• 1bluepixel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The author takes PPP (Purchase Power Parity) per capita of the UK as a whole versus individual U.S. states. So what does it mean that Mississippi on average has a higher PPP than the UK? Two things:

    1. The UK gets dragged down by it’s poorer regions; and
    2. The U.S. has enough ultra-rich people to drag its PPP up despite a large swathe of its population being poor.

    Another way to look at it is, if wealth distribution was fair in the U.S., even people in Mississippi would be better off than the average Brit.

    • lasagna@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      That’s the problem with averages vs medians. It completely overlooks wealth gap.

      Here is an example. Moderna CEO made something like $500 million last year. If Moderna had 1000 employees, that would mean the company’s average employee pay is $500,000. And that’s before even adding their pay to this average.

      • Tar_alcaran@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Exactly. The median wealth of me, my partner and Bill gates is basically zero. The average wealth in billions of dollars.

    • Teppic@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yep, there is a good reason the median average is usually used when looking at incomes.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s like Bernie always says: it’s the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. So why is basically everybody poor?

    • delicious_tvarog@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The PPP adjustment is going to inflate the values in low cost of living states/nations; cost of living correlates pretty well with average income (i.e. don’t travel to Switzerland unless you like spending money), which means all those eastern European countries and southern states with lower average incomes are going to get a leg up on central/western Europe.

      We’re approaching BadEconomics territory

      • 1bluepixel@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I did, and it’s a vast argument to make based on two data points. That the bottom 10% of the U.S. and Finland have the same PPP says nothing about the wealth of the rest of the population, just that the rock bottom of both countries is more or less the same. Not to mention, socialized services probably means Finland and Sweden’s bottom 10% probably has higher life expectancy than the U.S.'s bottom 10%.

        • sab@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          A homeless person in Finland has free access to medical treatment that could render a moderately wealthy American homeless.

          Studying isn’t just free - the state pays you for it.

          What you can purchase is, despite popular belief, not a good indicator of life quality.

  • jellybreadracer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Very much doubt the final conclusion of this Adam Smith institute fellow. They state that the bottom 10% is equally rich in Sweden/Finland than the US. If true, then income is a very poor barometer of quality of life. Or that the Swedish poor don’t need to use as much of their income on housing, day care, education etc

    The conclusion is that Sweden make the rich poor. Which is not true as well, since while Sweden has income equality, it has a very poor wealth inequality. It’s just that the rich of Sweden decided (correctly) that there would be little backlash against them if they ensured for a more equal society instead of maximizing their income.

    Tl;dr this article could be largely true but the biases revealed at the end question the their conclusions and methodology to reach it

    • sab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’d rather be poor in Sweden than rich in the US.

      No offence.

      • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        You’d rather live in a white country than a diverse one, that’s what’s being said between the lines when we take out the excuses

        • Tar_alcaran@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Are you saying the US lacks social safety system because of black people? That’s a pretty fucking massively leap bro.

          • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            It’s not a leap when you see the same pattern with white leftists over the decades. It’s not a new thing, it’s called “white flight”

          • YaaAsantewaa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            Nice try, but there’s a long pattern with neo-liberals not wanting to live around people of color and retreating to “whiter” neighborhoods.

            It’s called “white flight” and it’s part of the systemic racism we talk about often

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s just that the rich of Sweden decided (correctly) that there would be little backlash against them if they ensured for a more equal society instead of maximizing their income.

      lol, imagine crediting the filthy rich with only exploiting the rest of the population “enough” to keep them from revolting. They are still exploiting you and removing hoards of wealth not only from your economy but from the people who actually hold it up

      Sweden has over 40 billionaires. The existence of 1 would prove you are just as fucked by capitalism as the rest of us, let alone 40+. All you are is a couple of years behind the rest of us in how much that capitalism is decaying.