And I appreciate your reply very much, Ronan. I will ignore the CO2 remarks you posted, but the costs associated with global climate change are enormous and both costs and real effects influence individuals, sometimes dramatically.
The gini index is the place to look first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
With the gini, we see the expression how a nation treats its own people. While the US is not the worst, it is actually pretty bad.
The gini expresses the slant of distribution in a nation. The haves versus the have-nots, in short.
In the Americas, Canada is the winner with a slant of 33.3% (US slant is 41.4%). The Americas is not the best spot for folks that are not part of the middle or the top.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-country
It is important to understand these percentages. The rich in Canada are still the rich, and the poor still the poor. But on average, the Canadian poor are better off than the US poor.
We see the same occurring with the bottom ten percent as expressed in the World Bank link I provided in the previous reply.
US: 1.7%
Canada: 2.7%
These are huge numbers.
If the bottom ten percent in the US gets $500, just to give this percentage some beef, then the Canadian bottom ten percent get $794. We don't have to level both nations to get the exact difference right because we already see that the difference is huge indeed.
The perspective of the individual about their country being the best in the world depends therefore strongly on the individual and his or her experience.
Denmark: 3.7%
$1088
Back to the gini index because the slant in a nation can also be used about all individuals in a nation being happy about that nation.
I am going to do a little trick here that I hope you can agree to.
The individual that is rich receiving another $1000 is not going to be jumping in the air. The individual that is poor receiving another $50 is going to be quite happy with it. The point I am trying to make is that we cannot just look at the median income of individuals to tell how well off a nation is. We have to multiply the individuals times their experienced happiness living in their nations.
That does not bode well for the US.
In happiness ratings, the US is not the leader in the world.
As shown, a Danish person in the bottom ten percent gets $1088 where a US person in the same category would get $500, in a quick and dirty calculation to make the point.
Same can be said about life expectancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
It is not that the average US person does not have the same life expectancy as a person in other rich nations in the world. It is that the average is lower exactly because of the discrepancies experienced within the nation. Those on the lower end live shorter lives.
Go to slide No. 6 on this site and the point to show is that the life expectancy is distinctly different per tiny area by tiny area. It matters in the US who you are to have a totally different outlook on life.
That does not spell freedom to me. That spells bondage for a perhaps unexpected number of people.
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The dollar being tied to oil makes it the safe haven in rough times. That's why it is the default for global investments. Without the link to oil, it has to work harder to attract the same investments. Yes, it is a large economy, but the EU economy is also very substantial and does not have that anchor. It matters.
A strong dollar is not always good for an economy, but the US can print more dollars when the dollar is strong. Stimulus packages are cheaper for the US than for other nations. I have heard this before that when the US sneezes then Europe catches a cold. The Euro can fluctuate, but it is the US who is controlling the mechanism. China doesn't like that and proposes a basket of currencies instead, and Europe likes the idea but is not yet willing to change the financial setup of the world.
The US benefits from a global setup, being in the financial driver seat.
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I often end up with the system, because the system is where we express our freedom.
In District Voting, the winners-take-all. And that is what we see in this society. The losers are not expressed; they are not at the tables of decision making.
There is a reason why the US has one of the lowest turn-outs for elections in the rich world because voters that voted four times and did not get their pick will stay home the fifth time.
In Scandinavian countries, there is just one House, nothing else. Voters do not vote for three institutions that can then start fighting with each other, like we do. High voter turn-out to, 80% and more.
If we just focus on money and power, then winner-take-all automatically delivers more money to:
* the rich
* the ones in the middle
That money is not delivered to:
* the poor
But the poor have to work, and work really hard to make ends meet.
That is great for foreign investors because the lower segment of society does not get to share in the profits; more for them. The poor cannot express themselves politically. Hip-hip-hooray.
I'll end with the example of New Zealand because people are blind to the facts unless a story is told.
New Zealand changed its two-party system in 1996 to incorporate proportional voting (basically they got the German voting system).
In the first new election, female representatives jumped almost 50%.
That says something very clear about bondage. Females were elected in the past but at a repressed rate, and with the new system they ended up liberated. Today, 47.5% of all seats are taken in by women.
The US?
We are 76th on the world list of female representatives.
http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
There is a lot of bondage in the US and we don't see it.
We are blind to it because we tell each other why we are so good, the best perhaps, and we do not tell each other all the facts that matter.
Thank you for your further comments, and for the good tone in your reasonings.
