Slashdot Mirror

Meanwhile in actual reality the United States spends more on education than most countries. The problem is a top-heavy educational administration, but these people usually have the 'right' D party allegiance so we can't talk about that.

Latest estimate is that 54% of the world's population lives in cities. That's over 4 billion people. So $3 billion spent on surveillance works out to less than 75 cents per person.

Of course most of that spending is skewed towards developed countries. But even there, the OECD accounts for about 18% of the world's population, or 1.37 billion. 68% of them live in cities, or 930 million. So $3 billion represents about $3.20 per OECD citizen, or 0.017% of the average OECD government spending of $18,496 per citizen.

Inequality: Nope, the social programs Dems advocate for arent as significant as the programs actually in place in much of Western Europe.

US government social spending in the US is above OECD average and higher than, say, the UK.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/s...

The tax rates Dems propose arent as redistributive either

In fact, the US has the highest tax progressivity among OECD nations.

https://www.mercatus.org/publi...

That's on top of a large, regressive VAT tax in Europe.

Spending: Obviously Europe is more to the left then us with spending.

In fact, European budgets are nearly balanced and debts capped as a requirement of EU membership.

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

Unlike the US, European countries cut social expenditures in order to meet their budget objectives.

Close but I think the laws in place against hate speach and the like (not a fan but they're there) push Europe ahead in this catagory.

Restrictions on free speech are a favorite of both the left and the right; in Europe, they largely came out of right-wing restrictions against criticizing church and state, and the restrictions aren't intended to help socially weak groups, but instead avoid conflict.

Their socialised medicine alone puts them beyond us. The dems Obamacare doesnt even come close.

Socialized medicine in Europe originated with right-wing governments, not left-wing governments, as a way to control workers. Many European nations have two-tiered systems, in which the bottom 90% are stuck with an inconvenient public system, and the top 10% enjoy a high quality private system. In addition, people have to pay for their coverage, either explicitly (Germany, Switzerland, etc.) or implicitly (other countries).

Note also that the US government already spends more per capita on healthcare than almost all other OECD governments (the problem is that the US government is spending the money so poorly):

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

So, I don't understand in what way you think that Europe's health care systems (and they are all different) are more "left wing" than the US healthcare system.

So in summary, I think you're wrong as our Democrats are to the right on most of the points you list, particularly the most significant ones.

I could go on with the other points... but I think I made my point.

I think the source of your confusion and the confusion of many other Americans is that you view the political spectrum as one-dimensional. In fact, there is a left-right axis and an authoritarian-libertarian axis. European parties are overwhelmingly authoritarian and differ along the left-right axis. US parties are first of all much more heterogeneous than European parties, but to the degree that they differ, they differ along the authoritarian-libertarian axis, with Democrats leaning strongly towards authoritarianism. That is what makes US Democrats similar to Europeans. But European authoritarianism is frequently Christian conservative, not socialist.

Pension funds (pdf) cost between 0,1 and 1,2%. Is there a good explanation for this or is Yale getting scammed?

... because 25% of the Greek population and their cousins is employed by the state, twiddling their thumbs or something,

Based on OECD, Employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force (some selective countries):

• Greece 8%,
• Germany 11%,
• USA 14%,
• UK 18%,
• France 22%.

source

Receiving big, nice paychecks, often 13-15 paychecks a year and many being able to retire in their 50's.

It used to be one extra monthly paycheck per year for everybody, until few years ago (now it is stoped), and the "retire in their 50's" was not so common as believed (and when true it was more like: "retire in their very late 50's").

Obviously, this is not a sustainable model. But try to take some of that away, reduce the grants, incomes and pensions to levels that the Greek economy can actually sustain, and all of Greek media starts being indignant about it, blaming Germany and Europe for all this shit.

I agree.

I think Greece better fits as a province of Turkey.

I start from your last sentence because i don't think people should waste time reading my reply to a person like you.

Greece does not belong into EU either - what other EU country does have 10% of its population as civil servants? Even Bulgaria is better than that.

Based on OECD, Employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force:
Greece 7%,
Germany 11%,
USA 15%,
UK 18%,
France 22%
(note: i put USA in for our non-European friend in Slashdot to compare)
source

And why not? Greece does not belong into the Euro-zone because they have falsified their papers. Corruption, cheating, nepotism and tax evasion is Greek national past time after all.

I don't deny any of this accusations, and i can accept that we Greeks are the worste people on the world, BUT: don't believe everything you read.

Europeans own far fewer cars per capita then americans
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/s...

Or British, or Hungarians, or ...

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/s...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.co...

Yes, 58.5% is really high, but most of it is for servicing its huge mountain of debt (175% of its GDP).

Japan has more public debt than Greece. But its government only spends about 35% of its GDP.

You forget that these spending numbers are percentages of GDP, not absolute numbers. In this regard, China does not have the spending capacity. In terms of nominal GDP (World Bank, 2012), the EU spent $3.27e11 (327 short billions) in R&D, while China spent $1.65e11 - only just over half. The US, with a slightly smaller GDP than Europe but a higher R&D expenditure is still winning the spending race with $4.35e11. You'll notice TFA also spends most of its time criticising the quality of Chinese research, consistent with the western notion that academic freedom and a competitive market are integral to scientific and technological progress.

The countries with the highest GERD in the OECD are:

1. Israel (4.38),
2. Finland (3.78),
3. Korea (3.74),
4. Sweden (3.37),
5. Japan (3.26),
6. Denmark (3.06).

source

The answer is pretty simple. It's because contrary to convention wisdom, the U.S. economy is very unreliant on imports and exports. Relative to the size of its economy, there is very little foreign trade, and most of what there is is with Canada which for the most part speaks English. The vast majority of U.S. economic activity (85%-90%) is domestic.

This is in stark contrast to other OECD nations. If you subtract the U.S. and Japan from the average, their international trade is about a third to half their GDP. It's much more important to know a foreign language in these countries if you want to get somewhere with your career. People in the U.S. and Japan OTOH can for the most part ignore other countries and still have a very successful career knowing only their native language.

It's funny that you talk about "above 20% of GDP" as if it's high, when countries with stronger protections for civil liberties, like Denmark, have a government sized at 50% of GDP.

Actually, that's roughly 58% of GDP in 2009 and Denmark is higher as a fraction of GDP than any other country in the OECD.

There is state and local government spending in the US. That is about as large as the federal spending. So sure, the US government could spend another 15-20% more than it currently does, though there's no particular reason to do so aside from digging the economic hole deeper.

As to Denmark and its fabled "stronger protections for civil liberties", it's part of the EU which recently crossed yet another civil liberties line by trying to force Cyprus to take a depositor "haircut" on bank deposits that are supposed to be 100% insured (relatively small deposits under 100k euro, if I remember correctly). Not honoring important contracts with the public (especially when the problems in question were partly the EU's fault due to the write off of Greek government debt by Cyprus banks), is a huge step towards not honoring the laws of the land, such as those respecting civil liberties.

I believe also we will see that spending lots of other peoples' money inversely correlates with "stronger protections for civil liberties". If government is taking three fifths or more of your income, then that's a substantial absence of liberty. And I also believe that Denmark just won't get a lot for what they spent. I will say however that Denmark's debt situation looks a lot better than the US's. We'll see if it stays that way.

Then there's countries like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland...

Many/most of those countries are not socialist at all -- at best they spend a bit more on social programs (and pay for it with higher taxes). Almost none of them have state ownership of business. The vast majority are heavily engaged in the private sector, and let the private market handle their services. They're social market economies, same as the US, just with higher taxes and an extra program or two.

The US has the same debt to gdp ratio as Germany... without nearly as many social programs. For instance, Germany has universal healthcare and free higher education.

Yet we spend a similar amount of money as the Europeans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_programs_in_the_United_States#cite_note-Alber-2

"In 2002, total U.S. social welfare expenditure constitutes roughly 35% of GDP, with purely public expenditure constituting 21%, publicly supported but privately provided welfare services constituting 10% of GDP and purely private services constituting 4% of GDP. This compared to France and Sweden whose welfare spending ranges from 30% to 35% of GDP.["

We're #5 in net social expenditure (Chart I.11:): http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/5kg2d2d4pbf0.pdf?expires=1346275390&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=0275BC0FEE97626156C26F9ECF2EDF34

We just happen to be pisspoor at implementing effective programs at the public level (another reason people toss so many barbs at the government). We spend the money and get no bang for our buck, no increase in effectiveness. Another interesting observation from Chart I.11 is that there's plenty of countries that spend more in private social expenditure than public that are doing quite well: Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Germany. That's right, Germany and the Netherlands share more similarities with the US than they do with the "socialist" European countries they're often paired with. They just do it way better than we do.

The US has put themselves in a situation where they are spending as much as Socialist countries, but without getting any of the benefits of social programs. Instead they get lots of bombs. Fantastic.

I can see you agree with me. The difference, however, is that the spending is not only going towards bombs (well at least not in lieu of social spending -- defense has it's ~20% piece too). It is going towards social spending, just very ineffectively. And this is exactly why Republicans call for reform (rather than "more programs"). If we can't even do these right, what would make you think we should tack on a few more before figure out what we're doing wrong? (especially considering our debt problem). We're spending about 5 times what we spend on defense on social programs, yet the only complaints from the Democrats are about "the bloated defense budget". I don't get it.

Some relevant data here (per pupil spending):
US average - $10499
Alabama - $8870
California - $9657
Mississippi - $8075

You'd be surprised, but California is really not spending a lot on their kids either. The places that are spending a lot:
DC - $16408
New Jersey - $16271
New York - $18126
Alaska - $15552
Vermont - $15175

For comparison to your 2008-2009 data, here's the 2008 data for OECD countries (PPP so local cost of living is taken into account, data is from this page):

Australia - $7814
Canada - $8388
France - $8559
Germany - $7859
Italy - $9071
Japan - $8301
S. Korea - $6723
Poland - $4682 (the U.S. educational results are closest to Poland's)
Spain - $8522
Sweden - $9524
U.K. - $9169

Denmark - $10429
Austria - $10994
U.S. - $10995
Norway - $12070
Switzerland - $13775
Luxembourg - $16909

As for how the students perform in school vs. amount spent, refer to chart B7.2 on this spreadsheet. Basically, only Italy gets worse test results per dollar spent on each student. So yeah by U.S. standards California is "really not spending a lot on their kids". But compared to other OECD countries, California's spending is well above average. These results suck any way you cut them.

At least over here in NL, the supposed requirement to work longer because of increased life expectancy is a sham. One perpetuated (with great success) with the goal of making Gen X and down pay for the 'boomers. The largest part of the increase in life expectancy in the past 40 years is due to a reduction in infant mortality rates. The life expectancy of a person 65 years of age (which is what matters for pension schemes) has increased perhaps by 1 year in that period. An increase that can easily be covered by a slight increase in pension premiums.

Actually, this doesn't appear to be the case for the OECD as a whole: according to the OECD