I assume you mean by ‘us’ either the US or the western world. Do you have a cite that ‘we are seeing a real downturn in ours’ with respect to our economy? Or did you mean the quality of life? If so, could I get a cite for that…i.e. that we are seeing a real downturn that mirrors the upturn in India and China? Or hell, just a cite for a large drop in the US (or Europe I suppose) quality of life over, say, the past decade or so.
Thanks. 
-XT
By “us” i mean the U.S., mostly. I’m not so much saying that this IS what’s happening so much as pointing out that it might be arrogant to assume that the worst will be over and things will equalize out. I meat to include that in my previous post but I was distracted at work and forgot :smack:
My goodness. There are a lot of things that never have been, and yet came to pass. At one time there never had been a human who survived an organ transplant. Are you sure this is a line of support for your position that you want to pursue?
So far. What has happened though, is that the number of in-betweens grew vastly over the last couple hundred years, far more than it had ever grown in human history. Not only that, but it is taking less and less of the have-nots to support each have.
There is also a trend where the lives of the have-nots have become incredibly more tolerable than they once were, but this is mostly irrelevant because people measure their wealth relative to others, not relative to any absolute standard.
I think you’re being way to close-minded of the possibilities, however difficult it may be to attain a world in which there are relatively few have-nots, it is possible. There’s no inherent need for income to distributed this way.
Some arguement could be made for wages becoming stagnant, but is quality of life really going down? How do we measure that?
How so? That certainly didn’t happen to England or France when they became no longer the top of the economic heap. What evidence do you have that we will reach their level of lack of infrastructure? unstable financial systems? unstable political systems? What exactly are we going to become “developing nation”-wise?
Well, there exist various systems of “quality-of-life indicators”, such as the Calvert-Henderson, or Redefining Progress’ Genuine Progress Index. Such systems are based on the claim that GDP alone isn’t a reliable measure of the economic or social health of a nation, and attempt to measure other factors as well.
They did, however, fall to a standard of living below that of their primary economic competitor (the US), at least if you believe Sam Stone:
By Sam’s reasoning, Europe’s preference for greater social support and stability has driven them to a lower standard of living than that of the more “dynamic” US (perhaps, being a Canadian, he means North America in general: I can’t always tell whom Sam is talking about when he says “we”).
Since the US will presumably retain its preference for, say, working less than the 12-hour days and 6-day weeks that were described as routine for the college-educated Indian worker in mazinger’s cite above, then by Sam’s reasoning, that preference should at some point drive us to a lower standard of living than the more “dynamic” India’s.
Oh, and I missed this one earlier:
This doesn’t explain why we “have to” compare profits against GDP, or why GDP should be considered the most useful benchmark for them. The underlying assumption seems to be that GDP is an accurate measure of the overall prosperity of the society as a whole, and therefore that when GDP goes up, we all benefit. However, this is the very assumption that is challenged by the above proposals for alternative indices of progress or quality of life.
GDP simply measures quantity of economic activity. If, say, the total increase in GDP for a particular period is due to increased corporate profits, then of course profits will stay flat compared to GDP, even if the benefits from that increase have been very narrowly concentrated.
Measuring profits against GDP tends to make profit increases or decreases look less significant, because GDP itself depends partly on profits.
Wow. What a surprise that two left-leaning ‘indicators’ would find that the least left-leaning country isn’t doing so well.
Perhaps we should follow the Sam Stone index, which includes things like the ability to conceal-carry a gun, freedom from regulations when starting your own business, the total amount of earnings one gets to keep after taxes, and freedom to choose your own health care provider. Man, by that index, the U.S. is off the charts compared to Europe.
The problem I have with these indicators is that they are attempts to re-define what success is. Nothing wrong with that per-se, but there is when the indicators keep changing their measurement methods when the old ones don’t work so well for the policies they are pushing.
For example, the left used to love the Misery Index, because it made Gerald Ford look bad when Carter was running for election. Then when it began to fall under Reagan, suddenly you never heard about it any more. Instead, we had new indices with all kinds of new measurement techniques used by ‘progressives’ to show that the U.S. isn’t ‘progressive’ enough. The yardstick is always changing. If worker salaries start to climb like crazy, you can bet that the latest progressive index will just shift to factor in things like workplace safety or free time as being more important. Or whatever factor happens to be poor enough at that time that they can use it to ‘show’ that things are bad and would be improved with their progressive politics.
Standard of living is a pretty tangible thing, you know. It ultimately determines things like the ability to provide health care, carry on research and development, adequately house people, and yes, even providing leisure time (and the quality of leisure).
All else being equal, sure. That doesn’t mean the U.S. standard of living would drop, it just means that India’s would increase faster, and that they would eventually overtake the U.S. This isn’t a zero-sum game, it’s a race to the top. Of course, India has a long way to go before that happens.
Huh? This makes no sense. The reason you measure AGGREGATE profit against GDP is because GDP is an AGGREGATE measurement of economic activity. If you want to be tendentious, you can say, “Evil corporations make five times the profit now as they did in 1970!”. But if the economy is five times the size, then you would expect that.
I simply don’t understand your objection here. How would you feel if I added up the total dollars earned by the working class and used that to show that the working class is earning four times as much as they did in 1980? Would it matter that there were twice as many workers?
Now I don’t understand your objection here. As your own cite shows, the Misery Index is still being calculated, and AFAICT it uses the same measurement methods now as it did back in the 1970’s.
Similarly, the “Genuine Progress Indicator” has been in use for over ten years now, and again, AFAICT, its structure is still the same as when it was designed.
So no, it doesn’t seem to me that “the indicators keep changing their measurement methods”. There are different systems of indicators, but I don’t see any evidence that any one of them is changing its measurement methods for the sake of political point-scoring.
If your complaint is simply that ideologues tend to cherry-pick particular indicators that back up their arguments at particular times, that’s a different objection, and one not exclusive to the ideologues of the left. Heck, I know of conservatives who prefer to talk about low official unemployment rates while silently passing over high indebtedness rates and slow wage growth. Cherry-picking one’s facts and sources is a constant problem everywhere.
You’re right that we don’t currently have a generally accepted standard for a “quality of life” index broader than the GDP, which makes such cherry-picking easier to get away with. But that doesn’t mean that using such a “quality of life” index is a bad thing per se.
Not necessarily, it appears, since many of the European countries that you claim have a lower standard of living than the US actually succeed better at providing health care to their citizens, and (as you noted) provide more leisure for their workers, than the US does.
We have to make up our minds whether we mean “standard of living” as simply a synonym for “tangible” per-capita GDP, or as a concept that also includes more “intangible” factors such as access to health care, public amenities, more leisure, community safety, etc. If the latter, then we will ultimately need to agree upon some kind of “quality of life” index in order to assess it quantitatively.
I’m objecting to your statement that comparing aggregate corporate profits to GDP somehow shows that corporate profits aren’t increasing disproportionately when compared to other indices, such as wage levels. I don’t think it does.
There has never been a relatively uniform distribution of wealth for two reasons:
-The information and transportation infrastructure to make a truly global economy has only existed recently.
-Political and cultural barriers.
There is also the fact that the world is not a static place. Economic, environmental and political conditions are constantly changing.
Have-nots don’t support anyone because they either don’t work or their only work is eeking out a meager existance for themselves and their family. The model that the working classes exist only to support a wealthy aristocracy is largely bogus. The working classes exist to support each other. A carpenter makes houses for rich and poor alike. They just make bigger ones for the rich people.
Your analysis is not based on fact, just hyperbole. Our economy is not seeing a “real downturn” by any quantifyable metric. India and China are catching up to our standard of living, we are not reducing ours to meet theirs.
History and basic economic theory does bare (bear?) out that free trade between two nations will create a greater benefit for both nations as each can specialize in producing what they produce best. In may not reach an exact equilibrium as there are differences in resources and whatnot, but it does provide a benefit.
Whoa, I don’t buy this one. Not in the context of a modern industrial economy, at least—or a pre-modern feudal economy, either.
Slavery and sweatshopping are both realistic (although extreme) examples of production models where a small group of “haves” is indeed partly supported by the efforts of a larger group of “have-nots”.
Nitpick: “bear out” is correct.
All sorts of stats support the notion that the lower and middle class income has stood stagnant over the last few years while the wealthy have seen a huge boom in income. I’ve posted cites to that effect in several such discussions we’ve had in the past. Wanna see them again?
At the same time, wages eat up almost 50% of GDP. So if profits fluctuate around 5-7% of GDP, then any gains or losses in profit for corporations are going to have comparatively little effect on real wages.
So why have wages dropped or stayed stagnant over the past few years? That would be the recession. This is what happens in recessions. Worker productivity drops, unemployment increases, salaries fall. Then in a recovery, corporate profits lead, then investment leading to more employment, then higher wages as worker productivity recovers.
Have a look at this Excel Spreadsheet (or if you can’t, here’s a PDF). From the chart:
Year Salary Gain (all workers)
1969 3.7
1970 0.7
1971 0.5
1972 3.5
1973 4.2
1974 1.9
1975 -1.7
1976 3.2
1977 3.9
1978 5.1
1979 3.6
1980 0.6
1981 0.8
1982 -1.8
1983 0.7
1984 4.7
1985 3.2
1986 2.0
1987 2.6
1988 3.2
1989 2.5
1990 1.4
1991 -1.1
1992 0.3
1993 1.9
1994 3.1
1995 2.7
1996 2.1
1997 2.6
1998 2.6
1999 2.4
2000 2.2
2001 0.2
2002 -0.9
Notice the declines in 1975, 1982, 1991, and 2002. See the trend? Falling wages in a recession, big gains during the recovery, then gains leveling out and slowly declining into the next recession. That’s the way the business cycle works. Since the chart above, real wages have grown about 3%. That’s slightly below the average for a recovery so far, but this has been an odd recovery because of the terrorism issue and the effects of 9/11.
No one said they were evil, but there’s a clear tradeoff between leisure time and productivity. A country that has an average of 5 weeks of vacation a year for its employees can not hope to compete economically with one that only average 3, all else being equal.
That’s exactly what I meant by a cultural difference. Some cultures have chosen to be less productive in exchange for more leisure. Fine. That’s their choice. But when their .5% GDP growth difference between a harder-working country is compounded over a few decades, you start to see real differences in their relative standards of living. This should not be a shock to anyone.
A few things: First, if they make cheaper things that we buy, then we as consumers benefit. And since workers are also consumers, their wages go farther and they see an improvement in their standard of living.
Second, if they can make stuff that cheap, delivered to our door, then there will be lots of demand for them to make more things. That will drive up the price of labor in those countries to match their productivity, until their wages accurately effect the marginal difference of doing business there.
Again, in a fully functioning market, wages are already set based on the productivity of the worker. It doesn’t matter if more workers enter the market or not - if you are productive enough to earn $30/hr, then that’s what someone will pay you.
It’s only in a situation of labor scarcity that new entries into the market can drive down the price of labor. So protected industries like unions or industries that benefit today from tariffs or other artificial boundaries may in fact find that they have to lower salaries to compete. That’s what happened in the auto industry.
But note what globalization got us in the auto industry - cars that are much cheaper and much higher quality than they used to be. That benefits everyone who owns a car, and since cars are a major expenditure and a major consumer of our wages, the improvement in auto quality and value has been a major boon to the American worker. Just as cheap Asian electronics are (or would you rather have protected the RCA Victor TV company with trade tariffs to protect those jobs? Did you ever own an older RCA TV?)
[/QUOTE]
Damn, I forgot to clip off the leftover on that post. My bad. If a passing Mod could help out here, it would make my post less confusing. All I actually wrote was the two lines after the initial quote .
Well, it’s not a good thing, really. When one starts using these “quality of life” indicators, there is no general agreement on the metrics and largely boils down to trying to politicize the economy. This is something that every economics professor would have you avoid doing. Even the best econometrics is based on statistics, the same statistics you constantly criticize (e.g. your Bill Gates example). However, every economist can agree on using those sets of statistics, and it is taught universally. The data used is the easiest to track and is the most objective. Who’s ever heard of the GPI? Fringe lefties with an axe to grind. (not necessarily you)
Further…
I’ve been meaning to point this out to you for a long time now: do not conflate politics with economics. It’s easy to do, and it’s been done since there were people measuring the economy. People will never agree on a set standard of living. I have a friend from Vietnam where his extended family lives in a grass house. They would love to have a wooden floor, and would otherwise think that their house is totally set. My gf’s sister is in NY and thinks she’s suffering b/c her apartment is only 600 sq ft (well, it is smaller than my parent’s garage).
Slight hijack, but when I was at Oxford, my girlfriend at the time fell really ill, like death warmed over. Her waiting time in chairs was 3 days. I’m not even counting the day we wasted at the clinic where the nurse eventually told us we had to see a doctor. I remarked many times, “Can’t I buy a quicker appointment?” And, no one said anything. I told my current gf (a nurse) about that story, and she said that there would be a riot if Americans had to wait that long.
Which sounds like a good idea, thanks for pointing them out to me. I’m a bit suspicious of the second one, since they don’t seem to be sufficentlly explicit in how they state what “defensive expenditures” and such are - for example, what if a new door lock is both a quantitative and qualitative improvement over the old? Isn’t that progress even though it is spent to protect what you have? Anyway, I’ll need to read through more of their PDF before I can figure out if they’re being reasonable or not.
I don’t necessarily believe him; England and France still appear to have some of the highest standards of living in the world. He and I might have very different ideas about what the standard of living is. On that note:
You’re more than free to calculate your own quality of life index and/or direct us to people who have calculated it in a way you view as reasonable. It’s not as though economic calculations are some arcane art available only to political leftists.
I can hardly think of anything more political than the economy. Politics is ultimately about the allocation of scarce resources, which essentially makes it inextricable from economics. That being said, it’s a good idea to attempt objectivity when studying it, as economists do. Objectivity is not the same as refusing to measure something so clearly important as quality of life.
In a sense, I do agree with you. However, in a society as large as ours, or as large as any modern country (save Luxembourg and those other super-small principalities or whatever they’re called), the metric gathering is largely confined to statistical anaylsis. The math behind it is more complicated than anything I’m used to and more sophisticated to give us a better idea than the arithmetic mean. However, the data produced is still subject to interpretation; and, as advanced as those techniques are they still have the same root causes anaylsis issues that all statistics do.
It’s too easy to confuse the issue and promote ignorance. It’s better for the world if we all embrace completely free markets, along with freedom to travel, and end government subsidization. However, this is still largely a pipe dream of mine, which I can only see enacting by force (not that I condone it, I just don’t see any other way). If we can all agree to that, then the reprocussions: those that find their industries eliminated, their skills obsolete, too much labor in their area, etc., all those people can have some type of welfare benefits which I will gladly pay with my taxes. That’s what I mean by keeping economics and politics separated.
I see your point, but IMO your argument collapses on the use of the term “completely free markets”. In real life, there aren’t any completely free markets.
Even if we could somehow magically remove all inequalities of regulation, subsidy, etc., letting all nations compete on pure, intrinsic comparative advantage, markets would fail to be perfectly free. There would always be various entry barriers, imperfect information, monopolistic tendencies, and similar problems cropping up. The “completely free market” is just an ideal economic abstraction.
Therefore, since markets are intrinsically imperfect, and are already heavily influenced by political and historical distorting influences, it’s not surprising that many people see trade liberalization policies as just another political ploy for biased advantage. I’m not saying they’re right to think that, I’m just saying that it will take more than idealized theoretical abstractions to convince them otherwise.
I agree that this is probably the most economically efficient way to deal with such consequences. Again, however, looking at political realities, I think that opponents of trade liberalization (is it okay if I just go back to calling them “anti-globs” and save on typing?) have some justification for being wary of such ideas.
Welfare benefits and similar types of transfer payments tend to be politically quite unpopular with the people whose taxes pay them, and there is always a lot of political support for reducing them. Given the general climate of hostility towards “government handouts”, it probably makes sound financial sense in the short and medium term for anti-globs to prefer protectionist policies, whereby they can hang onto good-paying jobs and continue to be regarded as respectable hard-working taxpayers, to free-trade policies that will turn them into “welfare bums”.
Unfortunately, as wevets noted, they just can’t be separated in real-life considerations. And consequently, policy recommendations based on purely economic reasoning are always very liable to be interpreted as attempts to pursue particular political goals.
Out of curiosity, could you quantify exactly why you believe England and France have some of the highest standards of living in the world (presumably higher than the US)? What things do you see as making it so…and do you have any first hand experience with them (i.e. have you actually been to England and/or France and seen first hand how whatever you like actually works)?
Another serious question is…do you think that what you like about England and France as far as quality of life, standard of living, etc is sustainable in the long term, especially in light of recent events like those in France? If its not sustainable are you still in favor of it?
I’m just curious…I see this all the time on this board. The presumption that Europe is some utopia as far as standard of living goes. But no one ever sits down and defines exactly WHAT they like so much about the European model (or better yet the model in the individual countries in Europe…seeing how things like ‘standard of living’, however you measure it, varies quite a bit from country to country).
-XT
Well, I’m not wevets, but I can give you my own perspective as an American temporarily resident in the Netherlands. However, since I don’t consider Europe or the Netherlands to be in any way a “utopia”, I’ll just stick to comparing some of the specific factors, based mostly on the Calvert-Henderson indicators. No points for ineffable factors like “charm” or “friendliness”.
Comparable salary and tax rates. I’m making about the same in real dollars here in the Netherlands as I generally earn in the US. As a middle-class person, I pay about 40% of my income in taxes here, compared to about 30% when I lived in the US. But I seem to get a lot more value for money here in terms of public services.
Lower crime rates.
Civil rights. I really like the fact that my gay neighbors have the same rights to get married, get jobs, get housing, etc., as straight people.
Infrastructure and transit. Three cheers for a country where I don’t need a car and can literally train, bus, bike and walk everywhere I need to go! And da-yum, do these people ever take water management systems and wind power seriously! It’s a real pleasure to escape the all-too-prevalent American attitude that any physical infrastructure that isn’t automobile- or aircraft-based is basically for weirdos and poor people, and therefore somewhat contemptible.
Health care access. Universal health care coverage rocks, especially the fact that I don’t have to worry about whether or not I can afford insurance. I pay an extra premium since my salary is above a certain minimum, but it still costs me less than $1500 per year.
Leisure time. Five weeks vacation annually (well, I only use about four) is really awfully nice, and lets me have a more relaxed and engaged life. It also makes me more productive during my working time.
To be fair, here are some areas where I think the Netherlands loses in comparison with the US: Too small and flat. Too much bureaucracy and not a lot of government transparency (although I don’t think the US is doing such a good job on those issues either). Housing is small and expensive. If I were a lot richer, I’d probably complain about taxes. Similarly, if I had a car I’d bitch about the crowding and lack of parking and slowness of traffic.
Overall, do I think the Dutch standard of living is higher than that of the US? I would say yes, from my own perspective, although I think the US isn’t all that far behind. I also think that many Americans (e.g., the ones that own cars and suburban houses) would be more likely to find the US standard equal or superior.
Do I think it’s sustainable? Yes, I do, at least as sustainable as the US standard of living. They’re coming up on some demographic tough times and possibly some environmental tough times too, so they will have to adjust some policies to cope with them. But I don’t see significant evidence that the Netherlands or other W. European countries are about to economically “implode” (another popular trope about Europe, this one from the other end of the US political spectrum).
Well, I’m not wevets, but I can give you my own perspective as an American temporarily resident in the Netherlands. However, since I don’t consider Europe or the Netherlands to be in any way a “utopia”, I’ll just stick to comparing some of the specific factors, based mostly on the Calvert-Henderson indicators. No points for ineffable factors like “charm” or “friendliness”.
Comparable salary and tax rates. I’m making about the same in real dollars here in the Netherlands as I generally earn in the US. As a middle-class person, I pay about 40% of my income in taxes here, compared to about 30% when I lived in the US. But I seem to get a lot more value for money here in terms of public services.
Lower crime rates.
Civil rights. I really like the fact that my gay neighbors have the same rights to get married, get jobs, get housing, etc., as straight people.
Infrastructure and transit. Three cheers for a country where I don’t need a car and can literally train, bus, bike and walk everywhere I need to go! And da-yum, do these people ever take water management systems and wind power seriously! It’s a real pleasure to escape the all-too-prevalent American attitude that any physical infrastructure that isn’t automobile- or aircraft-based is basically for weirdos and poor people, and therefore somewhat contemptible.
Health care access. Universal health care coverage rocks, especially the fact that I don’t have to worry about whether or not I can afford insurance. I pay an extra premium since my salary is above a certain minimum, but it still costs me less than $1500 per year.
Leisure time. Five weeks vacation annually (well, I only use about four) is really awfully nice, and lets me have a more relaxed and engaged life. It also makes me more productive during my working time.
To be fair, here are some areas where I think the Netherlands loses in comparison with the US: Too small and flat. Too much bureaucracy and not a lot of government transparency (although I don’t think the US is doing such a good job on those issues either). Housing is small and expensive. If I were a lot richer, I’d probably complain about taxes. Similarly, if I had a car I’d bitch about the crowding and lack of parking and slowness of traffic.
Overall, do I think the Dutch standard of living is higher than that of the US? I would say yes, from my own perspective, although I think the US isn’t all that far behind. I also think that many Americans (e.g., the ones that own cars and suburban houses) would be more likely to find the US standard equal or superior.
Do I think it’s sustainable? Yes, I do, at least as sustainable as the US standard of living. They’re coming up on some demographic tough times and possibly some environmental tough times too, so they will have to adjust some policies to cope with them. But I don’t see significant evidence that the Netherlands or other W. European countries are about to economically “implode” (another popular trope about Europe, this one from the other end of the US political spectrum).
I would rate most of these countries: the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, all the official member countries of the Western European Union (not the EU - how often do we see that distinction made these days?), as well as the WEU observer countries plus Norway and Iceland, as the top tier in standard of living out of the 190 or so countries in the world. Plus, I believe they would be high on virtually any list of standard of living - these are the most industrialized and wealthy nations in the world, so I’m a little surprised at the question - but I will get more specific:
(And why presume I mean higher standard of living than the US? I didn’t say that. I mean that of the entire world, there’s only a few countries that could match that standard. If you broke up all the countries into, say, five tiers of standard of living, I think the US, England, and France would all be in the top tier.)
Just IMHO, the components that make standard of living high in these countries are (in no particular order):
[ul]Relatively high median income: Not just a few high incomes that pull the average up, but enough mid-range incomes to spread the wealth around[/ul]
[ul]Civil rights: Democracies with freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, political action, due process of law[/ul]
[ul]Law and order: You don’t have to worry about getting stopped on the highway by gunmen with AK-47s, and if you’re rich, you still can be safe without a bulletproof Benz and a passel of bodyguards – a bit of hyperbole, but generally crime rates are lower[/ul]
[ul]Availability of consumer needs: You can get products we would consider routine in American culture in these countries (not to be too Amero-centric, but we’re not talking about places where it’s a hassle to find a lightbulb or toilet paper[/ul]
[ul]Good public health/Availability of health care: The vast majority of residential areas have plumbing and/or sewage, the government inspects food suppliers and forces them to meet health standards, how many people have health insurance? How good are the hospitals? How much cutting-edge medical research is done there? How high is the rate of infant mortality?[/ul]
[ul]Low rates of extreme poverty: Most of the nation’s people can afford shoes and do not live in shacks built of corrugated tin, and most importantly, not a lot of people dying of starvation[/ul]
[ul]Availability of work: An economy that can support lots of people working – I haven’t personally looked for work anywhere but the U.S., so I’m kind of going with my gut here – did I meet anyone who was unemployed in that country? Do I think I would be able to find employment there? [/ul]
[ul]Availability of education/literacy: Can the vast majority of people read? How good is the schooling? Is schooling only for the elite or are there opportunities for others? [/ul]
[ul]Economic freedom: How easy is it to start/run a small business?[/ul]
[ul]Environmental health: Is the air and water clean? Do people wind up dying of odd cancers near industrial sites?[/ul]
[ul]Aesthetics and pleasure: Do people get vacation time? Can they afford to go to concerts, see art, etc.[/ul]
[ul]Transportation: How are the country’s roads? (IMHO, this tells you a lot about a country, but airports, public transit, and seaports are important too) How easy/expensive is it to get around?[/ul]
By and large, England and France measure up well against most of the countries in the world (probably in the top 15 or 20 out of 190) in most of these areas.
And, yes, I lived in England for two months, and although I’ve spent less than a week in France, and I also spent two months in Germany when I was a kid (West Germany at the time), and visited Austria and Switzerland. In my experience, there’s a huge gap between places I’ve visited in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, and all the other places I’ve been - including Mexico, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and French Polynesia. The difference is stark and unmistakable. Hong Kong is notable on the list because although it is very wealthy, the wealth is very unevenly distributed: parts of Hong Kong show the same affluence you can find in Beverly Hills, while other parts have the same seedy feel, appearance, and smell of San Jose, Costa Rica.
I would be shocked if any observer would not note the sharp dichotomy in standard of living between {North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Canada} and {Mexico, Costa Rica, Caribbean Islands, and French Polynesia} - I leave Hong Kong out because I can see how one might only be able to see one side of it, and miss the other.
Long term can be tricky – If you mean is it sustainable on the order of decades, I would say yes. Centuries and millennia? Very few economies are sustainable on that time scale – I’ll hazard a WAG that none of the major industrialized nations are.
Yes… it doesn’t really matter so much whether I’m in favor of it or not, but in the theorhetical sense, it gives us the chance (especially the access to education part) to come up with the future basis for some sort of economy that will be sustainable in the long term.
I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing here – but I should note that I hope you’re not reading something into my posts that isn’t there – use of the word “utopia” in particular makes me think you might be.
After that long, windy post, I should probably say that my comments about standard of living are not meant to establish the superiority of the U.S. over Western Europe or vice versa. What I am saying is that there is a palpable difference in standard of living between the U.S. and places like China (of which I have limited experience) and India (of which I have to assume a lot, because I’ve never been there), and that I think it extremely unlikely that U.S. standard of living could sink to China’s barring some catastrophe. [sub]I’m not counting globalization and consequent offshoring as a catastrophe[/sub]
Thank you both for your responses. I appreciate it.
-XT