a discussion and one I'll easily concede the US comes out ahead (surprise surprise! Hell I've literally lived in countries in Africa that do much better than Kosovo, which isn't even recognised by half the world population's governments, let alone part of the EU).
May I ask a question by the way, have you ever lived in the EU?
I ask because of your extreme bias. Because I've shown you countless examples of you citing things without understanding them, or citing them wrongfully, all to make a point regardless of whether the information supports it.
Like say the US producing nobel prizes more than the EU. Guess how many the US produced? 350. The EU? 462. I mean it's a joke. You keep spitting out random blobs of information, many of them flat out false or simply missing the point entirely. (like your info on homicide rates in Amsterdam being a total joke). You switch to national numbers when it suits you, then per capita numbers when it suits you, then shift to individual cities to cherry pick particular variables, and switch between comparisons between the US and individual countries, or the EU or Europe as a whole (yeah let's put Germany and Kosovo in the same basket and compare it to the US, and let's compare a group of countries like Germany and Russia to the US, even though Germany and Russia are like the US and Iran to eachother right now, fighting each other with sanctions and economic warfare, because hey Germany and Russia are both in Europe right? They must be politically united like say the individual states of the US, fair comparison to compare outcomes! /s).
And you make the same mistakes you're attacking others for, calling it 'persistent intellectual fraud' to make faulty comparisons. So let's look at one you brought up: life expectancy The EU life expectancy at birth is slightly better than the US, but as you say, it's comparable. So fair enough, right? But you fail to mention the European Union has more than 500 million people, about the same as the population of all 23 countries in North America, fair comparison? Not so much.
Mexico for example has a horrible life expectancy, even less than the West Bank for crying out loud. [0] Guess who is below Mexico even? Romania. Guess who invited Romania to join their union the past few years? The European Union. Now let's see what happens if the US builds a union in North America with countries like Mexico or say, Haiti, to get to the same 500 million people as the US, and watch what happens to your 'fair comparison'. You'd see variables drop extremely hard across the board. Again you're being a total hypocrite. Just because the EU happened to expand beyond western europe into a group of countries (not a country, but a group of independent states) way bigger than the US, allowing way poorer countries than Mexico for example to join, doesn't mean you can compare the EU to the US and then call 'intellectual fraud' when someone instead makes a more sensible comparison to western europe, or the original EU members. And don't get me started on the comparison to Europe, it's ONLY 750 million people, including hundreds of millions who are politically diametrically opposed and waging economic warfare and even a proxy war in the Ukraine right now. Makes total sense to compare their 'union' to the combination of the united states. And mentioning Kosovo, man I'm still laughing about that one, you're right though the US is totally better than Kosovo, I'm glad we put that controversy to rest.
Ah thanks for that, I thought it was an English thing (here in the Netherlands we just say 'Ukraine') but I always heard it as 'the' on english television. After your correction I looked into it and it turns out saying 'the' is actually insulting!
I'll be very short, at least Iran and China didn't invade Iraq and Afghanistan on false pretenses. They aren't currently droning civilians in 5 countries. If you pay taxes in America you are financially supporting their military efforts, that's how I look at it.
I certainly think 20,000 deaths is worse than 10,000 deaths yes.
I believe there is a much greater discrepancy than 2x, between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and ongoing drone strikes inflicting civilian casualties, and Chinese incursions into Tibet.
That's not to say I support China in their incursions into Tibet. I am very sympathetic to those who have had atrocities committed towards them.
I do think however that the scale of a crime is important, and can be compared.
With the numbers you can make meaningful comparisons. This person committed two murders, this person committed one. To suggest all atrocities are equal is weak.
Well we have completely opposing views in that case. I think if you cannot compare atrocities or crimes you are suffering from sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies (i.e. morally bankrupt) but I say that as an armchair psychologist, much like you say what you say as an armchair moralist.
I think given any number of examples you would gladly compare crimes and atrocities and quite easily state which you think is worse.
Society does this also, you can usually find it expressed in the sentencing for crimes.
I think if you cannot compare atrocities or crimes you are suffering from sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies
So because I don't tier atrocities into more or less horrifying based on numbers and treat them all as a negative means I have "sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies"? Doesn't take much to understand you don't know what those words mean, including moralist and psychologist.
If you look at history, China looks way more pacifist than the US. In fact, one has to wonder why the US govt. and media keep spreading fear about China... Perhaps the US govt./media are scared of some country doing to them the exact same things they do and have done to other countries.
Your Iran point:
How many civilians have Israel taken out in the recent past? America plays the proxy war game too. How much of ISIS armament is of American origin? How many civilians have ISIS taken out?
I guess if you are from the country, it's less likely that you would outraged by your own military's actions.
Thanks for the information regarding China's belligerence, but Chinese citizens might be more sympathetic to that. Much like any nationalists being sympathetic to their own nation's causes.
Once you suggest a place as an alternative place to live, it's worth thinking about what a person who moves there would be supporting financially with their taxes.
What? "America plays the proxy war game too. How much of ISIS armament is of American origin?". America's proxy war involvement is well known, but you picked the most ridiculous conflict that has nothing to do with this. Your argument is ISIS equipment being American. What? That's because equipment given to Iraqis being captured, a very well documented problem. Your implication is the most ridiculous thing I have read in this thread so far.
This is a slipper slope if I've ever seen one. Aid to Syrian rebels is already known, one of the parties to which a proxy war might be a somewhat reasonable assumption. However, given the long involvement of the US in Iraq, this is a very far-fetched conspiracy theory to say the least.
A lot of these guys ended up in ISIS, it would be foolish to assume otherwise. If you view America's foreign policy aim as maintaining an unstable middle east, then it's not a slippery slope argument.
I'm not saying that I agree with the individual statements. Just that it's not hard to research and decide the veracity of each of them yourself with minimal effort.
Actually a ton of stuff he's posted in this thread is complete bs, i.e. flat out wrong
Like EU GDP not growing for 8 years, wrong.
Median household wealth being better in the US than Italy, Sweden or Germany, wrong
The US producing more nobel prize winners than the EU, wrong
Statements about the danger of living in Amsterdam, wrong
Canadian gun ownership being comparable to the US, wrong
The murder rate for 99% of US citizens in cities being < 2 per 100k, wrong
Then there's a lot of statements he makes which are so vague, they're likely his opinion rather than substantiated facts, but I can't disregard them altogether as he didn't qualify them. For example the US having more opportunity than any other nation is hard to qualify so one can't even begin to dispute it. But if define what that means by say 'social mobility', which can be qualified to a large extent, and look at social mobility for example, the US is nowhere near the leading country.
And then finally there's a ton of facts which are correct, and they're completely disingenuous. For example he references median student debt at $13k. He doesn't mention that this is the median student debt for all people. i.e. if you graduated in 1970 and still owe $3k in student debt after having paid off tens of thousands already, then you're part of that equation and it hugely understates the debt burden for students. When what you THINK he's talking about is what is the average debt that a student graduates with. And that number is $36k for 2015, much more than his truthful statistic.
The only reference he made is to the OECD better life index, and I'm glad he did because I'm familiar with that index. If he hadn't referenced it I might've taken for granted that he must know what he's talking about. But as I mentioned in another post, here's a little joke: the OECD better life index ranked the bottom 10% of Poland to have a better standard of living than the bottom 10% of Japan and France. And here's the kicker, same with the top 10%. Yes, Poland's bottom and top 10% respectively have better lives than the bottom and top 10% in France. It's a total joke. Of course you could say it's a (giant) anomaly but I've lived in many of the countries in the index in 4 different continents and there's a lot of misguided information there. Like gender equality in the Netherlands being one of the poorest of all studied countries, environment being one of the worst of all countries studied, being one of the least safe countries in the study (even worse than the US), or health being better in Greece than Germany, oh and if you want a good education you better move to Slovenia from the US because the OECD says it's better! I think you get the point, it's a total joke once you look at the individual parameters and the scoring on them.
So yeah some references would've been nice here and there. Not asking for links or anything, but just some reference to a source, like 'OECD better life index' which he referenced and turned out to be nonsense.
A rough average of 500 police caused deaths per year across 20 years. It spikes and drops by significant amounts by year, but that's a reasonable ballpark average and is near The Guardian's number.
Now break out how many were unjustified uses of force.
Now break out how many were not white (nearly half the people killed by cops are white).
You're talking about maybe 40 or 50 unarmed minorities shot dead by police each year, out of around 140 million total minorities (40% minority base, plus 12 million minorities that aren't citizens). And this is in a country with police that are clearly too violent.
Your odds of being murdered by police, as an unarmed minority, is about one in 2.5 to 3 million. To pretend unarmed minorities are being regularly shot dead by police is beyond ridiculous.
1) A leader in freedom of speech, press freedom, property rights protections, general freedom of movement, and is low on the corruption index. One of the few countries with extraordinarily well protected freedom of speech rights enshrined at the core of the nation.
2) Has a rapidly adaptive culture, able to implement changes at a fast pace despite its immense scale. That includes things like legalizing and decriminalizing drugs, which is now underway across numerous states, and marriage equality.
3) Has one of the highest median household incomes on earth, and one of the highest disposable incomes. Both of which just got a 20% booster shot against the rest of the world courtesy of the dollar.
4) Has one of the highest standards of living on earth, for both the poor and the rich. See: OECD better life index.
5) Has some of the most generous welfare state policies of any nation. The US has free healthcare, and very large food and housing programs for the poor. Which is why America's poor are better off than all but half a dozen nation's poor.
6) Actually has stable economic growth and vast opportunity. Neither Europe nor the EU have grown in eight years. China is imploding rapidly with non-stop chaos socially and economically, Japan hasn't grown in 25 years.
7) Has a relatively low unemployment rate, and a vast supply of available jobs (presently at ~15 year highs, at nearly six million openings). This is counter to most of the world, with emerging markets in desperate shape, and the rest of the developed world rolling from recession to stagnation to recession again.
8) Is a leader in science, innovation, invention, general technology, aerospace, pharma/biotech, farming, manufacturing, software, Internet, space tech, gaming, and pretty much every other category.
9) Has 45 of the top 50 universities, and the best university system across the board of any nation. With a median student loan debt of $13,000 - which is half the price of a car these days.
10) Where the median household net wealth is higher than Germany, Italy, or Sweden. And where household debt to income ratios are lower than nearly all of developed Europe.
11) Where the murder rate for 99% of the population in cities is closer to 2/100k (and half that in rural areas), on par nicer urban parts of Europe. The US has a hundred nice cities with very low murder rates, pick where you want to live.
12) Where unarmed minorities are not regularly shot dead by the police.
13) Where minorities have a greater opportunity for success than in nearly any other nation. See: the vast wealth and prosperity of Asians in America, they're the best off of any race of people here. In fact, American Asians are among the best off of any people anywhere on this planet.
14) Where you have more opportunities than in any other nation, to make any kind of life for yourself that you want. Fortunately life in America is the exact opposite of a gamble, given the vast success of America's middle 50%. Few nations can claim the kind of success that America's middle class has managed, despite how large it is.