'Australians are Israelis'

Interesting stats from the latest OECD report, Society at a Glance 2014 (Source: SMH, 19/3/14):

1) Proportion of people living with less than 50% of median household income (2010)

Denmark 6%
OECD average 11.3%
Israel 20.9%

2) Public social expenditure as a proportion of GDP (2012-13)

Denmark 30.8%
OECD average 21.9%
Israel 15.8%

Hm... how to explain why Israel,

a) allegedly democratic
b) allegedly the source of so many new widgets, wizzbangs and whoozits (all life-saving of course) that, were the world to boycott even one, it would mean we'd all be back in the stone age
c) a country which claims to represent a category of people who get more Nobel Prizes than you or I get junk mail (well, nearly)
d) a country which gets an annual $3billion plus, no-questions-asked subsidy from the US of A,

occupies the bottom of the 9-nation list in both categories.

My guess is that its national sport of wiping Palestine and Palestinians off the map is such an expensive business that it can't afford to look after its own people properly.

And Australia?

1) 14.4%
2) 19.2%

Not quite as bad as Israel, of course, but still among the bottom five. Yet, with squillions lavished on 'defence', 'security', and keeping people out, it's only to be expected.

Or, as Tony Abbott put it more succinctly: 'As far as I'm concerned Australians are Israelis'. (See my 18/12/13 post Abbott: We Are All Israelis)