By what measure does it work for the French?

They have 8% unemployment, 30% less GDP per capita than the US, and many other problems.

Government by caving in to riots is not in general being responsive to the needs of the people.

Well gee, to start France has higher healthcare quality/access, higher life expectancy, much lower treatable mortality, better work-life balance (less hours worked, more guaranteed leave), lower wealth inequality, higher voter turnout (indicative of less apathy or less efforts to disenfranchise), among others.

One of the problems with just using economic metrics is it seems to confuse the fact that the economy is supposed to serve society, not the other way around. So it leads one to wonder: with those better economic measures, what is it buying for US citizens?

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dghlsakjg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Many Americans have a strong bias for measuring everything in money. If you've lived there, it can be shocking how pervasive the thinking is in EVERY decision.

	▲	bumby 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To quote de Tocqueville: “I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men…”

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WarmWash 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All these things become meaningless when you cross the ~50th income percentile.

Besides work/life balance, the US gets much better as you earn more, and frankly high earners are generally less concerned with time off work too. Also why the US enjoyed ~30 years of European brain drain, those benefits are much less enticing when you are the one paying more and getting less.

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bumby 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Median US income is $45k. Almost 18% of US household income goes to healthcare costs. So you’re saying healthcare access/quality, time off, and mortality are moot once you make $23/hr? Color me skeptical.

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WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-]

I mean, you're on the cusp there but $23/hr is around where "full benefits" jobs become the norm.

Also keep in mind that French pay a lot for healthcare too, except it's called taxes. That $23/hr in France would be taxed at 30% compared to 12% in the US.

This only gets more dramatic as you climb the income scale, which inevitably means (in France) you are paying way more taxes (41% at $100k) while using those social services the least.

Compare to the US where you are paying 22% on $100k and likely getting high tier health insurance for ~$200/mo from such a job.

The takeaway is that America sucks if you are poor, but gets much better if you can make it out of the bottom half, and way better if you can get to the top 25%.

P.S. there is a reason the media only talks about the bottom 50% and the top 1%. Talking about the 50-99% would reveal where the real money in the country is (and offend/call out half the country too).

	▲	bumby 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Benefits are paid based on hours worked not on rate. You also seem to confuse marginal and effective tax rates because you don’t factor in the other tax structures in the US like FICA/state/local taxes. On the US healthcare side, you have to factor in deductibles; my annual family HSA deductible is $8k. And on and on. As a general rule, I try not to spend much time debating with new accounts that miss basic facts/principles. But this all digresses from the point: simple economic indicators like GDP without fuller context are a lazy and misleading metric for evaluating the health of a society.

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rapsacnz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Also France scores hugely better on the international cheese index