Something at TCS. Amazingly, the poor do not do worse in the US than in Finland or Sweden, those redistributionist paradises.
In fact, the standard of living of the bottom 10% is exactly the same in all three countries.
Timmy Elsewhere
4 responses
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Not so fast! What this tells us is that the Nordic poor have the same income as the US poor, not the same standard of living. Finns, for example, all have access to and make use of the same public services, so poorer people here are not at a disadvantage in terms of health and education as their US counterparts are. In the longer term, that obviously makes for better use of the nation’s social capital. Growth should be around 4% this year.
Richer Finns may have less disposable income than Americans, but that doesn’t seem to bother them. There’s less need for lots of money to throw at problems. The world’s best school system is provided through state funding so no-one has to worry about school fees, for example.
Tim adds: The poor in the US have Medicaid, the public school system is also open to them. No difference there then. -
Do you think Polly knows about this? And, if she does, do you think it will change her mind-set one iota?
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OT, but TCS has an absolutely terrible discussion software. It looks like it comes from 1986, not 2006.
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