So How Bad Is It Overseas?

[Zardnaar]

I've really no idea what is going on with USA that life expectency is so much worse than in other developed countries. Yes there are counties in USA that do exceptionally well, but on the state level it don't look good at all. Like the worst states have numbers like Sweden had in 1960 which is absolutly terrible.

Swedish food is probably healthier than US food.

NZ inherited British tendency fir fat and suger but Americans put more suger in everything.

Combine with poor access to food on lower socio economic groups.

We grew up poor but soda for example was a treat and we weren't allowed coffee. Your refreshment options were water, milk or sour cordial.

Breakfast cereal was low in suger. Cornflakes were a treat.

We didn't get pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. You might get pikelets for lunch occasionally.

Diet, lifestyle and universal welfare. I remember 10km bike rides, 12km treks and go run up that hill as a kid either at school or keas/cubs/scouts.

Used to have health camps as well. Overweight kids got sent to then on state sponsored diet and exercise regime.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well one of my co-workers said it was hard if not impossible to find european style bread in Walmart. Also people in USA seems to work significantly more and probably harder as well than people do in Sweden, people working at my company in USA are employed at will and could lose their job at any time and they get less vacation time.

Atleast they are well of, like the sort of people who make $100-200k salaries and get like 20-30 paid vacation days and other benefits compared to what is normal in USA.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well one of my co-workers said it was hard if not impossible to find european style bread in Walmart. Also people in USA seems to work significantly more and probably harder as well than people do in Sweden, people working at my company in USA are employed at will and could lose their job at any time and they get less vacation time.

Atleast they are well of, like the sort of people who make $100-200k salaries and get like 20-30 paid vacation days and other benefits compared to what is normal in USA.

Hard to find European style bread here either but less suger in it.

I don't eat a lit of white bread but multigrain. It's not a European style either.

 

[amadeus]

Well one of my co-workers said it was hard if not impossible to find european style bread in Walmart.

What is European-style bread?

 

[Zardnaar]

NZ style cheap brown bread.


We use this if camping or Saturday lunch. It's about a $1 loaf.

Normally it's Soy and linseed or a 7 grain type bread. They're around $2 a loaf.

Hard to get European style bread. Hometown has a German bakery.

Boring stuff 1.2% suger.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think we have some breads under 1% suger.

One of the worst things I've heard about USA is that you can go from making like $100k+ to homeless just like that, just thrown away.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think we have some breads under 1% suger.

One of the worst things I've heard about USA is that you can go from making like $100k+ to homeless just like that, just thrown away.

It happens probably not that typical though.

Living where you do probably distorts your PoV. Sweden and Norway about as best as it gets outside of tax dodge microstates or petrostates (eg Monaco, Luxembourg, Qatar, Liechtenstein etc).

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Quite scary just how little compassion there actually are for people in developed democracies, now think how it is in the dictatorships.

 

[Zardnaar]

Quite scary just how little compassion there actually are for people in developed democracies, now think how it is in the dictatorships.

Well run dictatorship might be better off for the people than USA.

Thinking of Singapore here. Few over here as they have visa free travel so interesting conversations.

Great Depression unemployment rate hit 15% in 1991 it hit 11%. Didn't starve though everything else sucked (1991).

Everyone was busy sodding off to Australia so cheap housing. Rent freeze 1988-97 then it went up by $6 usd.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Honstly it wont be pretty as long as people don't care about one another and the poverty will presist, it is not really an economic issue given it exist in countries it should not exist in.

 

[Arwon]

I've really no idea what is going on with USA that life expectency is so much worse than in other developed countries. Yes there are counties in USA that do exceptionally well, but on the state level it don't look good at all. Like the worst states have numbers like Sweden had in 1960 which is absolutly terrible.

It's a mix of things that are each more common. Overdoses, homicides, suicides and car accidents are all substantially higher in the US. Infant mortality, smoking deaths, obesity related illnesses are also all higher.

Suicides are higher due to all the firearms, and the opioid crisis is really specific to North America.

Road deaths are about twice or three times as high in the US. Some is just the greater amount of road travel, but a lot is also explained by the modern traffic engineering and vehicle regulation in other countries, which haven't been generally replicated in the US.

The things that affect younger people have a larger impact on the expectancy calculation, so infant mortality, violence and road deaths all have an especially outsized impact.

Smoking peaked higher in the US so the higher death rate now was predetermined decades ago even though US smoking rates are now the same or lower than many other countries.

You can sheet home a lot of the health stuff and some of the higher rate of homicide to higher income inequality meaning the bottom 30% or so of American households by income are worse off than in any of the countries with the highest life expectancies. Poverty kills, there's more and worse poverty in the US.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Would explain current situation, although I don't know why USA life expectency started to fall behind other developed countries begining in about the 90s.

 

[Zardnaar]

Would explain current situation, although I don't know why USA life expectency started to fall behind other developed countries begining in about the 90s.

Reaganomics.

I think that's around where Healthcare costs exploded.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Still household incomes for atleast top 40% seems to have increased significantly since 80s and at no level it seems to have declined. Seems much harder however to find personal income for USA, but I'm pretty sure people in top 20% should be significantly better of than top 20% was in the 80s and probably the bottom 20% is not worse off.

 

[Zardnaar]

Still household incomes for atleast top 40% seems to have increased significantly since 80s and at no level it seems to have declined. Seems much harder however to find personal income for USA, but I'm pretty sure people in top 20% should be significantly better of than top 20% was in the 80s and probably the bottom 20% is not worse off.

It's an average though. In NZ our health stats are similar to Europe apparently but get dragged down by that bottom 20-20%.

There's a lot of things in America dragging the numbers down eg obesity, gub violence, lack of universal Healthcare.

Top 30-40% are relatively fine.

You're in one of the best countries in the world. NZs similar (happiness. corruption) except in things like productivity and income.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It's an average though. In NZ our health stats are similar to Europe apparently but get dragged down by that bottom 20-20%.

There's a lot of things in America dragging the numbers down eg obesity, gub violence, lack of universal Healthcare.

Top 30-40% are relatively fine.

You're in one of the best countries in the world. NZs similar (happiness. corruption) except in things like productivity and income.

Don't mean I've any particular loyalty to the country or so.

 

[Angst]

We don't really have that option. We do have relatively abundant renewable options though. Good for self sufficiency not so good for export dollars.

Idiots here like comparing us to Scandinavia but overlook Norways oil, Sweden iron ore and industry etc along with EU and geographic advantages.

More comparable to Netherlands or Denmark with no neighbour's within 2000km that matter.

one point about resources. denmark has oil too. norway just has the most of it.

that said, our natural resources while helping isn't really the explanation of why things are working out here. only southern scandinavia has a good climate for agriculture (and a lot of the soil sucks). not many rare minerals and swedish iron is just not really as relevant as what's really going on; we have very, very lucrative specialized, industries with global reach. scandinavia is not an area of prosperous resources. we're an area of highly educated skilled labour and enterprise-friendly legislation (yes, even with the taxes).

and yea, like, as you noted. the EU market helps a lot.

 

[Zardnaar]

one point about resources. denmark has oil too. norway just has the most of it.

that said, our natural resources while helping isn't really the explanation of why things are working out here. only southern scandinavia has a good climate for agriculture (and a lot of the soil sucks). not many rare minerals and swedish iron is just not really as relevant as what's really going on; we have very, very lucrative specialized, industries with global reach. scandinavia is not an area of prosperous resources. we're an area of highly educated skilled labour and enterprise-friendly legislation (yes, even with the taxes).

and yea, like, as you noted. the EU market helps a lot.

NZ gas most of that but gets defeated by geography and isolation.

Last place of significant size settled by humans. Stone age until colonization. All roads, rail ports etc got built in around 150 years by small population furtherest away from anyone else.

Temperate climate but terrains not that conductive to crops no significant rivers for commerce. Lands good tor animal husbandry.

No significant mineral resources (bit of gold, gas, coal nothing to great). Geographic isolation doesn't lend itself well to export manufacturing not that we had the money, people, markets etc to do it on a large scale.

So even with smarter political leadership there's nly so much one can do.

We were one of the richest countries 1913 downhill ever since.

 

[Hygro]

I’m in the heart of it, though my housing is taken care of and I don’t make car payments, but on unemployment for 6 months under $2k a month I was saving money, eat out almost exclusively, and bought like a new computer during this time and international plane tickets. Get out of here with this “$250,000 is middle class.” Rich people don’t call themselves rich. If I can save money eating out, buying computers, clothes, new brakes, plane tickets, concerts, drinks, weed, on $2k + 2k of free housing, a family of 4 can live well on one low 6 figure income.

 

[Arwon]

Would explain current situation, although I don't know why USA life expectency started to fall behind other developed countries begining in about the 90s.

That's when the road safety gap looks like it began to really emerge, and also likely when the inequality that began increasing substantially across the 1980s started killing more.