Is the USA a Developed Country?

[Farnhamia]

I would give it a no. A country that lies about how free, or how great, or how humanitarian it is can never be developed. Example, NK lies and says they are democratic and are not, the US lies and says we are free yet we incarcerate millions for a medical plant. See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

Weird, I don't see any gulags strewn across the country or massive famines.

The gulags are all under large airports. We may be evil but we're not stupid.

[Fartsniffage]

Weird, I don't see any gulags strewn across the country or massive famines.

The gulags are all under large airports. We may be evil but we're not stupid.

That explains why so much luggage goes missing....

[Chuching]

Nearly nobody owns guns in North Korea, and there is quite low crime there. Does that make it a developed country?

[Farnhamia]

The gulags are all under large airports. We may be evil but we're not stupid.

That explains why so much luggage goes missing....

Okay, so there are some glitches in the system but missing luggage does make for a decent distraction.

[Destructive Government Economic System]

See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

I lol'd at this.

No.... I XD'd at this. It was that hilarious to read.

[Napkiraly]

Developed countries put men on the moon, undeveloped ones don't.

[Longweather]

See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

I lol'd at this.

No.... I XD'd at this. It was that hilarious to read.

Personally, I double face-palmed.

[Xelsis]

Guess what every other western nation has those things you mentioned oh and free healthcare,

Oh, free healthcare? Do all the doctors get paid nothing?

Or do you mean taxpayer-funded healthcare?

less gun violence,

And the UK has higher violence crime rates than the U.S. Who cares what they're doing the violence with?

cheap college,

"Cheap" is a good choice of words, with the waves of European students that ditch their own colleges to get their education in the States.

and now some are giving universal incomes.

So is Alaska.

Literally, only Americans that are nationalistic think America is great, we are trash.

So trashy that we saved Western Europe from Nazi conquest and then footed the bill for them to rebuild and set up their fancy welfare systems. Yeah, definitely trash.

Oh, another thing you don't have to worry about in one of those really free west nations, bribery of your lawmakers,

U.S. beats France on the corruption index.

archaic voting systems,

British Parliament system=1721

U.S. Electoral system=1789

cops killing you when you are unarmed.

And grabbing for their gun, yeah.

But continue on how great we are.

It'd be an easy job than your desperate attempts to continue on about how "trash" the country is.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

, cops killing you when you are unarmed.

An unarmed man can still kill you.

[Valgora]

Guess what every other western nation has those things you mentioned oh and free healthcare,

Oh, free healthcare? Do all the doctors get paid nothing?

Or do you mean taxpayer-funded healthcare?

less gun violence,

And the UK has higher violence crime rates than the U.S. Who cares what they're doing the violence with?

cheap college,

"Cheap" is a good choice of words, with the waves of European students that ditch their own colleges to get their education in the States.

I think you mean exchange students. I highly doubt that European students are ditiching their cheap education for the high tuitions of American college.

In fact, my roommate is a foreign exchange student from Finland.

Literally, only Americans that are nationalistic think America is great, we are trash.

So trashy that we saved Western Europe from Nazi conquest and then footed the bill for them to rebuild and set up their fancy welfare systems. Yeah, definitely trash.[/quote]

The Soviet Union is more the hero of Europe. It's like a bunch of raptors and members of the Compsognathus genus swarming the T-rex.

The US saved the Pacific from the Japanese.

cops killing you when you are unarmed.

And grabbing for their gun, yeah.

What about when cops kill those who are reaching for their wallet to give them their id?

[The Empire of Pretantia]

The Soviet Union is more the hero of Europe. It's like a bunch of raptors and members of the Compsognathus genus swarming the T-rex.

The US saved the Pacific from the Japanese.

In whose trucks did the Soviet Union ride to victory in? On whose trains? That's right, America's.

[Hammer Britannia]

, cops killing you when you are unarmed.

An unarmed man can still kill you.

^^^^^^^^

[Xelsis]

I think you mean exchange students. I highly doubt that European students are ditiching their cheap education for the high tuitions of American college.

In fact, my roommate is a foreign exchange student from Finland.

I'm referencing the ninety thousand Europeans annually who hop across the pond to attend American colleges, generally to seek a higher quality of education.

The Soviet Union is more the hero of Europe. It's like a bunch of raptors and members of the Compsognathus genus swarming the T-rex.


The US saved the Pacific from the Japanese.

You've gotta be kidding. Outside of the actual war effort, where the U.S. was busy sending over lend-lease supplies by the shipload to forestall the Soviet collapse, when they weren't tying up German resources in North Africa or by their bombing campaigns, the Soviets devastated Eastern Europe after the war, while the United States rebuilt the west. Western Europe is far wealthier and better-off than Eastern Europe-even West Germany still outperforms East Germany.

The Soviet Union was a villain, not a hero of Europe. They were starving out Eastern European citizens while the U.S. was sending the money of its own taxpayers over to prop up the Western ones.

Western European development has been built off of the back of U.S. foreign aid and military power.

What about when cops kill those who are reaching for their wallet to give them their id?

It's a problem, and something that ought to have a solution worked towards-and it's also something that happens to fraction of a fraction of a percent of people far closer to those killed by lightning than other major causes of death.

[Plzen]

-snip-

Ah, yes. The days of the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, back when you could make a legitimate case that the United States was indeed a courageous defender of freedom and democracy around the world.

What happened to those days?

The Russians (mostly) declassified old Soviet records from the Cold War that proved how much the Soviet regime was steeped in the blood of people around the world. On the other hand the extent of US atrocities in the Cold War may never be accurately assessed.

[Xelsis]

-snip-

Ah, yes. The days of the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, back when you could make a legitimate case that the United States was indeed a courageous defender of freedom and democracy around the world.

What happened to those days?

If you want a name? Lyndon Baines Johnson. Not only Vietnam, but the cementing of the (unconstitutional) executive power to send troops hither and yon wherever the nation wanted to play World Police without a second-guessing.

But we're veering off-topic, so I won't follow that path any further.


Suffice it to say, on the focus of the thread, that in comparing the United States to other "developed" Western European countries, those nations got three handoffs.

1. United States-lead and driven defeat of the Third Reich.
2. United States funding and support in the Marshall Plan.
3. Free benefits from United States defense spending. (Which continues to this day).

Take away those three things from the United States, and the "developed" countries in Western Europe wouldn't look quite as developed as they are today.

[The Batavia]

Ah, yes. The days of the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, back when you could make a legitimate case that the United States was indeed a courageous defender of freedom and democracy around the world.

What happened to those days?

If you want a name? Lyndon Baines Johnson. Not only Vietnam, but the cementing of the (unconstitutional) executive power to send troops hither and yon wherever the nation wanted to play World Police without a second-guessing.

But we're veering off-topic, so I won't follow that path any further.


Suffice it to say, on the focus of the thread, that in comparing the United States to other "developed" Western European countries, those nations got three handoffs.

1. United States-lead and driven defeat of the Third Reich.
2. United States funding and support in the Marshall Plan.
3. Free benefits from United States defense spending. (Which continues to this day).

Take away those three things from the United States, and the "developed" countries in Western Europe wouldn't look quite as developed as they are today.

You better run before the Soviet fanboys attack you. Go! You can still run!

[Trumptonium]

I think you mean exchange students. I highly doubt that European students are ditiching their cheap education for the high tuitions of American college.

In fact, my roommate is a foreign exchange student from Finland.

Foreign exchange student =/= Actual student.

It is a matter of fact that the world's most prestigious universities are all located in countries with extremely high tuition fees - Britain, United States and Switzerland.

None of the top 25 universities in the world ranked by either the Dow Jones survey of employers or the British Chamber of Commerce include non-fee paying universities, except for the Australian National University included in the BCC (ranked 19th) which I believe may be free to native Australians (I can't find anything about the tuition fee system in Australia)

The only country with typically free universities on the list is the Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. They are a private university that charge 12 500 euros per year. Average tuition fees are 1000 euros in Italy (per year) which I consider to be basically free. But then again that has to be paid upfront so they have it worse.

For most large employers around the world (so American, British, Japanese and some French & Germany companies), an education from countries with no tuition fees is basically worthless as there is no trust in their quality.

Of all the twenty largest banks in Europe, not a single bank has a CEO from a free education background.

HSBC Holdings — UK — $126 billion.
CEO: António Simões. Portuguese, born 1975, graduated 1997. Went to Nova Business School in Lisbon. 9 900 euros per year. Public university.

Lloyds Banking Group — UK — $60 billion.
CEO: António Horta Osório. Portuguese, born 1964, graduated 1987. Went to Catholic University of Portugal, a charity university at 900 per year to the top 1% of Portuguese students. Went to Harvard for an MBA later at $158,800 which I believe he was sponsored for.

Banco Santander — Spain — $58 billion.
CEO: José Antonio Alvarez. Spanish, born 1960, graduated 1982. Went to Oxford University at international fees. Don't know what they were then but today that is 23 000 pounds.

UBS Group — Switzerland — $57 billion.
CEO: Sergio Ermotti. Swiss, born 1960, graduated 1981. Went to Oxford University at international fees.

BNP Paribas — France — $56 billion.
CEO: Jean-Laurent Bonnafé. French, born 1961, graduated 1985. Went to Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Elite public university on a different charging scheme to the rest of France: 12 000 euros per year.

Intesa Sanpaolo — Italy — $46 billion.
CEO: Carlo Massino. Italian, born 1962, graduated 1983. Went to Luiss Roma University. Private university at 10 000 euros per year.

Barclays Banking Group — UK — $42 billion.
CEO: Jes Stayley. American, born 1956, graduated 1979. Went to Bowdoin University, a for-profit in Maine. $63,440 per year.

Royal Bank of Scotland — UK — $41 billion.
CEO: Ross McEwan. New Zealander, born 1957, graduated sometime later. Went to Massey University in Auckland NZ then transferred to Harvard.

Deutsche Bank AG — Germany — $39 billion.
CEO: John Cryan. British, born 1960, graduated 1983. Went to Cambridge University. Read Oxford above, roughly same fees.

Look, point proven, free-tuition universities are basically shit and untrustworthy from the point of view of even German and French employers.

Find me a CEO - heck, ANY executive - of any company in the developed world whose backgrounds are from non-fee paying universities.

Also, more Europeans go to study bachelor degrees in the United States (111 000) than the total amount of new entrants to Italian universities (106 000), a major country in Europe.

Yes, going to University of Helsinki will mean the government will pay you to study. But it also means your earnings are limited, even more so when you venture outside of Finland with that on your curriculum vitae.

[Sovaal]

Ah, if there was only a poll for this thread....

There would only be "yes" responses to it.

I would give it a no. A country that lies about how free, or how great, or how humanitarian it is can never be developed. Example, NK lies and says they are democratic and are not, the US lies and says we are free yet we incarcerate millions for a medical plant. See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

Nope. No matter how screwed up our prison system is, we don't imprison entire families for generations in connection to crimes, nor is worship of the supreme leader mandatory on pain of death. The fact that Americans can criticize the American government in the open makes saying the the US is a bigger version of North Korea false and, frankly, a bit idiotic.

[Trumptonium]

Norway.
Finland.
Sweden.
Germany.
Slovenia.
France.

Now find me a person with a university education from any of those countries who has a respectable career with high earnings.

German universities are so worthless that a plurality of Germans opt for apprenticeships.

French universities are so worthless that you would have a difficulty finding anyone in the French establishment or business world who did not go (if not private) to the elite public universities charging 12k a year. (Grandes écoles)

The other four don't even venture outside of their own countries in knowledge it won't lead them anywhere.

Whereas people from all sorts of different universities in the UK and US can be found in the business world and political establishment, not just there but around the world.

[Thermodolia]

Yes, of course. What kind of dumb question is this?

[Thermodolia]

Ah, if there was only a poll for this thread....

There would only be "yes" responses to it.

I would give it a no. A country that lies about how free, or how great, or how humanitarian it is can never be developed. Example, NK lies and says they are democratic and are not, the US lies and says we are free yet we incarcerate millions for a medical plant. See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

Says the person who is content with getting rid of the 1st through 8th amendments.

[Sovaal]

I would give it a no. A country that lies about how free, or how great, or how humanitarian it is can never be developed. Example, NK lies and says they are democratic and are not, the US lies and says we are free yet we incarcerate millions for a medical plant. See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

Says the person who is content with getting rid of the 1st through 8th amendments.

"Authoritarianism is only bad when it negatively affects me!"- Every authoritarian ever.

[Keshiland]

I would give it a no. A country that lies about how free, or how great, or how humanitarian it is can never be developed. Example, NK lies and says they are democratic and are not, the US lies and says we are free yet we incarcerate millions for a medical plant. See we are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

Says the person who is content with getting rid of the 1st through 8th amendments.

Only the 2A like I said removing the first four would not effect blue states so it's not a biggy I just hate guns!

[Xelsis]

be racist, sexist, homophobic/transphobic, or Islamophobic, antisemitic, or xenophobic online and your good. Sounds like they punish hate maybe if we did that we could beat racism in america.

See, here's what worries me about this - what is sexist?

I consider sexist to be preferential or detrimental treatment based on one's sex or gender. Egalitarian approaches to gender are the opposite of sexism. I endorse such egalitarian approaches.

Except, mine is a minority view. A very interesting study which used scripted action to ensure benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, and egalitarian approaches found that people who fail to be sexist against men and in favor of women are viewed as sexist. That's right - an egalitarian approach IS viewed as sexist in our society.

And you want to criminalize people who are viewed by society as sexist. That's a problem - given the only way not to be viewed as sexist is to be sexist.

This sounds very interesting. Do you have a link to the study, by any chance?

[The New California Republic]

See we *(The United States) are basically a larger more populated North Korea.

This is the most ludicrous mischaracterization of The United States that I have ever seen.

*I added the sentence in italics for clarity, as it may not have been obvious to latecomers what Keshiland was referring to by "we".