Poordogabone wrote:KaiserJeep wrote:
I'm tired of people who want things given to them. You or anyone else is not entitled to a share of my income.
My point is that better to redistribute wealth is to avoid obscene disparity in the first place. It turns out that the so called nanny states, or countries which through higher taxes provide free quality education, free healthcare and a decent minimum wage are the countries that are doing best economically and in standard of living with lower percentage of unemployed and welfare recipients.
"Doing best economically" by whose standards? I compared Germany, the UK, the USA, France, and the various Scandinavian countries.
In terms of GDP per capita, there is a tiny country Luxembourg ($48,968), then the USA (2nd at $35,619), with Norway (4th at $32,057)), Denmark (6th at $28,539), Iceland (11th at $26,929), Sweden (16th at $24,626), Finland (17th at $24,416), the UK (18th at $24,252), Germany (19th at $23,917), and France (20th at $23,614).
In terms of the share of the World's wealth, there is the USA (1st with 25.4%), the UK (4th at 4.71%), Germany (5th at 4.65%), France (8th at 3.49%), Sweden (33rd with 0.43%), Norway (44th with 0.22%), Denmark (45th with 0.22%), Finland (54th with 0.17%), and Iceland (118th with 0.01%).
In terms of wealth per capita, there is the USA ($143,727), The UK ($128,959), France ($94,557), Germany ($90,768), Iceland ($81,945), Norway ($79,292), Sweden ($78,148), Denmark ($66,191), and Finland ($53,154).
In terms of the Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality, with 1 being complete inequality and 0 being complete equality, therefore lower is better), then there is Finland (0.615), Norway (0.633), Iceland (0.664), Germany (0.667), the UK (0.697), France (0.730), Sweden (0.742), the USA (0.801), and Denmark (0.808).
Then there is the Human Development Index. The HDI is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide, and higher is better. The rankings are Norway (1st at 0.944), the USA (5th at 0.914), Germany (6th at 0.911), Denmark (10th at 0.900), Sweden (12th at 0.898), Iceland (13th at 0.895), the UK (14th at 0.892), France (20th at 0.844), and Iceland (24th at 0.879).
National unemployment figures rankings are Norway (3.4%), Germany (5.1%), Iceland (5.4%), the USA (5.6%), the UK (5.8%), Denmark (7.0%), Sweden (8.1%), and France (10.4%).
Minimum wage figures per hour are: France ($12.22), Germany ($10.90), the UK ($10.32), and the USA ($7.25). Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway have no such minimum wage legislation, but comprehensive welfare that includes housing, food, healthcare, and job training. France, Germany, the UK, and the USA also have welfare systems but these are difficult to compare meaningfully.
I don't see any particular superiority to those countries you alluded to. In fact, Socialism vs. Capitalism shows little difference between these countries, and all are nominal Democracies. Fortunate are the citizens of any of these countries compared to most people in the World.
The HDI figures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index The economics figures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealthThe unemployment figures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rateThe minimum wage rankings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country