Uruguay's population is 3.3 million, which is a bit smaller than Oklahoma, for comparison. It's not shocking to me that a head of state of a small country like that doesn't have all the trappings and security a of a country of 100mm / 300mm / a billion people.
Uruguay has 3.3 million people, so they collect tax from that many to spend on important stuff like schools, firemen and healthcare.
The US has 310 million people, so they collect tax from that many to spend on important stuff like schools, firemen and healthcare.
The fact that the US has more people to collect taxes from means it's spendings pot is obviously much bigger, but that absolutely does not mean it can be wasted on "trappings" for the leaders. Each and every person still needs all the basic services, so at the end of the day, there is the same basic amount per person to spend.
Why do you think that a country with more taxpayers has more money for "trappings"?
Why do you think that a country with more taxpayers has more money for "trappings"?
"The trappings" are essentially a fixed cost at any scale of country.
Let's say you need a palace, a security detail, a motorcade, and a jet to have all of "the trappings" for the ruling family. If you assign some costs to these things, say $500k/yr for the palace, $1mm/yr for security, $500k/yr for motorcade, and $10mm/yr for the jet, you can figure out the annual cost -- $12mm/year in this example. So in a country with only 3.3 million people, that's $3.60/citizen/year for the ruling family to have their trappings. In a country with 310 million people, that would only be $0.038/citizen/year.
Even if you need more security, or a bigger motorcade, or a more expensive plane, you're still on the magnitude of pennies/person/year instead of dollars/person/year.
The size of the head of state is rather constant, and that is the only size discussed here – of course the underlying bureaucracy grows larger in larger countries, but that doesn’t mean the president can suddenly be in two jets at the same time.
Sure, the president can't. But since the size of the country is much larger, there's the governors and mayors of large cities which govern about as many people as the head of Uruguay and I'm fairly certain that each of those has a "palace" about as big as the presidential palace in Uruguay, a motorcade, a security detail larger than 2 armed guards and neither of them showed up on a vespa after elected or - for that matter - any time at all.
I agree with you on stuff like schools, firemen, and healthcare. But it's a different calculation for a head of state. When 300mm people look to an individual as a leader (rather than 3mm people) there are 100x as many threats to their security via disgruntled citizens, crazy people, etc, so physical security has to scale.
It's like saying, "why does the mayor of my town not need the same number of secret service as the president?" There are just far fewer things they feel the need to defend from.
Rather than spending money "defending" your leaders, wouldn't it be better if you addressed the issues and actually figured out why people want to cause harm to their leaders?
You know, many developed countries don't even have a security force for their leaders, and for example, the ex-Prime Minister of Australia went jogging all the time by himself, in whatever city he happens to be in.
#2 They have some reason for doing so (Gavrilo Princip, Booth, probably Oswald).
There. Figured it out. As it happens, there are probably 100x as many nuts in the US as Uruguay, and probably 10,000,000 times more possible motives to kill the head of state/head of government/commander in chief/international celebrity who holds the US's highest office. Now you try and fix those two things.
Perhaps it is as simple has having more enemies because you have more citizens under your rule as a bigger country. after all no president has been assassinated by a foreign plot.
The size of your surplus will depend on the size of your country.
Let's say that a country can afford 0.01% of GDP (number pulled out of nether regions) for Presidential luxuries. That would mean that the US can spend about $1.5 billion/year on Presidential motorcades and airplanes and housing and so forth, while Uruguay could spend about $4.9 million. It's a vast difference.
While scale doesn't really matter for stuff like schools, firemen, and health care, it does matter here, because the President doesn't scale. It's one guy no matter how big and rich the country is, and if it's bigger and richer, then there's more to spend on that one guy.
Estonia has a population of 1.3 million, and the head of state certainly has all of those 'trappings' and security etc. It's more about a deliberate choice of how the country's money is spent.
I think the 'current' design of the parliamentary chamber is from the '20s - the austerity is probably accidental and a sign of it's age more than anything else.
A homeless shelter is "meaningless"? Wow. I could understand downplaying its significance (e.g. the leader of a country could do more good with policy that improves his country's economy) but giving people shelter is not "meaningless" no matter how you slice it.
Nothing wrong with a shelter. However the the act of designating the presidential palace as a homeless shelter is meaningless because it a) doesn't actually fix anything (one shelter does not a social policy make and has no wider impact - and that's what national governments concern themselves with) b) there is no good reason to re-purpose that particular building, as opposed to another building or spending a few extra bucks and building another. I may be showing my cynical side, but it seems the only reason this was done was to score some cheap PR points with the voters.
I see the problem. You meant "meaningless" as in "it doesn't tell us anything about whether this person is a great guy or not". I interpreted "meaningless" as in "this act has no consequences and does not actually help people as it intends to do".
The man spent two years in solitary confinement at the bottom of a well. He has a much greater appreciation for simple living than the typical head of state and how even small gestures can mean a lot to people. Using the palace for himself and his family provides far less marginal utility than using it to house many homeless people.
Oh I'm sure they COULD if they really wanted one, you just don't generally have the same security concerns you have with a large country. It's just not as surprising to me that they decided they didn't need one.
The security should scale in some relation to the threat.
The more resources a country has, the higher the profile a target that head of state will be. Would a politically motivated group want to make a name for themselves or make a statement, they're more likely to attack a first world leader than a third world leader.
Domestic threats also likely scale at least linearly, and possibly more quickly, with population.
I think we overdo it with our post-9/11 security theater, seemingly more interested in full employment than meaningful improvements in the life of Americans, but I'm quite sure that large, rich nations' heads of state face greater threats than smaller, less wealthy nations.
Maybe not the trappings, but the security is a function of how many enemies the politician in question and its country have.
The downside of "liberating" countries by invading them (or funding revolutions) and installing puppet governments is that some part of the population gets really annoyed with that.
I'd love to live in a world where every president could live without a human shield around them, not because they would be more accessible to their people (which would be a nice plus) but because it would be a symptom the world has become a safe place.
