Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by umvi on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @04:57PM (#19732771)

I don't have anything to prove it but I swear countries like Japan and Germany are very good at this sort of thing because the people have a culture of strict obedience to authority be it the government or whatever. They love having and following well defined rules and are nonplussed (in the original sense of the word) when people break the rules.

People in USA have the opposite attitude towards authority and rules.

Go someplace in Europe that doesn't have this culture and it breaks down. Italy's healthcare is a circus. When I was in Italy not even that long ago a doctor came in to see me with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by whatever_dude on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:04PM (#19732852)

The USA's ethos in based in the motto of doing it their own way. Sometimes that's good: when everybody is doing the same, it breaks from the status quo and can become a leader in an industry, or just generally break ground in scientific and civil progress. That has happened many times in the past.

The flipside is that there are many things are a consensus worldwide because they _are actually better_ but that the US still refuses to adopt, generally because it would mean following others' lead, or because there are special interests in keeping the current status quo.

To me nothing is more emblematic of this problem than the country's refusal to adopt the metric system: the alternative is objectively worse, but the country is pretty much the last developed country on earth to refuse to use it.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by mjevans on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:13PM (#19732926)

It's more short-term pain avoidance based.

The reason we aborted the conversion to the metric system is because a generation of idiots couldn't stand the pain of switching, and the longer we delay the more painful it will be.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by davidw on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:13PM (#19732922)

Italy's health care is pretty good actually.

Lived there for 15 years, on and off. My son was born there. My father in law survived a bad heart attack there.

Yes, there are areas in the south where it's not so good, but any reasonably large country probably has some areas where things don't work as well.

People live long, healthy, happy productive lives there.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by umvi on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:31PM (#19733105)

> Yes, there are areas in the south where it's not so good

I was in Naples at the time and was a little disturbed by how lax the doctors (well, really everyone) seemed. I guess I shouldn't judge Italy's government/healthcare based on my experience in Naples, I have heard that northern Italy is on the ball for the most part.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by davidw on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @06:19PM (#19733551)

Naples is a world unto itself. Much has been written on the subject, but yeah, it's kind of a mess. In some ways it's sort of the distilled essence of some of the worst - and best - of Italy.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by ska on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:05PM (#19732857)

I don't think your analogy holds unless you cherry pick a bit - neither the French nor the British are particularly known as rule followers in the sense you are suggesting. Both have good (even great, in Frances case) health care.

The line you are drawing probably has at least as much to do with economics as culture.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by huffmsa on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:07PM (#19732868)

Oh I bet someone in Italy got visited by a doctor with a cigarette (30 minutes late, lunch) today.

And yes, the systems work in Germany and Japan because they're culturally and racially homogeneous (Japan).

The United States was founded by people who didn't like their home country and decided to leave, rather than bend the knee.

As such, we fight about everything. It's inefficient for some stuff.

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by residentfoam on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:34PM (#19733134)

> Italy's healthcare is a circus

1 - Italy was the 4th European country to introduce a smoking ban in public places.

2 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/u-s-near-...

"Spain’s health system efficiency ranked third behind Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by that of Italy, which moved up two spots from a year earlier. Italy ranked as the world’s healthiest country in a separate Bloomberg gauge."

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by umvi on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:50PM (#19733299)

> Italy was the 4th European country to introduce a smoking ban in public places.

Is the ban enforced? If not, it's just lip service. When I went there 3 years ago (Rome, Naples), people smoked in public EVERYWHERE, even on public transportation. Sometimes I would get on a bus and there would be some guy in the back blowing smoke out of a cracked window

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Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except... by residentfoam on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @03:38PM (#19741927)

> people smoked in public EVERYWHERE

There are people smoking in Italy as there are everywhere. They were probably smoking down the street and that's fine. But I have never seen anyone smoking in hospitals, restaurants, cafe, buses, etc .. it is illegal and people wouldn't tolerate that.

That being said, of course, there are always people that do not respect the laws as everywhere else in the world.

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