Is the United States really a developed country?

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HomokHarcos said:

Jon-Erich said:

In the US, the average American pays roughly 14% in taxes, though the bracket can range anywhere from 10% to almost 40%. A lot of it depends of what state you're living in. The poor are not taxed a lot simply they do not make enough to be taxed. 

As for entertainment and tech, population has little to do with it. In entertainment for example, look at how many actors and comedians are from Canada. There are a lot of them. Why can't they make it in Canada? They have to come to the US. In fact, there are a lot of foreign entertainers who either work or live in the US. They're not going to Europe or Canada. There's very little there. It's the same thing in the tech field. A lot of the startups happen in the United States, but a lot of the talent comes from places like India. They're not coming to Europe or Canada. They're coming to the US. Even if you wanted to take population figures into account, lets look at Japan. The US has roughly 2 1/2 times the population that the Japanese have and yet the Japanese have their own success in tech and entertainment, much greater than Europe and Canada. At one time, they had the second largest economy in the world. I think they're #3 now.

When looking at the success rate for blacks in the US, if we wanted to go strictly by population, then arguably, there should be fewer successful blacks. In reality, they're over represented in sports. They pretty own an entire music genre that was invented by them in the US. We even had a black president. Also, if you want tp go back further into history, the first female millionaire in American history was a black woman who had been a slave just a few decades before becoming rich. In fact, there are quite a few success stories of ex-slaves who couldn't read or write but ended up owning successful businesses.

With all this being taken into account, there is something about the United States wether it is within the culture of the people or the freedom they enjoy that allows success to occur, especially from unlikely people in unlikely places. Out of the developed nations in the world, it is Japan and the United States that exports most of the culture and tech. Most of this tech and culture came from people were not rich before they found success.

Canada is dominated by US culture more than any other country in the world. Canada and the US tastes are so similar it could pretty much be considered one media market (and in video games it often is). Aspiring Canadian actors moving to Hollywood is not so different from people around the US moving there.

Also, while I do agree with you that Japan and the US have massive cultural exports so does the UK. With music such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Queen. Novels such as Frankenstein, Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, 007 franchise and the Premier League.

Yes, Hollywood has got big for multiple reasons and so people from around the world go work there. The same for the Canadian or the British when they go there. The market is there. Why Hollywood got big in the first place is another story.

I wouldn't say that Canada is dominated by US culture, but I'd say that US media exports are just huge in Canada due to proximity and NAFTA. American culture doesn't dominate Canadians. Canadians, at least in the most populated regions, are much more "British-like", as Australians in some aspects, and historically Canada has been British Empire in North America for so long that they kept adopting whatever came from London.

Even though US entertainment like Hollywood and games are huge in Canada, UK entertainment is also quite big such as BBC productions and British programs overall. It's much more common to see Canadians that enjoy British stuff than Americans as well as a good amount of UK stuff on the Canadian TV. In addition to that, about Hollywood, the entertainment that comes from it is so huge that it's just bigger than many other countries own media industries. I'd say that cinema is basically American everywhere and video games are basic American/Japanese. They're so big that there's quite no point in any other country trying to replicate and that also applies to Canada.

UK, as an English speaking nation, obviously is an exception. Although UK speaks English, they don't quite need to consume US media exports as much, because UK has its own very long book/films/program/entertainment tradition, at least since Shakespeare.