Fun with US Tax statistics.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

On a broader note, countires with a more comprhensive social safety net including health care (like Canada and Scandanavian countries) consistently rank quite high on the UN list of best places in the world to live. They have not ruined the economies of these places, and certainly the citizens enjoy a quite high standard of living. I don't recall the US ever topping this list.

Because of the way the UN chooses to calculate the statistics. For example in its human development report, the ranking is based on three indices.

Firstly, life expectancy is measured based on the average life expectancy over an arbitary target life expectancy (85). In both cases the figures are reduced by 25 before calculating the percentage.

Secondly, adult literacy (2/3 weighting) and enrolment in education (1/3 weighting) are combined to give an education index based on simple percentages.

Finally an economic rating is given. This is based on the percentage of the log of average GDP against the log of a target rate ($40,000). Using a log ratio is justified as "human development does not require unlimited income".

Clearly the use of a log scale for income means high income is given a much lower emphasis than high school enrolment. For example the US has average GDP approx 41% higher than Sweden, but has a GDP index of 0.97 compared to 0.92.

The US does badly because of relatively poor life expectancy (76.9) compared to the rest of the top 10 (ranging from 78.2 to 81.3). However the index is made even worse because 25 is removed from both numerator and denominator in the calculation. Without the adjustment, the US would have an index of 76.9/85 or .905 compared to Sweden's 79.9/85 or .940. With the adjustment, the figures are .86 and .91.

As the US overall (equally weighted average of life expectancy, GDP and education indices) is .004 behind Sweden, the rankings are directly affected by arbitary decisions on target setting such as deducting 25 from life expectancy and using a log scale for income and a target of $40k. Amending these would result in significant changes to the rankings.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Apparently a Swedish diplomat once told Milton Friedman that in Sweden there weren't any poor people. To which Friedman replied that there was a distinct lack of impovrished Swedes (or people of Swedish ancestry) in America as well.

No wonder Inga down the street is indifferent to my offers of table scraps for sex.

AS