Submitted by smurfyjenkins t3_1027s43 in science
Reply to comment by Cranialscrewtop in European economies have developed stronger anti-trust regulations, more competitive markets, and more robust consumer protection than the US in the last 20 years. The reason for this is the EU. EU member states are incentivized to empower a strongly independent pro-competition regulator. by smurfyjenkins
The US wildly outperforms the EU in homelessness, incarceration, poverty and bankruptcy also.
IThe US poverty rate at present is 12.8% source: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/10/poverty-rate-varies-by-age-groups.html
At present only 4 of 27 EU countries are lower than the US average. Even Germany, the financial powerhouse of Europe has a poverty rate of 15.8%. Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?end=2020&locations=EU&start=2019
You will see America is higher than most European countries:
I would say the world bank has good data.
I think you missed that the World Bank explicitly states that they are using national, country-specific poverty lines. What it means to be below the poverty line in the US is something substantially different than what it means to be below the poverty line in Germany.
Exactly. Poor in NY is a different income than North Dakota. Same between countries. That's what makes the World Bank's data more meaningful, not less.
OECD has more up to date information and you can compare more easily.
These two might be correlated. Maybe if your metrics aren't only share holder profits, and you actually care about the health of your society, your outcomes will look different to those who only care about and measure profits. Maybe comparing these two on the metrics of only one of them isn't a genuine comparison. Just thoughts.
>The US wildly outperforms the EU in homelessness, incarceration, poverty and bankruptcy also.
Thats because the EU uses taxpayer money just giving people homes and money (and healthcare) whether they deserve it or not. They basically buy stat points. If people had to truly earn things maybe it would be more similar to the US
These systems have better outcomes, overall, though.
The best way to defeat homelessness? Give people housing. It may seem simple, but the impact is massive. Without a house/fixed residence, you can barely function in society. Among other things, you'll find it supremely difficult to... you know... find permanent residence.
Incarceration rates? The EU has lower recividism rates, lower incarceration rates overall, and spends less on average per prisoner. The system works better.
Who cares if they "deserve it", if you're getting better results for similar or lower costs?
Healthcare is the best example of this, whereby overall health outcomes are better in most places in the EU, for a far lower cost per capita. You spend less, to get more. Who cares if someone reaches some arbitrary definition of "deserve it", if the system works better for less cash.
You, the taxpayer, could get more for what you're putting in.
So the ends justify the means? Force decent hardworking people to pay more in taxes so others can get a handout? Just to check a box of lower homelessness?
Give people healthcare they don't deserve at the expense of taxpayers just to check a box? We can also spend less by reducing regulation...stop programs like medicare/medicaid and stop forcing ER to treat people who admit they have no intention of paying their bills.
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Giving bad actors handouts isnt a better result. It rewards greed, selfishness and failure.
Talking to you is useless, you can't read. The dude just said taxpayers spend less for more effective welfare that helps them as well, and you're talking about forcing taxpayers to spend more
Or you can spend even less and have no welfare. They are ways to spend less witnout the negatives of welfare programs existing. He made the argument "we waste money still just more efficiently " people use that argument but wont look at..."what if we eliminate welfare all together"
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Ah yes, "buying stat points."
Also known as ensuring their people have places to live and lives worth living.
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Everyone deserves shelter, healthcare, and personal safety; the lack of any of those three is more a failure on the wider society than on that particular individual.
Do you have any evidence everybody deserves those things? Based on what do you make that statement? Seems pretty selfish and arrogant. How is it societies job to make people responsible for themselves. People are responsible for themselves...not others.
The mouth-breathing hypocrisy of saying it's selfish that everyone deserves shelter and healthcare is beyond me.
Prisoners, even the ones in American for-profit prisons, get shelter and healthcare even if it is of a poor/negligent quality. Zoo animals get shelter and healthcare. Why do you think people who do not have as much resources as others due to where they were born or life circumstances deserve homelessness or suffering.
Do you prefer tax cuts for billionaires so they can sit on mountains of digital equity they could never possible spend; rather than using the potential tax revenue to reduce child poverty, or homelessness or incidence of drug addiction. Would you vote against reducing price gouging by medical companies so people can afford medication without fear of bankruptcy.
Americas's rugged individualism may have created an economic superpower but it's one where robber-barons, tech-entrepreneurs and big-pharma siphon all of the wealth; and in exchange the American individual can own a pet tiger, an AK47, and hundreds of thousands in crippling student/medical debt.
I didnt say they deserve homelessness but that doesnt mean they deserve homes. And natural consequence is why they are homeless. Prisoners getting those things (at a far higher quality than they should given they are criminals is a neccesary evil to keep them deperated from polite society) zoo animals are a wierd comparison considering its not exactly a better deal for them to be locked up compared to being in their natural habitat. If rather tax cuts for everybody so they can keep more of their money. Its not a rich v poor thing. Anybody should keep their money. If people choose drugs or make choices that end in homeless they can face natural consequences. Parents who refuse to care foe thwir children should be charged with abuse and neglect accordingly.Im perfectly fine with reducing regulation that would increase competition for medical needs but the govt already interferes too much in cost regulation. People choose to take on student debt.
I can only tell you in all honesty, that your vision for a society would be considered a dystopian nightmare by the majority of European cultures. There's too big a gulf between what you see as the value of unchained capitalism to promote competition and a darwinian survival of the fittest society, to ever reconcile with European efforts to create a bottom up social structure which puts the moral onus on the strongest/wealthiest actors to lift up the weakest/most vulnerable.
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