UNICEF: US is one of the worst countries in the world to raise kids

[mheslep]

Actually, the biggest problem is the presentation. The title of the thread and the title of the NPR article are highly misleading about what the study says about the US. One of the worst in a group of 20 is probably actually one of the best of the world's 200+ countries. The NPR article is titled: "U.S. on List of UNICEF's Worst Countries for Kids". No such list exists in that article and worst countries out of what group (perhaps that's the reason for the OP's mischaracterization?) is key to not misunderstanding the study. Those types of things really irritate me.

Several posters have said they found the UNICEF study unsurprising. Me, I find the blatant mischaracterization by NPR unsurprising, so they no longer irritate me.

 

[russ_watters]

Several posters have said they found the UNICEF study unsurprising. Me, I find the blatant mischaracterization by NPR unsurprising, so they no longer irritate me.

I didn't say I was surprised by either the study's bias or NPR's bias/mischaracterization - but unlike you, I can still be irritated by things that don't surprise me.

 

[mheslep]

I love the fact that Finland schools do by far the best job in educating the kids but also is by far the least liked of them all. I wonder if it is more important to make the kids like learning or making them actually learn.

Yes I read very good things about Finnish primary schools. I believe children don't start school until age seven, the theory being they're better off starting at a higher level of maturity? Results seem to bear this out.

 

[Gokul43201]

I don't quite see much point to studying - and I use that last word loosely - the conditions for raising children in the well-off countries if there is not likely to be anything significant to learn from it. A study, if properly performed, on the poorer countries could be a lot more useful, as there are likely to be bigger differences, lot more to learn, and a possibility of actually making significant improvements in quality of life.

And I see no (non-idiotic) point in providing rankings, rather than scores, on each of those dimensions. AND, I see even less than no point in then sticking some arbitrary weights to those rankings (in this case, they are unweighted, which is to say that the weights were arbitrarily chosen to all be 1) and arriving at an "average ranking", as though that is even a meaningful number. If you want governments to read the report and help improve conditions, then what they need to see is where they are lacking on different dimensions (stipulating here, that the rest of the methodology is good, which I have absolutely no confidence in). Nonsensically combining the numbers to produce a crackpot result only suggests political game-playing.

In a word: hogwash!

 

[alxm]

Look, there is no need to nitpick when I'm sure you know what the reality is: If you lay out the countries in the study on a political spectrum, the US will be to the right of probably every other country studied. Agreed?

Most of them. Not, say, Switzerland. Although their conservatism is different of course. (e.g. they have no problems with universal health care but only guaranteed women's suffrage in 1990)

#1 shouldn't need explanation.

I think it does. Because 'freedom' is in my opinion a near-meaningless catchphrase of US politics. Americans are indoctrinated from childhood that they're living in the most 'free' country in the world, without any real argument. I know I was. If you're talking basic human freedoms (speech, assembly, worship etc) then that's certainly a valid cause to use the word. If you're talking about everyday politics, then it's totally subjective and typically used just to pretty-up a (typically conservative) political demand. Are you more 'free' if you can choose not to have health-care, or are you more 'free' if you're not dependent on your employer for health-care? It's totally subjective and nothing is gained (apart from rhetorical points) for framing it as an issue of 'freedom'.

#2, I said "have an easier time", not that they forced it and we didn't: all western countries have compulsory education.

Well, still - how? AFAIK all western countries also enforce this essentially the same way - if you don't send your kids to school and the authorities find out, you'll get fined. Persist and you'll get fined again and probably end up with some court order. So I can't see how they would necessarily "have an easier time". What specifically were you basing this on? (Oh, and they don't force immunizations either)

#3 - The #1 cause of death - by a very wide margin - of older teens in the US is car accidents.

Well there's certainly a difference here. I wouldn't attribute it to affluence but simply that the US driving age is lower, and Americans drive more. A used car isn't really beyond the means of a European middle-class household, if it had the same priority as for a US teenager, which it doesn't (for reasons mostly related to non-car-based urban-planning)

 

[Gokul43201]

The article, and UNICEF report, are over 3 yrs old! Doesn't even make sense for me to write NPR and complain about their wording of the headline.

 

[alxm]

Eh? Certainly some parts of the Swedish economy are planned, as they are owned and run by the government. Aren't the railroads, the mining company LKAB, and the banks all government owned in Sweden?

The railroads are deregulated but the government still owns the largest operator of non-goods traffic (SJ). But this is in fact the case in the USA as well, with Amtrak. The government only has a partial stake in a single bank (Nordea) which they had to bail out in the 90's. (Again not actually different from the US gov't at the moment).

LKAB doesn't have an American equivalent (other Swedish mining companies are private, btw). But having state control over a natural resource of huge national-economic interest (Europe's largest iron ore deposit) isn't really controversial anywhere.

In any case, it's hardly a 'planned economy'. These are all ordinary, for-profit corporations acting on a free market in competition with other corporations. It just happens that the treasury is a major stockholder.

 

[russ_watters]

The article, and UNICEF report, are over 3 yrs old! Doesn't even make sense for me to write NPR and complain about their wording of the headline.

Ugh, now I'm even more irritated for not noticing that this isn't just crap, but stale crap.

 

[russ_watters]

I think it does. Because 'freedom' is in my opinion a near-meaningless catchphrase of US politics. Americans are indoctrinated from childhood that they're living in the most 'free' country in the world, without any real argument. I know I was. If you're talking basic human freedoms (speech, assembly, worship etc) then that's certainly a valid cause to use the word. [emphasis added]

So you know it is true in certain contexts but you assume I'm not referring to those contexts?

There is nothing to argue about here - you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

However, you are wrong on one point, misunderstanding a key component of freedom, that I feel I can't ignore:

If you're talking about everyday politics, then it's totally subjective and typically used just to pretty-up a (typically conservative) political demand. Are you more 'free' if you can choose not to have health-care, or are you more 'free' if you're not dependent on your employer for health-care? It's totally subjective and nothing is gained (apart from rhetorical points) for framing it as an issue of 'freedom'.

Freedom, in its purest, most basic, literal, dictionary definition clearly means "the absence of control, interference, regulation, etc." (and there are about 8 other definitions that say the same thing in different words) which means personal freedom requires personal responsibility. Socialistic politics has perverted the definition in peoples minds to make them believe the clearly self-contradictiory idea that the government can be making their decisions for them, yet they are still free.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I didn't say I was surprised by either the study's bias or NPR's bias/mischaracterization - but unlike you, I can still be irritated by things that don't surprise me.

I'm at the point that when I see journalists get statistics *right* I sit up in surprise. I was a little more miffed with the poor study design; they should have known better. (Unless it was just a political thing... I don't know if it was written under Annan or Ban Ki-moon.)

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know if someone is pulling the strings for UNICEF, but it is very odd for UNICEF to produce a study like this. Their core function is helping very underprivledged children, so doing a study ranking the best countries against each other doesn't seem like a useful way to spend their budget.

Every country has its own page in a link two-deep from the homepage, with the pages listing statistics and a narrative about UNICEF's involvement in that country. The US's narrative is entirely about fundraising. Picking a relatively random African country such as Ghana yeilds historical progress, a list of current problems and what UNICEF is doing to try to fix them.

 

[Pattonias]

I'm really happy that the forum I read the most will take a headline like this and pick it apart and get at the real substance of the report. Any other forum and we would of had a series of flames from both extremes arguing about how the US is or isn't the worst county in which to raise kids without ever looking at the real criteria which this study was looking at.

A study like this really seems to have little or not value to me. Of the 195+/- countries in the world, this study selected 21 developed nations and rated them and cited the top best and the bottom worst.

I think we should take the top 21 graduates from MIT, do a study and cite the graduate ranked 21st and label him as the worst graduate of MIT.

 

[Hans de Vries]

The infant mortality thing really irritates me.

It's not all of the US where it's bad. States like Massachusetts, New York, California,
or Oregon have similar infant mortality rates as Western European countries. It's the
conservative states dragging the US number down.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=47&cat=2I won't comment on on your suggested link with "socialism".
It could be the risk of drinking too much tea...

http://babyfit.sparkpeople.com/articles.asp?id=693Regards, Hans

 

[Pattonias]

'cus conservatives hate them babies

 

[Chi Meson]

I'm really happy that the forum I read the most will take a headline like this and pick it apart and get at the real substance of the report. Any other forum and we would of had a series of flames from both extremes arguing about how the US is or isn't the worst county in which to raise kids without ever looking at the real criteria which this study was looking at.

A study like this really seems to have little or not value to me. Of the 195+/- countries in the world, this study selected 21 developed nations and rated them and cited the top best and the bottom worst.

I think we should take the top 21 graduates from MIT, do a study and cite the graduate ranked 21st and label him as the worst graduate of MIT.

I was just about to make this point when I thought to check to see if it was already made.

This report just as easily says: "US in the top 20 best countries to raise children."

Woohoo! Top of the Pops!

Reminds me of a joke: The person who graduates last in his/her class at the Naval Acadamy is known as "The Anchorman." What do you call the person who graduates last in his/her class at Med School?

"Doctor."
I've got three kids growing up in the US. I'm not about to move to Norway.

Edit: Nothing against Norway, though.

 

[alxm]

However, you are wrong on one point, misunderstanding a key component of freedom, that I feel I can't ignore: Freedom, in its purest, most basic, literal, dictionary definition clearly means "the absence of control, interference, regulation, etc."

Yes, but it's purely political and subjective to imply that government control is the only form of restriction and control that's worth taking into account. A market controlled by a private monopoly is no more 'free' than one controlled by a government monopoly. It's less free, in fact, because in a democracy people have at least indirect control over what the government does.

Socialistic politics has perverted the definition in peoples minds to make them believe the clearly self-contradictiory idea that the government can be making their decisions for them, yet they are still free.

How does the government make people's decisions for them? Or for that matter, lead to less freedom? In Sweden I could choose any doctor I wanted and go to any hospital I wanted, public or private, funded through a single health insurance system. It would not matter whether I was employed or not, or who my employer was, or whether I had pre-existing conditions or anything. In the USA I don't have that choice unless I pay for it out of my own pocket, something which is beyond the means of 99% of the population for anything other than routine care. I certainly don't feel I have more 'freedom' when it comes to health care.

Not to mention civil liberties. In the US, the government can tap my phone without a warrant. They can hold people imprisoned without letting them know what they're accused of. They can execute you, and have a recent history of torture, even. And the US government doesn't have a problem telling my gay sister who she can and can't marry.

You're telling me a country that's doing the above is more 'free' than a country that does none of the above, because that country has universal health care and more generous welfare benefits? That's absurd. Are you suggesting that the countries of Eastern Europe who suffered first-hand under Communism, are 'socialists' who don't appreciate freedom? Or for that matter, Finland, mentioned above, who fought three bloody wars on their own soil against Communism in the last century?

And as I aleady pointed out, there are many ways in which countries like Sweden are less regulated.

How about citing some specific examples about how these 'socialist' governments are restricting people's freedoms, rather than spouting the hand-waving vagaries (and outright fabrications, such as forced vaccinations) which you believe are true simply because you've been told they're true? Or even better, why don't you go live there for a while and find out for yourself. I think you'll find that every American who has done so, tends to cut the 'we have more freedom' nonsense.

 

[mheslep]

The railroads are deregulated but the government still owns the largest operator of non-goods traffic (SJ). But this is in fact the case in the USA as well, with Amtrak. The government only has a partial stake in a single bank (Nordea) which they had to bail out in the 90's. (Again not actually different from the US gov't at the moment).

LKAB doesn't have an American equivalent (other Swedish mining companies are private, btw).

I won't be defending the US record of state ownership which has a bad history, and given that track record has decided to do even more of the same and buy a sinking car company and home loan company or two. I argue that central planning occurs wherever the state owns business, at least in that business area.

In any case, it's hardly a 'planned economy'. These are all ordinary, for-profit corporations acting on a free market in competition with other corporations. It just happens that the treasury is a major stockholder.

Sorry I think that's naive. State owned firms talk that talk, but in the background they generally continue to loose money, get cash infusions from the treasury to make it appear they don't loose money, and all the while the State still pulls the strings: where they operate and how, placing controls on the competition, etc. I call that state planning.

But having state control over a natural resource of huge national-economic interest (Europe's largest iron ore deposit) isn't really controversial anywhere.

If you mean having the state regulate or license out rights to use a natural resource, yes that's not controversial. If you mean having the state own and operate the usage of the resource, an entirely different thing, then no. That's highly controversial, here at least, if not in Sweden.

 

[alxm]

I argue that central planning occurs wherever the state owns business, at least in that business area.

That's not how 'planned economy' is defined. Is goods transport in the US a 'planned economy' because of the existence of the US postal service? Nothing is stopping you from setting up your own company. The government is not telling FedEx, DHL and UPS what their production quotas are. Etc.

Sorry I think that's naive. State owned firms talk that talk, but in the background they generally continue to loose money, get cash infusions from the treasury to make it appear they don't loose money, and all the while the State still pulls the strings: where they operate and how, placing controls on the competition, etc. I call that state planning.

Yeah, make an accusation with zero evidence and accuse the person who actually knows something about the topic of being 'naive'. Sorry you don't know what you're talking about. Cite specific examples of how Sweden's propping up these companies if you can, or you're just BSing. You think the current center-right government of Sweden would be doing that, in direct contradiction of their ideology?

(Aaand with that, this is turning out exactly the way I predicted to begin with. Here I am with all the benefits of having lived in these places for years, with an intimate knowledge of the society and political and economic systems. And I have to argument against people with none of that telling me how they think it 'actually' works)

If you mean having the state own and operate the usage of the resource, an entirely different thing, then no. That's highly controversial, here at least, if not in Sweden.

Oh, so where are the calls to get rid of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

 

[mheslep]

That's not how 'planned economy' is defined. Is goods transport in the US a 'planned economy' because of the existence of the US postal service?

It's a matter of degree, and to that degree, yes it is. The US postal service sets the rate floor for common mail in the US, etc.

Nothing is stopping you from setting up your own company. The government is not telling FedEx, DHL and UPS what their production quotas are. Etc.

Let's clear this up: simply because the government does not plan the entire economy, does not mean it does not plan parts of it. Hence Lenin's phrase "The Commanding Heights".

Yeah, make an accusation with zero evidence and accuse the person who actually knows something about the topic of being 'naive'.

Not you, but the idea expressed in that post.

Sorry you don't know what you're talking about. Cite specific examples of how Sweden's propping up these companies if you can, or you're just BSing. ...

When you said "These are all ordinary, for-profit corporations" I took it to mean state owned companies in general, not just in Sweden. Was I wrong? If you want general examples, I have plenty. Do you expect that Swedish state owned companies are very different from those in the US, or the rest of the developed world?

Oh, so where are the calls to get rid of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

That's a couple of months of supply, hardly a fraction of the resource. But more to the point, you said earlier:

But having state control over a natural resource of huge national-economic interest (Europe's largest iron ore deposit) isn't really controversial anywhere.

[emphasis mine]
I stated that licensing or regulating the resource by the state itself is not controversial. Having the state run the extraction (mining, drilling) ala LKAB and distributing it is. That is, having the state own the coal land might be uncontroversial. Having the state own the coal mining company is. BTW, the control of the US SPR is very controversial, especially when oil spiked.

 

[Office_Shredder]

BTW, the control of the US SPR is very controversial, especially when oil spiked.

The US having the SPR wasn't controversial. People were simply saying that the US should use its reserves to drop the price of oil; i.e. the controversy was over whether the government should actively manipulate the oil market. Whether the US should have a reserve was never discussed

 

[mheslep]

The US having the SPR wasn't controversial. People were simply saying that the US should use its reserves to drop the price of oil; i.e. the controversy was over whether the government should actively manipulate the oil market. Whether the US should have a reserve was never discussed

?? If it is used, then the US no longer has one, at least temporarily.

 

[Gokul43201]

But the argument was never made (to my knowledge) that the US no longer having one would be taking a step away from socialism, and therefore a good thing.

 

[alxm]

It's a matter of degree, and to that degree, yes it is. The US postal service sets the rate floor for common mail in the US, etc.

Well by that definition there does not exist a single economy in the developed world which isn't "planned", so besides not being the way the term "planned economy" is usually used, it's not a useful description. Unless your goal is to play guilt-by-association with communism.

Let's clear this up: simply because the government does not plan the entire economy, does not mean it does not plan parts of it. Hence Lenin's phrase "The Commanding Heights".

"Planning" the economy implies some central control over production rates, rather than supply-and-demand. This is just not the case in European economies.

Not you, but the idea expressed in that post. When you said "These are all ordinary, for-profit corporations" I took it to mean state owned companies in general, not just in Sweden. Was I wrong?

Yes you were wrong.The idea that government-owned corporations in general are run as if they were private and not propped up by the government would certainly be naive, because it's patently false. You only need to take a look at the ex-Communist countries and how quickly most of their state-run businesses failed or were taken over after privatization.

But there is simply no resemblance between how the Soviet Union ran their 'businesses' or how China runs its businesses, and how Sweden or Germany run/ran their state-held businesses. The evidence for that is pretty clear: Their businesses have typically continued to do well after privatization. (E.g. Deutsche Telekom)

I didn't say it didn't happen. I said it was not the case in Sweden, and for that matter, most of Europe.

I stated that licensing or regulating the resource by the state itself is not controversial. Having the state run the extraction (mining, drilling) ala LKAB and distributing it is. That is, having the state own the coal land might be uncontroversial. Having the state own the coal mining company is.

Okay, I made a bad choice of words. I agree it would be controversial. In US politics even the president's place of birth is controversial. What I meant was that it is not unthinkable, or completely off the political radar screen. (which, say, nationalizing all industry would be. Including in Sweden) I doubt a majority of Americans would support the idea of public ownership or joint public ownership of production. But it's hardly a fringe position either. (In fact, a lot of voices were raised to that effect over the BP spill)

BTW, the control of the US SPR is very controversial, especially when oil spiked.

Which is indicative that the opposition is not primarily ideological.

 

[Office_Shredder]

?? If it is used, then the US no longer has one, at least temporarily.

Suggesting that the SPR be used is not the same as suggesting the government should not have the SPR