News:

And we're back!

Main Menu

The Off Topic Topic

Started by Korea, March 10, 2009, 06:24:26 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

crazy canuck

Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

mongers

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 07:15:27 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

Which makes the situation all the more worrying.

And under Johnson England might end up as a semi-51st state.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

The Larch

IIRC the UK is by far the most unequal country in the EU.

crazy canuck

Quote from: mongers on June 19, 2019, 07:25:11 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 07:15:27 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

Which makes the situation all the more worrying.

And under Johnson England might end up as a semi-51st state.

Agreed.  The UK becoming as bad as the US seems a likely outcome

garbon

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 07:15:27 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

Sure, but I wasn't refuting that there are income inequality issues in the US. I was only pointing out that it seemed rather absurd for mongers to say that inequality in the US would make him sad and unable to live in the US when near similar issues in the UK haven't triggered the same feelings.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

crazy canuck

Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 08:17:59 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 07:15:27 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

Sure, but I wasn't refuting that there are income inequality issues in the US. I was only pointing out that it seemed rather absurd for mongers to say that inequality in the US would make him sad and unable to live in the US when near similar issues in the UK haven't triggered the same feelings.

I think he is very disappointed about his own country.  It not surprising he would not want to live in a country that represents the worst of what he dislikes about his own country.

mongers

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 08:33:07 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 08:17:59 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 19, 2019, 07:15:27 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2019, 02:55:41 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/uk-heading-toward-the-inequality-seen-in-us-nobel-prize-winner-warns.html

As I was saying, UK is no bed of roses for income inequality.

But as the  article you linked notes, they are heading toward the thing best avoided - the situation in the US.

Sure, but I wasn't refuting that there are income inequality issues in the US. I was only pointing out that it seemed rather absurd for mongers to say that inequality in the US would make him sad and unable to live in the US when near similar issues in the UK haven't triggered the same feelings.

I think he is very disappointed about his own country.  It not surprising he would not want to live in a country that represents the worst of what he dislikes about his own country.

This.

And of course it's the direction of travel that matters.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

dps

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 18, 2019, 04:02:30 PM
Quote from: dps on June 18, 2019, 03:50:26 PM
You can live somewhere where only 2% of the population smoke or are obese, but if you're part of that 2%, you're not any better off than you would be if you lived somewhere where 98% of the population smokes and is obese;


If you live where health care, income level, availability of leisure time and ready access to healthy foods and regulation of unhealthy foods is such that your jurisdiction has only a 2% obesity rate, then those 2% certainly have a better quality of life (even though obese) than the hell hole that has 98% obesity.  The only reason it would get that high is if all the above metrics were shit.



Actually, it's almost the opposite, if we're just looking at obesity.  In the US, the places with the highest incidence of obesity tend to be the poorer places, and vice-versa--but if you happen to live in an area with high obesity but are well-off financially, there's no reason for the prevalence of obesity in the area in which you live to affect you personally.  Conversely, if you live in an area with relatively low rates of obesity, but are yourself poor, you may not be able to afford a healthy diet.

Though it says something about the standard of living in the US that the main health problem facing poor people here is obesity, not starvation.

DGuller

Quote from: dps on June 19, 2019, 09:03:56 AM
Actually, it's almost the opposite, if we're just looking at obesity.  In the US, the places with the highest incidence of obesity tend to be the poorer places, and vice-versa--but if you happen to live in an area with high obesity but are well-off financially, there's no reason for the prevalence of obesity in the area in which you live to affect you personally.  Conversely, if you live in an area with relatively low rates of obesity, but are yourself poor, you may not be able to afford a healthy diet.

Though it says something about the standard of living in the US that the main health problem facing poor people here is obesity, not starvation.
Maybe 100 years ago it would've said something.  In an era when caloric intake is no longer cost-prohibitive anywhere, it doesn't say a whole lot.

crazy canuck

Quote from: dps on June 19, 2019, 09:03:56 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 18, 2019, 04:02:30 PM
Quote from: dps on June 18, 2019, 03:50:26 PM
You can live somewhere where only 2% of the population smoke or are obese, but if you're part of that 2%, you're not any better off than you would be if you lived somewhere where 98% of the population smokes and is obese;


If you live where health care, income level, availability of leisure time and ready access to healthy foods and regulation of unhealthy foods is such that your jurisdiction has only a 2% obesity rate, then those 2% certainly have a better quality of life (even though obese) than the hell hole that has 98% obesity.  The only reason it would get that high is if all the above metrics were shit.



Actually, it's almost the opposite, if we're just looking at obesity.  In the US, the places with the highest incidence of obesity tend to be the poorer places, and vice-versa--but if you happen to live in an area with high obesity but are well-off financially, there's no reason for the prevalence of obesity in the area in which you live to affect you personally.  Conversely, if you live in an area with relatively low rates of obesity, but are yourself poor, you may not be able to afford a healthy diet.

Though it says something about the standard of living in the US that the main health problem facing poor people here is obesity, not starvation.

Yes obesity is correlated with poverty.  That is the point.  The poor can not afford nutritional low calorie food and subsist in cheap junk food.  They do not have the leisure time to engage of activities that promote fitness.


dps

Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2019, 09:08:34 AM
Quote from: dps on June 19, 2019, 09:03:56 AM
Actually, it's almost the opposite, if we're just looking at obesity.  In the US, the places with the highest incidence of obesity tend to be the poorer places, and vice-versa--but if you happen to live in an area with high obesity but are well-off financially, there's no reason for the prevalence of obesity in the area in which you live to affect you personally.  Conversely, if you live in an area with relatively low rates of obesity, but are yourself poor, you may not be able to afford a healthy diet.

Though it says something about the standard of living in the US that the main health problem facing poor people here is obesity, not starvation.
Maybe 100 years ago it would've said something.  In an era when caloric intake is no longer cost-prohibitive anywhere, it doesn't say a whole lot.

I'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of starving people in the third world who would disagree with you.

And actually, part of the reason we have so much of a problem with obesity is that many of us are eating a diet that would have been better suited for a century or more ago.  The calorie intake that a lot of Americans have nowadays would have been fine for people doing hard physical labor from sunup to sundown.

DGuller

Quote from: dps on June 19, 2019, 09:15:10 AM
I'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of starving people in the third world who would disagree with you.

And actually, part of the reason we have so much of a problem with obesity is that many of us are eating a diet that would have been better suited for a century or more ago.  The calorie intake that a lot of Americans have nowadays would have been fine for people doing hard physical labor from sunup to sundown.
The problem is that we are eating shit that doesn't regulate our appetite well.  Human bodies are actually capable of regulating their food intake, so that those busy with farming eat more than those working behind their desks, but that regulation works much better with fatty foods than with Coke.

derspiess

Poor people have leisure time, and they can afford low calorie food. Veggies still aren't that expensive.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Threviel

I have seen or read that veggies is actually hard to come by in poorer areas of the US. Propaganda or sometging to it?

Syt

Quote from: Threviel on June 19, 2019, 10:02:14 AM
I have seen or read that veggies is actually hard to come by in poorer areas of the US. Propaganda or sometging to it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.