Coronavirus Is Revealing How Broken America's 'Developed' Economy Really Is
'Coronavirus is revealing how broken Americas economy really is.' We are told by everyone from the UN to Donald Trump that the US is a developed economy. The statistics suggest otherwise. The Guardian, April 6, 2020. *See Graphics
When Susan Finley developed flu-like symptoms, she didnt go to the doctor because she was frightened about the cost. Finleys grandparents later found her dead in her apartment. She was 53. Finley did not die as a result of Covid-19. She died in 2016 as a result of Americas healthcare system a system that led her to avoid treatment for the common flu in order to avoid debt. It is that same system that is currently creaking under the pressure of a pandemic that experts warned was coming but governments failed to prepare for. It is a system that does not qualify for the term developed.
The United States of America, we are told by everyone from the president to the United Nations, is a developed economy. That term, developed economy, sounds like an endpoint, like man standing upright after a series of hunched and hairy iterations. Its the contrast that makes the definition developed economies can only really exist if they are compared to their poorer developing counterparts. Covid-19 has merely shown the cracks in a very successful marketing campaign about which category the US falls into.
There are 2.9 hospital beds for every 1,000 people in the United States. Thats fewer than Turkmenistan (7.4 beds per 1,000), Mongolia (7.0), Argentina (5.0) and Libya (3.7). In fact, the US ranks 69th out of 182 countries analyzed by the World Health Organization. This lack of hospital beds is forcing doctors across the country to ration care under Covid-19, pushing up the number of preventable deaths. Americas numbers are similarly unimpressive when it comes to medical doctors. The United States has 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, placing it behind Trinidad & Tobago (2.7), and Russia (4.0 doctors per 1,000, for a country that is described as being in transition). Life expectancies at birth are lower in the US than they are in Chile or China. The US has a higher maternal mortality rate than Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Its not just health. Access to the internet is better in Bahrain and Brunei (two countries the UN does not consider developed economies) than it is in the US. Inequality scores are higher in America than they are in Mali and Yemen. A closer country to America in inequality is Israel, a country which functions as an apartheid state. And the US ranks 81st in the world in terms of womens political representation. So, youve got a better chance of making it into office as a woman if you live in Vietnam, or Albania. Sub-Saharan Africa is most comparable to America - 24% of seats in the regions parliaments are held by women, the same figure as in the US. In the United States, 83% of students graduate high school. That figure is higher in Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Barbados, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Montenegro. None of those countries are considered developed economies by the United Nations.
So why does the United Nations consider the US as a developed economy when its own statistics so clearly suggest otherwise? One might argue that its about simple wealth, or gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of the economy, per capita...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2020/apr/06/coronavirus-american-reaction-economy-covid-19
Cirque du So-What
(25,908 posts)It blew my mind to discover the extent of ineptitude throughout the corporate world. Previously, I thought it was my misfortune to work for a poorly-managed company; I found out it's nearly universal.
SharonAnn
(13,771 posts)Business are full of nepotism, incompetence, sycophants, discrimination, etc. Much more than government is.
appalachiablue
(41,105 posts)and we know by who, and why. Where's Grover these days, among many others?
BComplex
(8,019 posts)and she should have been our candidate.
Being a woman only makes her better qualified.
murielm99
(30,717 posts)She will continue to do an excellent job right where she is. President Biden will listen to her.
appalachiablue
(41,105 posts)desperately need in leaders now.