America-2 Dirty Communists-0

[jabarto]

No.

The point is we shouldn't ignore the suffering of millions just because someone somewhere else has it worse.

Oh, and since I forgot to address it in my last post, having a TV or an mp3 player or whatever small consumer good you can come up with doesn't mean you're not poor. I know the poor in America aren't aren't as unfortunate as a Darfur war orphan but just because they can afford to spend a fraction of a percent of their income on luxury goods doesn't mean they're on cloud nine, either.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The point is we shouldn't ignore the suffering of millions just because someone somewhere else has it worse.

Oh, and since I forgot to address it in my last post, having a TV or an mp3 player or whatever small consumer good you can come up with doesn't mean you're not poor. I know the poor in America aren't aren't as unfortunate as a Darfur war orphan but just because they can afford to spend a fraction of a percent of their income on luxury goods doesn't mean they're on cloud nine, either.

Whatever made you think I was advocating ignoring poverty in America? I said that most poor in America have it a lot better than those facing crushing poverty on the fringes of Sao Paolo etc. I may have vastly different ideas about HOW poverty should be reduced, but none would deny that doing so is a worthy goal. Nor do I have a problem with starting in the USA first -- charity begins at home.

[Centurion1]

wow and it was all meant to be a joke.......... im sorry i forgot the title of this thread begs for intelligent discourse

[a completely inoffensive name]

wow and it was all meant to be a joke.......... im sorry i forgot the title of this thread begs for intelligent discourse

Oh, sorry. Didn't realize it was a joke.

[Skullheadhq]

Whatever made you think I was advocating ignoring poverty in America? I said that most poor in America have it a lot better than those facing crushing poverty on the fringes of Sao Paolo etc.

That is not really a justification for a first-world country, now is it?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

That is not really a justification for a first-world country, now is it?

Okay then. Let's be blunt. I don't believe I have to justify a darn thing. We're better off and anyone who thinks we aren't is missing the boat.

I do not believe that equality of outcome is ever possible in a healthy economic system. Nothing works better than the marketplace, but the marketplace reflects the values of those people who comprise it -- and they do not value all contributions equally. There will always be people therefore -- some by happenstance, some by circumstance, and some by their own actions/choices -- who do not receive/benefit as much as others. To benefit the most people to the greatest extent, the goal is and must be to grow the entirety of the economy and enhance wealth. This drags up the lowest in society too. Do they benefit as much as the economic winners? Or course not. But they do benefit.

THAT has been the story of the USA. We work hard, got lucky, and had fewer idiot stumbling blocks put in the way of people's success. So right now, today, you can live a life in the USA as a poor person that is better than the life of a poor person virtually anywhere else. Poverty is NOT relative when you are living it. You either have enough to eat or you don't. You have drinkable water or you don't. You have a roof over your head or you don't. You have affordable entertainment that engages you or you don't. You have access to learning or you don't. By all of these standards, the poor in the USA are better off.

Doesn't mean I don't want to see things get even better. Doesn't mean I don't do charity effort to help out. But "poverty" in in the USA is $5500 per person per year with no taxes and a bunch of publicly funded services. It just isn't the same thing.

[jabarto]

This drags up the lowest in society too. Do they benefit as much as the economic winners? Or course not. But they do benefit.

Oh, come on. A rising tide doesn't lift the people who don't have any boats to begin with, now does it?

THAT has been the story of the USA. We work hard, got lucky, and had fewer idiot stumbling blocks put in the way of people's success. So right now, today, you can live a life in the USA as a poor person that is better than the life of a poor person virtually anywhere else. Poverty is NOT relative when you are living it. You either have enough to eat or you don't. You have drinkable water or you don't. You have a roof over your head or you don't. You have affordable entertainment that engages you or you don't. You have access to learning or you don't. By all of these standards, the poor in the USA are better off.

Um, no. As long as you can be left in the street to die of easily treatable diseases here, I can think of entire continents that have it better than us. Social mobility is dead in the water and hard work had nothing to do with the US rise to prominence (such as it is). We're at the top of the heap because our competitors were eroded to dust by WW2. That's it.

Doesn't mean I don't want to see things get even better. Doesn't mean I don't do charity effort to help out. But "poverty" in in the USA is $5500 per person per year with no taxes and a bunch of publicly funded services. It just isn't the same thing.

Well, this is what I was getting at earlier. Your position, if this is true, is a highly unusual one, because most people who claim that the poor in America have it better off do so to try and distract people from actually improving their lot. If you're just saying it for it's own sake, well...you're not exactly wrong, but it really raises some red flags about your intentions. I'll grant that I may have misjudged you, however.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Oh, come on. A rising tide doesn't lift the people who don't have any boats to begin with, now does it?

On a macro level it does. Since the 1820s, the USA has been steadily improving in per capita GDP at a rate better than most of the rest of the world. Nor was it WW2 that "sealed the deal," since we'd passed the UK prior to WW1. By no means have we eradicated poverty, nor will we, but the "rising tide" has established a higher standard for virtually all US residents.

You'd make a better argument if you decried Reaganomics for enhancing the disparity between the top 15 and bottom 15 percent of the population, pointing to the potential for socio-cultural destabilization.

Um, no. As long as you can be left in the street to die of easily treatable diseases here, I can think of entire continents that have it better than us. Social mobility is dead in the water and hard work had nothing to do with the US rise to prominence (such as it is). We're at the top of the heap because our competitors were eroded to dust by WW2. That's it.

As noted above, the USA had passed by the rest of the world economically by the very early 20th -- even given the economic strength of the Empire upon which "the sun never set." Yes, we took a big bounce upward in the 1950s for the reasons you note, but the trend predates this event.

Social mobility was never as easy as the Horatio Alger stories made it out to be. The very existence of the Knights of Columbus and other "immigrant" organizations underscores this. Yet the USA was never and is not now as calcified as many societies have been in the past. My wife is one of two children of Italian immigrants. Neither of her parents had an 8th grade education and Dad was a cobbler/corviser while Mom raised the children. Their son is a neurosurgeon (formerly at Johns Hopkins) and MBA and their daughter is a Corporate Director with two Masters and a soon to be Ph.D. Either of them makes more in one year than their parents ever earned in any 3 years. Easy? Of course not -- but such stories are not rare, maybe not even uncommon.

And the disease thing is just hyperbole. Any person can walk into an emergency room and be treated. If you set your standard at 100% coverage of all persons at all times, then ALL societies are failures. The health care debate is too long to go into here, but I will remind you that the number of persons receiving no care is small and a portion of those not receiving care are choosing not to avail themselves of services which are -- however cumbersomely administered at times -- available.

Well, this is what I was getting at earlier. Your position, if this is true, is a highly unusual one, because most people who claim that the poor in America have it better off do so to try and distract people from actually improving their lot. If you're just saying it for it's own sake, well...you're not exactly wrong, but it really raises some red flags about your intentions. I'll grant that I may have misjudged you, however.

I don't think my position is unusual at all. People in the USA are among the most charitable - by amount and by percentage of wealth donated -- around. Nor do I think most of us -- at least outside of government -- ever try to put obstacles in somebody else's way. Most of us are just trying to improve things for ourselves and for our families, and helping out a bit with those in need when we can. There are selfish folk who do little to help others, there are people who are so busy/distracted that they don't notice those in need -- which is sad. All-in-all, however, I think most folks aren't trying to harm those around them at all -- my success does not have to come at someone else's expense.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Seamus you story about faster growth of GDP per capita might've been valid up to about the 80's. However there are a few point you don't consider.

GDP per capita is now no longer the measure by which the USA leads the world or not. On the Human development indices, at least, the USA is good but not the absolute top by a clear measure and a major part of that is though as little as the USA likes to acknowledge it, the states have a far more serious poverty problem on their hands than much of Western Europe... There is far more income inequality in the USA than there is in Europe which is how GDP per capita is skewed in favour of a high average.

Also the USA have the 6th highest (not the highest) GDP per capita which, incidentally stands at $47K rounded upwards according to wikipedia. Now, here's the question: does it translate to approximately every working citizen making a multiple of $47K so that he/she might support the family and it evens out as the $47K per capita? Or does it translate in a few Larry Ellissons' making ~$1bn a year and the rest making a correspondingly lower amount? A few $1bn a year incomes do a lot to skew something which averages out at a mere $47K...

EDIT: Incidentally the Mr. Ellisons covers for a few % of the *entire* USA. If you took his salary of ~$1bn worth of salary and stock, spread it out in chunks of $47K you would cover for a small town in USA terms (21277 people according to my calculator).