Superior European Countries

[agavi...@gmail.com]

https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

[xyzzy]

On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 10:24:49 AM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

We discussed this on rsfc a couple of years ago when it first came out.

It doesn't pass the laugh test to anyone who's actually been to Europe and observed living conditions there. At the highest level summary, you're comparing a society where most wealth is held individually to ones where much more wealth is held collectively, and claiming the collectively held wealth doesn't count.

For example: this article claims to take into account social benefits like welfare and health care but as I recall it doesn't include retirement. Americans need more money to save for retirement, so it adds to our income and personal wealth while we are working, while most Euros have defined benefit pensions and their employer and government contributions don't count toward their income while they are earning. Also even if health care is included in the Euro comparison, as we have discussed many times health care is much cheaper in Europe so the amount of income required to get equivalent health care is much higher here, regardless of whether it's individual or tax money.

And finally, the ultimate free market argument that should make the bogosity of this comparison clear to even the most thick-headed ideologue.... where are all the people emigrating from the UK to Mississippi for better economic opportunity?

[JGibson]

Forget the comparison of country to states. His re-doing of the economics suggests that Mississippi is wealthier than New York.

[agavi...@gmail.com]

I've simultaneously rented apartments in Jackson, MS and Jersey City, NJ.

I can without a shadow of a doubt state that my standard of living in Jackson was significantly higher in Jacskon, MS.

[dotsla...@gmail.com]

Of course your standard of living was better in Mississippi - for the same reason army folk on longterm deployment to places like India are able to employ house "staff" -housekeeper, cook, etc - overseas, while living in a double wide in North Carolina when they return home.

It's not because India is wealthier than the US.

(Geo-arbitrage is an interesting trend and one of the things that makes true-remote (vs local-remote) work intriguing - if you're employed by a company in New York or San Francisco but can live in alabama, you're prolly gonna live pretty well).

Cheers.

[xyzzy]

The wrench in the works is that lots of tech companies are now taking back remote work... yahoo and IBM are most prominent examples but other companies are doing it too. And most of the premier ones, like Google and Apple, never allowed it in the first place.

[agavi...@gmail.com]

Offshoring turned out to be fools gold.

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

The country club membership in Greenville is little more than the
green fess north of the Ohio River. And the food south of the Ohio is
much, much better and less costly.

Hurry is a forrin language in thu South, y'all.

Hugh

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

[xyzzy]

On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 1:48:14 PM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Offshoring turned out to be fools gold.

It did, but I'm talking about telecommuting, which is a different trend that seems to be reversing.

[Michael Press]

In article <c393f6e4-bee3-492a...@googlegroups.com>,
"the_andr...@yahoo.com" <agavi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

Just because somebody has a lot of money
does not mean they live beyond their means.

--
Michael Press

[agavi...@gmail.com]

I think telecommuting has everything to do with hiring.

If you hire talented, well-motivated people, telecommuting works.

I've done it for years and much prefer it. The disruptions in the office have a negative impact on my productivity. Even when I ran a dev shop,mwm did better when people were left alone to think and deliver on. They could also take care of domestic issues with less hassle which allowed them to work w/o their todo list in the back of their mind. You occasionally have to ferret out some scammers and slackers, but that happens pretty quickly.

I will say having an office to "retreat" to or just to socialize at is useful in some ways. But the whole collaborative environment thing is just as easy when I have IM/SMS/phone/email.

[dotsla...@gmail.com]

Yeah. That's definitely happening with the big tech companies.

Has happened in the past as well. My first team lead came to us from intel when they revoked his work remote privileges - he didn't want to leave madison. Maybe it's cyclical.

I've been on completely internal meetings where there are eight or ten of us all sitting in our offices "meeting" via webex while conf rooms collect dust. That sort of feels silly.

Not sure I buy the elevator / hallway story rationale for reversing remote options - or the company culture rationale - strongly suspect that many people take advantage of remote work, have a noticeable reduction in output, and spoil things for the rest of us.

Still alive and well in many smaller tech companies though, as far as I can tell - some of them use a required remote bennie both for recruitment and to bypass the expense of having dedicated office space.

Cheers.

[RoddyMcCorley]

WTF?

--
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul
with evil.

Pennsylvania - Tá sé difriúil anseo.

[Michael Press]

In article <okb7m0$n4s$1...@dont-email.me>,

RoddyMcCorley <Roddy.M...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On 7/14/2017 2:42 PM, Michael Press wrote:
> > In article <c393f6e4-bee3-492a...@googlegroups.com>,
> > "the_andr...@yahoo.com" <agavi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states
> >
> > Just because somebody has a lot of money
> > does not mean they live beyond their means.
> >
> WTF?

Missing "do not"

Just because somebody has a lot of money

does not mean they live do not beyond their means.

Calm down. You'll blow a head gasket.

--
Michael Press

[Ken Olson]

What era English is that? ;)

[Michael Press]

In article <okbte2$k3e$1...@dont-email.me>,

Neolithic.

--
Michael Press

[RoddyMcCorley]

My point is that if you have a lot of money, you have a lot of means.

[CtrlAltDel]

On Fri, 14 Jul 2017 07:24:46 -0700, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:

> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-
would-be-among-poorest-states

Wow. Alabama rocks on like always. Roll Tide!!!

[Michael Press]

In article <okc5pg$4re$1...@dont-email.me>,

RoddyMcCorley <Roddy.M...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On 7/14/2017 8:54 PM, Michael Press wrote:
> > In article <okb7m0$n4s$1...@dont-email.me>,
> > RoddyMcCorley <Roddy.M...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 7/14/2017 2:42 PM, Michael Press wrote:
> >>> In article <c393f6e4-bee3-492a...@googlegroups.com>,
> >>> "the_andr...@yahoo.com" <agavi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states
> >>>
> >>> Just because somebody has a lot of money
> >>> does not mean they live beyond their means.
> >>>
> >> WTF?
> >
> > Missing "do not"
> >
> > Just because somebody has a lot of money
> > does not mean they live do not beyond their means.
> >
> > Calm down. You'll blow a head gasket.
> >
>
> My point is that if you have a lot of money, you have a lot of means.

My point is that some with lots of money live beyond their means.

--
Michael Press

[Ken Olson]

Ever read "The Millionaire Next Door"?

[Michael Press]

In article <oke0hf$an0$1...@dont-email.me>,

No, but understand that buying quality, buying food in bulk,
cooking ones own food and steady saving and investing will
take you from zero to comfortable, if not set for life.

--
Michael Press

[JGibson]

On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 12:04:46 PM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I've simultaneously rented apartments in Jackson, MS and Jersey City, NJ.
>
> I can without a shadow of a doubt state that my standard of living in Jackson was significantly higher in Jacskon, MS.

If that's the case, I'd like to see the calculations from some third world countries by the same author.

[irishra...@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 1:48:14 PM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Offshoring turned out to be fools gold.

Some one needs to tell Microsoft.

Irish Mike

[irishra...@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 2:02:56 PM UTC-4, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:04:42 -0700 (PDT), "the_andr...@yahoo.com"
> <agavi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I've simultaneously rented apartments in Jackson, MS and Jersey City, NJ.
> >
> >I can without a shadow of a doubt state that my standard of living in Jackson was significantly higher in Jacskon, MS.
>
> The country club membership in Greenville is little more than the
> green fess north of the Ohio River. And the food south of the Ohio is
> much, much better and less costly.
>
> Hurry is a forrin language in thu South, y'all.
>
> Hugh

I'm a Yankee who has lived in the South. And when you live in the South you
learn one thing about that "Southern Hospitality". It's a mile wide and an inch deep.

Irish Mike

[michael anderson]

misleading because jackson, ms and a typical jersey exubrish area are 50 times more similar to each other than either is to a third world country.

You can have access to uber trained medical specialists of every kind in Jackson, shop at Whole Foods, buy a ferrari and have it serviced, etc etc...most of the things upper middle class people enjoy doing in jackson you can do. Now does Jackson have the same variety and quantity of things in terms of culture and entertainment as Jersey(or more specifically across the bridge depending on what part of jersey you live)? Of course not....but if we're speaking specifically about how people like us typically measure quality of life, there are a good number of advantages to jackson, ms vs most of new jersey.....(and I bet there are places in new jersey that are actually quite similar)

Now some *real truly rural* place in mississippi or alabama? Or georgia or Oklahoma or Florida or South Carolina or MIssouri or MIchigan or Iowa? Id have trouble with that....

[Ken Olson]

There's a guy from Texas that runs a company that rebuilds diesel
engines for semi-tractors. He gets some Englishmen to invest in his
company and they come over to check-out the operation. They are all
wearing suits. They go into the building and see a guy wearing a
flannel shirt, bluejeans, and work boots. Figuring that he's the
janitor, they ask him where they could find the company president. He
tells them that they've found him. They remark that with the size of
the company they thought the company's president would be attired
similarly to them.

He told them that he preferred to spend a lot of time in the shop,
getting to know them as people and listen to what they think about what
they do and if they can think of improvements to the process. As far as
his choice of attire, he said, "In Texas, we say that somebody that puts
on a lot of flash, but doesn't have much to show for it has a big hat
and no cattle. I wear a small hat, but I've got a lot of cattle."

At least that's how I remember the story. It's been a while since I've
read it.

Ken

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Sat, 15 Jul 2017 19:00:08 -0700 (PDT), irishra...@gmail.com
wrote:

That's an unusual amout of courtesy to be shown a yankee.

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2017 01:02:23 -0400, Ken Olson <kol...@freedomnet.org>
wrote:

>There's a guy from Texas that runs a company that rebuilds diesel
>engines for semi-tractors. He gets some Englishmen to invest in his
>company and they come over to check-out the operation. They are all
>wearing suits. They go into the building and see a guy wearing a
>flannel shirt, bluejeans, and work boots. Figuring that he's the
>janitor, they ask him where they could find the company president. He
>tells them that they've found him. They remark that with the size of
>the company they thought the company's president would be attired
>similarly to them.

Times have changed - even in my lifetime.

I wore a tie and suit, or nice coat, to work every working day for 35
years. That was not my preference but it gave you status around town.
I enjoyed the differentiation.

Our second son is partner and CFO of his company and I doubt that he
ever wore a tie to work. But shirt, pants and shoes - each probably
cost more than any suit I ever had since I never had to pay as much as
$100 except for the last one I bought.

It's often a mistake to judge a person by the clothes he wears - but
I'll make that mistake every time until I'm proven wrong.

I dress like a bum around the house - but I AM a bum around the house.

[irishra...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 8:38:39 AM UTC-4, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jul 2017 19:00:08 -0700 (PDT), irishranger

> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, July 14, 2017 at 2:02:56 PM UTC-4, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
> >> On Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:04:42 -0700 (PDT), "the_andr...@yahoo.com"
> >> <agavi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >I've simultaneously rented apartments in Jackson, MS and Jersey City, NJ.
> >> >
> >> >I can without a shadow of a doubt state that my standard of living in Jackson was significantly higher in Jacskon, MS.
> >>
> >> The country club membership in Greenville is little more than the
> >> green fess north of the Ohio River. And the food south of the Ohio is
> >> much, much better and less costly.
> >>
> >> Hurry is a forrin language in thu South, y'all.
> >>
> >> Hugh
> >
> >I'm a Yankee who has lived in the South. And when you live in the South you
> >learn one thing about that "Southern Hospitality". It's a mile wide and an inch deep.
> >
> >Irish Mike
>
> That's an unusual amout of courtesy to be shown a yankee.
>
> Hugh

Well modesty prevented me from pointing out that I am an
extraordinarily charming and likable Yankee. Apparently it stems
from my Irish heritage and upbringing.

Irish Mike

It's no sin not to be Irish,
just a terrible, terrible shame.

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2017 21:32:07 -0700 (PDT), irishra...@gmail.com
wrote:

>> >I'm a Yankee who has lived in the South. And when you live in the South you
>> >learn one thing about that "Southern Hospitality". It's a mile wide and an inch deep.
>> >
>> >Irish Mike
>>
>> That's an unusual amout of courtesy to be shown a yankee.
>>
>> Hugh
>
>Well modesty prevented me from pointing out that I am an
>extraordinarily charming and likable Yankee. Apparently it stems
>from my Irish heritage and upbringing.
>
>Irish Mike

...and your bagger was not a carpet.