As an American, I think that Americans don't realize how bad the US really is. We have the worst Gini Index in the industrialized world--a measure of income inequality. We are comparable to the Phillipines and Bolivia, which is hardly enviable company. We spend 15% of our GDP on health care, but we have the worst public health statistics of any industrialized nation. 45 million Americans have no health care. We have an extremely low minimum wage, so many of the poor are forced to work 2 jobs to get by. We have a higher crime rate than Europe and a greater proportion of our citizens in jail.
France is certainly no paradise especially if you are a young person seeking a job, and France is actually loosening its employment rules (which is why the French students are protesting today).
Nonetheless, Americans should understand that we do pay pay high taxes, they just don't take the form of traditional taxes. We pay roughly 30% in taxes. Once you add another 15% for health care and you add the fact that you have to own a car to survive in the US, you realize that Americans have to pay almost as much as people in many European Countries and we receive much less--no universal health care, inadequate unemployment insurance, and inadequate welfare.
Americans have little vacation time and on average the Europeans have to work fewer hours per week. Despite the higher unemployment, I think most people would chose to live in Europe. European companies haven't done such a bad job of competing. We forget that France and Germany have a much higher productivity per hour than the average US worker. US companies have ruthlessly outsourced and we call this progress. Well the US economy is simply unsustainable. Look at the money flowing out and the mony flowing in. Look at the high rate of debt. If China or Japan decided to dump all their US currency reserves, the US economy would tank. I read the other day that if we had a depression, 5 million Americans would declare bankruptcy because they couldn't pay their debts. Our whole economy is built upon spending more money than we receive and eventually it will catch up with us.
So you have to add all those factors in to the equation when comparing the US to France.
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Re:some thoughts on this story
Posted by: amosbatto on March 16, 2006 11:11 PMFrance is certainly no paradise especially if you are a young person seeking a job, and France is actually loosening its employment rules (which is why the French students are protesting today).
Nonetheless, Americans should understand that we do pay pay high taxes, they just don't take the form of traditional taxes. We pay roughly 30% in taxes. Once you add another 15% for health care and you add the fact that you have to own a car to survive in the US, you realize that Americans have to pay almost as much as people in many European Countries and we receive much less--no universal health care, inadequate unemployment insurance, and inadequate welfare.
Americans have little vacation time and on average the Europeans have to work fewer hours per week. Despite the higher unemployment, I think most people would chose to live in Europe. European companies haven't done such a bad job of competing. We forget that France and Germany have a much higher productivity per hour than the average US worker. US companies have ruthlessly outsourced and we call this progress. Well the US economy is simply unsustainable. Look at the money flowing out and the mony flowing in. Look at the high rate of debt. If China or Japan decided to dump all their US currency reserves, the US economy would tank. I read the other day that if we had a depression, 5 million Americans would declare bankruptcy because they couldn't pay their debts. Our whole economy is built upon spending more money than we receive and eventually it will catch up with us.
So you have to add all those factors in to the equation when comparing the US to France.
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