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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: What do you think about this?
I am highly skeptical of this story. Every hospital in the US will allow you have a payment plan, even if it takes 10 years to pay off. They aren't going to quiz you in the hospital about what your assets are, especially as they are obligated to treat you, insurance or not. There are also catastrophic insurance plans that are as low as $100 a month that would have covered this exact situation.
Whoever you are, you are a coward! Why can't you do this post under your regular name? Tofu might have a lot of stories, but I don't ever recall her being a liar.
Meh, that's what my sister and her husband told us. She's been contacting multiple charities to try to get help with the debt, as well. We also think it's terrible that they live there without health insurance, for this exact reason. But it's her life, not my call to make.
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
I hate that healthcare gets all the focus when it comes to comparing the US to other parts of the world, so I offer up GilliC's personal opinion on why she enjoys Norway's flat pay structure and living in a welfare state:
I worked hard in school, I got good grades, and I got a scholarship to a decent university. When I graduated, I got a job in the tech industry making nearly as much as my father, a career journalist with decades of experience. Why should I get paid more because I happen to be interested in a subject that happens to pay more than my dad's? This strikes me as incredibly unfair. I was a teaching assistant in college, and I saw a lot of people struggling with the concepts who chose to go into the industry "because it pays well." This is a terrible waste of resources. Maybe that person struggling to grasp the basics of programming would have made a fantastic screenwriter or a tremendous botanist? But the lure of a higher salary and a promising job market led them into a career that they don't love and frankly aren't that good at. (I still work with some of these people, and experience is not always a panacea.)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I now work in Norway, where a programmer really doesn't make that much more than a garbage collector. People often expect me to have a problem with this. After all, I worked hard; I went to college. "Anyone could be a garbage collector." And this is true, but not everyone wants to be a garbage collector. I certainly don't. Given the choice of programming or garbage collecting, even if the salaries were identical, I would choose programming, because I like it, and because I'm good at it. I would go nuts as a garbage collector or a subway driver. Along similar lines, a lot of programmers I've worked with in the US and China went into management, because project management paid so much more. They make terrible managers, and the projects suffer because they lost some very good programmers. How is this a good idea?
We talk about this a lot, since I'm surrounded by programmers who don't want to become managers (and subsequently, this is one of the strongest engineering teams I've ever been part of). When it comes to jobs that require advanced degrees (esp. things like med school), studies show that you do need to bump the pay scale to compensate for the additional years of education, but apparently the ideal amount is a fraction of the salary disparities you see in the US.
As for the welfare state, people shouldn't be afraid to try to do what they love or what they're good at. The women's magazine my mother subscribes me to is always full of these inspirational stories of women who decided to stop what they were doing and pursue their passion. Going back to school, opening a bakery, etc. This is always considered such a huge leap, and they talk about how scary it is. People shouldn't have to risk poverty to change careers. Society isn't going to get the best out of people unless it's set up to make that happen.
...and yes, there are still people in Norway to collect the garbage and drive the subway. Not everyone is squirreled away trying to write a novel or become a rock star, because when it comes down to it, not that many people really want to try to make that their career. And for reasons vastly unknown to me, people even choose to become project managers!
Amen.
I wasn't saying that everyone who's wealthy is born into it, I'm trying to say that it's not a level playing field in the US. If you're born poor, it'll take you about 50 times as much hard work (and a bit of luck possibly) to get somewhere in life, than if you were born into a wealthier family (or at least one that lived in a better school district!).
Oh, and by wealthier I don't mean multi-millionaire. It can be an average family with 2 college grad parents with decent jobs - they make enough to buy food for 3 meals a day and can go out to eat once in a while as well, they pay their mortgage for their home in a decent and safe neighborhood, and they put a little away into a college fund so the kids have a little more options when it comes to their education.
The difference between the chances of the kids in the family I just described and the single parent family on food stamps who live in the projects are insane.
If a kid from the first family and a kid from the second family work equally hard, the kid from the first family has a WAY bigger chance of succeeding - and that's just sad.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DThe US isn't sad because the kid who works 50 times harder CAN succeed. He has a chance of getting there. There is no way of making everything equal. Some people are just born bigger, smarter, faster than others. Some people have alcoholic parents, some don't. How do you make that equal? Make the schools all equal. Great, but the kid with the addicted parents still has a harder row to hoe than one who doesn't.
I find Russia sad. You can't throw a rock in a bar without hitting someone with a Master's degree or PHD. Yet the fundamental system is corrupt so even if you worked 50 times harder than the next guy you're still not going to get anywhere. And if you do succeed you've just made yourself a much bigger target for the government.
Neeps isn't this the same in all western countries? I know that it is definitely the same in SA.
I'm confused?
Eh, I didn't call the US sad, I called the fact that the playing field isn't level when kids start out sad. And yeah, some are smarter, if everyone can go to decent schools, the smarter ones will do better. If all schools are decent, the kid who has parents who are alcoholics will have it harder than the kid who doesn't, however, the starting point, quality of school, will still be the same though.
And don't put Russia into this equation, from my first post on I was talking about 1st world countries, Russia is 2nd world. And they've only been freed from communism for half a generation, that's no comparison to welfare states in (north) western Europe who've been working on this since the first half of the 20th century.
EDIT to add: What started this is that I said I think a welfare state would be able to work very well in the US. I'm not saying it should become that way, I'm not saying everything here is better, I honestly think Europe and the US can learn from each other, but I do think that a welfare state would definitely be able to thrive in the US, because of the 'work hard to succeed' mentality.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI agree. NLfoodie said that though which is why I was confused.
So your base line is higher than mine. You think the level ought to be at school quality. Whereas the fact that the government system is fair is better than a vast majority of the world's population and I appreciate that. Could it be better? Most likely, but so can everything under the sun.
Russia was the ideal welfare state. The state took the responsibility for all it's citizens' welfare. But that wasn't the point. The point was that at least in the US and other 1st world countries the system itself offers fairness to it's citizens.
I really don't see your argument of a "work hard to succeed" mentality lends itself to a welfare state. Not that the US can't learn - because all expats know it's not perfect - but I'm not seeing how they mesh.
No, this is not true at all. Well, somewhat. Many small shops and stores do close from 1 or 2pm until 5pm. It's a real PITA when trying to get errands done in the middle of the day! However, this is not the norm in regular businesses, just small family-run ones from what I've seen. Some public workers get a two hour lunch, but most people have a one hour lunch or shorter.
Everyone I know here that has a job works his/her ass off and generally works very long hours. H generally works 11-12 hour days and I thought he had it bad, but his sister works even longer hours! Anyway, the idea that Spaniards are lazy is so far off base imo. The siesta really came about due to the extreme heat in the summer from what I understand and that's the only time people really stay out of the streets.
This is why I asked if it was still true, it definitely used to be, I lived in Spain for a summer when I was younger, in a smaller city, and everyone had a siesta, including those in offices. I don't doubt Spaniards work hard!
Yes, like I said. *eyeroll* It only seems like I know a lot of things because you know so little. But keep living and learning and you'll get there!
I wish aMrsin09 and amwallace would come back and give more details. In any case, I will always support a welfare state.
I wouldn't really call it a "lunch break". They just closed. There was the CarreFour, one bakery, one chemist and two Tobac shops open, and they rotated who was open on each day. Kind of like who got the short straw. The two MaxiMarts, maybe one was open, maybe both, maybe they were both closed. The Petit Casino was always closed btwn 1-3:30 (and all day every Tuesday). Maybe a spattering of other shops/restaurants were open, but it was pretty random. If I wanted meat from a butcher, I had to wait. We found this was the case in almost all of the towns/villages we explored. We had hit the market days just right.
And please, don't think I'm criticizing this, it may have driven H a little crazy, but I kinda liked it.
To the neeps/blushing/NL convo - it's called "social mobility," and the US is quite low on the list:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/social-immobility-climbin_n_501788.html
DH is a labor economist and studies intergenerational mobility. There is a huge correlation (in many countries) between parents and child in terms of their education and job prospects.
Hope I'm not being redundant, I didn't read through all the messages.
Thanks for posting that. That's EXACTLY what I was talking about.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D