Americans and Non-Americans, What is Your Opinion on the United States of America in General

[freedquaker]

 

Again you are comparing apples to oranges. The U.S is a much more diverse country than most European ones. Higher crime rates for example, tend to be isolated to large cities and the southern states where this diversity is more pronounced. The same is true for life-expectancy, and income inequality in general. If, we were to say compare the income inequality in each state, rather than among them, then it would more closely compare to European inequalities. It makes very little sense to compare the income of a person in New Hampshire to that of a person in Mississippi, because the costs of living are quite large. Furthermore, in a country of 315 million you are going to have many billionaires just because the population is so large. I buy groceries, pay rent, etc daily. I go to the doctors once in every three to four years. I think I would rather cheaper daily living expenses than health-care.

So I want to bring up the point that it is more important to look at marginal changes within the context of the U.S rather than to compare it with countries that are quite homogenous in their population distributions, in all ways. There has been more mobility in the U.S between 1990 and 2010 than between 1970 and 1990. There has also been declining crime rates since the 80's. 

Also that comparison with life expectancy tells me that other countries have been making progress (particularly the lower end ones that you mentioned) more than anything else. It makes sense when you just build infrastructure. The U.S is an unhealthy country by habits. It is quite telling that despite being overweight at the prevelance that we are, we are able to keep up within +/- 2 years of the OECD average.

Diversity is not an excuse for inequality, bad healthcare, bad education etc. Canada, and Australia are both as diverse as the US, but still a lot better in almost all statistics. Please let's not try to delude ourselves, suggesting that other ones are making progress; of course they do, but the results will not change for the better if you omit them. To the contrary, they will get a lot worse.

Now, let's take South Korea, for example, which spends only a quarter of US in healthcare.

Life Expectancy at birth, US vs Korea

2000 => US : 76.7, Korea: 75.9;  US / Korea -1 = + 1.1%, gap : + 0.8 years
2011 => US : 78.7, Korea: 81.1;  US / Korea -1 =- - 3.0%, gap : - 1.4 years

Same comparison with Canada, which spends about half of US in healthcare.

Life Expectancy at birth, US vs Canada

2000 => US : 76.7, Canada: 79.0;  US / Canada -1 = -3.0%, gap : - 2.3 years
2011 => US : 78.7, Canada: 81.5;  US / Canada -1 =- 3.6%, gap : - 2.8 years

Again with Australia, which also spends about half of US in healthcare.

Life Expectancy at birth, US vs Australia

2000 => US : 76.7, Australia: 79.3;  US / Australia -1 = -3.4%, gap : - 2.6 years
2011 => US : 78.7, Australia: 82.0;  US / Australia -1 =- 4.0%, gap : - 3.3 years

 

In every single comparison, the gap between the US and the other country got bigger. Meanwhile health costs in the US have doubled! There is absolutely nothing to defend about that.

The very same arguments can be told about inequality in the US, as well as income mobility. It is funny that only those who defend high inequlity resort to concepts such as income mobility, which is HIGHLY CORRELATED with income EQUALITY. Just like America is highly unequal, its income brackets are also very immobile. Nevertheless, along with the income inequality, the income mobility has declined (which really does not matter when the country is SO UNEQUAL).

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/upward-mobility-has-not-declined-study-says.html?_r=0

Regarding the inequality in each state, things will not change for the better in the US. Yes, Connecticut may have a higher life expectancy but so does Sydney, or Seoul. As a matter of fact, the difference between states is actually low in America. So basically everything that is said about the US in general is true for every single state. Just check out the wiki page for inequality! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient

Basically, all your arguments, though theoretically reasonable, are wrong. You should fact check first, especially when you are talking to someone who made his masters and phd thesis on those fields (healthcare and education efficiencies in OECD and in the US).