Sounds like a flaw in the human condition. We’d rather be the wealthiest guy in a medieval village than an average guy today.
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I agree but that is not necessarily a good thing. The Economist, being the neoliberal publication it is, focuses solely on the generation of total wealth to the exclusion of how that wealth could better be shared.
The US had almost three times as many COVID deaths as Canada on a population-adjusted basis: that is just one of many health markers that illustrate that total wealth is not the be-all indicator for a country’s well-being. How can you be satisfied with that outcome? I thought Canada did a crappy job dealing with COVID in its nursing homes so matching Canada on its COVID record would have been a modest achievement.
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The amount of reallocation matters. I thought that Econ 101 profs routinely used an example like this when introducing GDP. Consider countries A and B …
A: 99 people have incomes of 10,000 and one person has an income of 1,000,000. GDP is 1,990,000
B: 99 people have incomes of 11,000 and one person has an income of 800,000. GDP is 1,889,000
Where would you rather live?
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“Am I the one person?”
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The main draw to a place with lower inequality isn’t that the rich have less, but that the poor have more. How would the analysis in you article look if it looked at just the bottom 20% in each country.
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You have a 1% chance of being the rich person.
It would probably be good for the mods to split this conversation to its own thread.
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I’d be curious how much inequality of income/wealth truly drove COVID outcomes. Victims of COVID tended to be old and those 65+ in the US already get government funded healthcare and the poorest in the US (with some exceptions) either get free or subsidized healthcare.
Income differences obviously isn’t all that matters in a society, but I think it’s a compelling thing to not lose sight of as people pile on the flaws they see in the US. Economically we’ve been doing very well.
I agree. It is also social programs like decent maternity/paternity benefits, affordable daycare, reasonable sick pay and vacation benefits, universal basic healthcare with no cost-sharing, reasonable minimum wages, public health education, etc. Those contribute to the overall health of a people and the US lags in these areas relative to many other countries.
Obviously just spending a ton of money on healthcare is not by itself a panacea for good health outcomes in the general population.
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Sounds like a good idea.
This FT article is worth a read for the North American folks:
Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people - Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people via @FT
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Well-said by the FT, as usual.
I like The FT the most of any business paper and reluctantly gave up my subscription when I retired because it is expensive here. Always get one when I am in the UK. The Weekend FT is always a good read.
I started reading The Economist in university but cancelled my subscription to it years ago as I just got tired of its blinkered neoliberalism slant on economics.
Agree that The Economist has become terrible. They now skew to neoliberal right-wing conservative. Just bizarre articles now.
FT is still ok. They do have many right-wing journalists (more centrist vs US) but that is something I find valuable as echo chambers have become a problem in the global sense. I seldomly agree with them, but their viewpoints have made me modify my views in a few occasions.
FT costs have absolutely sky-rocketed. Premium is now $900/year (and increasing).
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I often visit old friends at their offices when in London. Invariably there is an FT in the lobby for visitors to read, which I appreciate. I will read the WSJ when visiting my American BIL but my politics are too different from Rupert Murdoch to enjoy any of their articles with a political slant. Much prefer the Sunday NY Times Business section as it typically has stories on interesting business figures.
Of course, my daily business read is the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business for its Canadian company news.
I don’t think you have to go to the lowest 20%. The ratio of median to mean income in Mississippi is about 71% while in France it is about 84%.
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Couldn’t find articles that addressed this extensively but this Time magazine one briefly alluded to it.
“Also implicated in the far higher COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. is the simple fact that Americans are less healthy than Canadians. Lacking a system of universal healthcare and plagued by unusually high levels of class and racial inequality, Americans are more likely to have pre-existing medical conditions associated with death from COVID. Americans have an obesity rate of 42 percent versus 27 percent for Canadians and a diabetes rate of 9.4 percent versus 7.3 percent for Canadians. Overall, the health of Canadians is superior and they live longer lives, with an average life expectancy of 82.2 years compared to 78.3 years in the U.S.”
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Is it also age-adjusted?
Population density adjusted?
Obesity-adjusted?
Idiot-adjusted?
Population density was a huge factor in the beginning.
Idiocy is a bigger factor now.
Obesity is always a factor.
In terms of number of deaths, I think population density is by far the bigger issue since the deaths were much worse in the beginning.
Conversely, what if it was a choice between
C) 99 people with 11,000 & 1 person with 1,000,000,000 (a billion)
D) 99 people with 10,000 & 1 person with 1,000,000 (a million)
There’s a lot more equality in D… everyone is worse off though.
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That’s a true statement.
The first case has 500x the total GDP compared to the second case. Or, moving from the first to the second involves destroying 99.2% of the GDP in the first.
Nobody in the US is contemplating anything remotely like that.
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Lets say you and another player are playing a game. There is a 1,000,000 pot of money to divide. The other player proposes and allocation. You can either accept the proposed allocation or reject it. If you reject it neither of you receives anything.
You are offerred a single dollar or even a hundred. Would you accept?