Welfare State Key To Canada's Successful Future

[Hugo]

There may not be as many "poor", but the average Swede is a lot poorer than the average American, and poor Americans compare very favourably to poor Swedes in their material circumstances.

The Swedish Institute of Trade finds that (on purchasing power parity) the median Swedish income is about $27,000, as compared to $40,000 in the US. In fact, the average Swede earns less than the average black American.

According to Cox and Alm, Swedish incidence of ownership of such items as computers, dishwashers, clothes washers, tumbledryers, televisions, microwaves, cars and VCRs is considerably lower than that in the USA. For instance, microwave ownership in the US during the 1990s was 86% of households, compared to 37% in Sweden. 82% of American households owned a tumbledryer, compared to 18% in Sweden.

Sweden also boasts a larger disparity between male and female incomes. Swedish women not only earn less than American women, they earn proportionately less compared to Swedish men as well. The pace of life is found to be more than double that of the American, the crude death and suicide rates are both higher, and there are less Swedish teachers per student, one-third as many R&D personnel per 1000 workers, two-thirds the percentage of manufacturing labourers employed in high-tech industries, and so forth.

[shackwacky]

It is such that I will not let your ignorance and contempt for those who are, seemingly, better educated and more socially responsible than you, go unchallenged.

I bow to your obviously very superior mind, eureka.

I was just reading the forum rules and apparently they frown on posts that attack the poster rather than address the issue. So I will take my ignorant contemptuous uneducated posts elsewhere.

Cheers.

[August1991]

I would suggest, Hugo, that you look at the links I gave.

eureka, you provided one link to the Canadian Council on Social Development which is hardly an unbiased source.

I will not dispense with the Swedish argument so quickly

but Hugo, apparently after a few minutes on the Internet, has come up with data that at least challenges your view.

The last time I checked OECD data, Sweden (like Canada) has seen government expenditures fall as a percentage of GDP over the past 15 years or so. In Canada, this may in part be due to falling interest rates and hence lower interest payments. International comparisons are so difficult.

In the case of Sweden, there has been an understanding of the limits to what government can do.

When government taxes close to 50% of total income either to redistribute it or to consume for public services, there is a limit to how much further it can go.

I think the issue now is really to understand what government can do and what it can't do.

(I note in the CCSD's annual report that about 95% of its income is from "Research and Special Projects". This is a strange situation where bureaucrats grant money to an NGO to lobby in the public for what the bureaucrats want. I am also irritated that this information is not made more explicit. Admittedly, the budget is only 2 million.)

[Guest eureka]

The link was to a number of inner links on a wide variety of statistical information. It won't work to accuse the Council of bias in its figures since they are always drawn from Statscan and the equivalents.

It won't work to say that Hugo found refutations in a few minutes on the Internet. And Hugo knows well how to argue against the conclusions only (as always) he will be wrong.

There many arguments that he, or any other, could make. I suppose though, that it becomes a little more difficult to be convincing in the face of actual experience.

BTW: Clayton Yeutter was the US negotiator at the FTA deliberations.

From Orchard: The Fight for Canada, P.188.

"Immediately after the signing on Oct, 3rd. 1987, ...Yeutter......., let fall this observation: 'We've signed a stunning new trade pact with Canada. The Canadians don't understand what they signed. In twenty years, they will be sucked into the American economy.".

From the briefing papers published in the US:

" The vast bulk of U.S. direct investment in Canada now will go forward with no Canadian government interference whatsoever

.........bilateral trade in energy, including nondiscriminatory access for the US to Canadian energy supplies.

Essentially, in the text, we got everything we wanted."

It must have been in commentary on the text that I had previously heard of this but just thought of Orchard and looked for it. I still don't know where my source for Ostry's statement was but you should now accept that they were accurate statements.

[August1991]

From Orchard: The Fight for Canada, P.188.

"Immediately after the signing on Oct, 3rd. 1987, ...Yeutter......., let fall this observation: 'We've signed a stunning new trade pact with Canada. The Canadians don't understand what they signed. In twenty years, they will be sucked into the American economy.".

There you go again, eureka. You use David Orchard as a source on free trade. Well, what do you expect to find there? Is the Pope Catholic?

It won't work to accuse the Council of bias in its figures since they are always drawn from Statscan and the equivalents.

Statistics Canada compiles an enormous amount of data. This data can be presented in many different ways to suit any particular argument.

The Council clearly does this and in fact makes no bones about it and presents itself as an advocacy group (a lobby).

-----

eureka, I sometimes think you have a case to make but you present such biased information that you undermine your argument. I understand that you want Canada to be independent of the US and you prefer to have more government intervention. I happen to disagree with you but you are entitled to your opinion.

[Guest eureka]

I am not using Orchard as a source. I used his citation from published documents to confirm what I had posted. I do that since, like so many others, you cannot believe what you do not want to believe unless it has an Internet link.

Where is the bias in the information I present? Those are quotations made by the American Chief Negotiator. The conclusions are taken from the briefing document for the Treasury Secretary, James Baker, as published.

I find the sudden outpouring of criticism of Sweden amusing. Look at the twenty five points and try to fault them. Some of them make the alleged deficiencies in Sweden obvious fabrications. As always, what the Swedes do get for their money is ignored.

The CCSD most definitely does have a bias: a bias towards humanity. It does not, however, from everything I can see, distort figures to make a case. It presents facts and figures to support its case.

Unlike, say, the Fraser Institute, it does not atempt to change the definitions of poverty (amongst other issues) to fit the figures and case it wants to make.

[Hugo]

The link was to a number of inner links on a wide variety of statistical information. It won't work to accuse the Council of bias in its figures since they are always drawn from Statscan and the equivalents.

If you insist on using this source, Eureka, I will have to debunk it a little more.

The CCSD states "Our mission is to develop and promote progressive social policies inspired by social justice, equality and the empowerment of individuals and communities... Our sources of funding include research contracts, the sale of publications and memberships, and donations."

Basically, they admit they are pushing an agenda, and their livelihood depends upon pushing that agenda. They sell memberships and solicit donations based upon an ideology that they have to support if they want to get paid.

Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that any source is completely unbiased, however, I will believe an academic researcher (whose livelihood depends upon a reputation as objective and scientific) over a lobby group most days. You rubbished the Fraser Institute, however, I have not once cited that as a source. My data comes from published research and from academics at respected universities and other faculties.

Returning to the one article you cited:

I already went over the dereliction of their definition of a low-paid job. I demonstrated how it could give a very distorted picture, and in fact it does. The median American earns much, much more than the median Swede, but they simply state that Swedish income is more equitable, and it is: every Swede is poorer.

Their statistics admit this too, that Americans are richer than Swedes (although they are negligent enough not to state if this is a mean or median calculation). Their argument on wage equity is therefore nonsensical, after all, Bangladesh has much more income equity than either the USA, Canada or Sweden, but is it a good economic role model?

Their definition of "poverty" is also derelict. They define it as having less than half the average household income. To show how this figure is meaningless, we can see that if the USA underwent an economic miracle and every household gained an extra $20,000 per annum in real income, the statistics would not be changed at all. The same number of Americans would be judged "poor." The best judgement of poverty is the number of people who don't earn enough for a given quality of life in their locale. They don't use this mode, probably because it reflects badly upon Sweden and best upon the USA (once again, the median American being a lot richer than the median Swede).

They cite longer Swedish and Canadian lifespans as a victory for the progressive-socialist states but fail to account for the reasons behind it. For example, in Sweden the crude death rate and suicide rates per 1000 are actually considerably higher than in the US. The figures are distorted by precisely the kind of extremes they insist are a problem with US income - people at the extreme ends of the scale skewing the statistics. In the US, some areas and ethnic groups have endemic crime and murder rates which skew the figures, although for the median American they are not true. While the CCSD is quick to point this out in incomes, it remains strangely silent when the same distortion occurs in life expectancy. Why? Because the numbers don't support their argument.

They also decry the smaller amount of education that the US government pays for. However, what they fail to mention is the actual outcome of this policy - surely the most important part! 26% of Americans between 25 and 64 have a college degree, compared to 13% in Sweden. At the other end of the scale, only 14% of Americans have a mere 9 years of education, compared to 26% in Sweden.

I must conclude that this essay is a terrible exercise in distortion of facts and biased interpretation. It is highly misleading and borders on outright lying on several occasions. They are highly ambiguous (for example, taking about "low literacy skills" - defined how, exactly?) and obfuscatory. This is not a good source to cite, Eureka.

Some of them make the alleged deficiencies in Sweden obvious fabrications. As always, what the Swedes do get for their money is ignored.

What are they getting for their money exactly? Given their lower standard of living, higher death rates, lower ownership of consumer goods, more stressful pace of life, lower education, poorer R&D, less penetrative high-tech industry and so forth it doesn't sound like a good deal!

Since you don't like the fact that we're concentrating on Sweden though, let's switch to Denmark, which has an even more confiscatory-redistributive policy than Sweden does (highest tax rates in the world). Per Henrik Hansen of the Copenhagen Business School reports that Danish crime rates since 1960 have soared 500%. Violent crimes have increased 700%, and are still increasing. These programmes have certainly not made the Danes any safer.

The percentage of people in the Danish workforce is declining, with 900,000 people of working age now living full-time from government largesse (up from 300,000 in the early 1970s). This is over a quarter of the workforce. Of every three people that actually work, two work in the private sector, and one works in government redistributing what they earn.

Just over half as many a proportion of Danes hold bachelor degrees as compared to the US (15% vs. 26%). 34% of Danes have only 9 years education, compared to 9% in the US. Because the government assigns students to courses based upon quotas, students without high grades will be simply barred from entering the disciplines of their choice.

In health, Denmark boasted a high life expectancy in the 1970s, but it has hardly increased at all and today is near the lowest in Western Europe. Politicians say this is due to Danish habits of smoking and drinking, but Hansen says that on any given day one can read several newspaper stories of patients dying while on waiting lists for diagnosis or treatment. Healthcare facilities are using outdated equipment and waiting lists are very long.

There certainly isn't a great deal for Denmark, here.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo, you are not debunking the source: merely confirming your obtuseness. You blithely dismiss all recognized measures because they do not conform to your vision of how the world should unfold.

You are reaching into absurdity when you imprint your own interpretation onto death rates.

To deal with just one of your points for the moment, you touch somewhere in that message , on the distribution of incomes.

There, the United States is the only developed nation in the top 50 (it is around no. 30) of incomes skewed to the top 10%. The United Kingdom is the closest at no. 71.

Perhaps you should pay a little less attention to your single academics and more to the conclusions of the International Community.

CCSD certainly has an agenda; a laudable one. Does that change anything? IT draws its figures from unimpeachable sources. It does not, like the Fraser Institute and its right wing sponsors, demand a change in definitions to suit its agenda.

There are other ways to deal with your claims. That would be for you to look at the real world of statistics. I would suggest that you use the Nationmaster site for accurate information.

More importantly, you will have to develop the faculty of looking at more than raw comparisons. What a people gets for its "taxes" is of paramount importance in any comparisons. You refuse to take this into account.

[Hugo]

Hugo, you are not debunking the source: merely confirming your obtuseness.

No, that is what you are doing. I spent a long post refuting your source with logic and cited facts, and your response has not been to argue, but to attack me in ad hominem fashion, calling me "obtuse", "absurd" and so forth without any real argument as to why. If it is your contention that I am obtuse and absurd, then demonstrate it so that others would come to the conclusion on their own rather than offering empty insults that others can clearly see are mere bluster.

You are reaching into absurdity when you imprint your own interpretation onto death rates.

I offered a potential explanation for the reason why Swedish life expectancy is somewhat greater than American despite the fact that Sweden has a higher crude death rate and a higher suicide rate. Basically, the reasons for death in Sweden and the USA are different.

There, the United States is the only developed nation in the top 50 (it is around no. 30) of incomes skewed to the top 10%. The United Kingdom is the closest at no. 71.

This isn't terribly relevant when the median American household earns a real and parity-adjusted $13,000 more per year than the median Swedish household. The median figure will ignore the top 10% by definition. Your argument is only valid if you contend that equality is more important than prosperity, that it is better for everybody be dirt-poor than for some people to be moderately wealthy and for a few to be extremely wealthy. Is this what you are saying? If so, why is Bangladesh not a model for you?

CCSD certainly has an agenda; a laudable one. Does that change anything? IT draws its figures from unimpeachable sources.

I am not saying that the figures are wrong. They are all perfectly correct, but they are carefully selected so as to give a false impression. I find it curious that you rush to defend the sources of CCSD when I have not even attacked them.

It does not, like the Fraser Institute and its right wing sponsors, demand a change in definitions to suit its agenda.

Perhaps you did not read my post carefully enough. I said:

You rubbished the Fraser Institute, however, I have not once cited that as a source.

I'm curious as to why you keep attacking a source I'm not using. Perhaps I should start debunking the People's Daily as an attack on your argument?

There are other ways to deal with your claims. That would be for you to look at the real world of statistics.

I have already done that. I have seen no statistics from you, however, just a link to a source we can now consider worthless. Perhaps you should practice what you preach, and if you want to hear factual evidence, perhaps you should provide some yourself. Your continual failure to do so creates the impression that you don't know anything about the subject beyond hearsay and conjecture.

What a people gets for its "taxes" is of paramount importance in any comparisons. You refuse to take this into account.

This would further confirm that you have not read my previous post in detail. I asked you to tell me what Sweden gets for her taxes (you did not bother, which is quite interesting - I suspect you have no idea) and then I spent four paragraphs on the example of Denmark, and how the heaviest taxes in the world have not helped Denmark's increasing social ills of crime and violence, poor health, poor education, unemployment and so forth.

Is there anything more to your debate than, as Tom Cruise said in A Few Good Men, the "Liar, liar, pants on fire" argument?

[Guest eureka]

Hugo, you deserve some answers, not for any intrinsic merot to your arguments which are simply dismissals of valid data. O will try to find time for it. That is not my purpose to bog down in arcane academic argument. There is a real world and you appear to be far removed from it.

Your contentions, for example, about median income totally ignore the distribution of income and the skewing of statistics. Look at the Nationmaster site I suggested. There you will find a vast number of comparative statistics for the world over.

Poverty, which by one measure is 24% in the USA, is not a function of median income. It is that lowest 20% or so who struggle to survive in North America much more than in Europe.

There are so many factors that enter into living expenses that you blithely ignore in favour of your pet theories.

[Guest eureka]

Where you get your opinion of Denmark from is a matter of some intrest. For one instance, the murder rate in Denmark is .01 per hundred compared to .04 in the US. Not that the Usa is as bad as some think only that Denmark is so much better.

Denmark, too, is rated as equal to the US in the Heritage Foundation's scale ( an American foundation.) I don,t give too much weight to that but it ranks alongside the sort of thing you posit as argument. There is so much more about Denmark that is better: a Child Poverty rate of about 5% or less than one tgird of that in the USA.

[Hugo]

Your contentions, for example, about median income totally ignore the distribution of income and the skewing of statistics.

Yet again you fail to answer my question. Why is distribution of income more important than level of income?

Poverty, which by one measure...

What measure? "Poverty" can be defined in many different ways and not all of them have the same meaning.

For instance, the 2003 US Census shows that 35 million Americans are poor. 46% of them own their own home, which is, on average, a three-bedroom, 1.5-bath house with a garage. 76% have air conditioning. Only 6% are overcrowded. Almost 75% have a car, and 30% have more than one. 73% own a microwave. Poor people consume, on average, virtually the same amount of protein, vitamins and minerals as middle-class people. These levels are well above recommended intakes.

Are these people poor by American standards? Evidently. Would they be considered poor in any other part of the world, even Sweden? No.

It is that lowest 20% or so who struggle to survive in North America much more than in Europe.

Your useage of the term "struggle to survive" is laughable when used to discuss a group of which 97% have a colour television and 78% a VCR or DVD player. The average poor American has more square footage of living space than the average non-poor Londoner, Parisian or Viennese.

Where you get your opinion of Denmark from is a matter of some intrest. For one instance, the murder rate in Denmark is .01 per hundred compared to .04 in the US.

It may well be. However, the crime level in Denmark has increased 500% since 1960 and the violent crime level by 700%. What is your source, by the way? I gave mine, I think it fair that you give yours!

Denmark, too, is rated as equal to the US in the Heritage Foundation's scale ( an American foundation.) I don,t give too much weight to that but it ranks alongside the sort of thing you posit as argument.

No, it doesn't. Not once have I cited the spurious homebrewed rating system of some self-satisfied institution. My arguments are derived from real statistics and facts, thank you very much.

There is so much more about Denmark that is better: a Child Poverty rate of about 5% or less than one tgird of that in the USA.

Again, completely meaningless until you define what you mean by "child poverty." The average poor child in the US eats twice as much protein per day as is recommended by nutritionists and will grow up to be one inch taller and ten pounds heavier than the average US soldier in WWII.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo, we can do this when you desist from calling everything that opposes your inclinations, spurious. You are throwing out figures like a drunken sailor without any basis yet refuse to accept figures for which you have been given the source.

Your statements about the poor in America are totally unfounded and the comparison to other nations has no merit. While you still think that your "intellect" entitles you to make the entirely "spurious" claim that the whole world is wrong in its measurement of poverty: that UNICEF cannot make these calculations because they do not agree with your predispositions, then you can not enter into discussion.

If you want to be serious about this, I will oblige. It is time that the dismissal of human need in your academic nitpicking was exposed.

[Hugo]

Hugo, we can do this when you desist from calling everything that opposes your inclinations, spurious.

I did not call "everything" spurious. I opined that indices of which-country-is-better-in-some-subjective-way are spurious, at least when one does not know the information on which they are based and the values of the index-generator. For instance, the CCSD says that Sweden is "better" than the US, but as it turns out they value equality more than prosperity, so their opinion on this isn't worth much (as I have said, rural Bangladesh, India and China must be their idea of paradise on earth).

Tell me what this Heritage Foundation bases its opinion on and we shall talk, until then, it can think the moon is made of green cheese for all it matters.

You are throwing out figures like a drunken sailor without any basis yet refuse to accept figures for which you have been given the source.

The problem is that we are both trotting out figures and offering opinions. You think that I am being closed-minded and stubborn for not accepting your opinion when you offer it, but you are doing the exact same thing.

I suggest that you dispense with this obfuscatory line. It's extremely hypocritical of you to claim that my debating tactics label me as pig-headed, stubborn or like a "drunken sailor" when they are very similar to your own.

Your statements about the poor in America are totally unfounded

The 2003 US Census says they are not. What is your evidence? (The word "UNICEF" alone is not evidence, by the way.)

While you still think that your "intellect" entitles you to make the entirely "spurious" claim that the whole world is wrong in its measurement of poverty

The whole world is not wrong in its measurement of anything because the whole world does not agree on anything. Stop trying to claim that "the whole world" supports your argument because it doesn't, and even if it did, popular opinion has never made fact.

It is time that the dismissal of human need in your academic nitpicking was exposed.

Where have I dismissed "human need", exactly? Come on, Socrates, "expose" me.

[Guest eureka]

While you refuse to accept international definitions of anything as benchmarks and insist that you are debunking UNICEF and other organizarions, I do not see where this can go.

However, to start with your figures on Housing in America for the poor.

I do not believe that your figures are for the poor and they do not tie in with logic or the Census Bureau. 38% of Americans do not own homes yet you claim that almost half of the poor do. If you want to include mobile homes and trailers, then you may be closer.

You say that 76% of the poor have air conditioners. I take it you mean holes in the walls since substantially less than that proportion of the total have air conditioners - about 45 million out of some 80 million

You make some statements about certain appliances in American homes that Swedes and Danes do not have. Danes have 152 phone sets for every 100 people: Swedes have 162. Americans are suffering the inconvenience of having only 113.

Internet users are slightly higher in Sweden than in the US while in Denmark they are the same in proportion.

The US ranks 8th. in child mortality; Denmark is 4th. And Sweden 3rd. 8% of American children are born with low birthrate as against 5% in Denmark and 4% in Sweden This seems to suggest that you may not be quite accurate in your assessment of the wellbeing of children.

Healthcare in both Denmark and Sweden are in the range of 7% of GDP compared to 14%in the USA. In both, the spending comes from taxes or direct payment. Nearly all is from taxes in the European advantage: almost all is direct in th US. Therefore, Americans spend, charitably, 4 or 5% of their GDP out of the disposable income of citizens. That is a large proportion of median or lower income. Possibly enough to put average Americans in an unenviable position compared to their European friends.

The lowest 40% of households in the US have a 16% share of national income. In Denmark the figure is 23% as it is in Sweden. The per capita GDP in Denmark is only about 10% lower than in the US.

The highest 40% of households in the US have 46% of income: In Denmark it is 36%; in Sweden 37%.

This all bears on the level of poverty since the loer end in Denmark and Sweden share a much greater portion of National Income. The consequence is higher actual income for the poor in Scandinavia and the benefits of healthcare on top of that - something a substantial portion of the poor in the US do not have.

Here is some information on poverty in Europe in general. You may note that this measure s based on 60% of median income

2 POVERTY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

How great is the extent of relative poverty within the EU?

The official EU poverty line is an income threshold used to define the risk of poverty. This

has been fixed at 60% of the national median disposable income per equivalent adult. It

therefore varies from one country to another.

Based on this measure, in 1999, 15% of EU inhabitants (around 56 million people) were at risk

of poverty, i.e. living in households with a disposable income below the poverty threshold.

This share was lowest in Sweden (9%), and Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Finland (all

11%), and highest in Greece and Portugal (both 21%).

One of the reasons why relative poverty is so much lower in countries such as Sweden and

Finland is that their social benefits system provides a significant increase in disposable

incomes of low-income households.

The UK has a higher percentage of people defined as “at risk of poverty” than the EU average

(19% in 1999). The scale of inequality of original income is shown by the evidence that 30% of

inhabitants are defined as poor before the effect of social transfers is calculated (the second

highest figure in the EU, with only Ireland coming in higher than this). Another feature of

concern from the table below is that the UK has the second highest percentage of people

living in jobless households – defined as a household where no adult is in an and is therefore almost inevitably dependent on various foMonetary indicators, 1999 Non-monetar

y form of paid

employment rms of state welfare

assistance.

y indicators, 2001

At-risk-of-poverty rate After social transfers efits) Before social transfers (income including pensions) Persistent risk of poverty rate Long-term unemployment rate Very lounem15 24 9 3.1 13 25 8 3.2 11 24 5 0.9 11 21 6 4.0 21 22 13 5.4 19 23 11 3.9 15 24 9 3.1 18 30 12 1.3 18 21 11 5.8 13 24 8 0.5 11 21 5 0.9 12 23 7 0.8 21 27 14 1.5 11 21 5 2.4 9 28 : 1.0 19 30 11 1.3 (ben

ng-term

ployment

rate

Proportion of

people living

in jobless

households

U15 2.0 12.2

Belgium 2.2 16.5

Denmark 0.3 :

Germany 2.6 13.8

Greece 3.1 10.5

Spain 2.3 8.1

France 1.7 13.0

Ireland 0.8 10.0

Italy 4.3 11.9

Luxembourg 0.2 8.9

Netherlands : 9.7

Austria 0.4 9.9

Portugal 0.8 5.0

Finland 1.3 :

Sweden : :

United

Kingdom

0.7 14.2

[caesar]

Maple you are too left for the most left leaning NDP er. What do you have against people working and contributing to their own welfare. Your kind of world would kill any incentive to work hard and succeed.

[August1991]

Eureka,

Your telephone data seems correct. One reason that Sweden has higher per capita phone use is mobile phones.

I didn't check the Internet data but it seems reasonable.

The housing data can be seen here. About 69% of Americans own their own housing. That's about 84% earning above the median income and about 52% of those below the median income.

The problem with your poverty data is that it is all relative. That is, poverty is based on a percentage of the median or average income. This is the method used by Statistics Canada but note the following:

At the heart of the debate is the use of the low income cut-offs as poverty lines, even though Statistics Canada has clearly stated, since their publication began over 25 years ago, that they are not.

Statistics Canada

GDP per capita in 2003 using purchasing power parity are the following:

US $37600

Sweden $28200

Denmark $29900

OECD

----

May I take a different tack to this subject? It's an argument I use whenever there is the suggestion that Europe is somehow more civilized than America.

In the past century, Europeans slaughtered each other at an astounding rate. In fact, an examination of European history shows that various wars have been fought almost continuously. Nor is this now past history. As recently as 10 years ago, Europeans were still fighting in Yugoslavia. Or rather, many Europeans were standing around watching while other Europeans killed each other.

To find anything equivalent in American history, one would have to go back to the US Civil War - some 150 years ago.

[caesar]

In the past century, Europeans slaughtered each other at an astounding rate. In fact, an examination of European history shows that various wars have been fought almost continuously. Nor is this now past history. As recently as 10 years ago, Europeans were still fighting in Yugoslavia. Or rather, many Europeans were standing around watching while other Europeans killed each other.

To find anything equivalent in American history, one would have to go back to the US Civil War - some 150 years ago.

HUH?????? Were we North Americans not involved there , too?????? Give us a break. The USA is now involved in Iraq; certainly do not need to go back to civil war>

Anyhow, this is a discussion regarding wealth and welfare of various countries not war.

[Hugo]

I would want to know the sources for your data. They don't tie in with the 2003 US Census, and you add further confusion by first alleging that 24% of Americans are poor (about 70.5 million), then that 20% "struggle to survive" (about 59 million). The Census Bureau claims there are 35 million poor in America, about 12% of the population. The Heritage Foundation, which you cite as a good source, writes:

For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.

You can follow the link for more information. If you do admire the Heritage Foundation you'll doubtless be interested to know that they contradict most of your claims.

Your figures on telephone ownership are interesting but, as August said, don't account for mobile phones. The US lags behind Europe in mobile phone development for several reasons, none of them macroeconomic. For example, the geography of the US is not kind to mobile networks, being vast and expansive compared to any European country (except possibly Russia). Another reason is that local calls in Europe are chargeable but are free in North America, which makes mobile phones more uneconomical for Americans than for Europeans.

The US ranks 8th. in child mortality; Denmark is 4th. And Sweden 3rd. 8% of American children are born with low birthrate as against 5% in Denmark and 4% in Sweden

6.8 infants per 1000 born in the US died in 2001 (CDC). The National Center for Health Statistics states that "the three leading causes of infant death were congenital malformations, low birthweight, and sudden infant death syndrome, which together accounted for 44 percent of all infant deaths." These problems would be difficult to attribute to poverty or a low standard of living. Genetic factors may play a larger part, especially when one considers that amongst American blacks, the infant mortality rate is double the average. Sweden has no black population. Sweden does rank above the USA, but Singapore ranks above Sweden.

Healthcare in both Denmark and Sweden are in the range of 7% of GDP compared to 14%in the USA. In both, the spending comes from taxes or direct payment. Nearly all is from taxes in the European advantage: almost all is direct in th US. Therefore, Americans spend, charitably, 4 or 5% of their GDP out of the disposable income of citizens.

Explain why it is better for governments to confiscate the income of citizens and spend it on healthcare according to their fancy than it is for citizens to keep their income and spend it on healthcare according to their own requirements.

The highest 40% of households in the US have 46% of income: In Denmark it is 36%; in Sweden 37%.

Yet again I'm going to ask this question. What is this, the third time now? Or is it the fourth? Why is income equality more important than income level?

Here is some information on poverty in Europe in general. You may note that this measure s based on 60% of median income

This figure is meaningless. According to this method of calculation, as I have said countless times now, Bangladesh should be far less poor than either the USA, Sweden, or Denmark.

Perhaps we should compare these countries according to who earns 60% or less of median world income. In this case, Denmark and Sweden would come off considerably poorer than the USA.

Your figures on people living in jobless households are further meaningless when we consider that in Denmark, for instance, one-third of the active workforce works for government and one-quarter the potential and active workforce lives full-time on government largesse (thus being unlikely to even seek a job).

May I take a different tack to this subject? It's an argument I use whenever there is the suggestion that Europe is somehow more civilized than America.

It's interesting to note that the Swedish establishment in the 1930s and 40s was fascinated with Nazi eugenics. The founders of the Swedish social democratic movement listed the purity of Swedish racial stock as being a good reason why their policies could succeed there, where they had failed for the base and degenerate Slavs in the USSR. They believed that ethnic cleansing was a good way to protect Swedish social democracy. Gunnar Myrdal, a socialist economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974, was an open advocate of the eugenics programme.

Up until the late 1950s, the Swedish government forcibly lobotomized 4,500 alcoholics and criminals in an attempt to cure them. 500 lobotomies were performed to cure mental illnesses on Swedes who had never been admitted to a mental hospital. Hundreds of "mentally deficient" Swedes were force-fed candy and then their teeth were allowed to decay in macabre medical experiments.

A practice that only ended in 1976 was the forced sterilization of 62,000 Swedes of mixed race, low intelligence or physical defect. Substantiated allegations have been made that the Swedish government also sterilized promiscuous and rebellious individuals. The Swedes started sterilizing the mentally ill in 1934.

One woman had her eyeglasses taken away, and when she failed to read a blackboard was sterilized for being "retarded." The Irish Post reports that Norway and Denmark have similar histories of eugenics, forced sterilization and other horrifying policies.

Denmark sterilized 11,000 people between 1929 and 1967. 5,500 of those were performed without consent, according to Lene Koch, an historian at Copenhagen University. By 1970, the Sandinavian states had sterilized 170,000 of their own citizens. Sweden was alone, however, in performing racially motivated sterilizations. Norway and Denmark sterilized other "undesireables."

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Hugo,

One woman had her eyeglasses taken away, and when she failed to read a blackboard was sterilized for being "retarded." The Irish Post reports that Norway and Denmark have similar histories of eugenics, forced sterilization and other horrifying policies.

Don't forget Canada also had a program of forced sterilization of the 'retarded'. They are still negotiating payouts, I believe. The USA had a program to test diseases such as malaria on prison inmates, though these were apparently 'voluntary' programs. I am not sure if it led to sentence reduction, or other benefits, which would cast doubt on just how 'voluntary' a coercive system like this would be.

As to your question...

Why is income equality more important than income level?

that is a toughie, but I would say that 'income equality' means that more people can access the basic necessities of life and share in their benefits, rather than having a few with gross excess, and far more with not enough.

I think that the accumulation of wealth does not automatically bring happiness nor longevity, and a happy home with a family that is fed and provided for can often count themselves far 'richer' than Bill Gates.

[Hugo]

Don't forget Canada also had a program of forced sterilization of the 'retarded'... The USA had a program to test diseases such as malaria on prison inmates, though these were apparently 'voluntary' programs.

Actually, the USA also practiced sterilization for the purposes of eugenics. The programme chiefly focused on convicts. Unlike Sweden, it doesn't seem that any of it was racially motivated and also unlike Sweden, it doesn't seem that any were done without the consent of the subject (although "consent" was often defined quite loosely). There's also the matter of the Tuskagee Syphilis Study.

It is interesting that the peak of these programmes in the USA was during the 1930s, which was also the time that the USA had its most socialist government in history under FDR. There's too much of a link between socialism and gross human rights violations for it to be mere coincidence.

I would say that 'income equality' means that more people can access the basic necessities of life and share in their benefits

Only if this equal income would actually buy them the basic necessities of life. Forced income equality in medieval Europe, for instance, would not have alleviated the misery of the average peasant at all. Conversely, despite much greater income inequality in the US compared to Sweden, the average American is far better off materially than the average Swede. Sweden has more equality, but all it is getting them is equal poverty.

I think that the accumulation of wealth does not automatically bring happiness nor longevity

I honestly think that the bulk of the redistributist argument stems from petty jealousy and envy. People of this nature see others who are richer than they and they want it for themselves. They see it as unfair that they have less. Karl Marx's writings are good examples, filled as they are with hatred and spite for the upper classes and businessmen. People of this nature are less concerned with their own lot in life than they are with that of others. Self-hatred and misguided feelings of guilt may also play a large part, as with Marx, a self-hating Jew and a self-hating bourgeoisie.

[Guest eureka]

Eugenics was practised in North America too.

The "Heritage" site is not one which I favour as you will see if you actually read what I said. I cited it for one statistic only: that is that it ranked Denmark as the same as the US on a competitiveness standard. Both came in at 3.2 - I did not even bother to find out what 3.2 meant. It is interesting, though, since you fel that competitiveness is unique to low taxed "liberal" societies.

I do not "allege" that poverty rates in the US are 24%. I said that by one measure, they are 24%. That may be the same 60% - I don't know and it may not be very relevant since we are trying to use the more widely accepted measure of 50% that, in any case, you will not accept.

Frankly, I don't know what he point of all this is since you seem to suggest that poverty is non-existent unless there is actual starvation involved.

To that point, though, it really does not matter that Statscan stresses that LICO is not an official measure. It is the accepted measure throughout the developed world. That no government has yet called it official is simply a political stance. When UN bodies use it as a measure: when the Canadian Parliament accepted it as a measure in 1989, then I think it should be acceptable even to those of your persuasion.

On that measure, the US does even worse. It does not increase the numbers under LICO, but, when one considers elements such as the share of national income - which is even lower in the bottom quintiles, then the USA has a greater proportion of its citizens living in exterme poverty.

To go back to your analysis of housing. The number of homeowners in the US poor reflects the millions of elderly poor which is higher in the US than in any developed country since the benefits are pitiful. These people, many of them, own homes that they cannot afford to leave to take a bus ride. Some may own cars but what kind of cars? And is it valid to say that poverty in an advanced society requires substandard housing and no transportation? The USA fares badly on any measure of poverty for the two demographic groups at each end of the age continuum.

Child mortality, which is what I posted figures for, is mortality of the under-5s. Infant mortality is different and younger: it, too, is higher in the US than in Denmark and Sweden. I fail to see how genetic heritage would be a particular factor in this. I could have posted the changes in this over the past thirty years and the disparity is constant. All three societies have substantially improved, BTW,

I reallydo not think the Census Bureau is accurate in the 12% poverty rate for the US. Comparative international studies of a few years ago gave rates, as I recall, of about 19% for the US and Britain; 17% for Canada; Australia was somewhere between. About 2 years ago, Blair announced a new benefit program that reduced British rates to 16%.

Those rates are now amended by the adoption of after-tax incomes for LICO that give lower rates. I would suggest that if bodies like UNICEF think LICO is a good enough measure, then it should be acceptable to laymen.

Segueing to Bangladesh is no argument. We are talking of the developed world. Poverty is an entirely different question in the two. It is the argument of relative as against absolute poverty that is used to play down the existence of poverty in our societies. It does not work since every social indicator shows that relative poverty is at the root of a great many social ills. Absolute poverty is more prevalent in the US than in any other developed nation because of the lack of social program and the very much lower share of national income than in other nations - Europe in particular.

To get away from the fixation with LICO it should be remembered that the cut-off is the top end of the scale of poverty.The great majority of those "in poverty" have incomes well below the cut-off. Many are far below that figure and are living in absolute poverty or near it. In the USA, the reality of this is worse than in any developed country since, again, the share of income is lower.

Poverty is, as the comparisons show, a consequence of the degrees of income redistribution.

I see no need to explain why it is "better for governmentsto confiscate" income for healthcare. That is only too obvious when the private heathcare is far more expensive than public and is also unavailable to many except for emergency treatment. That is an issue of civilization not taxes. You may not be "your brother's keeper," but that is the attitude that proceded the lopping off of heads in the French Revolution and similar unpleasnt events in other countries.

It is an attitude that gave impetus to the movement that led to Stalin and the tens of millions of deaths he enjoyed.

You do keep asking why income equality is more important than income level, don't you? And I don't know why you do not know. I never have posted anything about income level or equality as an argument for anything in particular. However, it is not too difficult to see that there is no real dichotomy between the two where poverty is concerned. A low income level is a function of inequality and it is demonstrated by those income shares. Redistribution, European style is also a question of civilization not taxes.

There is nothing meaningless about figures on jobless households. It does not matter a damn who people work for; government or private industry. All that matters is that they work in meaningful and productive ways. Those many more who work for government do so because of the many government programs and healthcare related government employment. Huge numbers, in healthcare alone, work for government as against the vastly more expensive private systems (that also require a greater number of employees, incidentally.) In this, government is more efficient, more responsive, and more cost effective.

Living on support does not discourage people from looking for work. That is an old slogan of the neo-libs that does not hold water and has been shown to be a canard by many investigations. It is contrary to human nature to suggest that it does. The most likely not to seek work are those in our North American society who have given way to despair. Here, too, the numbers of those are greater and many of these are not counted amongst the unemployed here since they fall outside of benefit programs. The participation rates in the labour forces bear this out.

I would sugest that the data on telephones is quite as relevant as that on, say, air conditioners and, perhaps, more relevant. Air conditioners, to a degree, are a reflection of climate: in a large part of Europe, and certainly in the two countries at question, air conditioners are an uneccessary frill. Extra phones are a choice.

To an extent, the same could be said for cars.

It does not "fascinate" me to bring in the practise of eugenics or to label it as Nazi eugenics. That "fascination" fascinated governments here at least as much. It is North America's shame as well as Europe's. Fascism, in general, had a large following everywhere that money held sway and poverty was a nuisance.

Europeans, apparently, are still standing around while others are killed. They are watching the slaughter in Iraq. Slaughter committed by American's who you imply have not been engaged in such naughty things.

We could talk of Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia and a few other places but let's try to keep it clean.

August, the source of my GDP data gave Denmark's 2003 as about $33,700 and was, without looking again,I think taken from the CIA Factbook. However, what's a few thousand between friends. It changes none of the principles.

[Hugo]

Eugenics was practised in North America too.

That's what I said.

I do not "allege: that poverty rates in the US are 24%. I said that by one measure, they are 24%.

Indeed, you seem quite confused about how many people are poor in the USA. You believe that falling below a certain percentage of average income defines one as poor, but you aren't certain where that point is, why, or how it relates to the "poor" of other countries.

Frankly, I don't know what he point of all this is since you seem to suggest that poverty is nin-existent unless there is actual starvation involved.

I believe that poverty is about being able to obtain the necessities of life rather than about any portion of income. Consider that the poorest 20% in America earn (adjusted for inflation) the same as the median of America in 1970. Did this mean that everybody in America was poor thirty-some years ago? Or does it mean that the proportion of poor has not changed drastically, in which case the only "solution" to poverty is complete state control of the economy and the same rate of pay for all jobs?

To go back to your analysis of housing. The number of homeowners in the US poor reflects the millions of elderly poor which is higher in the US than in any developed country since the benefits are pitiful. These people, many of them, own homes that they cannot afford to leave to take a bus ride.

That bird won't fly. Demographically, the elderly are the richest group in the USA. You don't cite a source, so I'll cite one: the US Census of 2002. Of 65-74-year-olds, 8.5% were classified as poor, and of >75-year-olds, 11.5% - barely any more than the 18-64 group, 11.1%.

Japan, last time I checked, offers no state benefits for the elderly at all. Japanese aged simply save for their retirement. Japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the entire world and does not have any problems with poverty amongst the aged beyond those suffered by either Sweden or the USA. The "no benefits = aged poverty" argument is not borne out by this evidence.

Some may own cars but what kind of cars?

Now you think a person is poor if they don't drive a nice car? Having a car is not enough? You are ridiculous.

And is it valid to say that poverty in an advanced society requires substandard housing and no transportation?

Very, very few people in the US actually fall into this category. If you want to define it this way, then 1.2% of Americans are poor (for housing - the percentage who are overcrowded or homeless) and as to transportation, I'm not sure - take the percentage who don't own cars and subtract those who choose not to because they prefer to use mass transit.

Comparative international studies of a few years ago gave rates, as I recall, of about 19% for the US and Britain; 17% for Canada

What studies?

I would suggest that if bodies like UNICEF think LICO is a good enough measure, then it should be acceptable to laymen.

That does not follow at all. Need I remind you of the ridiculous theories and wrong ideas adopted at one time or another by various international bodies of good standing?

Every time Bill Gates gets another billion dollars, a few more people become "poor" by your standard of measurement, despite the fact that neither their income nor their lifestyle has changed at all. This does not make sense, and is in itself a refutation of this simple-minded method.

Segueing to Bangladesh is no argument. We are talking of the developed world. Poverty is an entirely different question in the two.

That is not what I am doing. I am stating that, if the poor are those whose incomes don't meet a certain percentage of the average, then Bangladesh must have very few poor indeed compared to Western countries. This is, of course, ridiculous, and it is so because poverty is about having a certain minimal lifestyle rather than earning a certain percentage of what everybody else is earning.

Child mortality, which is what I posted figures for, is mortality of the under-5s. Infant mortality is different and younger: it, too, is higher in the US than in Denmark and Sweden. Genetic heritage is not a particular factor in this.

Says who? I gave you statistics showing that blacks have a substantially higher child mortality rate than whites, and Sweden has no blacks. You say, "wrong!" Where's your argument? Where's your explanation?

I see no need to explain why it is "better for governmentsto confiscate" income for healthcare.

Perhaps because you have never questioned what you have learnt by rote. I urge you to do so. I demand an explanation because this is not a priori fact. The argument that the government should confiscate people's money and spend it for them smacks of paternalism and statism, and is the start of the road to tyranny because it has the same idea: some people have a right to boss other people around.

That is only too obvious when the private heathcare is far more expensive than public

Any given public healthcare is always more expensive than private because public healthcare lacks price signals. Because of this, resources are not best allocated according to consumer demand and inefficiencies result that are not present in a free market. Inefficiencies cause higher costs. This is basic economics.

You do keep asking why income equality is more important than income level, don't you?... I never have posted anything about income level or equality as an argument. However, it is not too difficult to see that there is no real dichotomy between the two where poverty is concerned. A low income level is a function of inequality and it is demonstrated by those income shares.

Once again, the example of Bangladesh proves how ludicrous this argument is. Bangladesh has far greater income equality, and according to you the income level of Bangladeshis should therefore be much higher than that of the US. Of course, they are a tiny fraction of those in the US.

There is nothing meaningless about figures on jobless households. It does not matter a damn who people work for; government or private industry. All that matters is that they work in meaningful and productive ways.

Government work is not meaningful or productive. It does not produce goods and services in accordance with consumer demands and is wasteful and inefficient.

Living on support does not discourage people from looking for work. That is an old slogan of the neo-libs that does not hold water and has been shown to be a canard by many investigations.

In Scandinavian countries an employee can call in sick and claim 80-90% of his income without even producing medical evidence. Scandinavian absentee rates are now the highest in the world. Do you propose that this is an idle coincidence?

Air conditioners, to a degree, are a reflection of climate: ina large part of Europe, and certainly in the two countries at question, air conditioners are an uneccessary frill.

So are microwaves, colour televisions, dishwashers, clotheswashers, tumbledryers, cars, computers etc. etc. All consumer goods in which Swedish ownership lags far behind American. Last time I checked, Sweden was not populated mostly by the Amish, so I believe that Swedes do not have as many of these appliances not because they don't want them but because they cannot afford them.

It does not "fascinate" me to bring in the practise of eugenics or to label it as Nazi eugenics.

Of course. But let us not pretend that the Scandinavian countries are more civilized or hold more liberal values than the USA, because this is simply not true. Nordic eugenics were more widely practiced and went on for longer than in America, to start with.

[Guest eureka]

You are now scraoing the bottom of the barrell. You are reverting to your lame "statism" etc. argumebnts which you always seem to fall back on when you run out of intelligent argument.

I have said quite clearly why Bangladesh is irrelevant to the debate - it belongs in third world poverty that I have said something about elsewhere.

Isn't it odd how others become ridiculous when they prick your complacent certainties. You will become a far more credible debater when you question yoursel before spiting the prejudices of years. Rote learning! You are a joke.

I am not at all confused about poverty in the United States. You make that kind of adjunct to your arguments either because you cannot understand simple facts and simplified (for your benefit) explanations. It is what I say it is. And, the demographic effect I pointed out is there You don't see it because you cannot grasp the impact of even 1.2% (assuming that you are correst in that) on the total. It is huge.

There, too, it does not seem to enter your warped thinking that the old should not be poor. They have paid their dues to society and are entitled to rewards. Even primitive societies have understood that. America is, as I said, the worst of the developed countries in dealing with that. As it is with child poverty.

Your argument about Japan is fallacious - I won't say what kind of fallacy. Japan, until recently had full employment, or as near as made no difference. All workers had pensions. The Japanese also, for cultural reasons, look after their aged. This may change as the Japanes economy suffers the same ills as other developed societies.

To say that the poorest 20% in America earn the same as the median of Americans in 1970 is pure and utter rubbish and you know it - at least you should unless the reality of that is somewher to starboard of your blinkers. And, even if it were so, how do you convert that to "the only cure being complete state control of the economy."

Try to keep a sense of proportion.

You have now said what you believe poverty is. For that gem I thank you. However, it does not get it much further. I do not say what my personal belief is since it is not important. What is important is what hundreds of years of the evolution of mixed economies have led sociities to conclude it is. And, what those same years of often violent struggle for a civilized aspect to Capitalism have led al but the new/old capitalists to believe it is. I accept that.

I am not going to say what studies gave those poverty rates because I am not wasting time to look them up. If you feel qualified to pontificate on the subject, you ought to know they were the rates quoted thousands of times in every element of the media and by every advocate for action. They are beyond question as is the British action to begin a correction. They have even been cited in our Parliament in the criticism of a government that has allowed poverty rates to rise by around 50% since pledging to eliminate poverty.

The "simple-mindedness of the method" as you call it implies that a great many respected people are simple minded. If all these international bodies say that the method is god enough for them: if our Parliament said it was good enough for them, then I suggest that it ought to be good enough for you. It is for me.

Bill Gates getting another billion dollars is completely irrelevant. The effect is miniscule and it would not be another billion dollars of income. Ask yoursel rather should Bill Gates be allowed to acquire another billion dollars of income if it were to be of income.

I need no explanation of the mortality rates in the terms that you give them. Rather, you give the justification not the implication. If you did the calculations you would know that, in he unlikely event that there was a bigger difference in racially caused mortality, it could affect the totals only marginally. Incidentally, the great reduction in the mortality rate for Blacks is one reason for the great improvement in US standing. It does not explain the equally good record of improvement in the Scandinavian countries over the same period. This would indicate that care by society is the chief reason.

Your paragraph on "confiscation" of people's money needs no elaborate comment. It is the height of absurdity. You still support death and disease for those who cannot afford medical care. You support the notion that such care should cost twice as much for those who can. Government has shown itself to be more efficient; more responsive to social needs; and less costly than your preferred method.

All in the name of some vague idea of "statism" you want this evolutionary good of social and economic thinking to end.

I really think you need to go back to a study of basic economics. Your explanation os not basic economics. There are price signals in public affairs as much as in private. The difference is that in the public realm we are able to consider whether life is only a price signal.

Eugenics did not go in in Nordic countries longer than in North America. We now know that they were still being practised in Alberta and Quebec after 1945. Very likely they were in other areas too. They certainly were in the USA.

Hugo, you sound to me like one of the original members of MENSA, The people who thought they could sit around and find solutions to all problems and that governments would listen to their conclusions and legislate accordingly

The trouble with them is that they never got to the realization that they would have to look at the real world and act in it. Armchair theorists are even less likely to be right than armchair quarterbacks.

[August1991]

To say that the poorest 20% in America earn the same as the median of Americans in 1970 is pure and utter rubbish and you know it - at least you should unless the reality of that is somewher to starboard of your blinkers.

Why is that argument rubbish, eureka?