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America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

derekthompson.org

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Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#61

Post by g42gregory »

Is this some sort of a paid advertising piece, to make you feel better about inflation, lack of affordable medical care, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs for recent graduates, etc...?

"Life is much better in 2026. We live healthier, richer, and longer lives, with better medicine and more self-determination." - I can't speak for 1926, but compared to 1980s or 1960s, this is so patently not true. The US population is much sicker and more obese, as one example. People are not starving, but at the cost of eating "manufactured" foods that will make them sick in 20 - 40 yrs. And so on. I don't see a lot of happy faces on the streets of America.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#62

Post by dgellow »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #27
axpy906 wrote: post #13

No offense but outside of money does the US have anything going for it?

Freedom to say (almost) anything, publicly, including criticism of the elite and powerful. Freedom to do, to create a business with far fewer roadblocks than in, say, Europe. Freedom to go, to travel anywhere in a really large country, with no borders or restrictions. Yeah, you can quote me all the caveats. They're there; I don't deny them. But: Freedom to say, freedom to do, and freedom to go. Those are really big d…

Europe isn’t a single country. We have multiple countries where you can create a company in no time, with little capital. And have freedom of movement within the whole EU

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#63

Post by GolfPopper »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #24

I read Sinclair Lewis' Babbit last year and it was kind of depressing how little has changed since 1922. The political climate (at least as portrayed in the novel) seemed eerily similar to now. Maybe we continually go through oscillations.

In the same vein, his It Can't Happen Here is also well worth reading, as is Jack London's The Iron Heel. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#64

Post by pixdamix »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #27
axpy906 wrote: post #13

No offense but outside of money does the US have anything going for it?

Freedom to say (almost) anything, publicly, including criticism of the elite and powerful. Freedom to do, to create a business with far fewer roadblocks than in, say, Europe. Freedom to go, to travel anywhere in a really large country, with no borders or restrictions. Yeah, you can quote me all the caveats. They're there; I don't deny them. But: Freedom to say, freedom to do, and freedom to go. Those are really big d…

> Freedom to say (almost) anything, publicly, including criticism of the elite and powerful.

Most European nations strongly protect free speech, allowing open public critique and satire of politicians, the wealthy, and the powerful.

> Freedom to do, to create a business with far fewer roadblocks than in, say, Europe.

Several European countries actually lead global easy business rankings, some offering fully digital, single-day company registration, very little bureaucracy (not mine, sadly)

> Freedom to go, to travel anywhere in a really large country, with no borders or restrictions.

The schengen zone grants passport-free travel across 29 nations, spanning thousands of miles without a single border checkpoint.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#65

Post by sanguinesphinx »

II2II wrote: post #57
miroljub wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces. How naive one must be to consider this NPC as the biggest threat to human kind since the dawn of man. It's not that single person who threatens the world, it's the complete American elite and the whole American society who push for wars and more wars, and the…

> It's not that single person who threatens the world The question is: is he enabling them, or are they enabling him? I suppose it could be working in both directions. That said: while the "elite" were problematic before his second rise to power, they were also more constrained. I also have some question as to who the elite are? Certain individuals are more prominent these days, while others have faded in the backgro…

It depends on how closely you tie the metrics and the values. Do you consider someone becoming a billionaire/trillionaire a reflection of their values or just a metric they happen to have?

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#66

Post by vitorfblima »

g42gregory wrote: post #61

Is this some sort of a paid advertising piece, to make you feel better about inflation, lack of affordable medical care, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs for recent graduates, etc...? "Life is much better in 2026. We live healthier, richer, and longer lives, with better medicine and more self-determination." - I can't speak for 1926, but compared to 1980s or 1960s, this is so patently not true. The US populat…

Since he is explicitly comparing 2026 to 1926 I think his statement holds up.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#69

Post by Schiendelman »

andy99 wrote: post #40
WillAdams wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of homeless was quite different at that time --- note that there was an entire class of people defined as hobos/migrant workers who began the year helping out with cutting lumber and harvesting maple sugar in the winter, then working south to help with the planting of truck crops (lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas...) in the spring, pruning fruit trees and harvesting early crops in the summer, then in t…

The people that are homeless now would have been institutionalized or dead back then.

That's an interesting point - we may be keeping people alive better now. And the rate of people experiencing homelessness is 5-10x lower now than it was during the Great Depression.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#70

Post by bryanrasmussen »

dgellow wrote: post #44
abirch wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm shocked how much the average American knows about how things work. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I'm not surprised how quickly Americans are giving up their liberty.

Did you mean to say “how little”?

How much and how little are logically equivalent, although in vernacular usage it is of course common to use how little when implying the amount is less than one might expect, and how much to imply the amount is more than one might expect.
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