Why the US is different (and better?)

Really2

michaels wrote: »

Further, how many of our extremely well paid football stars are giving back in this way - a few charity fund raising events may be but no full time long term commitment to helping the communities that they came from.

http://www.kanuheartfoundationng.com/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1227047/EXCLUSIVE-Chelsea-striker-Didier-Drogba-pledges-3m-build-hospital-Ivory-Coast-homeland.html
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/1022132/Premier-League-football-clubs-give-charity/

PREMIER LEAGUE: WHO'S WHO IN A FANTASY CHARITABLE XI
1. Rob Green West Ham United
Climbed Kilimanjaro, raising more than £30,000 for the African Medical Research Foundation
2. Jamie Carragher Liverpool
Set up the 23 Foundation (his shirt number) to provide grants to young people on Merseyside
3. Rio Ferdinand Manchester United
Established the Live the Dream Foundation in 2008 to educate and train young people
4. Mikael Silvestre released by Arsenal
Founded Schools for Hope in 2005 to build schools in impoverished parts of the world
5. Rory Delap Stoke City
Raised more than £24,000 with cycle rides for the Donna Louise Children's Hospice Trust
6. Michael Essien Chelsea
Launched his own foundation last year to help underprivileged youth in Ghana
7. Ryan Giggs Manchester United
The Unicef UK ambassador also raised more than £100,000 for a children's hospital in Manchester
8. Shaun Wright-Phillips Manchester City
Ambassador for Education for the Children Foundation and the Prince's Trust
9. Jason Roberts Blackburn Rovers
Launched a foundation in 2007 to provide sports opportunities for youth in the UK and Grenada
10. Didier Drogba Chelsea
Last year pledged £3m to build a hospital in Ivory Coast, his home country
11. Craig Bellamy Manchester City
Invested £650,000 in his foundation, a football academy and boarding school in Sierra Leone

They may earn a lot, but are they really as vile as some make out.

How do American footballers, Hockey players, basketball stars fair. About the same I would say.

Mr_Mumble

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Try this then Michael, it's a compelling argument thatsuch things are not the best way of doing it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/aug/05/philanthropy-does-not-pay-taxes

Compelling argument? If you believe in a future communist utopia, yes.

the greatest change is likely to come from transforming the economic system and the pattern of property ownership.

Change yes, but change that has empirically always been for the worse, far worse.

Money paid to charity is exempt from tax; the US treasury already loses at least $40bn (£25bn) a year from tax breaks for donations.

The US Treasury loses nothing from 'tax breaks' because individuals who are not allowed to keep and/or allocate a large chunk of the fruits of their own labour have no incentive to work. This wealth would not exist if governments were more fascistic in their tax/theft collection.

The filthy rich, or some of them, have shown they have a heart.

Because the 'filthy' rich don't show a heart in providing wildly successful goods, aka what people want? Its ridiculous that the writer is probably using Microsoft software to type out his prose. If Bill Gates or Warren Buffett didn't have a heart they wouldn't have sold a single copy of Windows or an individual Fruit of the Loom T-shirt. They've gotten wealthy by providing what other people want. They've provided bargains via free exchange of goods for decades. The likes of Gates, Buffett and Ellison have a heart whatever they do with the capital they've earned. Spend it all on booze, hookers and coke, they've still done more good for the world than most.

But rich business people tend to bring their own values to charitable giving, and there's a danger they will undermine those of the voluntary sector. One billionaire who signed the "giving pledge", the Oracle founder Larry Ellison (worth $28bn), has said: "The profit motive could be the best tool for solving the world's problems."

This shows the selfish, ugly, attitude of the writer. If the profit motive is the world's best tool for solving the world's problems - and it probably is given the boom in China and India compared to the continued abject poverty of Africa where charity provides a large chunk of the capital - then shouldn't the 'voluntary sector' be in trouble? Shouldn't it be sidelined? What the heck is the voluntary sector anyhow? We don't have a wage sector or slavery sector!

There is another danger: that the poor are written out of their own story, that business tycoons, accustomed to getting their own way, do things to the poor, rather than with them. As Edwards sees it, business leaders threaten the distinctive values of civil society: commitment and co-operation.

Business tycoons have a history of co-operation, its required to sell their goods. Governments on the other hand have a history of coercion by 'collecting' taxes. It is real co-operation with business in the far-east that has taken hundreds of millions out of poverty in the past decade, despite the disgust of folk who worry about paying $1 per hour wages. Unsurprisingly this co-operation has been a far greater success than the coercion of governments taking from their own populous and giving to the governments of others. Tax is coercion, profit is co-operation.

If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation

No, no, no. The rich have shown they can allocate capital very well, far better than government. The last thing any individual who wants to make the world a better place should do is pay more taxes than is absolutely necessary.

torontoboy45

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Do people ignore you a lot in the real world or you this obnoxious only hiding behind your keyboard?

'fraid generali got it right (along with just about everything else, the smart git).

don't let the door slam your @rse on the way out.

movilogo

Yes, USA is better than UK but for other reasons like

* Not so much crowded like UK (granted it is a far bigger country)
* House price not ludicrous you really get houses - not shoe boxes
* Petrol is cheap
* Gadgets are cheaper
* Police catch criminals there not parking fine dodgers
* Educational instituitions are of higher standards (I'm not comparing worst American college with Oxford/Cambridge)
* There is still death penalty, people fear prison
* Tax is lower

That's all I can recall for the time being

Really2

movilogo wrote: »

* Educational instituitions are of higher standards (I'm not comparing worst American college with Oxford/Cambridge)

Is that correct? we have a hell of a lot of overseas students come to this country.
I would be surprised as a percentage of places available that was lower than the US TBH.

So to me that must mean we are doing something right in regards to education.

Also don't forget
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99945,00.html

he one significant exception is UFOs, with 39 percent of men compared to 30 percent of women saying they accept the existence of unidentified flying objects.

Generali

torontoboy45 wrote: »

'fraid generali got it right (along with just about everything else, the smart git).

don't let the door slam your @rse on the way out.

Thank you for the support. I probably shouldn't have called the poster a willy but what's done's done.

spadoosh

movilogo wrote: »

Yes, USA is better than UK but for other reasons like

* Not so much crowded like UK (granted it is a far bigger country) cant argue with that
* House price not ludicrous you really get houses - not shoe boxes - you literally do get shoe boxes, there all prefabs
* Petrol is cheap - Because they invade and steal it
* Gadgets are cheaper - because they exploit chinese children
* Police catch criminals there not parking fine dodgers - They shoot first ask questions later
* Educational instituitions are of higher standards (I'm not comparing worst American college with Oxford/Cambridge) Because you have to pay for it (alot!)
* There is still death penalty, people fear prison (the highest population of prisoners per capita)
* Tax is lower - they dont get as many benefits

That's all I can recall for the time being

That sounds like an awesome place to live and be involved in!!

Degenerate

Excuse me for not being hugely impressed by the generosity of billionaires with more money than they could possibly ever spend. If I had Bill Gates's cash, I could give 99% of it away and still have enough for all the fast cars, drugs and hookers I could possibly manage to cram into my remaining years on the planet.

bigbigmamamoo

I agree that the US and the UK are different, both have pluses and minuses.

Health insurance in the US is a big issue. Many families do not have health insurance, even if you do there are co-pays. This creates very difficult and stressful situations. I can remember taking my children to hospital in the US and the first thing I was met with was a demand to see my health insurance card. I was lucky and had very good insurance. I did get to see the bills that my insurance paid, they were eye-watering, thousands of dollars just to give birth to my children in hospital.

Parents are faced with having to only have health insurance for their kids and not for themselves, with deciding not to take their child to the doctor because they don't have money for the co-pay. Yes there are great gifts to charity, but the charities don't cover the basics

FTBFun

I'm an Americophile (sic) before I get any comments

movilogo wrote: »

Yes, USA is better than UK but for other reasons like

* Not so much crowded like UK (granted it is a far bigger country) well, obviously
* House price not ludicrous you really get houses - not shoe boxes yes, they have a lot of land. although if you compare like-for-like an apartment in manhattan would be very similar to zone 1/2 london.
* Petrol is cheap yep, although there is a massive reliance on the car, especially in some cities like Los Angeles
* Gadgets are cheaper sales tax is lower and there is a bigger market giving greater economies of scale
* Police catch criminals there not parking fine dodgers fine dodgers are still criminals. also I believe drug users can be imprisoned in the US, which IMO is wrong
* Educational instituitions are of higher standards (I'm not comparing worst American college with Oxford/Cambridge) although they are much more expensive. i think our state schools are better.
* There is still death penalty, people fear prison yet the murder rate per capita is much, much higher. doesn't seem to work does it?
* Tax is lower only just, as there are state taxes to take into account. remember there's also no public healthcare system to speak of, the US being the only western democracy not to have one, hence that tax burden being lower.

That's all I can recall for the time being

I like America and its people, but there's several reasons why I couldn't live there, healthcare being one.