U.S. Social Spending

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by MrJayremmie, Apr 17, 2011.

  1. MrJayremmie

    MrJayremmie Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2008
    Messages:
    3,438
    Likes Received:
    27
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Nanny State?

    Part of the article...

    U.S. Ranks Dead Last In Overall Social Spending

    http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x911021
     
  2. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    May 24, 2007
    Messages:
    72,957
    Likes Received:
    10,620
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Never lost a case
    Location:
    Boston Legal
    Social Security and Medicare spending is about $1.5T of a $14T GDP. That alone is more than 10% of GDP.

    I guess DemocraticUnderground.com doesn't consider those two things (among others) to be social contracts.

    All I can say to that is:

    :lol:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2008
    Messages:
    18,725
    Likes Received:
    191
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Occupation:
    dental malpractice claims adjuster
    Location:
    Portland area
  4. EL PRESIDENTE

    EL PRESIDENTE Username Retired in Honor of Lanny.

    Joined:
    Feb 15, 2010
    Messages:
    50,346
    Likes Received:
    22,528
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'll just assume the money went to illegals.

    X
     
  5. bluefrog

    bluefrog Go Blazers, GO!

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2008
    Messages:
    1,964
    Likes Received:
    81
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Occupation:
    Programmer
    Location:
    New Bern
    This article is a little misleading. The U.S. is pretty close to the bottom but technically not dead last. Australia, Slovak Republic and Israel are worse. As are Iceland
    Estonia
    Chile
    Turkey
    Korea
    Mexico
    Brazil
    Russian Federation
    South Africa
    China
    and
    India

    It's an interesting report if you guys want to look at the report and actually learn something. We're at 16.20% of GDP for public social spending and 25.6 for net social spending (which includes private donations, I think). France is #1 with 28.40% Public social spending
     
  6. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    May 24, 2007
    Messages:
    72,957
    Likes Received:
    10,620
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Never lost a case
    Location:
    Boston Legal
    Another report.

    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=FRF

    The unemployment rate in France was last reported at 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. From 1983 until 2010, France's Unemployment Rate averaged 9.54 percent reaching an historical high of 11.80 percent in March of 1994 and a record low of 7.30 percent in February of 1983.

    (More unemployed need more social services, no?)
     
  7. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2008
    Messages:
    26,060
    Likes Received:
    9,014
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The original writer has corrected his numbers:
    Which brings the US to 25th of 34.

    I went to EQ5.xls on this page to look at the underlying data. It seems, for all the talk of health care (insurance?) reform, we're spending almost exactly the same as everyone else on "public health", whatever that means, while spending the same amount of GDP on "private health". Which means we're at least doubling the health spending by GDP of every other country. We're spending much less on "pensions" and "working age support" than the countries above us, which makes sense when you think about how many other countries have more government workers as a % of workforce.
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2011
  8. MrJayremmie

    MrJayremmie Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2008
    Messages:
    3,438
    Likes Received:
    27
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Location:
    Portland, OR
  9. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2009
    Messages:
    30,059
    Likes Received:
    8,157
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired, while you work!
    The point of the article is that our deficit is not caused by high social spending, because countries with high social spending (per capita) have much less deficit (per capita) than us. When you compare nations, there is no correlation between social spending and deficit.
     
  10. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    May 24, 2007
    Messages:
    72,957
    Likes Received:
    10,620
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Never lost a case
    Location:
    Boston Legal
    The point is wrong.

    Using an exaggerated figure of $1T for military spending, Obama proposed to spend nearly $4T overall, $3T of that being social spending, and at a $1.6T deficit. So if we eliminate the armed forces entirely, along wit DHS and DoE, we'd still have a $600B deficit.
     
  11. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2008
    Messages:
    18,725
    Likes Received:
    191
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Occupation:
    dental malpractice claims adjuster
    Location:
    Portland area
    Or the IAW
     
  12. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2009
    Messages:
    30,059
    Likes Received:
    8,157
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired, while you work!
    A canned response. Did anyone read the actual article?

    Here's an article I just saw, perfect for you idiots. It has big colorful simple graphs. See Spot. See Jane with Spot. No, Jane, no!

    http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/taxes-richest-americans-charts-graph
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2011
  13. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    May 24, 2007
    Messages:
    72,957
    Likes Received:
    10,620
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Never lost a case
    Location:
    Boston Legal
    The original one or the corrected one?

    I think I'll wait until it's fully corrected, or maybe the movie comes out.
     

Share This Page