The US Suffers from Not Enough Government

[Eriech]

The US ranks 28th in overall social welfare, and is dropping.

A measure of social progress finds that the quality of life has dropped in America over the last decade, even as it has risen almost everywhere else.

The index, inspired by research of Nobel-winning economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being — nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more — to measure quality of life. Norway comes out on top in the 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. South Sudan is at the bottom, with Chad, Central African Republic and Eritrea just behind.

Out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011.

The United States now lags behind significantly poorer countries, including Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Greece, because those nations have more robust government supports for their people.

The United States ranks No. 1 in the world in quality of universities, but No. 91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet we are No. 97 in access to quality health care.

The US suffers from Government.

Fixed it for you.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[aociswundumho]

And literacy was higher in that time then now despite trillions of wasted federal ed dollars since then

Indeed. Public schools are a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.

 

[aociswundumho]

This is a utopian argument of how things should and shouldn't be. My point was that utopia is not an option, and that you will end up paying one way or the other, regardless.

No, it's a normative claim that virtually everyone agrees with including you.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

No, it's a normative claim that virtually everyone agrees with including you.

And "You also shouldn't have to pay people to catch the people who commit crimes, since the crimes just shouldn't have been committed to begin with" is similarly a normative claim that virtually everyone agrees with, including you. So why did you characterize it as a utopian statement?

 

[EMNofSeattle]

Indeed. Public schools are a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
View attachment 67297541

The simple truth is, in addition to being a total failure education makes people miserable. There was a book written sometime ago called life in a medieval city, And it describes how the lower classes in rural peasants submit evil society were in all likelihood much happier than we are today. With our endless pursuit of material gain and no spiritual fulfillment. The education system teaches people to satisfy their material desires.

 

[aociswundumho]

And "You also shouldn't have to pay people to catch the people who commit crimes, since the crimes just shouldn't have been committed to begin with" is similarly a normative claim that virtually everyone agrees with, including you. So why did you characterize it as a utopian statement?

The first part is normative and I agree with it. The second part is utopian because there will always be crime.

Even in a situation where the government explicitly pays people not to commit crimes (which is impossible due to the perverse incentives created by such a policy), it still wouldn't work for say, crimes of passion, violent crimes borne out of anger or misunderstandings, etc.

Futhermore, the EMN guy has a point. Minorities collect the most welfare per capita, and at the same time they are over-represented in crime statistics, and that's pretty much common knowledge. If you're going to make an argument for welfare, I'd try something else if I were you.

 

[Robertinfremont]

Yes, you make an interesting point. I wonder if we total up all tax dollars that go to subsidize already profitable companies, what the total would be? And include below-market leases of federal lands to miners and drillers. And everything else. I wonder what the total is?

You seem to not truly know and appreciate the enormous freedom we all have as citizens of the great United States of America where we have an awesome president in Donald Trump.

 

[Robertinfremont]

The simple truth is, in addition to being a total failure education makes people miserable. There was a book written sometime ago called life in a medieval city, And it describes how the lower classes in rural peasants submit evil society were in all likelihood much happier than we are today. With our endless pursuit of material gain and no spiritual fulfillment. The education system teaches people to satisfy their material desires.

I saw today where one teacher in one state was sentenced to prison for her enjoying her carnal habits over her sex life with a student who bragged, who does not want to have sex with his teacher?

Rochester teacher sentenced to at least 4 years in prison for sex with students

Prosecutors added a 7th charge of delivering a controlled substance. The judge said prosecutors have medical evidence supporting that one of the teens ingested the Xanax.

www.clickondetroit.com

 

[Robertinfremont]

If it's not the government's job to help people, what use is government for then?

Though I think one of the problems the US have is not necessary that the government is small, but that it is working on different levels without any clearly defined hierarchy that decides which level that do what, which predictably lead to every level of government thinking it's someone else's job. Also ironically US tax payers don't exactly pay less in taxes for less services, so to that has always looked like a scam.

Read the entire United States of America Constitution to learn what good the Government of Donald Trump is for all Americans. Democrats have a false prophet in Joe Biden.

 

[joluoto]

Read the entire United States of America Constitution to learn what good the Government of Donald Trump is for all Americans. Democrats have a false prophet in Joe Biden.

I have read it. More than once, and realized it's kinda useless when the President can't bother following it.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

The first part is normative and I agree with it. The second part is utopian because there will always be crime.

That doesn't mean that there should be crime. The point is that the realities of what is care nothing for our opinions of what should be.

Even in a situation where the government explicitly pays people not to commit crimes (which is impossible due to the perverse incentives created by such a policy), it still wouldn't work for say, crimes of passion, violent crimes borne out of anger or misunderstandings, etc.

You're not wrong. I didn't claim that welfare was a panacea for all woes. As the research I presented illustrates, it prevents economic desperation from translating into acts of desperation. It does so more efficiently than other remedies for acts of desperation such as car prowling, burglary etc.

While I can see how you could reasonably interpret welfare as de facto institutional blackmail in effect, it is not blackmail at all in execution. There is no literal agent threatening consequences if demands for money are not met.

What we have is a situation where someone without other means to feed their family will predictably shoplift from a supermarket rather than let their children starve. Someone who can't afford insurance or medication will break into cars rather than watch their wife suffer for lack of care.

Providing a basic safety net above the threshold at which financial desperation slopes dramatically toward criminal behavior is a cost-effective deterrent, not to all crime, but specifically to crimes strongly correlated with poverty.

Futhermore, the EMN guy has a point. Minorities collect the most welfare per capita, and at the same time they are over-represented in crime statistics, and that's pretty much common knowledge. If you're going to make an argument for welfare, I'd try something else if I were you.

People with diabetes use the most insulin per capita, and at the same time are over-represented in poor glucose regulation. Does that bizarre line of reasoning wholly discredit the massive body of research indicating that insulin is effective at managing glucose levels?

This is really basic stuff. Property crime is strongly correlated with poverty. Communities with high concentrations of minorities are also strongly correlated with poverty. So it is expected by the predictive model that minorities would be over-represented in crime statistics. The introduction of welfare programs to an impoverished community would be expected to mitigate the effects of poverty and thereby reduce property crime according to the predictive model. This bears out in the evidence, as property crime goes down following the introduction or reinforcement of welfare programs.

 

[jpn]

You seem to not truly know and appreciate the enormous freedom we all have as citizens of the great United States of America where we have an awesome president in Donald Trump.

Yeah! And the freedom to vote! As long as you don't try to vote in a red state.

 

[Scorps2000]

We do need some regulation, case in point the internet. The web has been mostly unregulated and users are being manipulated by large tech companies. This is because advertisers pay for the internet and most apps users sign up for.
People are not in control of the internet, advertisers are! We don't want to pay for anything on the web so we don't control it, most people are being controlled by big tech companies and advertisers.

 

[Individual]

More government will NOT solve or even reduce the problem, over the last 107 years it has shown only to be capable of exacerbating the problems that need a solution.

Population far exceeds the employment needs to produce the goods and services we consume.

 

[HIP56948]

My life experience has shown that people in the USA who have never been or lived in other countries always think that America is #1. It certainly is in a few categories. In many other categories, America is failing terribly. I take no pleasure in pointing this out. I live here (most of the time)

 

[skeptic llc]

My life experience has shown that people in the USA who have never been or lived in other countries always think that America is #1. It certainly is in a few categories. In many other categories, America is failing terribly. I take no pleasure in pointing this out. I live here (most of the time)

I was always adamant that the US was by far the greatest country on earth, the envy of the rest of the world, a nation of destiny, etc. (because that's what I had been taught) ... until I lived abroad. It quickly became impossible for me to ignore that some other countries have a deal that is very different, but that reasonable people could easily prefer. Our country is great in so many ways, but I agree with you. People who insist America is #1 yet have never lived elsewhere really should recognize that such limited experience does not make for informed opinions.

 

[skeptic llc]

Indeed. Public schools are a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
View attachment 67297541

Thank you for providing my new favorite graphic ever. I believe that literally decades of studies have completely disproved the notion that spending more on education produces better education. It just doesn't.

 

[Bullseye]

The US ranks 28th in overall social welfare, and is dropping.

A measure of social progress finds that the quality of life has dropped in America over the last decade, even as it has risen almost everywhere else.

The index, inspired by research of Nobel-winning economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being — nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more — to measure quality of life. Norway comes out on top in the 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. South Sudan is at the bottom, with Chad, Central African Republic and Eritrea just behind.

Out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011.

The United States now lags behind significantly poorer countries, including Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Greece, because those nations have more robust government supports for their people.

The United States ranks No. 1 in the world in quality of universities, but No. 91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet we are No. 97 in access to quality health care.

And more unaccountable bureaucrats will solve these problems? Wanna buy a bridge:

 

[ModerationNow!]

I disagree. It is not that we do not have enough government but how it is used. In my view, our government is used to support corporate interests over the people, so we pay plenty into it and get very little out as a society. It seems like only the wealthy really benefit from our government.

They have LOTS of government and LOTS of regulations in New York, California, and in MOST big, democrat run cities, along with the highest tax rates, but yet quality of life is dropping like a rock in almost every conceivable category in all of these regions with (unaccountable)democrat party monopolies on power!

The schools are failing, the public sector (and private sector)unions have been given carte blanche, costing taxpayers a fortune, and making it nearly impossible to fire even the worst police officers, teachers, prison employees, bureaucrats, etc! The cop who knelt on George Floyd's neck had a history of abuses, but the situation created by democrats and unions prevented him from being fired!

Now, some "progressive" democrat leaders are actually starting to tell their citizens(the white ones) to expect to be victimized by criminals, and to give them whatever they want! Worse yet, they are promoting the "critical race theory" propaganda, saying that white people expecting police to come and protect them from crime, is a symptom of "toxic whiteness", and a product of "white privilege"!

So basically, if you're white, you should get comfortable with being robbed, assaulted, raped etc, because it's a product of your inherent racism and privilege to expect the govt to protect you!

Yep, California, New York and Chicago just need MORE MONEY, and more unaccountable, unquestioned govt power! Leftists will line up to blindly promote ^this stuff too!