Nope. You’re wrong. And I don’t need to explain why, either.
The swing and miss crowd are those who push for destructive leftwing economic policy that destroys global competitiveness. Economics doesn’t care about your feelings of cosmic justice and the relative decline of the US with respect to China is strong evidence of that.
The state of American education, from primary through college, has been in decline for a long time. Critical thinking is a dying art, as evidenced by the stupidity of a large number of Trumpers and their numbers. But that was becoming a problem long before Trump.
Way back in 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform decrying the deteriorating state of American education, which created a major stir in the education profession.
(This wiki page includes several links to archived copies of the full report.) My father was a professor of education at an American university at the time, and he and his colleagues took this report very seriously.
We are now in our several th generation of school children who aren’t learning to think critically very well, or not at all.
I think the most dangerous inequalies are
Inequality of opportunity - especially because this goes across incime levels and race
Inequality of education - this is not just about the cost of higher education - its also about politically driven education and religious driven education. This feeds into inequality of opportunity.
Inequality of access to justice - once social groupings believe that they have no access to legal and social justice then social cohesion falls apart. In terms of racial justice, things aare likely as ‘good’ as they ever have been but that is not perfect and perceptions matter as much as reailty, and for some groupings the perception is that they are being left behind and progress has stopped well short of their expectations with little prospect of progress.
Strike 2, and too much tap dancing to avoid acknowledging that you got one item wrong.
Competitive Disadvantage
The United States spent more than 17 percent of its GDP on health care, higher than any other developed nation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2008 that number would rise to 25 percent by 2025 without changes to federal law (PDF). Employer-funded coverage is the structural mainstay of the U.S. health insurance system. A November 2008 Kaiser Foundation report says access to employer-sponsored health insurance has been on the decline (PDF) among low-income workers, and health premiums for workers have risen 114 percent in the last decade (PDF). Small businesses are less likely than large employers to be able to provide health insurance as a benefit. At 12 percent, health care is the most expensive benefit paid by U.S. employers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Some economists say these ballooning dollar figures place a heavy burden on companies doing business in the United States and can put them at a substantial competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace. For large multinational corporations, footing healthcare costs presents an enormous expense. General Motors, for instance, covers more than 1.1 million employees and former employees, and the company says it spends roughly $5 billion on healthcare expenses annually. GM says healthcare costs add between $1,500 and $2,000 to the sticker price of every automobile it makes. Health benefits for unionized auto workers became a central issue derailing the 2008 congressional push to provide a financial bailout to GM and its ailing Detroit rival, Chrysler.
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Some analysts say the healthcare situation affects the ability of startup companies to find the best workers, impeding U.S. innovation. “In the cradle of American innovation, workers are making career choices based on co-payments, preexisting conditions, and other minutiae of health insurance,” writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times ." They are not necessarily making decisions based on what would be best for their careers and, in turn, for the American economy."
Since some industries naturally grow faster than others, the researchers isolated other factors that could explain the discrepancy. They also compared U.S. industries with their counterparts in Canada—where the government, not business, pays for healthcare—to see if the entire industry was suppressed because of global trends or just the American slice. Their conclusion: Rising healthcare costs in the United States have directly curtailed growth and employment. And the industries with the most generous benefits tend to be penalized for it. “Industries which provide healthcare to a large fraction of workers didn’t grow as fast as industries offering health insurance to a small fraction of workers,” says Sood.
I don’t think America was in an all-out decline prior to Trump’s election. Like most of the rest of the world, we had clawed our way out of a bad recession in 2008. And from a macroeconomic perspective, the US was in good shape in 2016. Growth had gotten to the point where even the FED was raising interest rates. Unemployment was below 5%. The % of uninsured was very low compared to our history, around 8% or so (should be 0%, but that’s another thread’s topic). Wage growth, while not spectacular, was steady. Job growth & GDP growth were good, if not great. We were still a country that traded with other countries, that believed in alliances, that was a place where millions wanted to immigrate to, and that was still capable of leading other democracies to at least begin to deal with tough problems (climate change, iran nukes, etc). We were a country that seemed at that time to be moving beyond our racial history, and had even expanded rights to other groups. We were not perfect, but I don’t think we were in a decline in aggregate.
I think where we got blindsided in 2016 was the part of America that was feeling left behind. It was largely rural, largely white, largely non-college-degreed, and those areas felt decimated by drugs, suicide, and manufacturing/industrial job loss in those areas. They were also afraid of demographic changes and cultural changes. There was a group of Americans, a rather large group, that was angry at what they saw around them, and they were looking to blame someone…so, in walked Trump, and he demagogued all the groups that might be “at fault”. It could be minorities, immigrants, muslims, globalists, coastal elites, librulzzz…He gave these people someone to blame, and they went along with him. Trump took advantage of a decline in one sub-population.
I used to think like this. One of the ways my thinking has changed over the years is that I have come to the conclusion that increasing wealth disparity, in and of itself, is a bad and dangerous thing.
It’s reasonable (if naive) to believe that, as long as everyone’s doing better than they themselves used to be, that’s all that matters; and for the poor or middle class, if they have as much or more than they always have, to complain that the rich are getting richer is just class envy.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I can explain why this is wrong, or what caused me to change my mind, without doing a bunch of research.
Are you seriously arguing that America discard the minimum wage and establish a prevailing wage that would “compete” with China? You want Americans to earn less than one dollar an hour? And this will make us rich and successful, just like tax cuts for the rich? Seems the “rightwing” policies are the ones that have been shown to fail.
The fact that somebody is a billionaire doesnt mean you are poorer. There is effectively a unlimited amount of wealth. Now, if the poor are indeed poorer or the middle class is struggling then that could point to a America in decline. But if the poor are the same and the rich are richer, then that doesnt point to a deleine. Income inequality is a pointless way of trying to rile up the not so well off classes.
The majority dont want any sort of strong gun control.
In the absence of a high-profile mass shooting in the U.S. in 2020 and amid the coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest related to racial justice issues and the contentious presidential election campaign, Americans are less likely than they have been since 2016 to call for increased gun control. The latest majority (57%) in the U.S. who call for stricter laws covering the sale of firearms marks a seven-percentage-point decline since last year. At the same time, 34% of U.S. adults prefer that gun laws be kept as they are now, while 9% would like them to be less strict. Support for Handgun Ban Remains Weak
Americans’ support for a ban on the possession of handguns, at 25%, is near the lowest on record in Gallup’s 40-year trend. The latest reading, which is down 18 points from its 1991 high, is a slight decline from last year’s 29%. Currently, 74% of U.S. adults say such a ban should not be put in place.
And Indeed, Americans want some sort of National Health care, but they divide strongly on what sort.
A majority of Americans continue to say the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage. ….When asked how the government should provide health insurance coverage, 36% of Americans say it should be provided through a single national government program, while 26% say it should continue to be provided through a mix of private insurance companies and government programs.
Trump has done some unique and irreparable harm, but it’s usually a mistake to blame everything on the President. Nothing is that reductive.
To me, 2016 does represent the beginning of American decline. But I see Trump as more of a symptom than a cause. The root cause is what I call the Sarah Palin Idiot caucus. It formed in 2008, strengthened off the hate of the Obama years, and blossomed fully once we had an actor like Trump with tools like Twitter analytics to really exploit it.
The idiot caucus is a form of decline that was progressing before Trump and will continue progressing after him. He didn’t invent it, but undoubtedly he accelerated it so dramatically that I don’t see it ever stopping until it eats everything.
It’s a global world. Wishing it weren’t doesn’t make it so.
Eh, Palin was just a female Quayle. 2012 you had Romney/Ryan, which isn’t particularly intellectually lightweight.
The problem is not intellectualism, it’s Trump’s zero/negative sum worldview. Trump has tacit contempt for anyone who isn’t running a con. Trump had none of Reagan’s optimism, no thousand points of light, no No Child Left Behind. No effort to make the USA a better place. That’s the problem.
You heard it here folks: American wages have to drop to Chinese levels for us to compete.
Well, sorta. But the root cause is Conservative talk radio. Hour after hour of relentless brainwashing & propaganda. The Left doesnt really have anything like that.
This thread makes me think of what has to be done to stop Trumpism. Trump was defeated, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’ll actually run again. But Trumpism must be stopped. We have to find ways to bring prosperity to rural areas that were hurt by manufacturing job losses & coal/other industry job losses. It’s not that I agree with the worldview of Trumpists. But I want to at least make it more tenable for them to support a mainstream candidate in the future, regardless of the party. We might not be able to turn them back into Democrats. But we can help nudge them away from fascism/authoritarian type leaders. A few policies that I think could help:
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Rural broadband - It should be available in 100% of the homes in this country, similar to electricity & water. It should be a part of every home.
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Climate Change - Any retrofitting of our electrical system, of our energy grid, should disproportionately benefit rural areas, providing good high-paying jobs in construction & renewable energy.
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Tax cuts for Manufacturing Plants that locate into rural areas - states & local do this already; can the feds get into the mix here more?
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Drug treatment programs - The opioid epidemic has disproportionately hit rural areas. We need more drug treatment & less people imprisoned for drug use.
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Work-from-home incentives - Many rural areas don’t have local jobs. But the pandemic has accelerated the work-from-home trend. If we get high-speed internet into every home, then rural areas can become places where people work and live.
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Healthcare Jobs - We need more doctors, hospitals, and medical facilities in rural areas. Let’s incentivize schools to train more doctors for rural practices, and make it worth their while to practice in rural areas.
I don’t have all the answers. But I hope Biden and the Dems target policies to rural areas, to help jump-start an economic turnaround.
Is the American worker intrinsically superior to the Chinese worker?
No, but their costs for food & housing as orders of magnitude less.
Cost of living in China is 40.93% lower than in United States (aggregate data for all cities, rent is not taken into account).
Rent in China is, on average, 60.21% lower than in United States.
Rice (white), (1 lb)= 3 cents China, $.71 USA.
Funny how prices adjust to match wages.
Funny how the Chinese economy and the US economy are not one-to-one comparable.