What is Digg?181 Comments
- rvandy, on 09/07/2008, -0/+124This chart is misleading...the size of the boxes represents total spending, while the color represents per capita spending. The US' spending per capita is on par with that of Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc. The US' box is larger because its total spending is larger....because its population is larger. Not to say that we don't live in a decadent, unsustainable, moral vacuum where government and big business exist solely to protect the interests of the elites who control them. But hey, that's how it's always been!
- inactive, on 09/07/2008, -27/+74This is a good tool to see the level of American consumption compared to the rest of the world. When you consider that we spend more on everything than anyone else, it is a transparent indication of the complete mind control that American advertisers hold over the populace.
Our incomes do not cover these expenses. A great deal of this consumption is bought with debt. High debt causes anxiety and depression, so why would we keep buying when it will only make us miserable?
The TV.
free yourself - kill your TV - inactive, on 09/07/2008, -22/+51This is the economic rot caused by Keynesian economics. John Maynard Keynes supported to economic myth that consumption produces economic growth. He promoted ideas like inflation and government spending to discourage people from saving money and to entice them in to spending money. The government and media establishment still promote the erroneous ideas of Keynes because it helps them expand their own power.
What is needed to rescue this country from a total economic collapse is a return to an economy based on production and saving. Read Murray Rothbard, Ludwig Von Mises, Carl Menger, and Fredrick Von Hayek. http://www.mises.org/ - inactive, on 09/07/2008, -11/+33Too bad they didn't include defense spending per capita.
- inactive, on 09/07/2008, -2/+24Stevo, you are trapped in the notion that the entire political spectrum is Democrat and Republican or left and right. There are more colors Steve, and the red of the Republicans has become purple while the blue of the left has devolved into magenta. They are amost exactly the same!
The people commenting here have embraced the full spectrum. Stevo check out the Libertarian Party, or the Constitutional party. There are REAL choices available for courageous people - asus2000, on 09/08/2008, -0/+20Hmm. Not as bad as I thought. The U.S. isn't outspending Western Europe it seems. I only eyeballed it, but generally speaking, in terms of size and population, we seem about equal in spending.
- gerrylazlo, on 09/08/2008, -1/+18overall spending is huge, but per capita doesn't seem to be any more out of whack than most of the other developed nations. A second graph would probably be useful instead of 5 different colors.
For example, just doing the math, USA is almost identica to GBl when comparing spending to GNP (3.1%) - Stevanoski, on 09/07/2008, -4/+20People try to fill an emptiness in some way. And I doubt any of us on digg really need the ramped up computers and periphery we own. Old enough that I don't need anything, but keep up grading my Frankenstein on a bi yearly basis.
- thomr, on 09/08/2008, -0/+16How misleading. Most of the first world countries have the same shading, indicating similar per-capita expenditures. The size of the box represents overall spending - which of course is going to be higher for the USA, which has a much larger population than other first world countries.
In short, this doesn't actually tell you anything new. - inactive, on 09/07/2008, -4/+17Fredrick von Hayek wrote a classic book called "The Road to Serfdom" in which he argued the policies promoted by FDR and Keynes would lead to Nazi Germany. He noticed that Germany had promoted almost identical New Deal policies years before its economic collapse and the rise of Hitler.
Ironically on the back of my copy of "The Road to Serfdom" there is an endorsement from both John Maynard Keynes and George Orwell. Keynes endorsement says "In my opinion it is a grand book....Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it, and not only in agreement, but in a deeply moved agreement". I never quite understood Keynes endorsement since the book was a total refutation of his ideas. - jhnsnp, on 09/08/2008, -1/+12United States population: ~300,000,000
France population: ~60,000,000
not really outrageous now.
maybe the entire western world is out of control? - bf01, on 09/08/2008, -1/+10Or even worse, they didn't include "offense" spending.
- Jaablaze, on 09/08/2008, -0/+9Or you can just try some self control and a dash of common sense.
- tMANwi, on 09/08/2008, -0/+9Not in everyone's mind, but for global trade we are "that ***** important".
- Hangly, on 09/08/2008, -1/+10You realize that if Americans stopped spending so much the world economy could very well collapse.
That'll happen anyway. Just pointing it out. - inactive, on 09/08/2008, -2/+10@gawtmilk - However America now has a negative savings rate. On average we spend more than we make. Some people do save, so that means that many Americans are way in debt and keep spending.
That is unique to America and unique to the last twenty years. Our spending and savings habits have changed thanks to the all-pervasive effects of marketing, especially from TV
McCain's campaign managr said that the election will not be about issues, it will be about the McCain "brand". That's what he said, and it will probably work. Americans are played like marionettes by Madison Avenue, especially on TV - Daedalus81, on 09/08/2008, -0/+7The Road to Serfdom, illustrated :
http://mises.org/books/TRTS/ - thomr, on 09/08/2008, -0/+7Only in two categories.
Seriously, this graph is useless to compare between countries. A more useful measure would be percentage of per-capita GDP. - BreakpointNate, on 09/08/2008, -4/+11How about just not being a dumb fool and spedning your paycheck when you get it on stupid unneeded things. You don't need to kill your tv to do that....
- Hangly, on 09/08/2008, -1/+8Keynesian economics is beyond ***** up. It puts control of the economy in the hands of the Federal Reserve and the big banks, who rather than selling the public things it needs are essentially farming us for cash.
Like every other planned economy it is destined to fail. If you thought Russia's collapse in the 90's wad bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet. - lefthandpisces, on 09/08/2008, -6/+13The US doesn't change size over all the different categories (tabacco, electronics, etc...). And it's always bigger than the other countries.
In the 90's we called this being a developed country.
Now we call it a serious problem.
Funny how the same thing goes from being a good thing to bad thing eh? - inactive, on 09/08/2008, -1/+7We paid to "protect" about a million Iraqis to death.
For no real reason. - inactive, on 09/08/2008, -0/+6Its not so simple. There is a lack of capital in the USA in general, because there is a negative savings rate The amount of money in 401ks does not make up for debt based spending.
It is insidious; from the government to the store clerk, everyone lives beyond their means and incredibly we feel this ferocious right to continue that way. When I mention this idea I immediately get dugg down.
This can't go on forever. We are going to have to learn to live within our means, but the advertisers are not going to let this happen very easily.
As the economy has slowed down adveryising expenses have risen at around 3% over the last three years to a toal of 157 billion per year of which about 42% is TV advertising.
http://www.tns-mi.com/news/01082007.htm - VerticalEvent, on 09/08/2008, -3/+9I don't know if we are looking at the same graph, but Canada is in the color below (400-1000)the one of the US (1000+), indicating that the average Canadian spends less then the average American.
It would be nice if we could mouse over and the actual per capita spending for each county. Considering almost half of the countries are in deep blue (1000+), they should of used more colors or adjust the scale. - inactive, on 09/08/2008, -0/+6As does the rest of the world?
- MacroDaemon, on 09/08/2008, -2/+7Clearly the US is a totalitarian nation. Spending money on things one wants is merely the deception of dictators. Real free people buy only what they need and give the rest to the government.
- EdDiggEd, on 09/08/2008, -1/+6Earns a FAIL for a useless display of useless information.
Box size per capita would have been interesting, instead of grouping all of the (obvious) major/western nations together as dark blue. - aladrin, on 09/08/2008, -0/+5I wonder how useful that color chart is. $1000+ isn't much help... It could be $1001 or $10,000,000 and the color would be the same. With so many countries that color, it would have been helpful to have some more detail there.
- billymeade, on 09/08/2008, -0/+5Isn't that the purpose of money?
- mistertrogdor, on 09/08/2008, -0/+5Here is some more free rebate tax money! Spend it on a new HD Flatpanel TV. Self control hurts our economy! Buy a new car before it's too late. Buy it now before it's too late. Buy it NOW! 3000 cash back and a free gas card! FREE GAS CARD! FREE GAS CARD! WE CAN GIVE AWAY FREE GAS EVEN THOUGH IT COSTS, YOU THE CONSUMER 4 DOLLARS A GALLON.
Because we are so generous... We love your deep, deep pockets made of debt... So delicious OM NOM NOM. - jus10y, on 09/08/2008, -0/+5That represents aggregate totals. It's not very meaningful unless you look at it on a per capita basis. If you take the entire population of the EU it's not much larger than the US. If you aggregated all of them relative to the US it wouldn't be that stark. If you looked at it on a percentage of discretionary income it would make some countries look very very foolish. But it's still true that the US is is running enormous twin deficits which total about $500B annually.
- waydee, on 09/08/2008, -1/+6If the USA is out of control so is Western Europe. Factor in population size to the figures (multiply most of Western Europe figures by 5) and you end up with very similar numbers to the USA, infact in some areas the Europeans are spending a lot more.
Could it be, just maybe, we're all in a very similar boat? - jasz, on 09/08/2008, -0/+5three words:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
(the three words being "story of stuff" - waydee, on 09/08/2008, -2/+6? I think you need to look closer.
The countries that ignorant Americans seem to call "socialist" have a very similar per capita spending in all areas to the United States. Look at the UK, Germany, France & Italy - nations with about a fifth of the population of the USA and with about a fifth of the total spending of the USA.
Who are you actually trying to insult here? - Hangly, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4People produce ***** and we go into debt to buy it.
Does that about sum up the global economy at the moment?
Look at the graph for chrissakes. - Tanktunker, on 09/08/2008, -1/+5I want to know how much of the 1.5 billion that UAE and Saudi Arabia are spending on Alcohol and Tobacco is Alcohol.
- secrity, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4The term "liberalist view" as used in Britian is not the same as "liberal" as used in the US.
- arlok789, on 09/08/2008, -4/+8I have a better idea. Why don't we all decide to give Milton Friedman a second chance, but this time, no government intervention at all. That way you don't get ***** firms like Fannie and Freddie operating under the pretense that the government will save them so they can't give out bad loans and get rich at taxpayer expense.
Nobody has the balls to let capitalism self regulate the way it was meant to. Welfare lets people be lazy. Blah. Let the government step in only in case of monopoly, otherwise, let er rip! - Maurik, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4Very misleading graph indeed, and did not show anything you couldn't have figured out by guessing population figures and GDP.
- redfred18t, on 09/08/2008, -3/+7I dont see what the big problem is. The US is on par with at least England, France, Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries combined. That's like comparing the EU to the US. The EU is significantly larger (in terms of population) than the United States.
Another biased article from the times.. Buried - Vance9281, on 09/08/2008, -1/+5It would be interesting to see what Edward Tufte has to say about the graph. I found it misleading and, well, stupid. The NYT is capable of very good graphics that demonstrate numbers and relationships, but this one is on a par with USA Today and their insipid charts and graphs. There is an implication here that the US is somehow bad for spending so much, but there is nothing to show a useful comparison to how others spend their money or why. Why is the interesting question and for the NYT is is almost always answered as due to our moral failures. Cuba? Now there is a virtuous country. They don't spend anything on electronics or clothes. But then, again, they don't have any money to spend. Therefore, poverty is virtue and a lot of money is vice.
- pappyblueribs, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4Caferrell, I completely agree with you. Our solution has been to get a Tivo -- my kids have been trained to fast-forward through the commercials, when they watch a program that has them. We don't watch any live TV, just recorded programs.
- bovilexia, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4@jaymzdean
So is an internet bill, so you better be posting that from a free internet cafe on a computer that you don't own because buying a computer is unneeded too. Just think about it, you wouldn't die if you didn't have one. It might suck, but you would still be living, so therefore is unneeded.
I don't know about you people but I can watch tv all day and have 0 urge to go out and buy the newest console/game, a "cooler" car, or go to to McDonald's and buy a big mac. Obviously some of you are easily persuaded. - JPOnion, on 09/08/2008, -0/+4Get a DVR and skip the commercials. I have a TV and a DVR, and I record documentaries and movies with the occasional bit of animation for fun. A TV can be used for good, or even a relaxation device without the mind altering, if done properly.
A DVR for commercial skipping is required now-a-days, though. - Dennisisok, on 09/08/2008, -3/+7The things you own, end up owning you.
- whorunbartertwn, on 09/08/2008, -2/+5That's digg for you... let's take a break from our usual silly threads about the USA now being a third world country to make a silly thread that the USA spends too much on leisure.
- anniejmiller, on 09/08/2008, -0/+3"Americans typically work longer and harder than the rest of the world"
wtf? think twice before you make another ridiculous blanket statement about the entire world when you obviously don't know figures on the entire world. we make more money per capita but that does NOT mean that we work harder. what about people in poorer countries that work much more than we do but can barely, if at all, afford to survive? - yojiffyskippy, on 09/08/2008, -2/+5"Our incomes do not cover these expenses." -- The graph claims to be Discretionary Income so by definition the income DOES cover these expenses.
Discretionary income = Gross income - taxes - necessities - acklefutz, on 09/08/2008, -0/+3There's a $ next to all numbers. Pretty sure $ doesn't mean rupees.
- waydee, on 09/08/2008, -0/+3To be fair the description is biased, not the article - the article is just about spending worldwide.
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