I'm American, and I'm more offended by the way we treat workers than I am by someone calling us out on it.

It's not an insult. It might not reflect the views of the entire country, but it is an accurate depiction of our labor policies.

We are the only developed nation in the world without paid maternity/paternity leave. No universal healthcare. No protection from arbitrary termination. And a terribly low minimum wage that hasn't kept up with inflation.

We? My state has a decent minimum wage, my company offers good benefits, including cheap healthcare and paid maternity/paternity leave.

Some people might not care about their fellow workers but some of us do. Typecasting all Americans as brutal is offensive. I say this as someone who actively helped to campaign for a higher minimum wage. But yeah, I'm American so I must not care about anyone else. I'm fucking sick of this stereotype.

> my company offers good benefits, including cheap healthcare and paid maternity/paternity leave

How does that help people who aren't working for your company. That's like saying America isn't brutal to it's workers because rich people can afford good dental plans. Sure we're not brutal to people who have good well-paying jobs. We're brutal to people who aren't that fortunate.

> But yeah, I'm American so I must not care about anyone else. I'm fucking sick of this stereotype.

Work to change it. Our country sucks when it comes to labor rights and social welfare compared to every other developed country.

As long as that's true it's not really unfair to call us brutal to workers.

Obviously there are those of us who aren't, but it's a pretty fair generalization for the country as a whole.

A bit of an aside, but there is no such thing as a "good dental plan" when you talk about affording one in the US. Every single dental plan I've seen has a fairly low cap on the annual amount it will pay out; for many that cap is below the annual premium.

Dental plans as practiced in the US only make sense if someone other than the beneficiary is paying the premiums. So what really matters isn't whether someone is rich but whether their employer is paying for a dental plan.

Now "rich people" can afford to just pay the dentist, of course. Not least because dentists typically have sane price transparency (e.g. will tell you ahead of time how much something will cost) and dental emergencies are very rare, so people can usefully shop around. As a result dentists are actually subject to price competition, unlike most of the other parts of the medical profession.

That's very true. I did manage to find a dental insurance plan that has a $3500 max payout to any dentist (no network limitations, covers 80% of most stuff 50% of major things like crowns/surgery etc..) and costs less than $700 per year in premiums.

It's worth it to me because I'm self employed, so I can deduct dental insurance premiums, but I make too much to deduct direct dental costs (they're too small a percent of my income).

Since my marginal tax rate is close to 50% it only costs me about $350 a year, which is a bit less than it saves me on average each year when I've needed normal stuff like 2 cleanings, x-rays, a filling or 2. And my cost after tax deduction is a lot less than it would save me if I did need some major work.

> > You Americans are so brutal to each other.

> So first off that's kind of offensive.

Perhaps, but it's also true, at least when restricted to relative comparisons within the field of employment.

There is almost never a time when someone says group X thinks Y that they mean literally every person in group X thinks Y.

If I say the Japanese love seafood that doesn't mean I think there are no Japanese people who hate seafood.

We're speaking in a natural language not Lojban.