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Rest of World IS Fucked Up, We Know Best - USA! USA! USA!
AZDuck
Member Posts: 15,381
(From German magazine Der Spiegel discussing how inadequate national spending on infrastructure is threatening the country's future)
High speed rail lines in United States:
Entrepreneurship?
USA among the lowest in developed world, but still ahead of the evil Canadians.
Who knew the Danes were so entrepreneurial?
At least our cops are good shots
Comments
There are definitely plenty of issues with the US that these numbers sort of illustrate, but the AuburnDawg moving goalpoasts do nothing to add to the credibility of the arguments.
Homicides per 100,000 is the universally accepted means of determining homicide rates.
Per capita health spending / life expectancy, then overall spending as percentage of GDP. We spend a shit-ton more on health care, on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP than any other country in the world and we have some of the worst health-care outcomes in the developed world. Infant mortality in the US approaches developing country levels. Measuring these things by percentage or raw total changes nothing.
We spend very little as a percentage of GDP relative to our peers on transportation. China (a developing country similar in size to the mainland USA) has built an entire high speed network in the last 20 or so years while we have yet to build our first high speed line, even in regions like the Northeast or Midwest (Chicago hub) or California where the population and distances are ideal for the mode.
Other developed countries are about as good or better at birthing small businesses as we are despite their high taxes and socialism. Of course, health care and education aren't costs that a small businessman in Copenhagen needs to concern himself with, so there is that.
Looking at police shootings: a "raw number graph": There are about 90 million Germans, 70 million Brits, and 25 million Aussies. 401 police shootings (the lower number, Honda would use the 768 because he's ideological like that) per 330 million Americans dwarf the figures in the other countries no matter how you slice the data.
Put another way:
1.215 police shootings per million people in USA
0.24 police shootings per million people in AUS
0.06 police shootings per million people in GER
0.029 police shootings per million people in GBR
Maybe I'm dense but I don't understand your quibble with raw numbers and percentages. Looking at any of the above topics using one or the other does not reveal another outcome. If you can illustrate with an example, I'd appreciate it.
I'm not arguing with your conclusions, I'm just arguing with the way the data is presented. There's inherent bias in the presentation. And yes, I'm aware everybody does it. I've made the same poont to d2d but he does these poasts so often I mostly just ignore them. Since you were a fresh Grantland wannabe, I thought I'd poont out the inherent probrem in your presentation.
- Gun violence,
- Healthcare spending/outcome and system of provision
- Infrastructure/transportation and high-speed rail
(I've lived in Japan and Italy for two years and I'm a convert, I just need to get to Germany to have the Axis trifecta)
- Social democracies can do capitalism,
- US police shoot and kill citizens far more than any other developed country on earth (edited because Iraqi police)
Nobody is copying us on those topics. Nobody. (except the Iraqi cops)
At the end of the day, most white Americans are just slobs whose grandparents couldn't make it in (England/Germany/Ireland/Italy/Poland/whatever) and most ethnic types came over here later because whitey built a good system with a relatively clean slate thanks to smallpox blankies (Hi @Swaye !) Or, because they were chained up in a boat.
We can learn from the world around us.
1. Lower health care spending by shrinking Medicare / Medicaid as a percentage of Federal Spending and use that money on infrastructure?
2. Instituting a Fat Tax for people on Medicare and Medicaid to make them healthier?
3. Repealing the 2nd Amendment? If not, what do reforms do you propose that would fall within the rights of the 2nd Amendment?
4. Neutral (neither raising or lowering) tax reform should be part of any conversation since tax reform would increase revenues going forward with a simpler code / less distortions.
2. No.
3. I think regulation and the 2nd amendment can be friends. EDIT: I mentioned some - serious license standards and training, serial number registration in the other thread.
4. I think tax reform would be a great idea, the US taxes at the lower bound of the developed countries (about 28% of GDP if I remember right) but gets very poor results from much of its government spending. I have my own thoughts on that which involve a directorial executive branch like Switzerland and a parliamentary House leaving the Senate as first-past-the-poast, but with allocations to mitigate for population differences among the States. It'll never happen. I'm gonna buy a boat and sail around the world and shit when I'm done playing army.
In other news, I understood none of your graphs because I am mostly dumb.
In the USA, you have the best chance to be great and stage a kick-ass presser while bribes and kickbacks are too much of the norm in other countries.
And let's be honest, if Russia or China decided to invade some other nice places to live (Switzerland, Norway, Great Britain), who are they going to call? Where does the mentality in the below movie exist in places you'd like to live besides the USA? Maybe Australia or the UK? New Zealand? We know the Frenchies would roll-over and the Germans would put up a fight but they haven't won a substantial war since 1872.
I think I wouldn't mind Denmark except for the cold or Switzerland.
Living in America is great, but it could be better, too.
I'm part of the War Corps, and yes, we are the only significant power-projection military in the world. Things get interesting in about 50 years when the Chinese will have similar capabilities
We also do
somemost things right - our military is still the best. We have some of the highest worker productivity in the world and our colleges and universities are still the best on the planet, and they drive an incredible R&D economy that Europe is only just now starting to emulate. (Japan is already awesome at this)The difference is - they've been studying at Harvard, Yale and Berkeley and they (and the Japanese and Chinese) are modelling their colleges on ours.
2. How do we get the 1/3 of Americans who are obese to simply be overweight? Obesity costs the country roughly $200 billion a year.
3. There's no changing the Constitution, will never happen. Frankly I'm glad the Founders realized it was important to give each State 2 Senators as a check on those who preside over Big Government ruling big populations and thus send many Reps to Congress trying to impose their version of utopia on the rest of the country via the Federal Level. California with uber liberal SF and LA, New York with Bill DeBlasio, Illinois with corrupt Chicago and Rahmbo (not as bad as DeBlasio). The Senate is the only thing left keeping Big Government types away from pushing too hard to change our Founding Principles.
4. Do you agree with Obama / Secretaries of Defense reducing military health benefits for family members?
5. Where do you stand on Tort Reform in Health Care? The Economist Mag awhile back said roughly 11% of all medical procedures all unnecessary and solely run to guard against trial lawyers (like John Edwards).