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This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they…
The challenge for other advanced economies is not just replicating America’s dynamism. It is to do so while retaining their cherished social safeguards.
For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7, coupled with the lowest life expectancy and the highest housing costs, according to the OECD. Market competition is limited and millions of workers endure unstable employment conditions.
Increasing you investment efficiency with FTX. Reducing farmer idle time with Deere. Sharing your otherwise unused car with Uber. Revolutionising office productivity with technology, like those beer taps that WeWork had. Spending less time on your savings with Yotta. Not reading long emails with AI.
I wonder how high productivity actually turns out if you remove every scam that inflated GDP or earnings numbers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They served as bases to spread the American culture through music and cinema and later with the industry through the coal and steel community, to create a single and unified market The US did not want to create competition, but to break monopolies and to create a unified market for its industrial complex The remnants of that goal are visible today with Big Tech
That manchester capitalism with different decorations rhetoric does not hold up to scrutiny. In particular when you hold it against current examples of economic colonialism like the chines lend & own campaign in Africa .
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How so? Healthcare? FIRE seems much more attainable in the US
Housing and healthcare costs are insane. When you're older, you need a lot more healthcare (and you won't have that nice insurance plan you had at your big company job when you were working), and housing keeps getting more expensive, which is a problem if you're on a fixed income. You could move to much cheaper locales (i.e. rural areas), but those are "healthcare deserts" where there's no competent doctors left and…
It's just that "normal" housing in the US is what's only attainable to the very rich and only because they inherited it, in most of Europe let's say: even 1% won't be able to buy an equivalent of median new US single family house, in EU - that 1% probably owns a similar or somewhat better house but simply because they bought or built it generations before.
Make no mistake, the US is a fantastic business. It makes a lot of money, and some people get fantastically rich while others toil for life and hover at the poverty line. With a vastly higher percentage of its citizens in jail than any other developed country, much higher crime and violence than developed countries and many other very bad indicators it is, however, not a good country. It does not provide for or look…
It's worth asking why.
> NATO nations have cut back on troops and military hardware since the Cold War. But Europe has cut far deeper than the US. Defense budgets have become a pot that could be raided to fund more pressing priorities, such as treating and caring for aging populations. As a result, much of Europe’s military has become, in the view of some US defense experts, a “Potemkin army” that is ill-prepared to wage and win a prolonged war.
> the improvement was largely down to reconstruction efforts partly funded by the US via the Marshall Plan Most of the improvement was in Germany, which received far less MP money than Britain and France. Postwar prosperity correlates with the level of free markets. Germany embraced free markets up until 1970, Britain and France did not.
The situation back then was decidedly _not_ what the term "free market" (of the libertarian variety) would imply today.
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They served as bases to spread the American culture through music and cinema and later with the industry through the coal and steel community, to create a single and unified market The US did not want to create competition, but to break monopolies and to create a unified market for its industrial complex The remnants of that goal are visible today with Big Tech
My dad was part of the occupation of postwar Germany. The bases were there to protect Germany against the Soviets. I remember once on the autobahn around 1970, and a fighter came by hedgehopping at high speed. He was a few feet off the ground, and looked like just under Mach 1. The citizens didn't particularly like the noise and disruption, but they understood the need for the Air Force to train hard. I also remember…
All the more sad that the chief component of Japanese animosity towards Japan-stationed US forces are sexual crimes, particularly in Okinawa where the Marines especially don't seem to know how to keep their dicks in their pants. There have been at least two incidents just this year if I recall, and that's just of the ones we know.
I really can't blame the locals wanting Americans to get the fuck out, security be damned.
The US is a great place to make a lot of money if you're lucky and successful, but a terrible place to retire.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They served as bases to spread the American culture through music and cinema and later with the industry through the coal and steel community, to create a single and unified market The US did not want to create competition, but to break monopolies and to create a unified market for its industrial complex The remnants of that goal are visible today with Big Tech
My dad was part of the occupation of postwar Germany. The bases were there to protect Germany against the Soviets. I remember once on the autobahn around 1970, and a fighter came by hedgehopping at high speed. He was a few feet off the ground, and looked like just under Mach 1. The citizens didn't particularly like the noise and disruption, but they understood the need for the Air Force to train hard. I also remember…