News Gap in life expectancy in U.S. growing

[Art]

Can you back that up with anything?The Economist piece must provide a source for any such claim; you should be able to provide that here.

This piece is a few years old but the data presented is still relevant

The myth of economic mobility
Among the world's wealthy countries, the United States has both high average incomes and high poverty rates. Recent research by Bruce Bradbury (UNICEF) and Markus Jantti (Abo Akademi University in Finland), for example, found that the United States has more of its population living in poverty (20.7%) than does any other advanced economy. Poverty rates in most advanced economies were less than half those of the United States: Spain (10.3%), France (9.4%), Germany (8.5%), the Netherlands (6.5%), Belgium (5.7%), Denmark (4.9%), and Sweden (2.9%).

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_07192000

The link includes economic mobility comparisons between the US and some leading EU countries and references the research it draws upon.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I haven't been following this thread carefully, so someone may have already posted this:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/128568"

I don't think that any study can be done that would provide meaningful statistics for this thread. And yet the hate America first crowd will find what they are looking for in any statistic.

 

[mheslep]

This piece is a few years old but the data presented is still relevant http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_07192000

The link includes economic mobility comparisons between the US and some leading EU countries and references the research it draws upon.

Thanks

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I haven't been following this thread carefully, so someone may have already posted this:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/128568"

I don't think that any study can be done that would provide meaningful statistics for this thread. And yet the hate America first crowd will find what they are looking for in any statistic.

I don't know if you meant me, I don't hate America, or Americans, in fact the reason I hang around this forum is because Americans are quite prevalent here, and they share a similar outlook and sense of humour. I've not traveled to the states, but I do have a few people I'd call long term internet friends who are American.

I don't like the way the Bush administration has looked to shape things atm. But as I said before, I don't really have any but political objections and your as free to determine your own system as anyone else, I don't feel the need to think I am right and everyone else is wrong. Just in case people are getting the impression that I'm a hater. I'm equally scathing of my own government atm, so call it a somewhat unfavourable attitude to the style of government in my country and yours atm. Rather than the fact that I hate them or anyone.

Just in case anyone thinks I'm getting at them or their country personally.

I was going to say that economists can pretty much make any case given some statistics. So the same goes for those on both sides of the debate really.

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw.

 

[stickythighs]

Uh huh. Just like you can tell a homeless person that at least he has some cardboard to cover himself with. 100 years ago, he wouldn't have had any cardboard!

I'm a homeless person. Street homeless (not a shelter baby). I don't have any cardboard to cover myself with.

You aren't dealing with absolute numbers here, but relative numbers. Uprisings don't start because everybody is prospering, they start because the rich are getting much richer than the poor. At the expense of the poor.

The rich are not getting rich at the expense of the poor.

 

[stickythighs]

Rich get rich off of the poor. This is a fact. Not all and not all the time, but a good chunk of becoming rich is by feeding off of the poor.

What do you mean by feeding off the poor? I agree that the rich largely get rich from the labor of the poor, but this process benefits the poor as well as the rich, IMO.