Slashdot Mirror
US Near Bottom In Life Expectancy In Developed World
Hugh Pickens writes "Louise Radnofsky reports that a study by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine has found U.S. life expectancy ranks near the bottom of 17 affluent countries. The U.S. is at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections; prevalence of HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability. Americans fare worse than people in other countries even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese. The report notes that average life expectancy for American men, at 75.6 years, was the lowest among the 17 countries and almost four years shorter than for Switzerland, the best-performing nation. American women's average life expectancy is 80.8 years, the second-lowest among the countries and five years shorter than Japan's, which had the highest expectancy. 'The [U.S.] health disadvantage is pervasive — it affects all age groups up to age 75 and is observed for multiple diseases, biological and behavioral risk factors, and injuries,' say the report's authors. The authors offered a range of possible explanations for Americans' worse health and mortality, including social inequality, limited availability of contraception for teenagers, community designs that discourage physical activity such as walking, air pollution as well as individual behaviors such as high calorie consumption. The report's authors were particularly critical of the availability of guns. 'One behavior that probably explains the excess lethality of violence and unintentional injuries in the United States is the widespread possession of firearms and the common practice of storing them (often unlocked) at home,' reads the report. 'The statistics are dramatic.'"
People who are making little money in USA are NOT productive. A productive person is not somebody working for a minimum wage at some Burger King, a productive person is somebody who figures out how to use the capital in a more efficient manner to increase efficiency.
For example Romney is quite productive, his company can take an unproductive US enterprise and figure out a way to extract more wealth out of it than he put into it. So it's a classical 'buy low, sell high' situation. Whether or not he uses some political advantage to do this (maybe he gets preferential loans that for example could be guaranteed by government), he is working within a system that has all these possibilities to take that advantage. Of-course the real productivity is only achieved when there is no government intervention at all, including any type of regulation, income level tax, subsidy, inflation (money printing).
A person is made more productive when capital is applied to his labour, so a person with an excavator can dig more and faster and better than a person with a shovel. The excavator is capital investment, which makes the labourer more productive.
When a company figures out a way to cut costs it makes itself more productive, because it increases efficiencies. So a company that outsources manufacturing to a country with lower government costs (fewer regulations, lower taxes, maybe less inflation) becomes more productive. But this means a company is more productive, not any particular employee within it.
Employees hired by companies are really only parts of the machine that the company is, and if those parts can be replaced with better quality parts that last longer or with cheaper parts (but this may mean salary and/or regulations surrounding hiring and firing and employment process), then replacing those parts makes the company more productive.
We always want more productivity based on free market incentives, because that's the type of productivity that makes everybody wealthier by allowing them to participate. If you are an investor you want to invest in a company that is more efficient, more productive. If you are a customer, you want to buy from a company that is giving you the best deal.
If you are buying products, you want to pay as little for them as possible, because that means you are being as efficient as possible, so you can buy more (and/or maybe have more savings and thus investment capital of your own).
You can't handle the truth.
I can appreciate your desire to eliminate a class of poverty in America, but the issue is complicated - as history demonstrates. So I pose a few questions to you.
Does freedom allow people to make poor decisions?
If someone would rather not work and be poor, is it best to force them to work, or should we just let them be poor and figure it out on their own?
If such people (as referenced above) exist, then is it best to give them money and equalize the classes or to educate them and empower them?
Is America a place where anyone can succeed by persistent hard work and self-discipline? If not, can we make it such a place?
Does a government exist to impose equality across the peoples, or to empower people to better themselves?
Is it possible to force an equalization of wealth across a nation without eliminating freedom? If not, is it worth it?
"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone."