Matt Smallbone

I have found myself in a bloodbath of discourse with several Australian since my first post on this matter. One of the most astute Methodists I know replied with the simple opening line of: ‘You are no longer my friend’.

OUCH.

They were all offended that the USA won the ‘food’ criteria. They all claimed that USA food is doused in preservatives, fat and high fructose corn syrup. It is. However… we are debating survival rather than health on the bottom layer of Maslow’s pyramid. While preservatives may kill you in the long run, I believe that it is possible to self-actualize on the Subway Value meal diet.

Maslow would be pleased.

Moving right along.

The second bottom level of the pyramid pertains to SAFETY.

With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual’s safety needs take precedence and dominate behavior. These needs have to do with people’s yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent and the unfamiliar rare. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.Source- WIKI

Today we’ll look at:

Security of

• The Body
• Employment
• Resources
• Morality
• The family
• Health
• Property

Dude was nothing if not thorough.

Safety of the body: As my seething Methodist friend pointed out: “Don’t forget to mention in ‘safety’ that Aussieland has the 3rd lowest incidence of gun crime in the world, as opposed to those in TN who fire warning shots to the chest… hahaha”. He has a point.

Australia 1- USA 0

Safety of employment: You can pretty much get fired at any time for any reason in TN. (Your boss fakes a meeting with you at Panera Bread while a workmate packs up your stuff in a cardboard box and leaves it beside your car). In Australia you need to receive a number of formal warnings and your employer needs a mountain of paper work to fire you.

Australia 2 – USA 0

Safety of resources: We all know that your possessions are a lot safer when you are holding a gun. (Unless, of course, your armed assailant has a larger gun).

Australia 2- USA 1

Safety of morality: Hmm – Days of our Lives vs Home and Away… This is a tie. We are morally yoked as nations.

Safety of the family: If daddy loses a job, the Australian welfare system is over the top generous (and tax like crazy to achieve this). Both countries, at least in theory, value the family unit as super-important.

Australia 3- USA 1

Safety of health: Australia has both state and private hospitals/ health-care (and tax like crazy to achieve this). Most people use both to a certain extent. Most Australians believe that the health care system is terrible.

In Australia, my private health insurance costs less than half  of what it does in the USA and it covers dental, hospital, pregnancy, physiotherapy etc. If anyone in my family has to go to hospital, I pay a $250 co-pay once per year and we are all good. All I do is swipe a card and the computers talk to each other and I pay a small ‘gap’ payment if required. However, if you don’t have private health you can be sitting in a waiting room for a long time.

In the USA, they take down my (expensive) insurance information, and I receive about 5 different confusing letters from different health care providers for every visit. And it costs a ton. However, you can always negotiate on the price of your care, and all hospitals will cut you a deal and a payment plan if you are poor and without insurance.

Both countries are struggling with health care. Winning this category is kind of like being the best break-dancer in a Southern Baptist church. However, If I was going to break my arm, I would hope to be in Australia.

Australia 4 – USA 1

Safety of Property – If you are in a mortgage and unemployed, I would rather be in Australia at this moment in history. I know that this is not necessarily what Maslow intended here, but it feels right in 2010.

Australia 5 – USA 1

And there you have it. A big win to the Aussies today. We are 1-1 in this best of 5 series.

I await your well-informed responses with fear and trepidation.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 10:39 am and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.