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False, they do get Federal benefits:

Read your own damn link. They don't get federal benefits until they've lived in the US as a legal permanent resident for 5 years. That's the same requirement as getting citizenship.

Undocumented immigrants may be eligible for a handful of benefits that are deemed necessary to protect life or guarantee safety in dire situations, such as emergency Medicaid, access to treatment in hospital emergency rooms, or access to healthcare and nutrition programs under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

That's not welfare. Even tourists get that. Even you get that if you got injured in another country, even in a lot of third world countries. I'll give you WIC, but at $5.3 billion, most of it going to citizens, it's not relevant to the discussion.

So then let's compare Helsinki and Los Angeles, the two largest cities. We find that Los Angeles is more expensive than Helsinki. Again, the facts are that if you do UBI in the US, you'll need to spend a lot more to have "parity" with this experiment. For the LA/Helsinki comparison, it would be about 35% more - so about $1000 per month to equalize the data.

What's wrong with Jackson, MS? Too cheap? There's even cheaper cities in the US, and even more cheap small towns. Also, LA is a lot smaller than NY.

If you wanted a cherrypicked city, you should've picked Menlo Park. UBI would have to be in the $10k / month range to support someone living next to Mr. Zuckerberg.

And let's say that of the 217 million 18-to-65 adults in the US, only 180 million are citizens. So we need to provide $90 billion a month in UBI. Guaranteed spending. Over $1 trillion annually. That's the plan?

Remember, the Federal Government took in $1.4 trillion total in income taxes in 2018. So we'll need to up the tax rates by a solid 80% - meaning your Federal income tax load just about doubled. Ready for that?

So you don't want to cut any existing programs? Seems like you're proposing a doomed-to-fail strawman plan just so you can win an argument.

UBI doesn't go into a black hole. It's subject to income tax. A lot of people would get UBI, but then immediately pay a third of it back in taxes. It's also subject to sales tax when it gets spent, and later on, when the store pays its employees, it's taxed again. You can easily stay revenue neutral by raising taxes just enough that on average nobody is getting any benefit from UBI (yes, the math works, just think about it for a second).

UBI is not magical, it's simply a transfer of spending power from the richest to the poorest. It's just more efficient than existing programs.

That's pretty misleading. They use it twice as often. It doesn't mean they're using twice as much. They also don't qualify for federal benefits until they're almost able to get citizenship, so it's not relevant to this discussion.

False, they do get Federal benefits:

Undocumented immigrants may be eligible for a handful of benefits that are deemed necessary to protect life or guarantee safety in dire situations, such as emergency Medicaid, access to treatment in hospital emergency rooms, or access to healthcare and nutrition programs under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

You need to compare different states. CoL in Mississippi is a lot lower than California. Since we're talking about federal UBI, nothing prevents those who find it too difficult to live on $500 / mo. in San Francisco from moving to Jackson.

So then let's compare Helsinki and Los Angeles, the two largest cities. We find that Los Angeles is more expensive than Helsinki. Again, the facts are that if you do UBI in the US, you'll need to spend a lot more to have "parity" with this experiment. For the LA/Helsinki comparison, it would be about 35% more - so about $1000 per month to equalize the data.

We already spend on welfare at the state level. That spending can be used by each individual to supplement UBI from the federal level to reach a livable income. E.g. if states already provides $200 / month in food assistance, then the federal government only needs to spend $300 for a combined total of $500.

Except we need to spend quite a bit more than $500. But let's say it's just $500. And let's say that of the 217 million 18-to-65 adults in the US, only 180 million are citizens. So we need to provide $90 billion a month in UBI. Guaranteed spending. Over $1 trillion annually. That's the plan?

Remember, the Federal Government took in $1.4 trillion total in income taxes in 2018. So we'll need to up the tax rates by a solid 80% - meaning your Federal income tax load just about doubled. Ready for that?

Only housing is 400% more expensive. Gas is about 20% more. Most other things are about the same.

Actually, Texas is cheaper in many categories.

Crystal City is the opposite of affordable. I mean yeah the actual literally named area of Crystal City has semi-affordable apartments, but not a lot of them and if you want more than the basics you're going to have to look into even pricier areas or endure a horrid commute (and still pretty high prices). Living in the greater DC metro area is cheaper than NYC, but not that much. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

Still ... yeah ... NYC seems like an odd choice. Frankly looking at Northern VA I'm surprised at Crystal City other than the cheap vacant office space and metro access and proximity to DC proper and literally walking distance to the Pentagon, and .... OOOOOOhhhhhh I get it.

Feel free to check the validity of your data on Numbeo.com. But be warned, freak places like Bay Area or NY are not representative.
Chicago on the other hand is more representative. Here you go:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

Internet is 553% more expensive in Chicago than Bucharest. It's a fucking rip-off for you.

Rice is more than 30 bhat / kg in Thailand Even higher than a CA supermarket. Sad but true.

Cheer up, that's still cheaper than in the US, though maybe not when put into relation to average or median incomes: Comparison Table. The data might also be outdated, though. Nowadays 100 Mps are the low standard, at least in my country.

Yeah sure. Low crime rates. Japan has a low crime rate. So does Singapore. But UK, Norway, Italy, Ireland, France, and Sweden have nothing to brag about other than having somewhat lower rates than the USA. Maybe look up the numbers before spouting off in your oh-so-precious mode next time. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/r...

Remember though, that with today's two income household model, and the willingness to spend stupid amounts of money for housing, that is what you end up with.

Nope. The cost of housing should be the cost to build additional housing. Which does not increase based on how many wives are in the workforce.

However nowadays, all the major cities have density restrictions which prevent most people who want to live there from living there. So the limited housing units undergo a bidding war, and the richest people win them.

Tokyo is a much bigger city than New York, but it's also much cheaper to live in. That's what happens when you don't prevent people from building up to the economic equilibrium height.

In other words, tell us about London, dipshit.

London (which has gun control) is safer than Houston (where everybody has a gun).

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/c...

Venezuela has done that, and has crime being 1/1000 what it was
Ha ha ha ha. You are so funny.

My understanding is that London and San Francisco are near equivalent in terms of real estate prices per square foot/meter (London is moreso, I think) to buy. To rent, San Francisco is much more expensive (according to Numbeo, and if non-tech workers can't afford to live near the city (the whole market is getting bad), then how can we have servers at our restaurants?

Mortgage terms vary, typical is about 3.5 to 4.0 percent over 30 years fixed, but others have variable 5 year fixed etc. The banks have gotten much tighter in lending requirements.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

US is given as the 9th worst for cost out of the 90 countries measured.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/n...

Forbes measures 196 countries and puts the US at 114th, so the 82nd worst in the world.

But what do you get for this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Wikipedia says it's the tenth fastest... out of a list of ten.

https://www.statista.com/stati...

Statistica says the same.

https://www.fastmetrics.com/in...

Fastmetrics gives a shade of puke.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/k...

Forbes says ninth.

But the speed is about half and the cost more than double that of either South Korea or Sweden. Anyone who has run cable knows a cable running machine can do quite a bit more than someone shinning up a mountain (and speeds in the Swedish countryside can reach 40 gigabits per second).

So the Value For Money is a quarter that of rival technological nations. Well, when you're nickel-and-diming your infrastructure, the odd quarter should be expected.

Headline: "Air Pollution Harm To Unborn Babies May Be Global Health Catastrophe, Warn Doctors"

First sentence of TFS: "The research was conducted in London, UK"

From TFA: "The study analysed all live births in Greater London over four years"

Admittedly, London is a fairly dirty city that has been violating EU pollution limits forever. Even so, according to this it's similar to New York and other first world cities.

The standard of living in those countries is well above that in the US. With better educational systems, better health care, more affordable housing, more security in retirement, etc. Sure there are small pockets of the US with higher standards of living, but when you look at the US as a whole then things start to decline. It would be interesting to see US standard of living index going state by state though.

https://www.numbeo.com/quality...

And 60'ish % in taxes to pay for the unemployed and unemployable...

I live in Sweden and planning to move out as soon as possible..... Why the heck stay in a place that has nice weather for 2½ month's per year and drains you of your hard-earned money when the benefits you get for paying taxes is continuously being degraded.

If we would have a bit more sun during the winter to reduce the depression-rates... https://www.theatlantic.com/he...

Or having a good healthcare system for the amount of taxes we pay..
https://www.thelocal.se/201501...

Or being a cheap country to live in...
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

Housing-costs going up every year:
https://www.thelocal.se/201610...
https://www.globalpropertyguid... ... In the city where i live the queue time to get a rental apartment is around 15 years for the central part of the city... and 10 years in the suburbs....

Maybe you could try this site for price comparison. Or maybe you could check this one for another overall comparison. To me, price of goods only doesn't mean anything much if it doesn't affect the local "cost of living".

Chicago is less than 30% more expensive than Indianapolis.

That depends on what part you are living in. Here are some actual numbers on the subject. These are averages which may vary by specific location.

Simple fact is that the cost of living difference is substantial and wages often aren't enough higher in the bigger city to compensate.

Add in the intangible benefits of more culture / entertainment, better food, and overall more job opportunities, it's not surprising that major cities attract the best and brightest in our society.

People in big cities far too often seem to think they are better than the people who chose to avoid them. New Yorkers seem to be particularly full of themselves in my experience. Big cities do not universally attract the best and brightest, merely a percentage of them and only for certain industries. Finance? Sure you probably want a big city. Agriculture? Not so much. Manufacturing? Depends on the product. You also conveniently ignore the drawbacks of big cities. Congestion, high prices, cramped living conditions, lack of green spaces, pollution, etc. And I would disagree that the food is universally better in cities or that there is better entertainment. It depends on what suits you. I live in a semi-rural area and I guarantee you I get better produce than almost any restaurant in NYC right off the farm. Same with meat if I want it.

Writing my summary here since i seemed to have started rambling... The current system in Sweden is falling apart during many reasons.. I myself have been thinking about moving away from here since there is no way to make a decent living and be able to save money after everything has been paid.
Same job i have here could bring in 5-10 times the money (after tax and living-costs) if i lived in the US or UK.

That's not really true.. We don't have "real" socialism.. What we have in Sweden is socialised healthcare and socialised unemployment and we also have capitalism.

The base taxation is that for every 100SEK someone earns 63.42SEK will be paid in taxes.
So lets say company 1 pays 100SEK for having me employed. I get 36.58 in my hand, and then i buy something and pay 25% VAT on that resulting in 27.43SEK reaching the next company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

But the taxation here is ridiculous since we "need to finance our welfare system" that is currently being overrun with things it was never meant to handle.
Illegal immigrants gets to sends their kids to school, free of cost.
Illegal immigrants gets free healthcare. (including prescriptions and dental care that still costs money for swedish citizens that work and pay taxes)
Illegal immigrants don't have to pay taxes.
(https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/About-the-Migration-Agency/Facts-and-statistics-/Statistics.html)
We brought in just above 160000 asylum seekers during 2015. 80000 during 2014 and 55000 during 2013. This to a country with a population of 9 million..
Of of this about 4.9 million of these are employed. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/527454/sweden-number-of-employed-people/)
This means that just for every asylum seeker 16.6 people would cover the costs for them here. Say each asylum-seeker costs 200000 per year that is 12000SEK for each working person in extra taxes, but with the high cost of apartments, healthcare and such it's probably at least 4 times that amount..

And with illegal immigrant i refer to people getting their immigration or asylum request rejected but refuse to leave the country.
I don't mind refugees or immigrants, as long as they at least try become productive members of society that contribute instead of just taking.

The biggest issue here is that the Socialdemocrats that has been leading sweden for many years don't have a sustainable immigration policy or policy that works for the largest employer (small business) we have.. All they try to do is raise the taxes and make it more and more costly to live to be able to sustain their model.. All in the name of "making society equal" without regards to how hard you have worked to get to where you are..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The average salary in Sweden is 30000SEK per month (or 3332.67USD) -- Actually it's 4379.79USD if you also count the "hidden" social fees the company has to pay.
Of this the average salary after income-tax the person gets in his hand is 20400SEK (2266.21USD)
On this you have cost of an apartment and that will be somewhere between 4000SEK-14000SEK for a 1 room (studio) apartment depending on where you live in Sweden. For a 2 room apartment that will be 6000SEK-20000SEK
Cost of living in Sweden (food, clothes etc) will be somewhere 6000-8000SEK per month for basic living..
Transportation will be another 800-1000SEK per month for bus/subway or 2000-4000SEK for a basic car that you drive to/from work.
"A-kassa" to get the unemployment pay if you are fired. 100-150SEK and you get a maximum of 14500SEK per month.

For more avarage prices see: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of... .. But remember that it depends on if you live in a big city or small city.. Apartments in central stockholm are really expensive.. Apartments in suburbs of stockh

All right, lets go with more details and numbers.

First, pensions. The number I gave you is a full pension, not everyone gets one and many elderly women would have to live of the pension of their (possibly dearly departed) husband. See here for details. So the 1100 euro is for two people and it is an AVERAGE.

Second, health costs. A healthy pensioner will have plenty with that 100 euro a month. Sadly, old age does not always mean good health.

Third, living costs, check this. Especially electricity, water, internet and phone costs.

Fourth rental prices, seriously, 400 euro does not get you much. You can live in an apartment in an out of the way area of the country with little to no public transportation (for example, where I live, a bus takes an hour to get to Antwerp and the train passes through once an hour - i'm 15km from the city center, it gets worse from here). Sure you'll have a roof over your head.

All in all, yes the average pensioner will survive and no you won't have much room.

It doesn't look like NZ is any cheaper than the US (other than rent), and the average pay is less. So it'd have to be a win for the location, not for financial reasons.

CoL: US vs. NZ

For much of the US, the biggest win appears to be a reduction in pollution.

QoL: Sacramento vs. Wellington

It doesn't look like NZ is any cheaper than the US (other than rent), and the average pay is less. So it'd have to be a win for the location, not for financial reasons.

CoL: US vs. NZ

For much of the US, the biggest win appears to be a reduction in pollution.

QoL: Sacramento vs. Wellington

The average person could not afford fast food or to go out to eat.

The biggest price difference was in carved elephants - I got one for ~$15 and saw an identical one in Santa Fe a year later selling for $900. I joked that it would be less expensive to fly there and buy it. That was the only local good, other than food, that I saw. The pay breakdown was approx $1/day laborer, $2/day skilled (plumber/electrician) and $3/day college professor/engineer.

Cost of living is also quite a bit higher though as well. Effectively, I believe that their $16 minimum wage comes out ahead of U.S. minimum wage (at least the Federal minimum wage, but not necessarily that of some states or cities) when adjusting for Purchase Power Parity, but it isn't going to translate into minimum wage workers being more wealthy to a considerable amount.

Also, some people would consider the Australia's government (currently a coalition lead by the Liberal Party of Australia (don't let the name fool you, the main "politically left" party is Labor)) to be as bad or worse than U.S. conservatives. If you're leaving the U.S. because of Trump, Australia isn't going to be any different or better for you politically speaking.

The difference in cost of living between my country's capital and New York is not that big.
Consumer prices are 1.5 times higher in New York; restaurant prices are 1.7 times higher in NY; Groceries prices are 2 times higher in NY.
Indeed, rent is much higher in NY (7 times higher) but that's an average and can vary greatly (Central Park view apartments cost a LOT more than periphery places).
In order to keep the same standard of life from my city (considering my current salary here), I need to make 4500 dollars a month as a specialist in NY. The average salary for my specialization in NY is a little bit over 7K dollars a month and could go as high as 11K dollars a month.
Here in my city I make 7.5 dollars an hour, working late shift (because most my customers are from the States). In NY I would make an average of 43.75 dollars an hour (accounting for salary ranges), that's almost 6 times higher than here, and in order to maintain the same living standard I would only have to earn 3.75 times as much.
The difference, mathematically speaking, is overhead. by moving to NY, with average salary, my standard of life would greatly improve. So there's your cost calculation right there.

Source: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

Feel free to compare any USA city with Bucharest and you'll see that the cost of living difference isn't that great.

I pay about 1200SEK (~140USD) extra per month for healthcare so i don't have to wait for a month or more if something happens. (see story of why below)

And i still do have to pay for every doctor-visit (about $20) and i have to pay for all prescribed medicine i buy.. (slight discount but forced to use the generics).. We do have a ceiling so when you reach ~2000SEK per year for doctors visits you don't have to pay anything more and when you reach ~2000SEK for medicine you get it for free too..

But biggest problem is that you have to push yourself thru the system because they want to do as little as possible..... Remember when i had a BIG infection and they just said "wait for a few more days"... Well, after 1.5 weeks i insisted, and refused to leave, before they drain "swelling".. Comment from doctor when he realized what was coming out from there was "This was not good"... spent 3 weeks with daily visits to them for draining it + getting prescribed powerful antibiotics...

Swedish health care may be semi-free / cheap, but good it is not.

If i get sick and have to stay home for 2 months i will not get anywhere close to full pay..
http://www.oresunddirekt.dk/en... ... (and you still have to pay tax on that money of course!)

and the cost of living in Sweden is not cheap..
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-...

Well, Walmart don't deliver so it's quite hard to get exact pricing.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-... suggests nearer $4 a gallon though, so lets go with that.

International grocery prices are surprisingly hard to find. Until I found that site anyway.

According to this site, the cost of a gallon of milk averages about 50 Yuan, which is about $7.50 in USD, so milk drinkers are even more fucked than they would be if they made the same salary in the US.

Overall, he cost of living in China is about 40% lower than the US, which sounds not so bad until you realize the average income in China is about 90% lower than the average income in the US.

In short, your theory that cost of living makes up for the income disparity is bullshit.

Yea, the software dev manager here was complaining because he needed a new programmer for a project. I jokingly said I could code and he replied that I wouldn't take $20,000 a year but he could contract someone in the Philippines for $20,000 a year. I make quite a bit more than $20,000 but the cost of living is also a lot higher than in Manila.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-...

Indices Difference
Consumer Prices in Denver, CO are 88.95% higher than in Manila
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Denver, CO are 127.23% higher than in Manila
Rent Prices in Denver, CO are 243.15% higher than in Manila
Restaurant Prices in Denver, CO are 198.53% higher than in Manila
Groceries Prices in Denver, CO are 97.02% higher than in Manila
Local Purchasing Power in Denver, CO is 175.43% higher than in Manila

[John]

far less than the $3.2 trillion per year needed to provide every American with $10,000/year stated by an earlier poster. So that's already $2 trillion unaccounted for right there.

Essentially, those numbers are ludicrous. When including a public aid system cut back to give EBT covering children of low-income households (rather than just handing out more cash every time you pop out a baby), the burden to taxpayers (counting money moving downward from rich hands into poor hands as "burden on taxpayers") is a trillion dollars lower.

Is $10,000/year even enough to live on in the US? http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-... [numbeo.com] lists the price of a one bedroom apartment outside the city center as $900/month, i.e. around $11,000/year.

You're thinking in terms of today's market. There's a huge amount of overhead in cost of risk that doesn't scale downward to small income demographics, because those demographics have unstable risk. I talked about this.

There would be no money left over for food, education, medicine, etc.

Medical and education are separate considerations. We have entire budgets and even economic debates over those; I understand both sides of the education economic debate, and I stand on the side that workforce development branded as "education" is an economically-harmful practice that creates a lot of waste in training excessively-large skilled workforces and flooding the labor market (I'm the guy who invented that argument in the first place; it takes several pages to explain).

so anyone who is poor today would still be poor under this new system - and living out on the street. Well, nicely done - you did not eliminate poverty after all

Checking my models.

National average HUD eligibility for extremely-low-income households for 1, 2, and 3 persons are $12,650, $14,200, and $15,800. These households's after-tax incomes would increase by approximately $7,250 for single-adult households and $14,500 for two-adult households. For just low-income households, incomes are $29,450, $33,700, and $37,900. Their incomes increase by just under $7,000 for single-adult households and just under $14,000 for two-adult households. Again: each of these households also gets an EBT-mediated public aid for any children, for any service for which they qualify (WIC food assistance, etc.), currently a state service and likely run as such for the foreseeable future.

The bottom 5%, 10%, and 15% of incomes are $7,100, $12,300, and $17,100. Such single-adult households would increase after-tax income to $13,800, $18,000, and $22,000, each above the Federal poverty lines for 1, 2, and 3 individuals, respectively. Two-adult households at these income levels would increase to $21,000, $26,000, and $30,000, above the Federal poverty lines for 3, 4, and 5 individuals.

The median Single Father household would increase its spendable income by $6,400; the median Single Mother household would increase its spendable income by $6,900.

Two-adult, married-filing households at $600,000 income would have about $30 more spendable money; two-adult, married-filing households at $700,000 income would pay $370 in additional taxes. Your average 1-adult, single-filing household is less-advantaged, with $200,000-income households retaining $1,000 more in spendable income, $300,000-income households paying $1,000 more.

Among the less-advantaged 1-income households, the top 1% income level of $330,000 pays $1,600 more in taxes. The 0.1% level of $1,700,000 pays $8,504 more in taxes. A household with $10,000,000 of income would pay $41,700 more in taxes.

These tax increases represent around $20 billion of a $1,000 billion redu

Is $10,000/year even enough to live on in the US? http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-... lists the price of a one bedroom apartment outside the city center as $900/month, i.e. around $11,000/year. There would be no money left over for food, education, medicine, etc., so anyone who is poor today would still be poor under this new system - and living out on the street.

Furthermore I suspect that the cost of commodities will greatly increase because now the rich who manage and control all the companies involved in production and distribution will see everyone has having an extra $10,000 to spend, so as a consequence those who make anything from a nothing to modest income will not only have to work excessively to live as they do now but with UBI they now have to pay more to live top of it.

Granted I'm not an economist so I may be wrong.

The same problem comes up in every discussion about UBI, and it is this one: people have no idea of the numbers involved, nor do they seem able to do basic sums. You come up with an impressive sounding list of programs 'that could be eliminated' under UBI, and then you vigorously wave your hands and assert that surely these are worth more than UBI!

Well - no, they are not. According to wikipedia, total expenditure on social programs in the US is $1.3 trillion per year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) ), far less than the $3.2 trillion per year needed to provide every American with $10,000/year stated by an earlier poster. So that's already $2 trillion unaccounted for right there. And _no_, government overhead is not anywhere near $2 trillion. You would only reach that figure if every last civil servant in the US (around 2 million, not counting postal workers) worked in social security, and earned around $1,000,000/year.

Is $10,000/year even enough to live on in the US? http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-... lists the price of a one bedroom apartment outside the city center as $900/month, i.e. around $11,000/year. There would be no money left over for food, education, medicine, etc., so anyone who is poor today would still be poor under this new system - and living out on the street. Well, nicely done - you did not eliminate poverty after all, but you did triple the cost of the program. Moreover, you reallocated funds that today go to the poor, and spread them to people who are already well-off.

This last problem will cause massive pressure to 'do something extra' for peope who still live on the street (and perhaps 'a little something' for people who have relatively high medical costs, and perhaps 'a little something more' for veterans or retired civil servants or whatever). Your claims that it would eliminate 'overhead' would quickly disappear as these new programs are put into place, and the government needs to figure out who qualifies and who doesn't.

There are other issues as well, but the simple fact that society simply cannot pay for UBI should already be enough to convince anyone.

Wait, Vancouver has the highest electricity prices in North America? According to Hydro Quebec the US is way over anything in Vancouver. I know down here in the Los Angeles area, we pay a bit more than San Francisco, we'd be around 400 on that scale - about 3 times that of Vancouver (around $0.24 USD per kWhr). And property taxes are really high here as well - not to mention the other taxes we get to pay. The cost of living in San Francisco is considerably higher than Vancouver. I think it is a common error for those outside the US to think t is cheap to live here. I've lived abroad a lot (Canada, Belgium, Chile, China, Thailand) and Belgium was the only place I would say was more expensive - and thay by just a hair.

If more guns make you safer, then the US should be the safest country on earth yet last year there were 12,236 deaths and a further 24,755 injuries from shootings(3.53 per 100,000). This casualty toll includes 640 children aged 0-11 killed or injured by guns.

Canada has outstandingly low gun casualty statistics. In 2009, there were 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun homicide — only 173 people. Still, the ownership is comparatively high — there are 23.8 firearms per 100 people in the country.

There is no legal right to possess arms in Canada. It takes sixty days to buy a gun there, and there is mandatory licensing for gun owners. Gun owners pursuing a license must have third-party references, take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories.

Licensing agents are required to advise an applicant's spouse or next-of-kin prior to granting a license, and licenses are denied to applicants with any past history of domestic violence. Buyers in private sales of weapons must pass official background checks.

Canadian civilians aren't allowed to possess automatic weapons, handguns with a barrel shorter than 10.5 cm or any modified handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most semi-automatic assault weapons are also banned. As a result of exemptions, several kinds of assault weapons are still legal in Canada, although this has been the source of some controversy.

You would think there would be more crime in Canada as almost no one carries a concealed weapon yet the per capita rate of all crimes is much lower than the US

Compare Canada to New Hampshire, USA: the most machine guns per capita in the country, about 10% of the population has a concealed carry license, no paperwork is needed to purchase, posses, or even to open carry a firearm.

Yet somehow, New Hampshire Is Safer Than Canada.

If more guns make you safer, then the US should be the safest country on earth yet last year there were 12,236 deaths and a further 24,755 injuries from shootings(3.53 per 100,000). This casualty toll includes 640 children aged 0-11 killed or injured by guns.

Canada has outstandingly low gun casualty statistics. In 2009, there were 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun homicide — only 173 people. Still, the ownership is comparatively high — there are 23.8 firearms per 100 people in the country.

There is no legal right to possess arms in Canada. It takes sixty days to buy a gun there, and there is mandatory licensing for gun owners. Gun owners pursuing a license must have third-party references, take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories.

Licensing agents are required to advise an applicant's spouse or next-of-kin prior to granting a license, and licenses are denied to applicants with any past history of domestic violence. Buyers in private sales of weapons must pass official background checks.

Canadian civilians aren't allowed to possess automatic weapons, handguns with a barrel shorter than 10.5 cm or any modified handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most semi-automatic assault weapons are also banned. As a result of exemptions, several kinds of assault weapons are still legal in Canada, although this has been the source of some controversy.

You would think there would be more crime in Canada as almost no one carries a concealed weapon yet the per capita rate of all crimes is much lower than the US

Your point being?

Apple is an american company, the US has a higher crime rate than Italy ( http://www.numbeo.com/crime/ra... ), and several american cities have higher crime rates than Naples, as shown before. Hence, opening offices in Naples perfectly complies with Apple's safety requirements, otherwise they would move away from their own homeland first. Hence your post and its title were just stupid, stupid, stupid.

Naples' crime rate is far lower than that of several US cities like Detroit, Saint Louis, Rochester, Philadelphia, and others:
http://www.numbeo.com/crime/ra...

Next time get informed using actual statistics, instead of "your sister".

Naples' crime rate is far lower than that of several US cities, such as Detroit, Saint Louis, Rochester, New Orleans, and others:
http://www.numbeo.com/crime/ra...

Next time stop watching movies and get informed about actual statistics before speaking.

For comparison's sake, look at India where just one of the 40 year old buses spewing black smoke is emitting thousands times more pollutants than a VW car, and then think that India has millions of these vehicles on the road.

Have you ever been to India? I guess not, since you will not find any diesel buses in the capital, New Delhi. The last diesel bus in Delhi ran in 2002! All buses and all auto-rickshaws have been converted to CNG, and do not spit out black smoke.

There are clearly other factors at play there, since New Delhi is the city with the worst air pollution on earth (bypassing even Beijng), such as delivery trucks and industry.

Actually, the air in Paris is worse:
http://www.numbeo.com/pollutio...

According to this report no Chinese city gets into the top 10 most polluted.... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world...

According to this 1 Xi'an is the worst in the world. With Phoenix being the worst American city at 97th worst, LA is 107th, London 171st http://www.numbeo.com/pollutio...

Xi'an makes one list but not the other, that just comes to show how reliable these lists are. The rule of thumb here is that when you are going to work and you find yourself wishing that you could echolocate like a bat to find the subway station because you can't see your hand in front of your face due to smog then it's time to consider moving to a cleaner place. The sad thing is that many cities in China fit that description because of the fact that for decades the Chinese Govt. has not cared one bit about environmental issues because it lowered production costs. There are free market pundits in the west who'd like us to follow the Chinese example based on the premise that environmental regulations get in the way of companies making profit. If you want to know where that leads take a look at China. However, the Chinese public is getting fed up with this and that explosion in Tianjin is just the latest drop into the cup of their dissatisfaction (It's absolutely unbelievable that those firemen were sent into a hazardous chemicals storage facility without knowing what was kept there, simply because even the facilities operators didn't know). It will be interesting to watch what happens when that cup fills up and flows over.

According to this report no Chinese city gets into the top 10 most polluted....
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world...

According to this 1 Xi'an is the worst in the world. With Phoenix being the worst American city at 97th worst, LA is 107th, London 171st
http://www.numbeo.com/pollutio...

Except that $200k would be worth more in Minnesota than it would in CA, TX or NY, our cost of living is much lower and your dollar goes much further.

How do you figure? Consumer Prices in Dallas, TX are 0.81% lower than in Minneapolis, MN
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Dallas, TX are 3.79% lower than in Minneapolis, MN
Rent Prices in Dallas, TX are 9.38% lower than in Minneapolis, MN
Restaurant Prices in Dallas, TX are 5.02% higher than in Minneapolis, MN
Groceries Prices in Dallas, TX are 14.24% lower than in Minneapolis, MN
Local Purchasing Power in Dallas, TX is 0.16% lower than in Minneapolis, MN

So I guess unless you eat out for every meal, Texas is way cheaper.
Not to mention Texas has no state income tax... so add 5% to all of that.

You're conflating freedom with capitalism as well as conflating a social program with socialism.

In the USA, the people have long held that providing an education is so essential to the public good that it's mandatory for everyone to attend school up to a certain age - and usually tax-payer funded. Every public elementary, middle, and high school is a social program. Germany has simply included college as an essential social program - which makes sense given that today's economy requires higher education (given that robots and machines have taken over manual labor.)

Since most decent paying jobs today require a college degree, most every argument made for supporting the public social schooling programs of K-12 in the past can be made for supporting college today as well. Even those that do not have children still pay the taxes for K-12 because it's widely understood that the more educated the populace, the better tools they have to get jobs and the more informed they'll be on social issues when voting.

Your prior post, as the parent points out, omit that Germany is a very different country and provides different benefits than the USA's system - such as their universal health care. Overall, it also has lower rent prices, lower grocery prices, and higher purchasing power than the USA. They have different social programs; but they are not a socialist country.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-...

Except that the effect of that is, everything in Australia costs more. (Cite.)

So what is the point of higher wages again?

As long as people can live on less than 1/2 the wages in these areas, the US workforce will never be able to compete. For instance, a pound of rice or a loaf of bread costs less than $0.50. And when you consider that they're comparing equivalent lifestyles, not the average lifestyle in each area, that wage disparity grows even larger. Now, in a truly global economy, we (US folks) would buy up all this cheap rice instead of our very expensive rice. Why doesn't this happen? Because we're not in a global economy, obviously.

Don't really see how timezone differences come out as a "cost". It would be pretty expensive to fly marketing people out to trade shows in your bigger market areas, but given than the two biggest markets are currently on different continents (one of which spans 4 timezones), everyone has that issue.

Product transport costs should only be an issue if they were also manufacturing in AU. I doubt that, but even if they were that's solvable by using the same manufacturers everyone else does.

If your whole team is in the same time zone, development should actually be cheaper in AU than in a lot of places in the US. For instance, compared to silicon valley, the cost of living is much cheaper in Canbera.

It looks to me reading TFA like they had some recruiting issues in Canbera, and shot themselves in the foot (or perhaps the head) trying to fix them.

Sources close to the situation informed us that, at one point, a move to Melbourne was being planned, in an attempt to help attract new talent to the studio. This allegedly caused many high-level members of the team to leave and that may have factored into 2K’s decision to shut down the studio

I'll go on my own knowledge and cursory research. In the South East I can get a nice 5BR 3bath house with a 4 car garage (with 8' doors high enough for my Van) on about 10 acres of land for around $800 a month mortgage or $1200 rent (will stick to rent for the calculation) and a 30 Minute light traffic commute. Food costs for two people are about $300 (including weekly dinners out averaging $50/ week). Utilities are average $500 per month (Electric/Cable/Water/Phones). We burn about $200/month on various entertainment. Insurance on 2 Vehicles is $100/month. Changing monthly expenses to yearly: $18,500. Now we add in the yearly expenses. Insurance on my motorcycle is $342 per year, and yearly registration for the 3 vehicles is a total of $60 ( registration only, all taxes and ad-valorem paid at first time registration in-state per sale, no emissions control fee except in greater Atl area). Total Yearly Expenses: ~$18,900 (give or take since I haven't included maintenance or fuel costs) For good measure, round up to an even $20K to account for the missing costs noted. Now, say I have a position paying $150k / year (not going to figure tax into this for simplicity sake) my expenses are only about 13% of my income, with a $130k savings / year against inflation.

Now, I'll perform some cursory research on Bay area expenses. Using estimates from this Bay area rent on a studio apartment averages around $2,000 / month with longer commute times (outside of city center). Also note that in my search of housing listings (not linked), available houses to buy/rent with just the comparable square footage and not even counting lot acreage don't exist out there, and we like our space. Food costs run about $600(not including the weekly dinners out, add $80/week for that for comparable food/service quality). I had my Insurance agent run the numbers not long ago when I was budgeting against a contract offer in the Bay Area that I turned down; my 2 vehicles would run me about $300/month and the bike would be $800/year just on insurance, if I found a place where I could park 'em all. Other necessities are listed as $613/month which I'm assuming would be the utilities. I haven't checked on registration costs for my Van, Car, and Bike, but given that there are taxes and fees assesed above registration, I've figured about $200 per vehicle per year (this could be an overshoot or undershoot by a significant amount, and I admit that). Changing the monthly to yearly, as above: $45,996. Adding the yearly reccuring costs: $47,396. Again, to adjust for additional costs, rounding up to $49k Expenses are now above 30% of my income with only $100k / year for savings and a significant hit to quality of life. For it to be worth the move out there, $300k would be the minimum I would accept on an offer, and that's only if they offered moving assistance where I didn't have to pay a dime in moving costs, otherwise the price would go up. Much more reasonable than FlyHelicopter's 750k, but I've yet to find a company willing to make an offer of even $250k, and that's if they're really desperate. Not willing to add that extra $50k? You don't need me that bad and I'm too comfortable. Enjoy your quakes.

See here:

http://www.numbeo.com/property...

this is the buy-to-rent ratio.

A pound of rice costs the same anywhere

It really doesn't. One kilo of rice costs C$3.67 in Montreal. One kilo of rice costs C$0.98 in Havana. Not everything is cheaper, but many things are.

You can see the direct comparison here:

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-...