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This is a bit much. America has a huge obesity problem because they stick all these chemicals in their food. While obesity is a better problem to have than malnutrition as in India, it's still a problem.
Australia is like a better version of California. American brands like Starbucks can't compete with our domestic, high-quality artisanal quality coffee. Our food doesn't have nearly as many chemicals in it and people aren't quite so fat. There's no weird tipping culture. Our medical system is better than the NHS (we poach a bunch of British doctors) and more cost-efficient than the US. We have good beaches. There aren't any open-air drug markets and barely any visible homeless (this was a big shock when I was in San Francisco). Public transport is used for transporting the public (even people who wear suits), as opposed to being a moneypit full of undesirables. Very low crime generally. Plus we have resource rents to subsidize the rest of our economy because our population/land value ratio is very generous. Our national debt is half that of the US and we had a surplus this year. Taxes are roughly equivalent to the US, well below European standards.
On the down side, there's a cancerous compulsory superannuation scheme that siphons off 9% (and rising) of worker income so big finance can squander it and charge fees on it. You can manage your own superannuation if you fill out a metric tonne of paperwork. Our technology sector isn't as advanced as the US, though we do pretty well in quantum computing and materials science. Wages are somewhat lower than the US, though property is fairly expensive (likely due to how desirable this country is). People don't work as hard as in the US either, so it's somewhat balanced. No guns and a mildly more authoritarian government. It gets quite hot in summer but we can afford air conditioning.
Broadly speaking, I'd put Australia just ahead of the US or UK, having been to all three.
I'm against compulsory superannuation too, but I think you dramatically overstate how bad it is. It's trivial to find a good fund and put your money in there and get good returns. And then you have a nice pile of money waiting for you when you retire.
Property is indeed expensive, because we have high immigration rates that our construction rates don't keep up with. But not as bad as the UK.
I don't know what pathways Indian doctors take to get here, but there sure are a lot of them, so a pathway must exist.
The food is a lot better than the US too IMO.
The biggest problem in my opinion is disastrous energy policy that is leading to skyrocketing power prices.
The pathway to simply becoming "a" doctor in Canada is relatively simple (albeit still gated off from me for the same stupid reason the US is).
But specialization is a far bigger hassle since they're uber protective of their local residents, making it a PITA to progress in your career.
I'd go so far as to say it's better to go halfway down the pipeline in the UK and transfer to Canada for double the pay, instead of sticking it out at either end.
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I just want to keep my money, why is that so much to ask? My investments do better than any fund manager and so what if I did worse, it's my money. Is there any confidence the money will really be there when we retire, that the baby boomers won't take it all, or the government won't tax/inflate it away? In crypto, there's a saying 'not your keys, not your coins' which should go double for wealth hidden opaquely that can't be withdrawn by law. And $30 billion is charged every year in superannuation fees.
True on the Indian doctor front, I understand that there's a lot of cheating, degree mill universities, fake credentials. Presumably that's why we have these rules and checks, though the UK is more desperate for doctors.
As I said, I oppose compulsory superannuation and this is one of several reasons why.
This however is paranoid rambling. The super funds really do have massive asset portfolios and they really do pay out balances to retirees.
It is indeed important to a) consolidate all your super into one account so you aren't paying multiple sets of fees (this is basic advice but many don't follow it) and b) make sure you are with a fund that delivers good after-fee returns. There are definitely a bunch of funds that provide bad value and eat away at balances through excessive fees.
Having said that, $30 billion in fees does need to be put in context of $3.5 trillion total assets. It's still less than 1%, despite the problems that exist.
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If you can consistently outperform indexes then you should quit your job and become a hedge fund manager. I seriously doubt that’s the case but if true you could become so rich you wouldn’t need the superattenuation.
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Most countries are content to have their own medical licensing exams that international doctors must pass.
If they don't catch the frauds, they're not very good exams IMO.
The UK makes do without the thing that the other Commonwealth countries and the US quibble over, but to be fair most med schools have that by default, which is why it came to me as a kick in the nuts when I graduated and found out mine didn't. It's not a legal requirement for one to have it here.
Also, a major reason that the UK is desperate for doctors is that a sizeable fraction of their native ones have had enough and are fucking off to other countries as fast as they can. So they fill that lacuna with IMGs like me.
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I can just not eat the junk right? I'm not making promises, but you can trust me when I say that I keep my weight within a mostly respectable range while having a rather degenerate diet.
If not, well, ozempic is a thing.
America has incredibly diversity in its cuisine, you can find food from pretty much any country in the world with a little bit of effort.
I can only assume you take this for granted, because finding French, Greek, Persian and African food where I live is impossible as far as I know it.
I'm aware that the discrepancy is not as glaring when you compare it to the UK.
I like Australia too, but the same ECFMG issue that makes only the UK an option for current me applies there too.
And in Canada and New Zealand.
All of them are lazy enough to thrust the issue of verifying medical qualifications to EPIC, an aspect of the ECFMG, as well as an additional sponsorship note from the same that my med school lacks. (This is not a legal requirement in India, only something so common everyone takes it for granted)
Whereas the UK only uses the ECFMG to make sure my degree is real and recognized by my nation. They rely on a professional licensing exam, the PLAB, to make sure you know the right way to hold a stetho.
I'd happily go to Australia, as many NHS doctors are already doing!
This is genuinely hard in America! HFCS is in a lot of things. There are comparisons of products in the UK to US products, the American version is full of all kinds of weird stuff: https://foodbabe.com/food-in-america-compared-to-the-u-k-why-is-it-so-different/
There are stories of Americans moving to Europe and losing weight without effort, plus the reverse.
I think nobody should idolize or denigrate countries excessively. America isn't the worst country in the world but it's probably not the best either. There are different kinds of 'best' and worst too, tradeoffs between wealth and health and affordability, quality of life, crime, sane politics and so on. As much as I like Australia, there are all kinds of things wrong with it too. Nuclear power is illegal for instance and we're busily wrecking our energy market with renewable aspirations. The same quality of planning that fumbles all our defence procurement is also wishing for (but not building) enormous amounts of solar, wind and cables to link them all up.
I notice how you fastidiously avoided referring to the drop bear infestation, blink and I'll call for help.
I broadly agree that to qualify a country as "best", you do need to at least flesh out the criteria you're considering, as well as how much you weigh them.
In the realm of comparing say, the US, Australia, Singapore or even Canada, I see no reason to really argue over which must necessarily reign supreme. They all have their perks, but I think most observers will agree that UK, and certainly India, can't compare by the metrics people typically care about the most.
I think I did a decent job of outlining why the US in particular appealed to me!
I'm rather sleep deprived, but I'll chase down your link later.
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Here in America, people have often cited this point as a foreshadowing of why America is in decline. And the meme often goes something like this, "America is no longer a homeland. It is a marketplace." And increasingly this has become an operative principle sewing discontent in Canada, the last number of years as well. It's difficult for me to see how this is a quality instrument for measuring social health. Sure, maybe Muslims will occasionally help themselves to some Panda Express. But they're certainly not going to celebrate Christmas. And they're certainly not going to attend the gay parade, at least without a truck full of explosives.
Lots of Muslims in the USA probably do celebrate Christmas, to one degree or another.
I'm curious what you would consider American "homeland" food. Nearly all of the distinctly American food I can think of is either hyper-local dishes or the result of a fusion of various European, black, and native cuisine.
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The USA has a far looser set of laws around food additives and also puts a lot more sugar in absolutely everything than any other country in the developed world. If you’re prepared to simply not eat anything processed, then yes, you can. But most people don’t and it’s probably best not to kid yourself that you’re going to- if you eat processed foods in the UK, including meals out of the hospital cafeteria, you’ll probably maintain the same eating habits or even get worse in the US(because restaurants are more convenient and cheaper relative to salary), and that will almost certainly lead to weight gain.
Mostly HFCS, actually, as I understand it.
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In Ozempic We Trust.
No seriously, I think we're about 4-5 years away from killing the obesity epidemic. Especially when generics become available. It's eye-wateringly expensive by Indian standards, but we can wait.
I believe that the CICO model is more than trivially true, so in practise if I notice I'm gaining weight, I skip meals.
Hell, I already have one meal a day. With takeout prices being what they are, that's about all I can sustainably afford haha
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