If you want to live the American Dream, move to Denmark.

[Snowman]

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. This talk looks at the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

Keep a look out for where the data put the USA in the charts and what that really means.

How economic inequality harms societies (http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html)

[madvlad]

Man sucks I don't have time to watch it, lunch just ended

[Swift]

I'd rather become a hermit than move to denmark.

[Ghost]

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. This talk looks at the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

Keep a look out for where the data put the USA in the charts and what that really means.

How economic inequality harms societies (http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html)

None of this is really surprising, it's been true since the Roman era. Wealth equates to better, healthier, longer life. I don't think that's a surprise.

And, while this is interesting to see laid out, and it's a great presentation, I still don't think this data (not this particular presentation, I mean the data writ large) is enough to effect a change in society, just look at the comments...

[Snowman]

I don't expect any change in society from the data, because it's the society generating the data. Though, I find it interesting that the American dream was admired by the rest of the world that the USA is now last among all other first world countries trying to live it.

[sprtbkbabe]

My cousins already said I could move in. Who's coming along?

One of the reasons the economy is doing so well is that they are super vigilant on "Illegals" in their country and how they contribute to the share of those who have been contributing for eons to the shared health systems. This model is what Germany and England have seen as largely attributing to their economic instability.

IMHO It's the only place in the world where you walk down the city centre in Copenhagen and stare at the most beautiful people in the world!

[Ghost]

I find it interesting that the American dream was admired by the rest of the world that the USA is now last among all other first world countries trying to live it.

I think we're more unable to live it than ever before, but if you ask the everyman, he'll swear that only America let's you "live the dream" despite the fact that more and more (and more to come) are living in a socio-economic nightmare.

One quibble I have with that presentation is the lack of discussion of diversity in culture/cultural background and its effects.

America and the UK and some of the others that are low in trust are also highly diverse, with large immigrant populations and a much wider range of ethnicity than in the mostly homogenous cultures of Japan and Denmark (and Iceland and Greenland) where there is a almost a mono-culture.

That unity helps build trust as well as leads to the idea that equality is important and that is reflected in their social policies and tax laws--here, we're "proud" to be diverse, and we're essentially "proud" of our economic diversity as well--being rich has its privileges and we "demand" that stratification.

To radically alter the data--to encourage the social/policy changes required--won't happen here unless we radically change how we (as a society) think, and we're not willing to do that.

[Ghost]

My cousins already said I could move in. Who's coming along?


I can be packed and ready to go in less than an hour...

[asp_125]

Mmmm.. danish pastries!

[RajunCajun]

I can be packed and ready to go in less than an hour...

Me too!!

[JDK1962]

But...but...there are no mountains there! You have to take a ferry to Norway if you want to do any canyon carving.

Wait, that actually sounds pretty good...