<story><title>Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA</title><url>https://kyso.io/eoin/rich-countries-tend-to-have-a-bigger-middle-class-except-the-usa</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yardie</author><text>In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city&amp;#x2F;state&amp;#x2F;federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can&amp;#x27;t work at all. Then, complain about the fact the government doesn&amp;#x27;t work at all. Yes, the DMV sucks, but guess what, that is the level of service voters decided they wanted and that is what the DMV can deliver based on it&amp;#x27;s funding; 1-2 hour wait times with 2 or 3 agents at the counter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ixtli</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn&amp;#x27;t even bother going to conferences in America, and this was 10 years ago.&lt;p&gt;Oh, and people love to talk about wait and access to doctors: not only did none of my experiences have a wait they didn&amp;#x27;t even have a &lt;i&gt;schedule.&lt;/i&gt; I simply walked in to an office and was seen immediately, and the Tokyo metro area has 35 million people living in it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA</title><url>https://kyso.io/eoin/rich-countries-tend-to-have-a-bigger-middle-class-except-the-usa</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yardie</author><text>In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city&amp;#x2F;state&amp;#x2F;federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can&amp;#x27;t work at all. Then, complain about the fact the government doesn&amp;#x27;t work at all. Yes, the DMV sucks, but guess what, that is the level of service voters decided they wanted and that is what the DMV can deliver based on it&amp;#x27;s funding; 1-2 hour wait times with 2 or 3 agents at the counter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>darksaints</author><text>The alternative view is that most Americans have only ever known one type of government: an incompetent one. We spend more per capita on Medicare than most first world countries spend on their &lt;i&gt;universal&lt;/i&gt; health care, but we only cover 15% of the population. We build roads, railroads, pipelines, and other basic infrastructure at 4-10x markup over the costs that other first world countries are paying. We spend more on education than other countries but get worse outcomes.&lt;p&gt;If you ask any underperforming manager why they are underperforming, they&amp;#x27;ll all say the same thing: not enough resources. Give me more staff, give me more budget. But they don&amp;#x27;t get it because they squander the budget they do have.&lt;p&gt;Other countries might be getting 30% more funding than the US gives their government, but the returns on that spending are 1000% more than what the US gets from their government. Fix that problem first and I think you&amp;#x27;ll be surprised at how willing people will be to fund their government appropriately.</text></comment>