UN's Human Development Index 2010 for released

[Brian Shanahan]

What's a typical worker? Someone who forges steel or builds cars for a living?
Retail salespeople (like at a discounter)?
Teachers?

I think luiz is of the opinion that you cannot be a typical worker until you make £250,00k a year and own half of Cambridgeshire. Otherwise even he could not make the assertion you just quoted.

 

[Xanikk999]

I think luiz is of the opinion that you cannot be a typical worker until you make £250,00k a year and own half of Cambridgeshire. Otherwise even he could not make the assertion you just quoted.

Well the culture in the United States where I live really encourage you to go to college and to make a ton of money. I'm not sure if the emphasis on college is nationwide or not. But around here, its expensive to make a living and if you don't go to college you are viewed as a failure.

Making a low salary is something to be ashamed of where I am from unless you are a teacher. Although some people think that is bad too and view anyone who makes low amounts of money as a failure.

 

[Ajidica]

It is pretty much the same where I live. Most everybody in my school is either going to college (2 or 4 year) or a tech school.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well the culture in the United States where I live really encourage you to go to college and to make a ton of money. I'm not sure if the emphasis on college is nationwide or not. But around here, its expensive to make a living and if you don't go to college you are viewed as a failure.

Making a low salary is something to be ashamed of where I am from unless you are a teacher. Although some people think that is bad too and view anyone who makes low amounts of money as a failure.

It is pretty much the same where I live. Most everybody in my school is either going to college (2 or 4 year) or a tech school.

Well most places are a bit like that, but over here we, mostly, don't take it to the extremes I often see from America, where it's often interpreted as a moral failing on the part of people who can't make it rich. Most Irish people will accept that many things are out of their own control, and much as I about my country's selfishness we do accept that poor people need an extra helping hand to allow them to come out of poverty.

 

[Arakhor]

Who cares about your inferior countries education system, Norway #1 & Australia #2!

Are you trying to be funny or are you just naturally obnoxious?

 

[Masada]

Are you trying to be funny or are you just naturally obnoxious?

Norway #1 & Australia #2!

 

[luiz]

I think luiz is of the opinion that you cannot be a typical worker until you make £250,00k a year and own half of Cambridgeshire. Otherwise even he could not make the assertion you just quoted.

I think you don't know what I think.

By typical worker I mean just that, a typical worker. I would rather live in the US making the average american wage (which I assure yoy is not L$250k a year) than live in most places of Europe making their average wage. And that's a logical opinion considering that not only are wages higher in the US as the cost of living is lower.

That it is better to live on government dole in most of Western Europen than in the US nobody disputes. But a typical worker does not depend on government dole.

 

[luiz]

BTW, here's an interesting read: Why is America so rich?

Spoiler :

ECONOMIC gloom and doom aside, America remains the world's richest large country. It's generally estimated to have a per capita GDP level around $45,000, while the richest European nations manage only a $40,000 or so per capita GDP (setting aside low population, oil-rich states like Norway). Wealth underlies America's sense of itself as a special country, and it's also cited as evidence that America is better than other economies on a range of variables, from economic freedom to optimism to business savvy to work ethic.

But why exactly is America so rich? Karl Smith ventures an explanation:

I am going to go pretty conventional on this one and say a combination of three big factors

1.The Common Law
2.Massive Immigration
3.The Great Scientific Exodus during WWII

You’ll notice that four of the top five countries in the Human Development Index have the Common Law and the top, Norway, is a awash in oil. Without the petro-kronors they probably wouldn’t be so hot.You’ll also notice that 3 of the top 4, again with Norway the odd man out, are immigrant nations. The founder effect here should be clear.The bonus from the great exodus is definitely waning. Most of our hey-day German and Jewish scientists are dying off, but its still given us a boost that lingers to this day. There is no fundamental reason why the US should be the center of the scientific world but for a time it was the only place in the world safe for many scientists.
It's a difficult question to tackle because there's so very much to it. America jumped to a huge productivity lead early last century by developing a resource- and capital-intense, high-throughput style of manufacturing producing mass market goods. The fractious, class-riven European continent struggled to copy this technology, and while adoption of these methods eventually led to a period of rapid catch-up growth, the process of catch-up was never quite completed. And so that's one gap to explore.

There's also the question of what exactly one is comparing. What if we take similar European and American metropolitan areas and adjust for human capital and hours worked? On that basis, the difference between America and northern Europe looks relatively small. One might then focus on the ways in which America's more integrated domestic market leads to a lower level of within-continent inequality, even though national inequality levels in Europe compare favourably with America's.

The size of the market may be more important than we imagine. As Mr Smith notes, four of the top five HDI countries share the Common Law. They also speak English. In a world in which national and cultural barriers still bite, America's wealth could be chalked up to the fact that it's a uniquely large and uniform nation. Common rules, culture, language, and so on facilitate high levels of trade and mobility. National and cultural barriers within Europe, by contrast, work to limit the extent to which the economic potential of the continent can be reached.

Mr Smith also gets at something important in discussing immigration and talent. The economic geography of the world is lumpy, and talent likes to clump together into centres of innovation. Through fortune and foresight, America managed to develop world-leading centres of talent in places like Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York. Relatively open immigration rules and the promise of a safe harbour for war refugees, including persecuted Jews, helped build these knowledge centres. When one combines that innovative capacity with a system that makes it relatively easy to develop ideas and relatively lucrative to exploit them economically, the potential is there for rapid and sustained growth.

America does seem to be special in important ways, but it's not always clear what those ways are. A liberal economic order and geographically mobile population are important, but so is the level of education, the promise of social mobility, and the openness of America's borders. It's worth keeping all of that in mind as the country's leaders think about the ways economic policy should change in the wake of the Great Recession.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/11/growth

 

[W|M]

The fact that America is huge and full of valuable natural resources, and that it didn't engage in nearly as much war as Europeans did wasn't mentioned.

 

[Justo]

I thought it was because Americans on average work longer hours than their European counterparts? There are of course a whole host of other reasons but that was a major contributor.

 

[Cutlass]

Americans do work longer. Some European countries have higher productivity per hour worked than the US does.

 

[luiz]

Americans do work longer. Some European countries have higher productivity per hour worked than the US does.

As of 2009, just Norway and Luxembourg had higher productivity per hours than the US, with the Netherlands tied. Of those 3 only the Netherlands are remarkable, as Norway is a small and rich country full of oil and Luxembourg is a micro-state.

The notion that the US is richer because Americans work longer hours is a myth. Americans also generate more wealth per hours worked.

Ranking (top 15):

Spoiler :

Country GDP (PPP) per hour 2009 Rank 2009
Norway 76.8 1
Luxembourg 74.5 2
Netherlands 59.1 3
United States of America 59.0 4
Belgium 58.5 5
France 54.7 6
Ireland 54.0 7
Germany 53.5 8
Austria 51.9 9
Australia 51.6 10
United Kingdom 50.8 11
Sweden 50.0 12
Denmark 48.0 13
Canada 47.2 14
Finland 47.0 15

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked

 

[Arwon]

How does oil raise productivity?

 

[ArneHD]

How does oil raise productivity?

It doesn't, it simply increases the amount of money you get per hour worked.

About that list, how much is from copyrights and labels etc.? Given the immense popularity of American brands (think of Coca Cola alone) and how much these bring in, it is quite natural that Americans earn a lot of money per hour.