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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGood read - shared with me by a friend "Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really
Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really Is?
What it Means When I Say America is the Worlds First Poor Rich Country
umair haque
https://eand.co/do-americans-know-what-a-massive-ripoff-american-life-really-is-8804aa6b65fa
Ive recently moved to the States shudder for a year or two. And Im shocked at how expensive just life is. For no good reason at all.
When I put my economist hat on, a fact becomes clear to me. American life is a gigantic rip-off, one of the worlds biggest, and thats why America is now effectively a country of poor people, and that makes it a nation of angry, cruel, and selfish ones, too.
But Im getting ahead of myself. Let me start over. American life is the biggest ripoff in the world. Or at least one of the biggest, in the top five, certainly. Just
existing. It costs way, way more than it should. So much so that America cannot ever move forward as a society. So, trapped in a cycle, which economists call a poverty trap, Americans now stay poor.
Americans dont quite get this, though. Why would they? Theyve never lived anywhere else. So let me give you a few examples which, especially if youre American, might be illuminating. Well begin with basic bills, and then zoom out from there.
snip - some good data and discussion points - worth a read
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)Thanks for posting!
malaise
(268,633 posts)for visibility.
Steve Rattner presented some charts this morning showing how much more is made available in Europe for healthcare, education, maternity and paternity leave, etc. It was stunning.
Good read
Response to NewHendoLib (Original post)
malaise This message was self-deleted by its author.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,811 posts)but most of them have never travelled overseas.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)While it is obvious that housing costs costs are too high and have resulted in homelessness, much of that cost is due to bidding by potential residents. Americans have decided they prefer bidding ears
maxsolomon
(33,232 posts)Discussed at length 2 weeks ago.
NewHendoLib
(60,006 posts)maxsolomon
(33,232 posts)It was met with a lot of hostility IIRC.
NewHendoLib
(60,006 posts)about what stirs things up around here
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)While it is obvious that housing costs costs are too high and have resulted in homelessness, much of that cost is due to bidding by potential residents. Americans have decided they prefer bidding wars to other forms of selection.
Americans have also decided they hate taxes more than they appreciate government. Actually, they seem to hate government even more than taxes. So, if, say, good schools mean higher taxes, we'll deal with lousy schools by sending our kids to private schools. And we will loudly complain about potholes as though pothole filling teams are free and somehow descend from the clouds. Admittedly, American governments have too often deserved this scorn.
The US has never appreciated the value of a professional class of civil servants. After largely eliminating the spoils system and its endemic corruption, we started building a decent civil service, but still don't take it seriously enough.
We also have this corrupted concept of individual freedom. Cars are a prime example. It seems most people are so used to driving everywhere that they will refuse mass transit even when cheaper, faster, and more convenient (a combination that is admittedly rare)