This post by Belle Waring at CT, on the fact that the US appears unlikely ever to go metric prompted me to try and put together some thoughts I’ve had for a long time.
When I lived in the US around 1990, I was struck by all sorts of minor inefficiencies that seemed to be sanctified by tradition. In addition to its unique system of weights and measures (similar to, but confusingly different from, the Imperial system I had grown up with), there was the currency, with no coin of any substantial value, thanks to inflation (this particular inefficiency was subsequently enshrined in the Save the Greenback Act), and the practice of quoting prices net of sales tax, so you always had to pay more than the marked price. And then there was a huge, but ill-defined, range of activities where tips were expected, apparently regardless of the quality of service. In all of these cases, Americans seemed much more willing to put up with day-to-day inefficiency in the name of tradition than Australians would be, and much more resistant to government action that would sweep such inefficiencies away in the name of reform.
Bigger issues like creationism can be fitted into this picture. As far as I can see, very few supporters of creationism (or intelligent design or what have you) have any desire to see it taught in university biology departments [there are a handful of exceptions, like Bob Jones, that are resolutely stuck in the pre-Civil War era on most things] or applied by oil geologists. Their big objection is seeing evolution stated as fact in museum displays or taught in high schools. Broadly speaking the position seems to be like that with the metric system – scientists are welcome to be evolutionists as long as they don’t try and ram it down the throats of our kids. Obviously, this is costly; as with metric and traditional measures, the two systems are bound to clash from time to time.
Then there’s the inefficiency that seems to be built in to the US system of government. When I lived there, I was subject to four different levels of government (town, county, state and federal) with multiple overlapping responsibilities, and procedures that seem designed to achieve maximal inconvenience for citizens (not to mention resident aliens!).
All of this of course, was set against the background of a general level of technology in advance of very other country in the world, and an economic system in which the pursuit of efficiency wasn’t much hindered by concerns about equity. At least for the upper-middle class to which I belonged, these things produced a very high standard of living.
How much do these minor inefficiencies matter? In one sense, I think, quite a lot. In another, they don’t matter very much at all, and can in fact be defended on cultural grounds
The direct costs of the inefficiencies I’ve mentioned are all small, but taken together I wouldn’t be surprised if they added up to several percentage points of national income, or hundreds of billions of dollars per year. I think, for example, that a payment of a dollar a day would be a bargain for an average American adult if it could deliver a sensible coinage and posted prices that actually corresponded to the amount to be paid. Multiplied out, that’s around $60 billion a year or 0.5 per cent of national income. And requirements for goods to be made in non-metric measures amount to a kind of trade barrier which seems likely to have a similar cost.
Even more than this, the attitude underlying the adherence to traditional measures is that the US is rich enough and important enough to do what it likes, and the rest of the world can like it or lump it (an attitude not unique to this issue). There’s a lot of truth in this, and it helps to explain why the US is pretty much self-sufficient in a wide range of cultural services. On the other hand, it’s not conducive to success in export markets for goods. Now that the US no longer has a big technological lead, the lack of interest in what foreigners think is one of the factors explaining big trade deficits with almost every other country in the world (Australia is one of the few exceptions).
So, in these ways, adherence to inefficient traditions matters quite a lot. On the other hand, taking the long-term historical view, they scarcely matter at all. Suppose inefficiency costs 6 per cent of national income. With productivity rising at a rate of 2 per cent a year, that means that the average living standard that might have been reached in 2006 will in fact be reached in 2009. For any given person, this trend effect will be swamped by year to year fluctuations in income and expenses. And in most households, there are probably inefficient arrangements that cost a fair bit, but are maintained because that’s the way things have always been done in the family.
Moreover, looking around the world it seems that nearly every country has its sanctified inefficiencies. France has its heavily protected agriculture, as does Japan, and Britain has a whole set of hangovers from the class system and reactions against it. I don’t buy general claims about Eurosclerosis, but there are clearly plenty of features of European social welfare systems that don’t stand up to close scrutiny. In Australia, although agricultural protection is pretty much gone, we spend a lot of money ensuring that much the same bundle of services is available everywhere in the country at the same price, regardless of the cost of delivery.
In a world where the level of technological development and the basic pattern of consumption are much the same in all developed countries, such idiosyncratic differences between countries that are an important barrier to a completely globalised uniformity.
BTW, if you want to comment on this post, you might be better off at CT which is currently leading JQ 92-0.
John Quiggin 
96-1.
Everyone is so well-behaved over at CT. No fistfights or slanging matches. Dull for me. So I’ll throw my 2 cents in here:
Having lived at various times in Europe, US, and Australia, my observation along these lines has been that any two first-world cultures (or at least western first-world cultures) have more-or-less equal amounts of “good stuff”, but usually in different areas. The US is great if you’re into buying lots of cheap consumer goods, cars, etc. France is excellent for food, wine, art. Britain has tradition, pubs, ascerbic humour. Aussies look after their built environements, are friendly, optimistic and hardworking yet laid back.
I’ve always wondered whether you could somehow get the best of all worlds, but it seems that cultures have a fundamental upper bound on their “good stuff”, which is kind of the dual of JQ’s thesis that every culture has a lower-bound on its inefficiencies (or “bad stuff”).
[as an aside, I wonder if the cultural difference between comment threads on JQ and CT is an example of the OZ-US cultural difference. Comment threads here resemble Australian parliament question time (ie, often indistinguishable from a kindegarten playground or the chimp enclosure at the zoo), whereas over at CT they’re much more like watching US congress debates – polite but seemingly of no consequence]
Dogz, nice observations. Just to add an aside to your aside: CT and JQ comment threads may represent the debating styles of their respective countries’ patricians rather than the population at large. The US PAL’s debating style is sickeningly well-represented in usenet: “You’re an a???ole!” followed by “Well, d???wad, you’re an even bigger a???ole” (due deference to JQ’s sensitivities). As for Australian PAL discussions, well, they’re a bit hard to find, aren’t they?
I am not used to commenting to posts on the internet but I have to say that this is the most ignorant collection of words that I have ever read anywhere. Perhaps a bit of background. I was born in Australia and left in 1980 (therefore experienced conversion to both decimal currency and metric and also no tipping for services rendered). I lived in the States for 20 years (mostly west coast where there is tipping, decimal currency and a little metric when useful). Now I live in Norway (where there is decimal currency, little tipping and, surprisingly, some imperial left over from long ago). In this process I have experienced a few different systems and also converted back and forward a couple of times. I think that I can give your readers a few alternative ways to look at the issues that you raise.
On Metric Conversion:
To my friends in the US and Europe I always use this as an example where Australia went completely overboard, but also illustrates how the country is willing to go all the way to bring itself up to date. I find that as a young country, not sure of its place in the world, Australia is very ready to adopt ideas from outside. Almost always this is a fantastic strength, allowing the country to reform and solve problems that older states can’t manage to do. Australia’s metric conversion addressed all areas of measures. I was into home conversion at the time so I had my share of material problems. New metric doors that didn’t fit old walls and metric drywall (whoops I mean gyprock) that missed the studs. I think that metric conversion cost a lot and since the calculator was invented at about the same time, the main reason for making the conversion (mental arithmetic) went away. You should note that not only the US failed to complete the change, Britain and Canada also stumbled. They realized that as the costs mounted, and the benefit shrank, this might not be a good idea. Australia ploughed on, all the way to “Kilo Pascal� in automobile tires to “Low Joule� sodas (sorry, “fizzie drinks�). The US, Canada and Britain are left with pragmatic halfway systems that reflect their respective needs. They have balanced conversion cost and their respective priorities in trade and commerce.
On the Efficiencies of Metric Conversion:
Where on earth did the savings of 6% of GDP come from? I worked in the electronics industry in California for 20 years and we used to call that a DRE, a “Direct Rectal Extraction�. John, I made a quick evaluation of your posts and you seem to specialize in DREs.
On Tipping:
This is an area where I had to spend a lot of time with my American friends. I used to live in North Beach, San Francisco. I had a number of friends who waited tables in Pier 39, a big tourist hangout. Australians are a bit famous, perhaps for the wrong reasons. The simple rule is to “go local�. Tipping is a way for you to directly vote on the service you are getting. Things are the way they are for historic reasons. Australians drive on the left, Americans and most other people on the right. People who wait tables in the Pier 39 make two thirds of their money from tips. That’s how the salaries are set up. On a given day if the wait staff get too many tables with Australians they don’t eat. For a guide, the neutral tip is 15%. If the service is bad, tip 10%. If the staff went out of their way to make your meal enjoyable, tip 20%. Tip in places where there is personal service, restaurants and hairdressers. Don’t tip in Burger King and just round-off plus 5% in a taxi. Two dollars per bag for a Bell Hop. In New York they might glare at you for being too cheap. That is just hustle. If you have money give them more. If you don’t, give them the finger. They like the direct approach. Enjoy yourself, lay back, and think of England. Really, how much money does it all add up to anyway?
GP, as you’re not used to commenting on the Internet, I’ll give you some tips.
(1) People whose first comment starts with something along the lines of “this is the most ignorant collection of words that I have ever read anywhere” generally get treated as trolls or worse.
(2) Your arguments may seem overwhelmingly convincing to you, and evidence of your superior intelligence, but you’ll find others disagree. If you don’t want to be treated like a fool, try a more humble approach to start with.
(3) In this case your arguments about metric conversion are weak, you’ve taken an aggregate number from an illustrative example and misinterpreted it as an estimate of the cost of not being metric and your points about tipping largely repeat what is said in the post. You similarly repeat the argument of the post in saying that Australains are more willing to adopt outside changes than Americans.
(4) Reference by anonymous commenters to their industry experience in a way that is supposed to add some sort of authority is generally considered silly.
Ignorant words, GP? Try reading more, typing less.
As someone who’s grown up entirely metric, I do not understand or like imperial measurements, they seem quaintly ridiculous and likely to create a serious chance of error when precision is needed. I thank the rationality and lack of subservience to tradition in the wise Australians who supported making the change (still, we could have had royals instead of dollars!).
I don’t believe that we provide subsidised rural services based on tradition or just because ‘that’s the way it’s always been’, I think we do it because there is a genuine commitment to social equality and belief that subsidising rural services is a deliberate choice to increase fairness. That and the fact that the National/Country Party have been able to exploit weaknesses in the electoral system since Federation.
Australia is probably overgoverned as well, thoguh I think much less so than the US. One of the Kennett government’s greatest reforms was turning ~270 local governments in 75 in one brief period, with virtually no political or cultural pain. It was a badly overdue reform, but not one that many people didn’t accept. Institutionally, we are prepared to discuss in a much more open manner the appropriate roles for each tier of government than the US appears able to.
Basically I disagree that there is a necessary upper bound to the efficiency of a society, if you take a longer view.
Always feels funny when the word ‘efficiency’ is applied to every thing in the house even the humans.
So we too here, still prefer six foot one to 183cm (or six inches to a piddly sounding 15cm for that matter?) and damn the loss of GDP!! Boy that’s confusing behaviour, but it is hardly a challenge to our superior brains and not nearly as inefficient as street signs in four languages (eg. in CH) which may cause a dangerous delay in driver comprehension and a potentially huge drain on the public purse from paint and emergency care.
We’re not outputs and our confusing daily behaviour and funny illogical habits – well, that’s the human bit making sense of the world. Like addressing each other with extremely inefficient and arbitrary sets of (sometimes silent) letters called NAMES. Gosh how do we remember all these people, it’s too confusing. If humans were actually efficient we’d call each other by a number and ditch this ambiguous language tradition.
The “inefficiencies that seemed to be sanctified by tradition” that PJQ referred to is the very stuff of our lives and of human culture.
We invent and revise lots of little systems to add up stuff and do things for us and then we invent some more to pass the time. Sometimes we hang onto to things cos we like them.
Very shortly, I myself am off to celebrate the chinese new year 4073 with the relevant business council. They keep going on about a dog or something, I don’t know – I’m not sure how efficient it is but I think I’ll go anyway. If I could work out when to turn up that is.
Apologies for that appalling inefficiency: it is actually the year 4703, err, somewhere.
Other American inefficiencies pale into insignificance compared to their having 2% of the population either in or running the penal system and another 3% either in or supplying the armed forces. What would their growth be without that handicap?
Chris – and imagine if they could reduce their spending on health-care by 10% or so (which would leave it substantially higher than in other devleoepd countries with similar or higher life expectancy).
Still dogz has a point – there seem to bwe upper bounds on “good stuff”.
I tend to think that the UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands have a marginal advantage over both the US and the more heavily regulated and taxed EU economies such as France and Germany.
But that’s really a matter of personal taste as much as anything.
For a nation that believes itself to be the most technologically advanced in Galactic history, the United States seems to be unusually rich in archaic and inefficient details. Examples:
The currency, notes and coins. Bizarre but exotic.
The Imperial system of weights and measures.
A creaky and well-nigh ridiculous electoral system (Federal elections on TUESDAYS, Rube Goldberg/Heath Robinson voting machines).
Tipping, instead of proper incomes.
An atavistic devotion to constantly reading the entrails of the Founding Founders for new clues.
(Not to mention poverty, racism and a disturbing devotion to a mythical super-being…)
Founding Founders = Founding Fathers.
some more ingenious Yankee inefficiency:
Admitting students to Uni on the basis of how good they are at SPORTS!
And not letting them drink until they’re 21!
And I could go on, but it’s too absurd.
As well as the refusal to offer dollar coins, Americans refuse to introrduce notes that are reasonably difficult to forge. Australian plastic currency has been taken up by quite a few countries around the world not only because the notes last longer, but becuase they are harder to forge.
I wonder how much cost to the American economy forgery represents, particularly with colour printers.
The metric clock never seems to have caught on although it was part of the metric package originally implemented by the french.
When I open the newspaper in Australia I find the gold price in Troy Ounces (an old imperial measure used for nothing but gold) and US dollars. I then have to convert this to an Australian dollar price in grams manually (I then choose to invert the number to figure out what the aussie is worth in gold grams).
When I fly it is still in feet.
If you play golf it is still in yards.
In England you buy your fuel in Litres but the speed limit is measured using miles. Also when shopping in England the tins and bottles are all in metric but the vegtables are in imperial weights.
Land in Australia is still refered to as acreage.
There are still some things that Australians like so little that they will run a mile to avoid.
Apparently the Chinese have figured out that if they all changed over to an alphabet based language the cost would break even after just ten years.
And why don’t the French just promote European integration by dumping that silly language of theirs?
🙂
How about dvorak keyboards instead of damn qwerty?
Historical and chauvinistic reasons aside, I don’t understand why the world isn’t metric on everything, including the clock. I grew up during the changeover period in Australia. My formal technical training used metric though imperial was still used informally by a lot of people in my field, particularly for length measurements. Overall, the imperial system(s) are much less user friendly than metric, and I am glad Australia went fully metric for all formal measurements.
Having said that, I understand that many common and informal expressions that use imperial terms are here to stay, and rightly so. The various metric versions just don’t sound right. For example: ‘Give them and inch (25.4 mm) and they will take a mile (1.6 kilometres)’, or ‘An ounce (28.35 grams) of prevention is worth a pound (0.454 kgs) of cure’. Or the alternatives: ‘Give them a centimetre and they will take a kilometre’, and ‘A gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure’.
And on qwerty v dvorak issue, as I recall the research showed that there is no optimal keyboard layout, for English at least. The only critical factors were keeping commonly used keys both close to the home positions, and spaced apart from each other. Neither dvorak, nor any other layout, has been shown to be significantly superior to qwerty, which is why the alternatives never caught on. It ceratinly wasn’t through lack of effort from the manufacturers of the alternatives.
“ceratinly” = certainly. It has been a very long day.
I don’t believe this efficiency argument about measuring systems. The Japanese have three alphabets and it doesn’t slow them down. While I don’t recall street signs in four languages in Switzerland they do have three parallel broadcasting services and the German Swiss speak French and English. It doesn’t slow them down. The Dutch learn, I think, five languages at school and have a native tongue which is pretty useless for scholarship but it doesn’t hold them back. Could it be, having multiple systems just keeps you sharp?
I used to be a surveyor and mapmaker. We used chains and links in the countryside and feet in urban areas. For efficiency (I suppose) surveyors didn’t use inches but divided the foot into hundredths. So 0.01 ft equals one eighth of an inch (right?) and everyone was expert at mentally converting any fraction of a foot into inches and eighths. In coal mining both links and feet were in use and metalliferous mining it was feet and cubic yards. There were 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard (and no calculators).
Then I lived in Europe and got used to the Napoleonic system including theodolite circles that were divided into 400 grads, not 360 degrees. And I began to realise that in some important respects Imperial is more user-friendly. The item that counts above others is the unit of length and the foot is definitely friendlier. Apart from the fact that you can put it in your school bag or briefcase, 0.01 ft. or 1/8 in. is a human kind of accuracy. A millimetre is an extra decimal place (which leads to blunders) and is far too fine for everyday use. On the other hand, a centimetre is too coarse. This might be part of the reason we cling onto our feet and inches for body measurements.
Australians were conned in the 1970s into the metric system. Decimalisation of the currency had been such an easy thing that people were under the impression that metric conversion would be the same. I doubt we’d be poorer if we’d never changed. Probably all it achieved was relief from tiresome know-alls plaguing us to introduce an “efficient� system.
I am too young to have grown up with Imperial but it certainly has a Baroque appeal. Who can deny the fun in foot, inch, hand, chain, rod, furlong, cord, rood, acre, ounce, pound, stone, etc. We may be economically better off with metric but we’re culturally poorer. And I completely agree RE feet and inches for height: I can imagine what 4 feet, 5 feet, 6 feet etc look like, and then mentally interpolate the inches. I can’t picture 150cm, 160cm, 170cm etc.
“The Japanese have three alphabets and it doesn’t slow them down. ”
Well, that’s the point being discussed. In the post, I suggest that this kind of thing does “slow them down”, but not by enough that you’d notice it in the long run. I think it’s pretty clear that the Japanese alphabet problems have slowed them down in the computer era, though of course the problems have been worked around in the end.
On metric vs Imperial, arguments about individual units are both endless and impossible to resolve. The big issue is when more than one unit is involved. To take a class of problem that arises in my work, suppose that some given amount of rain falls on a given area, and 50 per cent runs off. How much runoff is available for irrigation?
The standard Imperial units would be inches (with smaller amounts being expressed in fractions as you note), acres and gallons, and would be a hideous mess. To get over the worst of this, special rain-specific and irrigation units (points for rain and acre-feet for irrigation) have been invented, but it’s still a painful business.
In the metric system, the relative units are hectares, millimetres and megalitres and all you have to do to convert them is to keep track of the decimal point. Just multiply area by rainfall, divide by 2, and you have your answer.
And wasn’t it nice in 1966 when our basic unit of currency (the new aussie dollar) neatly equaled one gram of gold.
Jared Diamond writes in Guns, Germs and Steel:
Hmmm,
Is posting an article twice on seperate blogs an example of inefficiency?
I think there are inefficiencies in any system, it’s just a question of what one is used to. Try getting married in Europe to a European, while being American. It was a bureaucratic nightmare, the civil service as well as the church service. Fortunately, I’m only planning on doing it once!
As far as tips go, they are NOT expected regardless of service, at least in the US. That would be true other places, say in Europe, where the tip is built in, then it must be given regardless of service. It’s part of the actual charge for service. You can see it on your bill, you just cannot refuse to pay it.
I’m not quite sure why bureaucracies between the county, state and federal levels within the US would much matter to anyone outside the US. Certainly, Americans don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how difficult building anything is Europe is, although surely it is. Why would it matter to anyone NOT inside the US. Perhaps the fact that we DON’T spend much time focusing on the internal workings of other countries is what has allowed us to move so far ahead technologically.
I honestly don’t think that anyone in the US sits around thinking “the US is rich enough and important enough to do what it likes, and the rest of the world can like it or lump it “. I don’t think that enterst into it at all in daily life. It’s a curious way to look at the US. Surely we’re much like everyone else, we do things the way we do partly because that’s the way it’s always been but also partly because that’s the way we’ve decided to do tham. That cannot be any different than anyone else. When it comes to organizing the various levels of government, why on earth would we consider anyone other than ourselves in making decisions on such organization?
On the matter of net pricing in the US, I like the way we do it. I like to know what tax is costing me, that way we won’t ever have something like at 22% VAT slip by us unnoticed. I’m amazed that people so willingly cough up such punitive taxes.
On weights and measures, I’m strcitly Imperial, hubby is metric and the kids are bi. Everyone’s happy.
“Could it be, having multiple systems just keeps you sharp?”
Excellent point, particularly as it relates to the Japanese. Other people, including Australians, would be LUCKY to be “slowed down” the way the Japanese are. No offense meant to Australians but it’s nevertheless true.
“Australians were conned in the 1970s into the metric system. Decimalisation of the currency had been such an easy thing that people were under the impression that metric conversion would be the same. I doubt we’d be poorer if we’d never changed.”
I doubt the US would be richer if we had changed.
“Probably all it achieved was relief from tiresome know-alls plaguing us to introduce an “efficientâ€? system. ”
ivory tower academics?
Interesting thread.
There is some evidence to suggest that people that grow up in bi-lingual countries have a mild advantage in academic performance (Canadians from Montreal would no doubt agree, others may disagree). The logic behind this seems to be that, even though two languages is one more than is absolutely necessary, the process of going through the learning of a more complex system has hidden long term advantages.
I have always wondered whether the same type of logic could be (very roughly) applied to non-metric accounting. That is, because it is more complex to learn and apply – this creates some advantage in thinking and education.
btw, as someone who uses a two handed dvorak – I can safely vouch for its performance. All the vowels neatly together, and left – right hand balance : can’t beat it.
Mike Pepperday: I don’t believe this efficiency argument about measuring systems. The Japanese have three alphabets and it doesn’t slow them down.
Have you studied Japanese, Mike?
The Japanese writing system is extremely inefficient and has indeed “slowed them down”.
>I honestly don’t think that anyone in the US sits around thinking “the US is rich enough and important enough to do what it likes, and the rest of the world can like it or lump it “. I don’t think that enterst into it at all in daily life. It’s a curious way to look at the US. Surely we’re much like everyone else, we do things the way we do partly because that’s the way it’s always been but also partly because that’s the way we’ve decided to do tham.
Americans (and Australians) tend to be conservative (in the original non-political sense) for the simple reason that they have political and economic systems that, by and large, work and work well.
>I doubt the US would be richer if we had changed.
Well US manufacturers (and service companies) need to swirch between metric packaging and sizes when producing for the export market andimperial units for the doemstic market, similarly in reverse for foreign companies wanting to export in the US.
The US system of weights and measures probably acts as a minor non-tariff barrier making it harder for foreign companies to sell their goods in the US and therefore allowing US firms to charge consumers higher prices.
Of course, the US has such a large (and competitive) domestic market that the effect is minimal. For ustralia, a much smaller market with lower levels of domestic compeitition and greater dependance on international trde the costs were probably higher.
What a load of nonsense. As Grampa Simpson once put it:
“I get fourteen rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it!”
“Have you studied Japanese, Mike?
The Japanese writing system is extremely inefficient and has indeed “slowed them downâ€?. ”
Ian, your question is ad hominem. Even if I had an in-depth knowledge of Japanese it would not qualify me to say whether or not it had slowed them down.
Your claim of extreme inefficiency is one linguists endorse: Japanese is an “agglutinating” tongue to which ideograms are unsuited. Hence their supplementary phonetic alphabets. But to claim it slowed them down you need a bit more evidence than the word “indeed”.
Of course, the basis for claiming they were not slowed was their strong economic, industrial and military performance over the last century.
The whole point is that handicaps can somehow have an opposite effect. It seems analagous to asking a busy person if you want something done or the way small men are (allegedly) more aggressive or the way the richest countries are the ones without natural resources. These do seem to be handicaps – and yet…
There is something about the imperial measures that is convenient. It’s easier to guess a person’s height in feet than in metres or centimeters, for example. I suspect that’s not an accident but a product of the way these measures evolved. The problem is that the imperial measures just don’t line up with each other very well.
My half-joking solution is that we create a system of “metric imperial” measures. So a “metric foot” would be 30cms and a “metric pound” would be 0.5 kgs, etc…
>But to claim it slowed them down you need a bit more evidence than the word “indeed�.
You mean like regularly seeing University-educated Japanese referring to Kanji dictionaries in the course of reading even a newspaper due to the huge number of “nonstandard” characters?
“Well US manufacturers (and service companies) need to swirch between metric packaging and sizes when producing for the export market andimperial units for the doemstic market, similarly in reverse for foreign companies wanting to export in the US.”
You’ll find most US packaging has both metric and imperial weights on the same package.
“The US system of weights and measures probably acts as a minor non-tariff barrier making it harder for foreign companies to sell their goods in the US and therefore allowing US firms to charge consumers higher prices.”
Honestly, most American consumers don’t pay much attention to weights and measures to begin with. For example, Mexican groceries sell quite well in the US yet I couldn’t tell you the weight of most items (all in only metric I’m sure) I buy on a regular basis. I think we buy by sight rather than by actual measurement. If the package looks like the amount I need, I buy it.
“You mean like regularly seeing University-educated Japanese referring to Kanji dictionaries in the course of reading even a newspaper due to the huge number of “nonstandardâ€? characters?”
No, Ian, I don’t mean that. You are just giving a specific instance of what I had written. You are missing the point. We AGREE that it’s a handicap per se.
But are the outcomes inefficient? It seems not. Maybe while this individual is diligently getting around his handicap we are at the pub. I don’t know.
There are people insisting on teaching and speaking Welsh and Friesian and no doubt many other “useless” local tongues. Think, too, of the new Jewish state deliberately deciding to adopt Hebrew and its alphabet. Apparently what’s important, what matters in life, are these “inefficiencies” – which turn out not to be inefficient after all.
As that point about the origins of QWERTY showed, it can be a good thing to be inefficient. Indeed, one of the main advantages of the Weston Differential Pulley is its inefficiency (you don’t have to worry about a load running away).
But I am really posting because this reminds me of a remark John F. Kennedy is reputed to have made about New York: he said it was a city that combined northern charm with southern efficiency.
When doing housework it is good to be inefficient. It will save you membership fees at the gym.
“But I am really posting because this reminds me of a remark John F. Kennedy is reputed to have made about New York: he said it was a city that combined northern charm with southern efficiency.”
Nope, he said that about Washington DC
http://quoteworld.org/quotes/7638
It was because I was uncertain that I put in the word “reputed”. I certainly heard it in that form.
“I like to know what tax is costing me, that way we won’t ever have something like at 22% VAT slip by us unnoticed. I’m amazed that people so willingly cough up such punitive taxes”
VAT can’t slip by unnoticed – it must be itemized: for just about every purchase I get a receipt stating the price without tax, the rate of tax, the amount of tax paid, and the total price including tax. It’s efficient and transparent.
I don’t know how you knew it, but we do actually pay 22% VAT for most things. However, it’s fallacious to think this punitive, because the government spends the money on worthwhile programs, and in ways that individuals couldn’t. For example, free education to PhD; comprehensive healthcare; and the world’s lowest child poverty rate (according to many studies). There’s much more besides.
I realise you see things differently; but for what our society gets in return, practically all of us pay that tax without a grumble.
“VAT can’t slip by unnoticed”
It sure can. Just include it in the advertised price. No one stops even for a moment when looking at the price of anything to wonder how much of that price is tax, itemized bill or not.
“I don’t know how you knew it, but we do actually pay 22% VAT for most things.”
I’m not sure who you mean by “we”. Vat varies from country to country. My experiences with VAT have all been in Europe.
“However, it’s fallacious to think this punitive, because the government spends the money on worthwhile programs, and in ways that individuals couldn’t.”
Most people wouldn’t give money directly to other people to allow them to stay home rather than work a job. And that’s what much of it goes for in Europe, unemployment benefits.
“I realise you see things differently”
I sure do. Education isn’t “free” anywhere, unless all your professors are volunteers. I wouldn’t trade my education in the US for one anywhere else in the world. No one comes anywhere close to US universities. I wouldn’t trade US healthcare for healthcare anywhere else in the world. Poverty is relative.
“It sure can”
No it can’t. Law states you have to specify it. End of argument.
“Most people wouldn’t give money directly to other people to allow them toThey can do it better than you in every way. stay home rather than work a job. And that’s what much of it goes for in Europe, unemployment benefits”
No, Europe works less to produce more, and the US buys it.
Germany exports more in absolute terms in than the entire US.
What were you saying about Europe?
>I wouldn’t trade US healthcare for healthcare anywhere else in the world.
Well considering that your healthcare system costs about 50% more than that of most other developed countries (from memory approximately 12% of GDP versus 8%) and average US life expectancy is 2-3 years shorter than for some other develoepd countries, I doubt you’d find anyone to trade with.
“Poverty is relative”
No, it is a very severe condition, and one that every seriously responsible and capable government does everything it can to lower.
Sorry, but I’d take your silly “poverty is relative” sticker and put it through a very gruesome shredder.
Poverty is a word that maybe used to mean something. However it has become a devalued and near meaningless term. It is now used as an alternative substitute for the word equality. Everywhere poverty seems to have become redefined to mean below average income.
The “Henderson Poverty Line” is promoted (in Australia) by some as a reasonable boundary point for defining poverty. Those households with an income level below this threshold may be defined as suffering poverty. Such an approach might be a useful way in which to measure progress in combating poverty. However each year the line is moved as living standards rise. So people who are no worse off than the previous year can become redefined as impoverished simply for not keeping up with the Jones.
The media use of the word poverty is also unhelpful. We read articles talking about Australian kids living in poverty. And in the same newspaper we read about kids in Ethiopia living in poverty. The problem is that the former are amoungst the worlds most afluent kids. Any suggestion of equivalence in their situation is absurd.
“No it can’t. Law states you have to specify it. End of argument.”
The law cannot state that you must notive it though.
“No, Europe works less to produce more, and the US buys it.”
Yes, Europe works less, because there are no jobs. And yes, the US buys what those who do work produce because we have the money to do so. Because we work.
“What were you saying about Europe?”
That it’s an economic basketcase.
“No, it is a very severe condition”
but still relative. It’s one thing to be poor in Chicago, quite another in Khartoum.
“Well considering that your healthcare system costs about 50% more than that of most other developed countries (from memory approximately 12% of GDP versus 8%) ”
There’s no doubt that we spend more on healthcare than anyone else, and no doubt that we’re willing to do so.
“and average US life expectancy is 2-3 years shorter than for some other develoepd countries, I doubt you’d find anyone to trade with. ”
That would come as a surprise to all the people who come to the US FOR healthcare they cannot get at home. Including many Canadians. Life expectancy isn’t the only measure of a healthcare system. Don’t forget we pretty much let anyone in here, and then provide healthcare for them. That isn’t true of anywhere else.
I’m sure your view would come as surrise to the 60 million or so uninsured ameircans and the americans who regualrly visit Canada to buy their prescription drugs.
Life expectancy is indeed only one measure of the efficiency of a healthcare system, it however an important one and given the massive additional spending in the US you’d expect the US to at least match other countries spending 1/3 less.
Out of the Top 30 countries as measured by the UNDP’s Human Development Index the US ranks 29th in life expectancy ahead of only Denmark.
US life expectancy is on par with that in significantly poorer countries such as Greece and Portugal.