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Forums - Politics Discussion - Is the United States really a developed country?

XD84 on 14 July 2018

The US is great in comparison to many other countries in the world. The one thing that bothers me is their voting system and in general that the president has too much power.

In my opinion a reformation in those areas would be great. The US has been one of the first countries with a great democracy but that does not mean that things will remain the same over time. I like to compare it with cars: Karl Benz invented the Benz Patent-Motorwagen which was one of the first cars. In our time no one would buy one of them to drive to work or go on holidays.



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WolfpackN64 on 14 July 2018

As an outsider to the USA, it seems clear the USA is a developed country that, like any developed country has developed problems. No one president or political climate is going to change that.



Jon-Erich on 14 July 2018
Ka-pi96 said:
Jon-Erich said:

Except you guys pay a lot more in taxes, so your education isn't exactly free. Also, how come Europe or Canada doesn't have their Silicon Valley or Hollywood? They have film studios and tech companies, but not like the US. Is it because it is far easier to be an entrepreneur in America because of the lower taxes and fewer regulations or are there other reasons? We got Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Facebook, Twitter and a lot more. We've got most of the major film studios and most of the major music labels. Then when you look at the music industry, the NFL and NBA, you realize that the US has more wealthy black people than any other nation on Earth? In fact, I remember reading somewhere that if you added up all the wealth of the entire black population of the United States, you would have the 14th largest economy in the world. Why is this? What is it that we were able to get right that you guys weren't? 

Do we pay more in taxes though? Here in the UK at least we get the first £11,850 (~$15k) with 0% income tax. Can you say the same in the US? Perhaps our higher earners pay more, but our poorer people, most likely not.

As for film studios/tech companies the main reason for that is probably population. Especially the case with film companies since those will be country specific in Europe due to different languages in each country so there's no chance of having one main place to make films for the whole of Europe unlike in the US.

As for black people, 13.4% of the US population is black(https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217), compared to only 3% in France (https://www.economist.com/europe/2009/03/26/to-count-or-not-to-count) and the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom#Population_by_ethnicity). With all other European countries likely having less than those two.

So yeah, with a lot more black people in the country you should expect to have a lot more rich black people as well.

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.



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HomokHarcos on 14 July 2018
Jon-Erich said:
Ka-pi96 said:

Do we pay more in taxes though? Here in the UK at least we get the first £11,850 (~$15k) with 0% income tax. Can you say the same in the US? Perhaps our higher earners pay more, but our poorer people, most likely not.

As for film studios/tech companies the main reason for that is probably population. Especially the case with film companies since those will be country specific in Europe due to different languages in each country so there's no chance of having one main place to make films for the whole of Europe unlike in the US.

As for black people, 13.4% of the US population is black(https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217), compared to only 3% in France (https://www.economist.com/europe/2009/03/26/to-count-or-not-to-count) and the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom#Population_by_ethnicity). With all other European countries likely having less than those two.

So yeah, with a lot more black people in the country you should expect to have a lot more rich black people as well.

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.



S.Peelman on 14 July 2018

For movies the argument is simple. Dutch actors can't act, which makes everything cringe-worthy, so people go and see American movies instead.



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o_O.Q on 14 July 2018

" it has massive inequality in terms of wealth"
people are paid differently depending on their levels of competence... you think a garbage collector should be paid the same as an engineer?
income inequality obviously is a problem if the levels of poverty are very high and increasing, but statistics show that the reverse is happening

"Compared that also with no public health care."
has nothing to do with how developed a country is, just how socialised its policies are
cuba by comparison is very poor and underdeveloped and has public health care

"Also the government is much more corrupt than the other developed countries. "
which has nothing to do with whether a country is developed or not

"The government tries to prevent gay marriage and abortions from becoming acceptable. For supposedly being a secular nation the government seems to base a lot of their rulings off of religious views."
this is more complicated than you are alluding to here... but regardless, we are not living in the 1950s gay marriage and abortion are legal

"Of course this also extends to school violence. In no other country in the whole world are mass shootings in the school a problem like they are in the United States. "
well in china they have mass shooting stabbings instead... which wouldn't stop btw if guns were banned obviously

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-28/at-least-nine-young-students-killed-in-a-mass-stabbing-in-china/9706196
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_(2010%E2%80%9312)



TH3-D0S3R on 14 July 2018
thismeintiel said:
TH3-D0S3R said:
How ironic it is whenever our weaknesses are brought up (i.e. healthcare and education) people think it's the government's responsibility to take the reigns and control the issue. However, these same people also believe that the government is always corrupt and shouldn't be allowed to touch anything.

As an American myself, this hypocrisy is why I think America gets a bad rep. No one knows what they actually want, and when they think they get something good, they praise it, until it ends up backfiring and then they start complaining again. I have a general distrust of the government, and as such I praise drawbacks on government mandated healthcare and tax cuts, mostly because that is government backing up and getting out of my business.

Yea, I have never understood this hypocritical thinking by so many.

"All politicians are corrupt...Hey, I got a great idea! We should let them be in charge of every aspect of our lives! What could go wrong?"

Or one of my favorites, "Man, that law just screwed up something that wasn't really broken to begin with. Hey, government, pass another law to try to fix the first one. Oh, it just made matters worse? That's OK. Just keep passing them til you get it right."

Well most Americans don't have a basic understanding of what our government actually is. I always get pissed off whenever a citizen says we have to uphold our democracy 'for the sake of the people (yuck)', when in reality America is not a democracy. America is a Representative Republic that holds Democratically run elections based on representation to elect its leaders. We at best vote for maybe 25% of our actual laws, and that's a REALLY high estimate. Most of these laws are just changes to state constitution material, such as legalizing weed. However, an overwhelming majority of laws are done in state legislatures, such as the travel bans California enacts on states they don't happen to agree with politically.

I literally retorted this back to my college professor because she had America labeled as a democracy, and after receiving more outrage from students than herself, she ended up agreeing with me after 5 minutes. Literally ask any American what they think they're government is classified as, and I can assure you about 80% of the population will get it wrong.

Since Americans know so little about what they're actually talking about, the more faith they put in their leaders, that way they don't have to worry about it themselves. But then they also bitch about when something bad happens that they didn't want which means the government is evil somehow? I don't trust in the government myself but I have never understood the rationale of these types of people. They literally complain about events THEY caused purposefully. 



HomokHarcos on 14 July 2018
Ka-pi96 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.

"population has little to do with it"? For entertainment it's probably the single largest factor there is. The world's largest film industry in terms of movies made and tickets sold is India, the world 2nd most populous country, and it really isn't far off being #1 in population either. China is right up there too, higher on revenue than India as well due to being a wealthier country. The largest film industry in Africa is Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. So the US being the most populous of all developed countries having a large and wealthy film industry shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, and that large population is a huge part of the reason why.

The main market for entertainment products will always be the domestic market, so when you have the largest domestic market in any developed country (and therefore the wealthiest overall as well) there's going to be a lot more money earned and a lot more money available to spend. That's why entertainers go to the US. They absolutely can make it in their own countries, any suggestion otherwise is just complete bullshit, but a bigger market means more money. If you're able to make more money because there are more people to buy whatever you're selling in a more populated country, then why wouldn't you try and sell your entertainment to them?

Oh and Europe is definitely more successful in terms of entertainment than Japan. Is there a single Japanese movie/book as popular as Harry Potter or James Bond? Is there a single Japanese band as popular as The Beatles or Led Zeppelin? Is there a single Japanese video game as popular as Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft or Tetris? Are there any Japanese sporting events as popular as the UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga etc?

As for tech, there's no shortage of huge European tech companies either. Spotify, Kaspersky, King Digital (Candy Crush) and many more. Plus if we're including all tech (ie. vehicles and the like) then Europe has no shortage of large car manufacturers either.

Oh and by the way a combined Europe has a larger economy than the US. It also has more than twice the population than the US which is a large part of the reason, but you don't think population is a factor so that shouldn't bother you

People can be and are successful in plenty of countries. There's nothing special about the US in that regard.

Before the 2000s Japan was clearly the leader in successful video games. But during the PS2 era to now they've fallen behind and I'm not sure if they'll ever catch up again.



Farsala on 14 July 2018
Ka-pi96 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.

"population has little to do with it"? For entertainment it's probably the single largest factor there is. The world's largest film industry in terms of movies made and tickets sold is India, the world 2nd most populous country, and it really isn't far off being #1 in population either. China is right up there too, higher on revenue than India as well due to being a wealthier country. The largest film industry in Africa is Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. So the US being the most populous of all developed countries having a large and wealthy film industry shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, and that large population is a huge part of the reason why.

The main market for entertainment products will always be the domestic market, so when you have the largest domestic market in any developed country (and therefore the wealthiest overall as well) there's going to be a lot more money earned and a lot more money available to spend. That's why entertainers go to the US. They absolutely can make it in their own countries, any suggestion otherwise is just complete bullshit, but a bigger market means more money. If you're able to make more money because there are more people to buy whatever you're selling in a more populated country, then why wouldn't you try and sell your entertainment to them?

Oh and Europe is definitely more successful in terms of entertainment than Japan. Is there a single Japanese movie/book as popular as Harry Potter or James Bond? Is there a single Japanese band as popular as The Beatles or Led Zeppelin? Is there a single Japanese video game as popular as Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft or Tetris? Are there any Japanese sporting events as popular as the UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga etc?

As for tech, there's no shortage of huge European tech companies either. Spotify, Kaspersky, King Digital (Candy Crush) and many more. Plus if we're including all tech (ie. vehicles and the like) then Europe has no shortage of large car manufacturers either.

Oh and by the way a combined Europe has a larger economy than the US. It also has more than twice the population than the US which is a large part of the reason, but you don't think population is a factor so that shouldn't bother you

People can be and are successful in plenty of countries. There's nothing special about the US in that regard.

@bold, seems like a hard thing to prove. But it should be obvious considering the demographic difference of the west vs only Japan.

Regardless Hello Kitty is far bigger than anything Europe has produced. Pokemon is bigger than everything in the world including US products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest-grossing_media_franchises

Even assuming a large margin of error, nothing comes close to the top 1 and the top 3.

And it still doesn't discredit his point that all these top sellers are going to the US, whether they are Japanese or European.



mekail2001 on 14 July 2018

The USA is definitely a developed country (coming from a Canadian). In a lot of ways such as crime rate, healthcare and education it is lagging behind other developed countries but that doesn't mean that its comparable to a developing country.
I love the US, i feel like if i had to move anywhere it would be to the US because of how similar it is to Canada. But that doesnt mean that it doesnt have its issues. I think the current government is absolutely retarded with how they are dealing with international trade and in all honestly Donald Trump pisses me off and i dont understand how over 40% of americans can support a clown like him.