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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (92708)	10/31/2008 1:53:49 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541848

Pick any large European country and you'll find their income is lower, and in most cases their unemployment rates are higher. Purchasing power is a better measure than income, and even that is misleading. And unemployment is measured differently in European countries than the US. Plus unemployment doesn't mean the same thing, given the way the societies are structured. And with the currencies fluctuating the way they have been for the last few years, it isn't easy to get "real" numbers anyway. I think the US was ranked around 12th or 13th when the Euro was much higher than it is today, just last year (in per capita income, that is--obviously the US is far wealthier than any individual country, though not so much so when the whole EC is considered).

To: TimF who wrote (92708)	10/31/2008 1:58:20 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Respond to of 541848

Tim; It doesn't have many more people than LA (just the city, it has much less than the metro area) Yup I freely have agreed to that point. Now imagine those people living in an area of a coastline from LA to Palin's home in Alaska and imagine the task of getting people around in such an area cut up with deep fjords and imagine getting utilities to such a spread out population WITHOUT the tax base to support it. Did you know that even though Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is on the mainland but that there is no road that can get you there? If it was Norway - they would. That's the difference, the one and only point I am trying to make. Where we spend our money; to invade Iraq or invest in benefits for the people. Our choice. Your choice. As you say and as I agree, we can't do it all. steve

To: TimF who wrote (92708)	10/31/2008 2:45:35 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541848

>>And "rocketing ahead" isn't true. Its got a slightly larger GDP per capita ( en.wikipedia.org ) but it isn't that far ahead by that measure. The only other European country ahead of us is Luxembourg.<< Tim - I looked this up recently, and found that Norway's GDP per capita is about twice ours. I was using that data to support the same contention that you are making, namely that Norway is not comparable to the US. It's more like Alaska, if Alaska were a separate country. Though Alaska probably has more cultural diversity. - Allen