« September 2002 | Main | January 2003 »
November 26, 2002
Social expenditures compared
The last post got me sufficiently curious that I decided to do some lookups at the OECD. Here is social expenditures, by country:
| Measure | As a percentage of GDP (SNA93) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Canada | France | Germany | Netherlands | New Zealand | Sweden | Switzerland | UK | USA |
| Program | |||||||||
| Old age cash benefits | 5.1 | 10.7 | 11.1 | 9.0 | 5.5 | 9.4 | 11.2 | 10.1 | 5.2 |
| Disability cash benefits | 0.5 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 2.4 | 1.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.6 | 0.9 |
| Occupational injury and disease | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 0.3 | |
| Sickness benefits | 0.1 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 2.2 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.2 |
| Services for elderly and disabled | 0.7 | 0.8 | 1.3 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.1 | |
| Survivors | 0.5 | 1.8 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 1.0 | 0.9 |
| Family cash benefits | 0.8 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 0.2 |
| Family services | 1.3 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.9 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.3 | |
| Active labor market programs | 0.5 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| Unemployment | 1.0 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Health | 6.4 | 7.3 | 7.8 | 6.0 | 6.6 | 6.6 | 7.6 | 5.6 | 6.0 |
| Housing benefits | 0.9 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 1.6 | ||
| Other contingencies | 2.8 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
| Public social expenditure | 18.0 | 29.5 | 29.2 | 28.6 | 21.0 | 34.1 | 28.3 | 25.6 | 15.0 |
Posted by Tyrone at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2002
Canada's taxes
One of the biggest myths you hear in the Canadian press is the old canard that taxes in Canada are soooo much higher than in the United States. That was said to be the cause of the 1990s "brain drain", and cutting taxes to US levels would magically restore the Canadian economy.
But such analyses were mistaken because they relied only on income taxes. If you add income and payroll taxes, a different picture emerges.
Compare Ontario and California, counting EI and CPP for Ontario, and SS, Medicare, and SDI for California:
Income: 20K
California tax: 3,840
Ontario tax: 3,670
Income: 50K
California tax: 15,160
Ontario tax: 13,650
Income: 100K
California tax: 38,550
Ontario tax: 37,200
The main differentiator between Canada and the US is the GST, which has no American equivalent. Canada's alcohol and gasoline taxes are also higher than the US. On the other hand, oil royalties and capital gains taxes are lower in Canada, which also lacks an estate tax.
Posted by Tyrone at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
Daily Howler
Thank heaven for The Daily Howler. I'd call it virtually essential reading for anyone regularly exposed to the distorted world of the American news media.
Howler regularly shows why many of the points repeated ad nauseam by conservative talk-radio hosts, pundits, and columnists are only loosely based on facts, and frequently omit important details and take things horrifically out of context. They then feed out their distorted version of events, further enraging their conservative audience against the nefarious (and exaggerated) goings-on of the evil Left.
The Muslim students widely slammed for joking about Sept. 11 weren't even talking about Sept. 11 - they were discussing "bringing down" a CAR to Florida!! And it isn't quite true that Paul Wellstone's funeral turned into a political rally - there were only a few scattered boos of Republicans, and ONE partisan speaker, after several nonpartisan ones, and rounds of applause for Republicans among them. Yet even among liberal columnists, we hear words of condemnation for 20,000 Democrats shamelessly exploiting the senator's passing.
After the Washington snipers were arrested, the Right crowed about how they were Muslims, and started blathering about how everyone had assumed the sniper had been a white male extremist. The hitch is that hardly anyone actually made such an assumption; they only listed it as one of many possibilities. But, again, the right-wing audience is told what it wants to hear; that the so-called "liberal media" is wrong again. Actually, it's the Right that is wrong. Again.
Daily Howler. Kudos to its author, Bob Somerby. Keep reading it and let the truth shine through!
Posted by Tyrone at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2002
What do Democrats need?
What do Democrats need? "A unified vision composed of actual policies and principles, as opposed to knee-jerk liberal sloganeering, cynical political strategies and anti-Bush whining".
This column by Frank Rich of the New York Times has a good take on why Democrats lost the election. Registration required.
Posted by Tyrone at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2002
Taboo thoughts on Sept. 11
Maybe Sept. 11 wasn't such a big deal after all.
As far as world catastrophes go, just compare Sept. 11 to other disasters of the 1990s:
| Place | Event | Date | Casualties |
| New York | WTC Bombings | 2001 | 3,000 |
| Chechnya | Second Russian invasion | 1999-2000 | 4,000 |
| Sierra Leone | Freetown massacre | 1999 | 7,000 |
| Ethiopia-Eritrea | Border war | 1998-2000 | 50,000 |
| Zaire/Congo | "Africa's world war" | 1996-2001 | 200,000 |
| Chechnya | First Russian invasion | 1994-96 | 70,000 |
| Turkey | Ethnic cleansing of Kurds | 1994-95 | 7,000 |
| Rwanda | Genocide of Tutsis | 1994 | 800,000 |
| Tajikistan | Civil war | 1992-96 | 20,000 |
The overwhelming majority of deaths in these conflicts were civilians. Some of them received international attention but little real action. Others were virtually ignored by the international media.
Even if you consider only events that involve Americans, remember that 3,000 people are killed by car accidents in the US every month. Yet somehow Sept. 11 has been magnified as if it were one of the worst crimes in recorded history, the start of a new Islamo-fascist reign of terror, the beginning of a stark us-versus-them battle between America and terrorism.
Terrorism suddenly becomes the top priority in American foreign policy. But to me, it seems that the emotional response people have had to Sept. 11 is way out of proportion to what actually happened. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter wrote that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." Peace activists and other critics of the US were branded as being apologists for the terrorists.
I say that the Sept. 11 atrocities did not change the world. Terrorist strikes have happened before and they will happen again. Like crime, terrorism is endemic to human society and can be reduced but never eliminated. Sept. 11 was simply a terrorist strike that killed thousands instead of hundreds, and destroyed buildings widely regarded as icons of a society.
Now the United States is pushing hard for an invasion of Iraq because of its refusals to admit UN weapons inspectors. But there have been no inspections in Iraq since 1998. Why was that not such a big deal from 1998 to 2001 and suddenly a big deal afterwards? The reality on the ground hadn't changed, but Americans believed that Sept. 11 changes everything.
Among conservative pundits, Sept. 11 is used like a trump card. A single terrorist act somehow became "proof" that America was the Good Guy and any of its opponents the Bad Guy. CNN's footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets after hearing news of the attack left them thoroughly discredited in American eyes. Politicians who fretted about the wisdom of invading Iraq, or the fairness of using a new government department to destroy civil service union protections, found themselves defeated and battered at election time.
Sept. 11 has passed from fact to myth. The reality is that 3,000 people were killed in an unexpected terrorist attack; a terrible act, but not as terrible as many other wars and massacres around the world. But the myth is that it was the beginning of a new cold war, with radical Islam taking the place of communism. And just as happened in the anti-communist cold war, the enemy is being portrayed as far more endemic, far more powerful, than he really is. Americans' fear is way out of proportion to the actual threat posed by terrorists. They voted for a president whose media allies have used their fear and anger at Sept. 11 as ammunition to justify policies that were relatively unpopular before the attack.
Do I weep for the dead of Sept. 11? Yes I do. But not as much as I weep for the 800,000 dead in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Emotionally Sept. 11 doesn't even come close. Call me a monster for writing this if you wish. But that is how a rational person feels.
Posted by Tyrone at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)