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What other country has generations on welfare like the US ? Many families don't even look for a job, just automatically go on the dole for life.
What other country provides corporate welfare to the very rich like the US? What country just lowered the corporate tax to 20%, gave plenty of tax cuts to already rich, expanded tax loopholes while increasing the budget deficit to projected 800 billion: https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget
And that is when the economy is doing well. What happens if there is a recession?
In effect, the government stole from the future generations to pay off the rich. Yes, I don't think there are too many developed , non third world nations that would do this...
At the end of the day, what defines developed country? A large military, abundance of corporate headquarters? Presence of wealthy private landowners? Then congratulations, America is developed. If, however, the measure of development is the rate of economic mobility, access to affordable education, healthcare, social services, ability to 'survive' in the middle class, then not only do we fail, we fall below the level of even many third-world nations. Unfortunately, the past few decades have shown that our own Nationalistic arrogance will continually prevent us from advancing, until it becomes our undoing.
/end rant
All very good points that I agree with. But I would add that the state of US infrastructure and public transportation is pretty much third world. A lot of bridges, tunnels, dams are crumbling, public transit systems are underfunded, overcrowded with years of deferred maintenance and no revenues for expansion and upgrades. Essentially, US is coasting on the infrastructure that was built either during the New Deal or when the railroads were all in private hands...
All very good points that I agree with. But I would add that the state of US infrastructure and public transportation is pretty much third world. A lot of bridges, tunnels, dams are crumbling, public transit systems are underfunded, overcrowded with years of deferred maintenance and no revenues for expansion and upgrades. Essentially, US is coasting on the infrastructure that was built either during the New Deal or when the railroads were all in private hands...
Not sure where you've been around the country but lol....it's definitely not 3rd world.
Some states and municipalities are more cash strapped than others and you can definitely tell when you cross the state line in terms of road quality etc.
Our rulers say there is no problem with that. Surely cream rises to the top?
When I consider the general standard of living and quality of life in northern European nations, it does get my attention.
I have no problem with accumulating half a billion dollars or so. Half a billion dollars is the subject of scorn in todays world of the 10 billion plus in assets.
Sometimes I think we got carried away with catering to the rich. The wealth has failed to trickle down, it has been trickling up for at least 40 years.
Actually its not unprecedented. In 1897 less than 1% of the population had as much wealth as the remainder (i.e. 50% of wealth owned by less than 1%). In 2017, 1% had about 39% of the wealth. So its not unprecedented.
Not sure where you've been around the country but lol....it's definitely not 3rd world.
Some states and municipalities are more cash strapped than others and you can definitely tell when you cross the state line in terms of road quality etc.
Well the above-ground electric poles and some roads in the northeast are reminiscent of third world countries. But overall, no.
All very good points that I agree with. But I would add that the state of US infrastructure and public transportation is pretty much third world. A lot of bridges, tunnels, dams are crumbling, public transit systems are underfunded, overcrowded with years of deferred maintenance and no revenues for expansion and upgrades. Essentially, US is coasting on the infrastructure that was built either during the New Deal or when the railroads were all in private hands...
Agree. American culture values personal autonomy and convenience above all else, and the car is pretty much the only method of transport that embodies both of these things so completely. The majority of modern urban and suburban planning was developed to facilitate ease of car access to the point that many housing developments (including the Midwestern one I was raised in) don't even have sidewalks. Consequently, with the exception of the large coastal cities, public transportation is less-favored, often seen as the last resort of those too poor to own a car.
And even in those cities where public transportation is both popular and heavily used (Think NYC/DC/SFO metro areas) it's still crumbling. The ceilings in the subways here in NYC cave in whenever it rains; train tunnels in NJ are over 100 years old, we're still using primitive subway signal systems from the 1950's.
Not to get overly political here, but isn't this kind of tragic. What if over the last several decades we had invested the billions of dollars spent on overseas nation-building on our own national infrastructure instead; by now we'd have built something to be proud of as a country. Instead, we're decades behind the rest of the world in infrastructure, still reliant on the gas-burning automobile for transportation, tethered to non-renewable energy sources. The industrial revolution initially pushed us forwards, but today we've actually allowed our corporate interests in defunct technologies to hold us back. And there's no clear answer because the corruption - as another poster already astutely pointed out - exists both at the private and public sector level.
Not sure where you've been around the country but lol....it's definitely not 3rd world.
Some states and municipalities are more cash strapped than others and you can definitely tell when you cross the state line in terms of road quality etc.
Infrastructure consists of more than just roads and bridges, though. That's the issue. How many US cities can you go to and rely on just a bus/train/light rail/subway to reliably get from one neighborhood to another? A small handful, maybe? How many cities even *have* these options in the first place? For most, you'd better own a car or plan on hitchhiking/Uber. And don't think of trying to walk/bike everywhere either; many suburban towns lack basic sidewalks and sharing the road with automobiles often means risking life and limb on higher-trafficked roads.
Over the past decades, we've put all our eggs in one basket in terms of infrastructure spending for car ownership and nothing else, but maybe the tides need to turn as cities and urban centers (and consequently, congestion/pollution) continue to grow...
No matter what form of government you start out with, it will evolve into an oligarchy.
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