Good read - shared with me by a friend "Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really

[NewHendoLib]

Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really Is?

What it Means When I Say America is the World’s First Poor Rich Country
umair haque

https://eand.co/do-americans-know-what-a-massive-ripoff-american-life-really-is-8804aa6b65fa

I’ve recently moved to the States — shudder — for a year or two. And I’m 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 world’s biggest, and that’s why America is now effectively a country of poor people, and that makes it a nation of angry, cruel, and selfish ones, too.

But I’m 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 don’t quite get this, though. Why would they? They’ve never lived anywhere else. So let me give you a few examples which, especially if you’re American, might be illuminating. We’ll begin with basic bills, and then zoom out from there.

snip - some good data and discussion points - worth a read

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Many valid points!

Thanks for posting!

[malaise]

2. Off to the greatest page

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

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Not only have most Americans never lived anywhere else,

but most of them have never travelled overseas.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Interesting, but a bit hyperbolic. For one thing, he underestimates income here...

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]

6. Dupe.

Discussed at length 2 weeks ago.

[NewHendoLib]

7. I missed it and Dupes are fine in GD.

[maxsolomon]

9. OK, just thought you should know

It was met with a lot of hostility IIRC.

[NewHendoLib]

10. wow. well. we are a big tent and nothing surprises me

about what stirs things up around here

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Interesting, but a bit hyperbolic. For one thing, he underestimates income here...

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)