Yes....same applies in Oz.   Only difference with Oz is you can get into the middle of nowhere and encounter something that wants to poison/kill/eat you....;)

....and then there's the animals.....;p

Yeah Banff and Lake Louise are just about the most commercialised 'nature' venues in Canada.  You couldn't pay me to go spend time there 'in nature'.  I prefer the more 'off the beaten track' holidays here.   Hell if you have to go the 'resort' way even the older tourist towns like Radium Hot Springs have more 'off-the-beaten-track' nature just a few miles walk/drive away.

You compared mean as opposed to median income and then you estimated an after tax income (and I don't see how you can do that mathematically on a mean income).

Which kind of ignores everything that makes this comparison interesting e.g. sweden is a much more equal society and that people do get something for their taxes (things they'd have to pay for in the US, if they can afford to).

-edit- I'd look at it like this:

For people in top economic percentiles. In MA you're going to have greatly more disposable income, trade off you will have lower health metrics and less security. Otherwise very similar.

For the rest you're much better off in sweden. But do we care?

So it's a social choice not an economic one. Both systems 'work'.

By work I mean they both work for me

I get to play your games and Paradox's.

BTW, next time someone says the US should do something because (country in Europe does it) ask them why the EU itself doesn't do it? You want to talk about wealth disparity, look at the EU.  Compare the stats of Bulgaria (an EU country) with that of say Germany or Sweden or France.  

While wealth inequality in the US is much much much better than it is in Europe (again, Europe, not a cherry picked country in Europe), it is still sufficient to implement nation wide programs.

Some European countries (like Norway) still refuse to be member of the EU. Mostly because we don't want to share our oil money and not have a real say in EU policies.

Algonquin park!  Brings back memories.  40 years ago four of us went kayaking deep into the park.  Water was safe to drink - even without any chlorine.  Was a cliff that you could high dive off of.  The sounds, the aromas, and the numerous little surprises by the wildlife... wow.  And the panoramas.  Well worth the drive from Buffalo, NY. Lifelong memories of the awesome variety.

If it wasn't for those transfers of wealth, the ex-confederate states would probably be at the economic level of Bulgaria, at best.  Most likely they would be failed states on par with Nigeria or Pakistan.

Sure, if you annihilate a land they're going to be in bad shape. The same could be said for Japan and Germany.

So you're saying the South was completely annihilated in 1860?  Some areas were, but nothing like modern warfare, and the level of infrastructure in the South was poor enough that it didn't do all that much.

A victorious CSA would have been ruled by tinpots with high levels of inequality.  There would be no democracy, and the economy would collapse within 20 years.  (and they'd probably try to start a war and get stomped to boot)   The North probably wouldn't want the South back because they'd decline so much and so rapidly. 

[back on topic]

I don't think the real issue is the size of the countries as much as the structure, though it is a fair and valid argument to say that large countries tend to have different structures than small ones, given that large countries tend to rely more on natural resources, which by the very nature of their businesses tend to be exploitative.  (US, Russia, Canada, Brazil and China all are like this- though Canada bucks the trend despite being large- why is that?)

Ehm, dont know where u got that statistics from really, im a swede and first of Sweden isnt really homogenous in that sense, at least not anymore. Dont know if u only measure it by standards like "asian" or "white" but Sweden is definetaly not 98 % white or homogenous att all anymore actually. Recent years the non western immigration in to sweden has been enormous. Take the the current Conflict in Syria for exampel. Our goverment currently grant permanent citizenship to any Syrian refugee who enters our borders. The latest OECD research shows that our schools perform on the level with Mexico.

Our "Far Right" and "Far left"(Communists)  are rising. Pathetic media wars and desperation from the established parties and mainstream media is only making shit worse. And yea the only country in the world who have more rapes per year then sweden according to statistics(Measured by population) is south africa. Dont know that much about US but your country must really suck.

The problem isn't size.  It's cultural and ethnic (two sides of the same coin, really) homogeneity.  The larger the country the more heterogeneous it likely is. 

True, even if a country is homogenous, make it large enough and it will stop being homogenous.  (See the differences between Northern and Southern culture in the US- it really is two Americas)

Exactly. There are parts of the United States that are practically third-world countries. And their stats get thrown in with the mass.

Imagine if Sweden had to take Albania's stats into it. Suddenly, things start to look very different.