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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Originally Posted by ialeixo
I think it's pretty obvious what he meant by second world, even if the term is not accurate.....just give your answer based on his description of the countries....people like to argue about everything......
As for the OP's question, I do think that you can live a high standard life in these developing countries. I'm from Brazil, so I can tell you for sure that those people living in front of Ipanema beach are pretty happy with their lives.....
Okay let's just say 'middle income' instead of second world. Happy now?
Still, if you have a bunch of working poor in a country, a government among the most corrupt in the western world and health care simply unavailable for a good part of your population due to prohibitive costs, you're not "upper first world" in my opinion.
The inequality-adjusted HDI proves this, taken inequality into consideration, the USA drop nineteen places to a level similar to Poland. It's great that the US has a GDP of $50K PPP, but that means **** all if one half of the population lives off of less than $10K a year and struggles to get by, and the other half lives the good life off of $90K annually. Now, I know that in reality it's not this black and white, but still, the inequality levels in the USA are more reminiscent of a Latin American banana republic than those of a wealthy, Scandinavian country. And those Latin American countries are at least doing something about this social problem, where politicians in the USA immediately refer to phrases such as "fascism" and "stalinism" as soon as their president is trying to bring forth a simple program aimed to get health care to their poorer classes.
I have a cousin with two small children in Little Rock, Arkansas for whom I bring clothes and medicine from Poland every time I go to visit my family up in Minnesota. Simply because she can only make $7 to 8 an hour, and after expenses such as rent and food there's not enough money for such things. This is coming from a country where $7 to $8/hour is actually a fairly decent working class wage, and depending on the exchange rate, twice to two-and-a-half times the minimum wage. But at least here, we have (how mediocre the quality might be - I think we're ranked 22 out of 27 in the EU) health care available for everyone and plenty of ways to escape poverty if you're raised in a poor family by going to a free university. And Poland also has people rich enough to drive a Porsche Cayenne, just not as many.
So from my experiences as a solid middle-class person in a "lower first world" country with low inequality and relatively low average wages, I drive a 10-year old car, I live in a large apartment in the city centre, of which one room is rented to a colleague from my work so she doesn't need to commute from Kocmyrzów every day and I save about 1000 PLN on housing expenses (also I don't need 100 square metres - 1000 square foot, I'm perfectly fine with 70 square metres for me and my girlfriend) - both me and my girlfriend own a laptop computer, I also have a desktop computer with a 26 inch screen that runs on linux as is primarily being used for watching films and piracy (hence the linux)
I have a modest library of mainly books which deal with geosciences, me and my girlfriend eat out modestly in decent places (so no fast food or luxury places) on average 4 days a week and every weekend we go somewhere with the car. Once to twice a year I travel to the US to see some of my family, and my girlfriend goes on a holiday with her mother to some beaches somewhere also once or twice a year (I wouldn't want to be found dead on a Turkish or Tunisian beach myself however, so that's her thing.) We also make three to four shorter trip a year together, usually nearby in Europe (anything that doesn't require more than a day's worth of driving or a few hours of flying) Then I usually go to climb in Morocco for a week or so in the winter, and that's the end of our 26 holidays.
No, we can not afford Apple products, or a newer car than 5-7 years old, and we don't have an American-style fridge with ice-maker, nor do we have a plasma-TV (no TV at all for that matters, I rather download) nor a dishwasher. or a drying machine. I guess we could afford it, but then we have to cut back on the traveling, on which we spend one third of our income (I make roughly 4300 PLN after taxes, and Kamila makes about 2800 PLN) This puts Kamila in roughly the 50th percentile and me in the 60-65th percentile in terms of income. It's not much of a hassle to dry clothes on a line, wash dishes by hand after you're done with them or use a regular PC and not pay for the little apple brand. I'm well aware the average middle-class American has more money to spend, but then again, we also have zero debts. I refuse to take out loans for consumer goods, the only loan I have is a 10.000 PLN possible overdraft on my bank account. If I can't afford anything, I will not buy it or try to get it second hand. It's in my opinion completely stupid to borrow money from a bank, pay interest over it to this bank, to pay for an item which will only lose value.
Anyway, back to the original subject,
Looking at the HDI values adjusted to inequality, there would be only sixteen countries getting over 0.800, and these sixteen countries would be the countries I would consider "upper first world". One could even draw the line at .840 or .850, leaving only nine or three countries.
Still, if you have a bunch of working poor in a country, a government among the most corrupt in the western world and health care simply unavailable for a good part of your population due to prohibitive costs, you're not "upper first world" in my opinion.
The inequality-adjusted HDI proves this, taken inequality into consideration, the USA drop nineteen places to a level similar to Poland.
As a matter of fact, then there would be only sixteen countries getting over 0.800, and these sixteen countries would be the countries I would consider "upper first world":
Depends on what part of Africa and what part of Asia.
I think the guy has a valid point. There's massive inequality in "second world' countries as he calls them, but the large number of people who are living fairly average middle/upper class lives in those countries are pretty comparable in most ways to those in many first world nations. The problem is the comparatively huge number of people who are living under much poorer conditions. I think the big thing about these second world countries is that there is a relatively large percentage of people who are still quite materially poor--different from third world countries where there is a decent number of people who are struggling at subsistence level.
Yeah, I didn't include Japan for obvious reasons. That's about it, then.
Yeah, I didn't include Japan for obvious reasons. That's about it, then.
South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong (though a part of China sort of), Taiwan are just about up there. Malaysia is also sort of along those lines, but that varies a great deal from province to province.
Also, some countries/cultures are pretty big on being charitable to the homeless or big on preventing homelessness in the first place. It varies a huge amount from country to country. It also seems like homelessness in some places are heavily linked to heavy drug abuse and that varies from place to place, too.
Basically, homelessness sucks to varying degrees in different countries for a variety of reasons and does not necessarily follow a strong linear progression of first world to third world country.
Okay let's just say 'middle income' instead of second world. Happy now?
Yes, finally! Thank you, this makes a lot more sense now. So, why are you defining Thailand, Vietnam, China and Romania as middle income? I'd be more inclined to cancel those four and add Argentina and Taiwan, unless you consider Taiwan First World. What are your criteria?
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