Some interesting rants about welfare-ism, racism, lifestyle, and health:
Philip
Having lived in both countries (US 2 years, Oz 9 years): the US has a much deeper divide between rich and poor, except Aboriginal Australians in the deep outback who are really poor. A far larger fraction of the population in Australia has ready access to quality education and health care, even if the absolute best in the US is better. Australia to me seemed a happier society overall.
Godfrey
Contentment is temperamentally Australian to the inverse proportion to which anxiety is American. For Australians SHE’LL be right has an organic meaning. But for Americans, We Are Free is layered with commercial uncertainty. Americans need things. Aussies want to chill.
Roz
Another one sucked in by the “poor” Aboriginals in the “deep” outback! These people choose to live like that. They have access to the same (if not more), Social Security benefits as all Australians.
Philip
Aboriginal poverty is an issue in urban areas as well. Cultural dislocation is a long-term problem. Pushing people to urbanise makes it even harder and the numbers are small enough that the problem could be solved with the right will.
Philip
Look up structural racism. It is not that simple. People don’t choose to be poor.
Darryl
“Look up structural racism. It is not that simple. People don’t choose to be poor.”. I have also heard about “white privilege” mouthed by ethnic minorities, too. It sounds like as definition looking for a problem to fix. People do not choose to be poor and as a result we have a welfare state designed to capture those people to give them a hand up with things like free education, Medicare etc. You have to take the initiative, though.
Jenny
My father was a building contracter & I lived among full blood aboriginals. The best people that you could ever meet. I had many aboriginal friends. There was not a question of black versus white. In my opinion, now we have a huge problem among the aboriginal populations in the north. Drunkiness, child & spousla abuse is rife. One amazing aboriginal lady is speaking out about this. I admire her so much. Also, in my opinion, I blame our paternalistic government for taking away their pride. Free handouts & above average payments to our aboriginal people have destroyed their culture.
Jenny
My father was a building contracter & I lived among full blood aboriginals. The best people that you could ever meet. I had many aboriginal friends. There was not a question of black versus white. In my opinion, now we have a huge problem among the aboriginal populations in the north. Drunkiness, child & spousla abuse is rife. One amazing aboriginal lady is speaking out about this. I admire her so much. Also, in my opinion, I blame our paternalistic government for taking away their pride. Free handouts & above average payments to our aboriginal people have destroyed their culture.
Nick
Both societies have better or worse scenarios. Home is where the heart is. That saying means that where you are born, or live, that is where you will be fond of. I have lived in, worked in, or visited over 50 countries. Good people can be found in all of them. Some of them were dangerous, and in civil war. But there were good people also there. No one is brainwashed for loving their home. And, if you do degrade a person for loving his home, I will guarantee to a degree, you have made a new enemy, or enemies.
Frank
Good response. I know USA very well (being a Cdn). Have also visited Oz and was very impressed. The questioner should visit Oz. I think he or she would also be impressed, but with no particular reason to slag his own nation. One can see different ways of doing things — a major advantage of travel worldwide.
Geoffrey
In Australia we pay about 2% of our NET Taxable Income and that pays for a National disability service as well. The original cost for many years was only 1% of taxable income. For me about $500 a year. For that we get free treatment at hospital for essential medicine. Of course we have to get private insurance for NON essential medicine like cosmetic surgery, orthodontist chiropractor etc. It works well and has worked well for 50 years and the sky has not fallen in. BTW because it is based on taxable income people on low incomes pay NOTHING and get FREE medical treatment. It is a great system
Joshua
The US GDP per capita is significantly higher than Australia’s. Please do a little checking before spending time typing.
Peter
So is your ego, percentage of people killed by firearms per year, percentage of people starving because of no life support, such as unemployment benefits, no free medical assistance to the needy. Shall I continue?
Joshua
The US has unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, free medical care for the needy. You need to do checking before typing. Should you continue – no. There is no point in you. Maybe the McGrath joke my New Zealand tour guide was accurate?
Ann
Medical care for the needy? Depends on your state. Florida did not accept the Medicaid expansion so Medicaid is restricted to families, the elderly and the disabled who are very poor. Individuals are out of luck. And the income requirements are very low. Many families and people make too little money to be covered by the ACA but too much for Medicaid. There are several other states that did the same thing.
Joshua
So their is medical assistance for the needy – the post says there is none.
Ann
If you are a person in Florida, not disabled, not elderly, and have no dependent children who are eligible, you are not eligible. You can buy insurance through the ACA if your income is high enough, but if it isn’t, you’re screwed. The plan was for Medicaid to cover up to the ACA amount but some states refused to implement that.
Joshua
Piles of major employers are hiring and offer full health benefits. CVS has big signs up offering $17 starting pay.
James
Health care should not rely on employment. They are too different things. Not related.
Joshua
Health insurance is available outside of employment. CORBA allows people to continue insurance in between jobs.
Sarah
People without jobs can rarely afford COBRA payments. No idea why anyone would be trying to defend a system that is inaccessible to many as being better than a system that all citizens can access without fear of bankruptcy, unless they really can’t stomach that other nations can do things better than theirs.
Brian
Why not just institute universal health care as other less well off nations like the UK,Canada,Australia,New Zealand,EU have done and fuck off with the neoliberal bullshit.
Olga
Is that why 7 year old girls sell lemonade to pay for their own brain surgeries?
Joshua
If you read the article, you would see that the insurance covers the surgery. In Canada, we have the same issue with costs for travel (patients and family) for procedures. There is a lot of rehab that is not always covered either. Our local service clubs help families who need to travel for medical care in Toronto.
Olga
I lived in the US. Before GoFundMe, I used to see ‘begging jars’ in many stores, with people begging for money to cover cancer treatment. I found it reprehensible that people were reduced to doing that. It doesn’t happen in civilized societies.
Donald
Once again a reply saying the needy in the US get medical assistance. True. But what level of medical assistance. Immediate accute life saving only. If you have a decent medical system it should take care of the vast majority of medical issues. They are driving the NHS in the UK down to that minimalist level and still saying look! We are not destroying the NHS. Probably true, just eviscerating it.
Joshua
No – the needy (as defined by the government) have insurance under Medicaid. The reason the NHS and Canadian provincial systems are eviscerated is that governments find it more beneficial to spend the money on other things. In Ontario and Quebec, old people fin LTC homes were left to die untreated at the start of this pandemic. Why because the hospitals were full before COVID came in. People want free care – but don’t want the government paying for it. In Ontario, while hospital beds were cut over 50% and health care pay was frozen for ten years – the government decided that pre-school needed to be taught by $120,000 a year teachers. (This was a very left wing government.) In the US, its usually the local government and non-profits who build new hospitals. In Lee County FL, the county owns and operates the main hospital system – i.e. Lee Health. They set aside money from revenue for expansion. This means that there are actually facilities rather than waiting lists.
Darryl
“The US has unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, free medical care for the needy. “. The U.S. has got nothing like Medicare in Australia. The country is full of too many guns and crackpots ready to use them for any reason. People in the United States live in fear of people with guns. Look at Texas with free open carry…. and people in the United States think that is normal….. The U.S. has a long way to go to seriously catch up with what Australia offers. I have heard that Americans with chronic conditions have missed out on operations that would improve their quality of life simply because they could not afford them in the U.S.…. Where is the wealth you talk about in a country that cannot provide for the safety and good health of its people?
Joshua
Australia doesn’t seem so safe according to this:
One in two Australian women don’t feel safe walking alone at night (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/one-in-two-australian-women-don-t-feel-safe-walking-alone-at-night/f741cbb8-db81-46a0-a5ae-f0f6952d9a00)
Darryl
It is nothing like the United States. We had an infamous set of gang rapes committed by the Bilal Skaf Gang Rapists in 2000/2001, from memory, but that is probably the worst crime in the last twenty years, at least, committed in New South Wales against women, and that by new immigrants. It is not like getting caught up in school yard gun massacres every other week like in the United States.
Olga
The US doesn’t seem so safe. America is the tenth most dangerous place for women to live, according to a recent Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, and ties with Syria as the third most dangerous place for women with regard to sexual violence. The U.S. is also the only Western country to make the top 10, which includes several Middle Eastern and North African countries. Why the U.S. is one of the most dangerous countries for women (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-us-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-countries-for-women-2018-06-29)
Joshua
These are the official stats in Australia:
Sexual Violence – Victimisation
Key statistics
2.2 million women (23%) and 718,000 men (8.0%) aged 18 years and over have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, including childhood sexual abuse and/or sexual assault since the age of 15
The prevalence of sexual assault increased between 2012 and 2016 for women but not for men
This is higher than the reported rate in the US
Scope of the Problem: Statistics
Everyone Is Affected by Sexual Violence
Every 68 seconds another American is sexually assaulted.1
1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted).4
Peter
Infant mortality, transport infrastructure, electrical infrastructure, banking, internet access, ease of access for voting, etc. You forgot all of these
Robert
Australia’s GDP per capita was above the USA between 2010 and 2015 due to the exceedingly high commodity prices, particularly iron ore. The most recent figures available from the World Bank have GDP per capita for the USA at US$63.413.50 and Australia at US$51,692.80. As mentioned elsewhere, GDP is a measure of production and not wealth.
A better measurement of quality of life is net personal wealth and the best indicator is the median (equal numbers each side) rather than the mean which is skewed by the bias to the extreme wealth in some economies.
In 2020, Australia claimed the top place in terms of global median wealth per adult (US$238,070), edging out Belgium, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Denmark for the Top 5 according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Global Wealth Report
The USA wasn’t in the top 20 coming in at 23rd with US$79,274. Australia’s average wealth per adult of US$483,760 in 4th place behind Switzerland (US$673,960), USA (US$505,420) and Hong Kong (US$503,340) – see how the mean is skewed to the high end as it is in most developed countries, particularly the USA where a small percentage of the population hold a far greater percentage of the wealth.
While the composition of household wealth in Australia is heavily skewed towards non-financial assets, particularly real estate, which averaged US$304,500 and forms 60 per cent of gross household assets, the definition of wealth also includes our compulsory superannuation pool (minus public pension liabilities) and other financial assets less debt.
Australia is also one of the countries with the most equitable distributions of wealth compared with other developed nations, such as the UK and the USA. Only six per cent of Australians have net worth under US$10,000, compared to 18 per cent in the UK and 28 per cent in the USA.
The conclusion we can draw is that we are fortunate in Australia to live in a country where median wealth per adult and average wealth per adult are the world’s first and fourth highest respectively, proving that collectively as a nation we are not just very wealthy, but also that our wealth inequality is much lower than other developed countries.
Joshua
Australians show net worth because the mandated retirement saving program is organized under individual accounts – ie Superannuation. In the US, the mandated retirement savings program is a Defined benefit program called Social Security. In Canada, we have CPP or QPP – which have mandatory contributions. Under SS, or CPP/QPP, your retirement benefits are known, but the contributions are not counted as assets.
Many large employers in the US still have defined benefit pension plans. As with the government plans, the accumulated contributions do not count as personal assets.
Mick
Actually GDP is not a measure of production, it’s a measure of transactions. There are whole industries that don’t produce anything but are included in the GDP figures because of this. For example the gambling, advertising & security industries are just three examples.
Stewart
LOL and it is exactly that self righteous we are the best attitude that creates the ‘Americian Tourist’ stereotype which fortunately does not represent American tourists in general but they do exist and when you come across one it’s hard to forget. It is a stereotype but sadly not a myth.
Jose
United States is not a Great Country. Is the greatest brainwash ever. Is not the worse. Definitely not in the top 20.
Laurent
Neither is Australia false sense of being and just as brainwashed as the USA and just as racist as both the USA and the UK.
Jacques
Racist? Then why so many migrants from different countries in the world are already here and are still coming and so many are begging to come here? If I know for sure that a country is racist, hell no, I would not even want to set foot there.
Laurent
Why are so many Haitians, Mexicain, other South America people trying to migrate to the USA? —- If everyone knows is a racist country!
Jeanine
Vast amount of Americans have huge egos and think the country is the be all and end all, they seem to forget that their country is barely out of nappies compared to the rest of the world.
John
America comes 17th down the list of the best countries to live in. It comes well down the list of the best educated countries, this is in spite of it being the richest. American people rarely travel outside of America and think it is the best country in the world. They know little of American history and hardly any of them know that since it’s inauguration 242 years ago it has been at war for 226 of that time and at peace for only 16 years and yet believe they are a very peaceful nation while accusing everyone else of being the aggressors. They take their history from Hollywood films that always portray America as the good guy fighting battles on behalf of the oppressed. I lived in England during the second world war and we got sick of the Americans saying how they won the war for us. It was the Russians that won the war a fact that most Amazing can’t stomach.
Mitch
America is number one at marketing. We are able to market like crazy to the rest of the world. That’s why people buy more expensive, less quality items from the US. There’s a promise of the American Dream in every person immigrating here.
Richard
$45k in America will go one hell of a lot further than $65k in Australia. There’s a distinct lack of competition here and when you have just two supermarkets dominating the retail and owning 70% of the gas stations you wonder why there is zero control over these retail giants. Also we have one colossus of a hardware store called Bunnings. It’s slogan is “Cheapest Prices are just the beginning”. It’s a total joke when they own 80% of the retail hardware market how would we know if their prices are cheap! They virtually have the whole market covered and of all competitors have the greatest wholesale buying power. THEY control the prices!! America has far greater choice and not everything is made in China, like it is in Australia. It’s very sad for us Aussies to have such little choice and minimal to zero competition. We pay through the nose for cheap Chinese tattle and get very limited choice. Now Aldi is here things are looking up and prices stabilising but before it was a duopoly of two supermarket giants.
Robin
Mate, it’s not just all about shopping, is it? Lifestyle is more than just purchase power:
“Do Medical Bills Really Bankrupt America’s Families?” https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-statistics-4154729
Unheard of here in Oz.
I became an Australian last Australia Day. I’ve very grateful to be living here in Queensland. Yeah, petrol is crazy-high and the Coles/Woolie duopoly is just wrong, but big-picture, we’re still much better off.
Alain
Stop watching American movies…
Neil
America has gone down the sewer
Peter
A lot of American manufacturing is made by Prison (slave) labour so how can they criticise any other country?
Reg
The greatest asset any country has is it’s people. The US has eleven times the population of Australia while investing more in imprisoning them, than providing opportunities. Australia has the same area as the US and currently has a government that is more interested in concocting scams to it’s political benefit, while doing least possible to invest in educating the people. This investment would benefit the whole country, as China has realised by crowding Australian Universities and expanding their English comprehension.
Adam
I think it is because they get so few holidays and are basically taught nothing of the outside world at school. I’m Australian, and used to getting my five weeks of holidays each year. Enough time to buy a ticket and see the world. Live in Europe now. Same mentality here. Five weeks off. That means time to go exploring. Nothing broadens your horizon more than experiencing life in other countries. Got to agree with you on Dubai. I like walking around and witnessing how locals live. Food, language, culture, architecture… Dubai is just one big, horrendous, soulless city. Never going back.
Robin
Lifestyle means a lot more than what you make per year. I used to earn close to US$90k in the States, but if I wanted to take more than two weeks off from my job, I had to apply for a sabbatical. Here in Oz, I make less, but enjoy life so much more – five weeks annual leave per year, for one. And I know in retirement, I don’t risk losing everything because of a medical emergency.
