[andthentherewere3]

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

OK, to use your argument, let's consider the Scandinavian country of Norway. They tax everything there very heavily. The sales tax on the car you just purchased is 100%. Gas is $12 per gallon, that equals $3 for the gas and $9 in taxes per gallon. Try living in that country and affording EVERYTHING when it is super expensive. Norway was actually considering moving the US Embassy in Oslo since it was in the middle of the business district and they didn't like the look of all the people lining up to apply for visas to in order to emigrate to the USA.

Now that is some socialism no one wants to live with.

I really don't care what they are doing in Scandinavia, I have no idea what "argument" of mine you are referring to. Although I have Scandinavian friends living in the U.S. that complain how much better things are over there. But as I said, I am not concerned with Scandinavia or Timbuktu, I'm more concerned with the COL in my little world. Health insurance is outrageous and there is no getting around it.

[BigHouse9]

Originally Posted by andthentherewere3

I really don't care what they are doing in Scandinavia, I have no idea what "argument" of mine you are referring to. Although I have Scandinavian friends living in the U.S. that complain how much better things are over there. But as I said, I am not concerned with Scandinavia or Timbuktu, I'm more concerned with the COL in my little world. Health insurance is outrageous and there is no getting around it.

Someone had brought up Scandinavian countries earlier in the thread. Your argument was that healthcare cost a lot. I countered with EVERYTHING costs more over there due to the taxes, not just the health care. It is well documented.

[andthentherewere3]

You quoted me, but I am not the "someone" who brought up Scandinavia. So you quoted the wrong poster.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by SVTJayC

Boo-hoo-hoo, then MOVE. Maybe it's because all these areas have mandatory low income housing. I'm sure that skews the curve a bit.

I'm sure NY, NJ, and CA are not far behind. Basically, anywhere BILLIONARIES live en masse.

I bet NY is way behind, as is CA. Believe it or not, in those states, away from the big cities, there's a lot of middle class.

[MikefromCT]

This is an argument that could forever be debated. There's plenty of valid points that people can make on both sides of the political spectrum. There's plenty of animosity towards Wall Street today, some of which is justified, but in Hartford's case, the reason for why it's the state's poorest city is poor planning. Hartford's status as a low-income city began long before lobbyists and corporate raiders dominated the financial and political spectrums. I give credit to Pedro Segarra who IMO is working very hard to undo the damage that King Eddie did when he (mis)ran things, but IMO there's a lot of people in charge who really have no idea what they're doing, and previous planners have made permanent scars through ideas they deemed as "progress" (can you say I-84?)

It seems anytime new housing goes up in Hartford beyond downtown or the West Side, it's more low-income housing. Without a middle-class, you won't build up a tax base nor will you have social or economic stability. By building nothing but low-income housing you're going to flood the city with newcomers who will simply be drawn to the area because everything is cheap and subsidized. This is what's been going on for the last 5 decades and it has done nothing to benefit the city or its people. This used to be one of the wealthiest cities in America - look at it now. Driving through the North End, there's lots of homes that have been converted into duplexes and triplexes that used to be nice, single-family homes, and now they're eysores. There's also a few Queen Anne-style homes and older, prewar, mid-rise brick apartment buildings that used to be eloquent and attractive back in the day. Now they're either boarded up or obstructed by chain-link fences - do a google map search for Vine Street or Main Street north of downtown and you will see what I mean - horrible. Funny thing is, many suburbs that border Hartford have identical structures and they're fine.

Unless you have community members and leaders who are passionately committed to cleaning up the city, it won't happen. That involves money and changes in attitudes. Reinvest in both the community AND in schools (and strictly enforce attendance) and that's how change comes about. I also think Segarra could do more to attract businesses to the city. I know we're known as the Insurance Capitol, but we were once known as a manufacturing center (like New Britain used to be). We lost that, and to this day we're still seeing insurance firms head for the 'burbs and they're taking their tax dollars with them. What seems to be missing is a job training for the poor - obviously if you're unskilled and trying to enter the workforce you have to start somewhere. I respect anyone who gets up in the morning and goes to work, regardless of what they do - but it shouldn't end there. We can't rely on basic service economy jobs (like McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts) to take the place of what used to provide people with steady income, because this won't work.

IMO every city is different as far as why it has its poverty-stricken neighborhoods. It makes no sense to paint with a broad brush and say "it's all liberals faults" or "Wall Street is responsible for all this" when every city's hard times are for totally different reasons, and there's no single factor for it either.

[Grim Reader]

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

OK, to use your argument, let's consider the Scandinavian country of Norway. They tax everything there very heavily. The sales tax on the car you just purchased is 100%. Gas is $12 per gallon, that equals $3 for the gas and $9 in taxes per gallon. Try living in that country and affording EVERYTHING when it is super expensive. Norway was actually considering moving the US Embassy in Oslo since it was in the middle of the business district and they didn't like the look of all the people lining up to apply for visas to in order to emigrate to the USA.

Now that is some socialism no one wants to live with.

I don't think you should believe everything you read And sometimes, it might be wise to stop and consider "Does this actually sound real?" Because you got had quite severly there!

For exaple, the total emigration from Norway to the USA is not hard to find. Less than 3 people per day. That is not actually going to form much of a line. It is 1/6th the number moving to Sweden, 2/3s of the number moving to Poland, and just less than the number moving to the UK.

Table 4 Emigration, by country. 1966-2010 (http://www.ssb.no/innvutv_en/tab-2011-05-05-04-en.html - broken link)

Now we would expect more Norwegians to emigrate to the USA than Americans emigrating to Norway. Norwegians learn english in school, and have at least a superficial familiarity with US culture from Hollywood, books and TV. An American moving to Norway rarely know the language and the culture.

But If we look at the numbers of Americans moving to Norway...after decades of immigration/emigration being fairly even, the number of Americans moving to Norway is approaching twice the number of Norwegians moving to America! Without speaking Norwegian!

Table 5 Net in-migration, by country. 1966-2010 (http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/02/20/innvutv_en/tab-2011-05-05-05-en.html - broken link)

So clearly, it is as system Americans want. Possibly because wages are even higher than costs, and come with a lot of perks.

[Grim Reader]

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

Someone had brought up Scandinavian countries earlier in the thread. Your argument was that healthcare cost a lot. I countered with EVERYTHING costs more over there due to the taxes, not just the health care. It is well documented.

Actually, health care does not cost as much as in the USA. That is well documented. Nowhere does health care cost as much as in the USA. 18 % of GDP, the OECD average is about 9%. (The US military budget is 4 % of GDP)

Here is a dirty little secret neither party wants you to know: An American pays more in tax for health care than the citizens of UHC nations such as Sweden, Japan, and the UK!
Neither party is particularily interested in people realizing how their tax stewardship compare to other countries.


The red bars are how much tax money goes to health care, the pink one how much people afterwards have to spend on insurance/out of pocket. Note how Americans pay more tax for health care, have to get insurance, and them end up with uninsured, medical bankrupcies, competitive disadvantages, etc.

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

Give me a country any day that affords me the opportunity to make something of myself instead of living under the yoke of government oppression. If you want to be one of the mindless drones who allows their government to think for them, be my guest.

That would be Scandinavia then. For a very long time the USA was the place to go if you wanted to make something of yourself and your own hard work. And since it'd been true for so long, it became assumed that it would continue to be so. Today the US and the UK are among the lowest social mobility in the First World, and Scandinavia the highest.

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/about/news/Inte...alMobility.pdf

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by nep321

Not surprised at all. Hartford is the lowest income town in the state. Weston is the highest income town in the state. I'm talking median household income.

This is just Bridgeport-Stamford, Hartford is not included.

I agree this is mostly due to the large amount of public housing in that area. If you didn't have that, the gap would be considerably more narrow as those people would have to find more affordable areas to live. Without public assistance, even parts of Bridgeport aren't affordable. Norwalk is even more extreme.

[bobtn]

MikefromCT"I know we're known as the Insurance Capitol, but we were once known as a manufacturing center (like New Britain used to be). We lost that, and to this day we're still seeing insurance firms head for the 'burbs and they're taking their tax dollars with them."

In a super post, you made great points, and I know pc thought process was mfg was going to leave Ct due to costs, but if one simply peruses employment board activity, it becomes evident very quickly both NJ & PA still have a good deal of for profit, non-gov't related manufacturing, and they are also not low cost states. Even the Boston area seems to fare better in this manufacturing sector. NAM has a great Red Book on state competitiveness; when I get more time, I'll look back to see where NJ, PA, and MA rank well, that allows them to overcome some natural cost disadvantages. One can directly correlate , to a large degree, the fate of the less-skilled workforce to a dearth of manufacturing activity. That groups costs will either be borne via taxation, or employment sectors will need to be available.

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by mikelizard860

Income inequality.

What happened to that so called Reagan "trickle down effect" economics? LMAO....what a joke.

The trickle down effect has actually worked, that's why despite the Bridgeport-Stamford area having a Gini index of 57.4, its poor people don't live like the ones in:

Brazil (despite its Gini of 53.9, much more equal than Southwestern CT)

Colombia (at 58.5, you'd think poor Colombians would have as much as poor Southwestern nutmeggers, eh?)

Guatemala (55.1)

Mexico (51.7)

Panama (51.0)

Peru (48.0)

I guess you get the idea. All figures are from CIA World Factbook.

Our poor live decent and comfortable lives compared to the poor in any of those places, and you can thank economic growth and trickle down economics for that!