A little while ago it was suggested that I should do a General Election special version of my estimation quiz. Well, here it is! Have fun!
People whinged last time about scoring. So, here's a quick guide:
| If you scored... | you're doing... |
|---|---|
| less than 20 | very badly |
| less than 40 | badly |
| more than 50 | better |
| more than 60 | pretty well |
| more than that | I don't know -- not enough people have tried it yet |
Comments
Posted by Simstim, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 19:25 (link):
Oh well, only +24.8, despite suggesting it (and most of that was mainly due to the question that I gave as an example!)
Posted by Colin Teubner, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 20:40 (link):
Ha!... I'm not even British and I got a +34. But if you're not all tired of my cutesy American points of view on everything, one thing particularly bowled me over, which was government spending as a percentage of GDP. I thought to myself, "The US government spends about 20% of its GDP" - turns out I was spot on there, it's been between 19% and 20% the last few years and is expected to stay in that range thru at least 2008 - "and I know the UK spends more than that, so I'll go with 20% to 35%, to be safe."
Your government spends 42% of your GDP? The only time the US has spent in that range was in 1943-1945. (Source) Since World War II we have spent 25% or less of our GDP each year on government programs. And we have more nucular (sic) bombs than you, too.
Posted by Chris Lightfoot, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 21:01 (link):
Yeah, but look at the great stuff that buys!
(Actually... three factual comments. Firstly, any score below 40 points means that, in effect, your answers conveyed a negative amount of information. Secondly: your 20% of GDP is spending by the Federal government; it excludes -- most? -- money spent by the states; I don't know how much that is, to be honest, but perhaps another 10% of GDP? Also, the USA spends about 13% of GDP on healthcare; most of the equivalent spending in the UK -- 7% in 1998/9 -- is in the public sector.)
It's not how many you have, it's what you do with them....
Posted by Colin Teubner, Thursday, 28 April 2005 02:13 (link):
Right, my sarcastic pride at the +34 probably didn't come across. Anyway, good point about the states, though I don't think they spend quite 10% of GDP. It's actually surprising how much services and tax vary by state; here in Massachusetts they take just over 5% as income tax, 5% sales tax, and the city takes about 1.7% property tax; in New Hampshire, there is no income or sales tax and property taxes aren't much higher.
So, health care... interesting that our total spending is more, that's something I wasn't aware of. I always assumed the private system was less equitable and more efficient, though its costs now seem to be spiraling out of control. To perhaps be thoroughly off topic, is there a reliable measure of quality of care?
Posted by Chris Lightfoot, Thursday, 28 April 2005 10:58 (link):
I don't know much about this area, beyond that it's incredibly controversial. I don't know how you could measure quality of care, especially in a system like the US one (where some people can't afford the treatment they need) or the UK one (where some classes of care are rationed). I think people try to measure overall levels of satisfaction with health services; I think the French and the Canadians do quite well on that measure.
Posted by Katie Melville, Thursday, 28 April 2005 18:53 (link):
As a British person who lived in the US for a while and who is now living in France, I think Britain should get down on its knees and ask God to heal Margaret Thatcher that we've managed to get down to 42% at all. Poor, benighted France spends 50-odd% of GDP.
Plus, the healthcare system everyone vaunts so is routinely billions in the red. One of the reasons for this is that, until very recently, any patient could self-refer to a specialist. One just called up a specialist and made an appointment. This has created a nation of astonishing hypochondriacs, who never translate cold as "la rhume" (cold) but rather as "la bronchite" (bronchitis).
All recently changed, however, when all French people were required to register with a generalist, who they must visit to rubber-stamp their referral. Of course, never mind that the compunded cost of a visit to a generalist and a specialist will double the burden of such visits on the state, but then, the French government is hoping that, when those not seriously ill are faced with the extra effort of a generalist visit before being allowed to visit a specialist, they'll just give up and take some more fervex. Of course, there is always the possibility that those who are seriously ill will give up too, but hey, this is France. Logic can never be wrong, even in the face of reality.
Also, generalists are considered the failures of the medical profession, so the French government have had to greatly increase the grade threshhold to become something other than a generalist, in order to have enough graduating doctors as GPs. Nuts. Quite nuts. This country needs help. It cannot continue like this. Nicolas Sarkozy will be France's Maggie, but with a Bill Clinton-like swagger. Although, since all the presidents of the fifth republic so far have been bald, Sarkozy has a bit of hair to lose before the public will consider him possessed of enough gravitas to merit election.
Incidentally, another estimation quiz like factlet that people routinely get wrong: US defense (sic) spending comes in at...around 3% of GDP. Very interesting comparison chart here, based upon standard NATO definition of defence spending. Remember that French police are considered part of the defence budget.
Posted by Colin Teubner, Friday, 29 April 2005 15:10 (link):
I had no misgivings about the percentage we spend on defense - and in fact often wish it were higher. I think - and I'm too lazy to look this up right now - that somewhere around one-sixth of our defense budget goes towards research. (Okay, I looked it up and was about right: source.)
I have a (rather unsubstantiated) feeling that the reason Reagan gave such a boost to our economy by sending defense spending through the roof was the research it spun off. A huge proportion of things invented by US defense contractors or DARPA end up being put to amazing use in the private sector, not least of which is the Internet itself. Economics tells us that even with strong IP law, it's very difficult to recoup all the benefits to society that any sort of R&D brings, making it an excellent function to hand off to the government.
Posted by john b, Thursday, 28 April 2005 11:36 (link):
This article (sourced from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, so reasonably trustworthy) suggests US government spending running at 32% of GDP while taxation runs at 28%.
Back-of-envelopishly, the US spends approximately 14% of GDP on healthcare, of which around half is government spending (while UK private healthcare spending is insignificant as a % of GDP) - so US spending on all government programs plus private healthcare amounts to 39% of GDP, which is lower than but comparable to the UK figure.
However, one point to note is that the share of GDP the US spends on government-provided healthcare is roughly equal to the share of GDP the UK spends on the NHS, so you can't say that the higher UK figure is due to universal healthcare.
Posted by Eben Upton, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 21:10 (link):
*cough* Universal healthcare *cough*
Also, what Chris said about federal vs state (and indeed city) taxation.
See UK government expenditure by function
Posted by Jerry C, Thursday, 28 April 2005 06:14 (link):
42% of GDP! Crikey, that does it. I'm forgetting any left-of-centre inclinations I might previously have had and am voting for Howard. And I'm sure he'll get a grip on those murders, which were way more than I'd guessed. Plus a bloody nose for Bliar Blair AND we get to be in opposition which is a hell of a lot more fun than the alternative. Thanks Chris - you've opened my eyes. Let's book a date for our first sit-down protest against Prime Minister Howard right now!
Posted by dsquared, Thursday, 28 April 2005 08:31 (link):
Sixty five! Although this is mainly because I played around with the old estimation quiz so much that I can kinda-sorta game the system by putting in very wide ranges for the questions I don't know to avoid the two point penalty.
Posted by john b, Thursday, 28 April 2005 11:29 (link):
62.3%. Irritatingly, I buggered up three of the questions I sort-of-knew by putting overly narrow ranges and just missing them, otherwise it'd've been 75.9%...
Posted by Brendan Hogg, Thursday, 28 April 2005 08:48 (link):
64 for me (based off all 35 questions -- am I right in thinking that the base score is 30 + number of questions answered?). Another excellent piece of work, Mr Lightfoot. When do you think you'll have enough statistics to show which party's supporters are the most clued up?
Also: how does the scoring algorithm work? It doesn't seem to be the same as for the original estimation quiz (with "between A and B" translated to "mean of A and B +/- half the difference") because wrong answers seem to get a flat -1.1, whereas the original scoring gives a larger negative score the further out an answer is (if I understand it correctly, anyway).
Posted by Tom Steinberg, Thursday, 28 April 2005 16:52 (link):
Inexplicably people haven't been linking to this, even though the last one was slashdotted, and was ultimately less cool. I think the bloggers are all too excited about this Iraq legality thing (yawn). If you want the analysis, you better start mailing it around!
Posted by Matthew Turner, Thursday, 28 April 2005 18:05 (link):
I got 43, which is rather bad. I did estimate an MP's salary to be 50-70, forgetting the thousands, and would have got far more without that error. I can explain all the other mistakes too...
Posted by James Acton, Thursday, 28 April 2005 18:12 (link):
I think it's really good
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