I would be interested in reopening some discussion, but that would only be worthwhile if a new comment appeared.

Takers?

I’m not talking about the general unemployment rates (which are worse in Europe but not catastrophically so): m talking about the rate of unemployment among young college graduates.

How much of that is due to the difference in how college loans are structured in the US and in Europe? In the US, you have to start paying back the moment you’re not a student (give or take). In most European countries, you don’t have to pay loans back until you’ve got a decent-paying job. The result is that US college graduates feel much more pressure to find a job, any job, immediately; European college graduates are more likely to take a longer time and to have higher standards regarding what jobs they’ll accept.

Federal and most state financial aid is distributed on the basis of financial need, not academic merit. On top of those programs, there are also merit-based scholarship programs generally administered by private institutions or foundations. There are also generous low-interest loans available largely regardless of need or merit – if you want one, you can get one.

I live and study in Portugal one of Europe’s states with the higgest unemployment rate. Still it’s far from 25%. The only ones that get trouble getting a job after leaving university are public teachers.

Other than Henry the Navigator, I don’t know much of anything about Portugal, sorry. I’m not talking about the general unemployment rates (which are worse in Europe but not catastrophically so): m talking about the rate of unemployment among young college graduates. Take a look at these figures, for example. (Apologies for not having anything more recent, I’m pressed for time today – but the recent trend favors the US, not the other way around.) The rate for 20-24 years olds in the US in 1997: 8.5 percent. For France: 28.5 percent.

Oh really? What they give free stitches? What happens when someone without financial possibilities needs quimiotherapy or an expensive operation?

They are taken care of by our Medicaid program, as I said last time. Medicaid isn’t perfect but it’s pretty good; the health care available to a poor person in the US is on the same general plane as that available to an ordinary European. Again, the problem in our health care system is the lower-middle class person without good insurance but too rich to qualify for the welfare program.

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense.

But it’s true nonetheless.

I don’t know where you’ve gotten your information concerning conditions in the United States, but you’re way off base, pretty much across the board.

And to whom is this financial aid given? I’m sure it’s given the most poor students and not only to the top graders (sarcasm).

“Some dream system you’ve got, where your education is paid for, and where there’s nothing waiting for you when you finish except a 25% unemployment rate and the dole”

I live and study in Portugal one of Europe’s states with the higgest unemployment rate. Still it’s far from 25%. The only ones that get trouble getting a job after leaving university are public teachers.

“This simply isn’t true. Hospitals here treat the indigent at no charge all the time”

Oh really? What they give free stitches? What happens when someone without financial possibilities needs quimiotherapy or an expensive operation?

“Our health system problem is in the area of the lower middle class, people who earn some money but not enough to pay their own way, but too much to be considered poor”

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense. In Europe if a person doesn’t have enough to pay their own way he pays what he cans. On the other hand, if you’re rich you will pay more than it is needed to make sure that who doesn’t have money will not be left out.

Find a better proof, because they answer is “yes, without much trouble”. The US has extensive and generous financial aid for students who don’t have financial resources.

Here’s the counter question: in Europe, after you finish your degree, what are your odds of getting a job? Some dream system you’ve got, where your education is paid for, and where there’s nothing waiting for you when you finish except a 25% unemployment rate and the dole.

I’d also like to point the fact that no European hospital closes its doors to patients unable to pay (or without insurance). In the US, poor patients die when their disease has a cure, only because they can’t afford it.

This simply isn’t true. Hospitals here treat the indigent at no charge all the time, and nearly all poor people in the US have full health coverage through Medicaid. Our health system problem is in the area of the lower middle class, people who earn some money but not enough to pay their own way, but too much to be considered poor.

Secondly, how can you maintain that Reagan’s flattening of the tax structure “continues unabated?” When Reagan left office, the top marginal rate was 28%. It’s now 35%, even after Bush’s radical “tax cuts for the rich.” That doesn’t sound like “continuing unabated” to me.

Bob: But I am so very lazy…in any case, it’s an interesting point I’d never heard made before.

Seriously though, you guys. We all need our own little personal statistician on call for when we need information.

O’course, you could always just read a book by one…

It’s called “freedom”. A society in which it was impossible to become a derelict and wind up living under a bridge is a society where I would not care to live.

Home ownership is a far-off dream.

Except for the 69% of Americans who own their own home, or live in a home owned by their family. (Source: Census Bureau)

That’s the one I bothered to go find stats on; your other economic observations suffer from a similar discontinuity. They closely reflect lefty rhetoric – according to the lefties I hear, we’ve been in an economic slide to Hell since 1949 – but they’re not all that tightly coupled to the actual economy? McJobs? Two-incomes to get to the same standard of living we had in 1965? Please, boyfriend. Which economic statistics are you reading? The ones I see talk mainly about how labor markets are so tight, even the Chinese are having to jack up wages. The trendlines all head in the good direction for 80% of Americans. To pick just one example where I happen to know numbers, the real per-cap GDP of the United States has a bit more than doubled since my parents entered adulthood. Far from both me and my wife having to work to get where our parents were, one of us could work half-time and the other be completely idle to maintain that level. What has changed is what we consider the basic decencies of life. We’d rather work and have 24″ plasma monitors for our computers, than idle and have nothing.

I will grant you – for 20% of Americans (that’s a rough guess figure, Adam, you magnificently picky bastard), times can be tough. A bit of that results from racial discrimination. A larger chunk results from cultural pressures that have served those folk very poorly. The rest – a majority of it – is the result of directly stupid personal decisions.

I have empathy for the guy who decided to spend his teen years chasing pussy and customizing his car instead of learning how to think or developing economically valuable skills. I really do. But damned if I’m overturning a system of free-choice outcomes so that Vinnie the Dumbshit doesn’t have to deal with any negative fallout from his stupid choices. Vinnie can stay in the gutter drinking himself out of his problems, or he can pick himself up and take advantage of the roughly $1 trillion his society is lavishing on people like him to try and give them a hand up.

I mentioned the poor, but I didn’t mention the middle class, which is mostly downwardly mobile. Sure, some are upwardly mobile, too; that’s the American dream. But demographics demonstrate that fewer and fewer are acheiving upward mobility.

Look no farther than the so-called McJob. Employment opportunities in the middle and lower sectors are being squeezed: stagnant minimum wage, reduced or nonexistent benefits, longer hours, etc. It now takes a double income for most to acheive a lifestyle comparable to that of their parents. Home ownership is a far-off dream. It goes on and on.

As to voting patterns, one might wonder why the poor don’t vote and why the rich do. Could it be the poor are disenfranchised while the rich have an interest in protecting their position? The fact of those numbers doesn’t dispel my point, which is that even the poor believe against all odds that the American dream is within their reach. It isn’t for most, and the dream has changed, anyway, from comfortable, honest living to luxury and prestige.

What percentage of the overall population are we talking about here? Or even the overall voting-age population?

How can it be demonstrated that this particular group is less likely to vote?

Sorry, I’m something of an obsessor about method.