Helping Americans understand just how rich we are

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

I have no problem with whole industries vanishing (as they have) my gripe is that those ex-workers (many of them older, non-English speaking migrants & ) were not catered for in any way with other employment alternatives.

I'll have to take your word about the facts in Australia. Given these facts, I agree. It makes sense for public policy to accompany free trade agreements with adult education programs. Hopefully these programs give those people the professional training they need to find jobs in other industries.

Indeed, that's a good idea regardless of trade policy, as technical progress displaces many more workers in traditional jobs anyway. For example, 100 years ago, about half of American workers worked in agriculture. Today it's about two percent. Meanwhile, millions of farmers had to find other vocations. Government programs to train them have proven both productive and equitable.

On top of that, government-aided education and transitional help makes sense politically. It can go a long way towards bribing First-World workers not to vote against free trade and open immigration. So I'm all for government policies to help along those transitions.

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I'm going to re-post this request, because it was ignored by the opposite side of the debate -

Quote:

=Do me a favor: point me out a single ******* country who is materially different in terms of their willingness to help out the poor of the world. Show me the country who structures their policies in order to benefit the poor of the world to the maximum extents. Or who even spends a material amount of time considering it.

See, the thing is, what you call 'ugly Americanism' is humanity. You are just picking the rich group to pick on because it's a convenient target.

Are there in fact any countries who engage in the altruistic behavior that RG and others believe the US should engage in? To any meaningful degree?

Cycloptichorn

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

This includes yourself RG. More to the point, I think this thread is about addressing your guilt by projecting it on others.

Well I found one thing you are worse at than debate: psychology. Yeah, this is all about pent-up guilt. :-)

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You're taking this to a personal level which some how makes Cyclo's or my situation somehow different from yours.

I'm not making it any more personal than you are, as I was saying:

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Where is the A2K server hosted? The company that maintains it?

A2K uses servers around the world but the main one is in Chicago. What is your point? That I should put the servers elsewhere to benefit someone else's economy? That'd be a silly point that doesn't understand what I want at all. I want a level playing field, not forced charity.

So I'm hiring a Costa Rican just because I happen to be here, and they happen to work as hard for less than an American. But that doesn't mean I advocate spending more money on a less reliable Costa Rican server (actually, their government had a monopoly on net infrastructure till now, I'd strongly not recommend it till their IT infrastructure is more open).

What I advocate is a more level trade playing field and less trade bullying.

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Were you the only person on a bench with an American citizenship?

No. But do you have a point? Or is this all just child-like automatic gainsay where you just ask me a question back?

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Thanks for the uninvitation to contribute here RG. It's clear you came to talk and not listen.

Thomas and fbaezer have plenty to say that I am listening to, msolga and cyclo even though they disagree with me as well. So just because you don't doesn't mean I'm not here to listen. It doesn't mean I am not willing to let you contribute, it's just that you have had precious little to contribute. I can't be faulted for this.

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Why even start a thread RG? You came to read your own words. Thanks for reminding us of your superior vantage point on this matter. Your message: Stop complaining. Well nobody here is complaining.

It's not my fault that you don't know what you are talking about, and that you haven't made a cogent point in this thread. Don't get all pissy with me about it.

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I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about the upward climb I've had to get where I am and how low I came from.

Don't make me laugh. I've heard it and it's one of the reasons that I think Americans are spoiled brats.

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There doesn't seem to be anything left to discuss here.

For you, perhaps. You never had anything useful here to say in the first place.

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You will not be able to convince me that I should feel any more or less sympathy for a poor person based on their nationality.

Your reading comprehension sucks worse than your psychology, it should be clear to anyone that I advocate no national basis for sympathies. I advocate for those with the most need, whoever they may be and against those who protect on the basis of nationality.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

No, it isn't a lie. Being poor in America is a crap existence even if it is worse elsewhere. You wouldn't want to be poor here or anywhere else. It's just a matter of degree.

Yes, in a relative sense you can make such an argument, Cy. In an absolute sense, it's a highly specious argument.

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

compassion isn't what's needed, just basic fairness and honesty; two things that are sorely absent, two things that just don't match up to the incessant propaganda.

I agree, we don't even need compassion to start, just fair trade agreements and less economic bullying would go a long way.

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@Cycloptichorn,

It was ignored because it's another red herring like the one that followed it asking me about my own activities. It doesn't matter if no country is perfectly charitable, that isn't what I am arguing for and their wrongs wouldn't make the US right anyway.

It doesn't matter if I am a dick or not, people should still not be dicks.

It doesn't matter if other countries are dicks or not, Americans should still not be dicks.

And the thing is, most other countries don't throw their economic weight around like we do. I'd be happy with America just being less of an economic bully and more in line with the rest of the world.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

What's wrong with a little passion? This is an issue worth ranting about. You guys are infuriatingly insular to me.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Certainly not me. It isn't the US' problem to fix the problems of the world. The rest of the world spends 80% of the time bitching that we try too hard to police the world and run the whole show and 20% of the time begging for money.

Bulllllshit! The USA doesn't police the world, it gangsterizes the world.

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Right now we're the top dog. So was Rome, China and England in their day. Soon someone else will be the top dog. It's not our job to fix the whole ******* world while we're on top and nobody has any reason to be made to feel bad for not focusing on it.

But it is your job as a one who portrays themself as a moral/ethical person to stop the carnage, stop the terror heaped upon the poorer nations of the world just to enrich your own [the generic 'your own'].

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@Robert Gentel,

You are specifically blaming the US for the things that the rest of the world does on a regular basis and calling it 'Ugly Americanism.'

Yaknow what? **** that. We're no different then anyone else, except for the fact that we've been more successful. Call it Ugly Humanity if you like.

If you can't point out how America's actions are any different then other countries, you are incorrect to act as if it's some sort of special problem of ours. It's not a red herring; it cuts to the quick of your argument.

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It doesn't matter if other countries are dicks or not, Americans should still not be dicks.

It isn't 'being dick.' That's the problem with your argument. You have carefully defined the economic incentives of countries so that anything which is designed to benefit those countries themselves, and not poor people in other countries, is a 'dick move.' I think this is an error with your definition and a real failure of your part to properly analyze the world situation and human nature. And I think this error is cause in part by your lack of emotional control in this discussion.

Cycloptichorn

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

What's wrong with a little passion? This is an issue worth ranting about. You guys are infuriatingly insular to me.

Ranting convinces nobody of anything except that the person doing so lacks self-control. Is that the message you were looking to send?

Cycloptichorn

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I was intrigued by the graphics showing plan views of aircraft carrier decks at the start of this thread, and by degrees led to scan the several pages of posts that followed. I believe folks here are commenting (in some cases pontificating) on a subject that has many more dimensions and variables than most here appear willing to acknowledge.

The United States already, in effect, gave the economic value of an aircraft carrier to Hati during the 1990s in the events surrounding the former president Aristide. It turns out we merely propped up yet another kleptocracy: Haiti is still poor, and, after the natural disaster which recently hit them, still in rather desperate shape. This demonstrates that mere redistribution of wealth is not a sufficient solution.

This leads to another fundamental question - one that, oddly in my view, has not yet been raised.

Why are some countries poor and others richer?

Clearly natural resources and the potential productivity of the land are a factor. However the existence of widespread desperate poverty in areas rich in natural resources, and wealth in others largely without them clearly demonstrates that this is not a sufficient explanation.

Social and cultural factors often appear to be involved. However, as Fbaezer noted, it's a long way economically from Mexico or Chile to Nicaragua. They aren't the whole story either.

Gini coefficients for the distribution of wealth (or other factors) are an excellent neasure of the relative weights of the extremities of the distribution of wealth, and are indeed a useful statistic for such rankings as provided. However, they don't rell us much about the muiddle of the distribution or the relative values of their means in the comparisons.

Much of the discussion so far appears to center on the presumed merits of some kind of organized redistribution on wealth as a solution to this problem. However. even a cursory knowledge of history reveals that such nation to nation transfers occur only rarely in this world; and that attempts to forcibly apply mass redistribution have generally degenerated very quickly to tyranny, uniform poverty and the loss of freedom. Indeed, recent events suggest that even the far more benign and more successful European Social democratic model man not itsel be sustainable, given the perversities of human nature.

Recollections of Aesop's fable about the assembled mice discussing the merits of putting a bell around the cat's neck came repeatedly to mind as I read the posts on the preceeding pages..

The aircraft carriers and other military capability so blithely described as obscene here did indeed help to induce the failure of the Soviet Empire, thereby setting in motion actions that reduced a great deal of poverty in eastern Europe, Central Asia and, indirectly, in China. The voluntary decision of Indian governments to dismantly a unique system of paternalistic, protectionist and often authoritarian economic controls has done more to reduce poverty in that country than all of the (very substantial) aid they received in the decades after WWII.

In short, the subject is a good deal more complex that most have acknowledged here. Contradictions are the rule, not the exception here. I believe the answer is to be found not so much in our governments but in our common human natures.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

Don't make me laugh. I've heard it and it's one of the reasons that I think Americans are spoiled brats.

Dude. That's just petty. I'd never dare taunt the hardships you or your family have faced.

Enjoy your moral throne, RG.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Do me a favor: point me out a single ******* country who is materially different in terms of their willingness to help out the poor of the world. Show me the country who structures their policies in order to benefit the poor of the world to the maximum extents. Or who even spends a material amount of time considering it.

Actually, there are quite a few countries who have policies that actually aid countries in need, Cy. They don't tie their aid to the purchase of their own products, they give a much larger percentage of their GDP, they don't spread their armaments around the globe with wild abandon, they ... .

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Quote:
Do me a favor: point me out a single ******* country who is materially different in terms of their willingness to help out the poor of the world. Show me the country who structures their policies in order to benefit the poor of the world to the maximum extents. Or who even spends a material amount of time considering it.

Actually, there are quite a few countries who have policies that actually aid countries in need, Cy. They don't tie their aid to the purchase of their own products, they give a much larger percentage of their GDP, they don't spread their armaments around the globe with wild abandon, they ... .

Name 'em and the specific policies.

And I'm not going to get drawn into a discussion of your beliefs regarding American terrorism, I simply don't give a **** about them and won't waste my time responding, so please just stick to the subject of economics.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Are there in fact any countries who engage in the altruistic behavior that RG and others believe the US should engage in? To any meaningful degree?

Before I answer that, I'd like to dispute the relevance of your question. Even if nobody else is doing the right thing, that's a pitiful reason not to do it oneself. We would still enslave each other if every country in the world had waited for every other country to abolish slavery first.

With this preamble out of the way, let me get to the substance of your question. By measures like foreign aid as a percentage of GDP, all rich countries are misers. The Swedes, for example, spend a percent of their GDP on foreign aid, and that makes them the most general donor countries in the world. But even by that low standard, the USA falls far short. At 0.2% of GDP, it spends a smaller percentage of GDP on foreign aid than almost any other country (Source: OECD).

Granted, the US has by far the largest economy, so in spite of being such a miser it still gives the largest dollar amount of foreign aid. Nevertheless, the answer to your question is "yes". Yes, there are other rich countries whose foreign policies are significantly more altruistic than America's. Indeed, measured in foreign aid per capita, almost all rich countries are more generous than the USA at helping poor countries catch up.

PS: Peter Singer has a new book out. It's an excellent discussion about the ethics and economics of foreign aid. It's titled The Life You Can Save, and I warmly recommend it.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Oh, wait a minute -- did you mean places like Ecuador, where they have de facto established dollars as the local currency? That's nothing. When dollar bills are stashed away in Ecuadorian bank safes, or even circulating in Ecuador, they don't affect America at all. To the American economy, they're just green paper that America has printed and shipped there.

I'm not an economist, Thomas, but isn't there some benefit to the USA when it has lots of dollars spread around the world and those dollars are viewed with a strength that doesn't necessarily exist?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

To be clear: There are other measures of goodwill towards poor people, such as donations by private charities, low tariffs for Third-World imports and liberal immigration laws. By some of these measures, the US is doing better than other OECD countries. But the bottom line is that all rich countries are misers whichever metric you use.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Before I answer that, I'd like to dispute the relevance of your question. Even if nobody else is doing the right thing, that's a pitiful reason not to do it oneself. We would still enslave each other if every country in the world had waited for every other country to abolish slavery first.

I don't necessarily dispute this, but I am arguing against the idea that this constitutes 'ugly americanism.' It is neither special to us nor are we specially responsible for the problems of others, in ways that other countries are not.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Thomas has given the necessary overview.

There's no need for you to continually offer your great reluctance to engage in discussions that are too difficult for you to face. We only have to note that you have no argument whatsoever that can refute the clear fact situation; America is by far, the largest terrorist nation state on the planet. Has been for a good number of years.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

I don't necessarily dispute this, but I am arguing against the idea that this constitutes 'ugly americanism.' It is neither special to us nor are we specially responsible for the problems of others, in ways that other countries are not.

No, you specifically stated that you want to avoid any discussion of 'ugly americanism' when the fact is that America took that role over form the Brits some time ago and has done a splendid job of enhancing the job description.

You are incredibly naive for one who is somehow involved in academia, Cy.

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Helping Americans understand just how rich we are

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