MIT-economist: US has regressed to developing nation status

[Spectral]

nice try but hardly, 'left' barely means a thing, doubly so in the US

what makes a country 'developing'?

having to work for ~12 hrs per day with hardly any rights to survive, this is equally true in China, Brazil or US

This is obviously false in the United States - the vast majority of the populace works much, much less than that and enjoys a living standard that's significantly better than the majority of the nations that you're more enthusiastic about.

having shit public education/healthcare, only idiots think this is a matter of 'opinion' and no matter the quality of private healthcare/education a country cannot escape it's developing status, see Qatar, Emirates etc

This is the part where I point out the American public university system is by far the best in the world. Dozens of states have at least one state university that's been than anything in the majority of EU countries. By any reasonable measure, the American public university system is vastly superior to any excepting possibly the UK's.

the amount of homeless/poor living below human standards the US homeless are arguably at an equal life quality with denizens of the middle east, doesn't get much more 'developing' than that

a country is developed when everyone lives with dignity and can develop freely as an individual, USA does not offer this to a great many of it's citizens in contrast to NW EU/ Canada the actually developed parts of the world

This is all just as ridiculous as the first two points. You don't have any idea what you're talking about and everything you're writing is ideological drivel.

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That their remain sections within the country that continue to forward scientific and technological progress does not speak to the progress of the society as a whole. Im sure we could find any number of societies that were relatively advanced but maintained slave or serf population inundated with misery and ignorance. Would you consider those socities developed?

Of course. Whether a nation is "developed" or not simply isn't a moral measure. Claiming that Dubai, for example, isn't developed would strike me as absolutely absurd. Development is about physical infrastructure and human capital, not whether a place conforms to my standards of what constitutes high moral character.

[Deleted]

*Compares population of blacks to whites in America*

*Compares population of rich blacks to rich whites in America*

You sure it isn't a race problem? It sure looks like a per-capita race problem from the numbers alone.

Or are you going to blame the 100~ years of equity slaves lost out on as to why they aren't higher on the social totem pole?

It is not a racism problem because white people:
1. Got head start. Many (or probably even most) rich people didn't earn that money, their ancestors did.
2. Get better education due to their ancestors having more money.

But that has nothing to do with racism today. Its just the way things are because of racism in past. Equal treatment is about giving everyone same opportunity, not about giving advantage to someone based on ancient history.

Those playing racism card use equality of outcome as measurement, but what they should be using is quality of opportunity.

This is why I hate left stupidity - they want minorities to get priority to guarantee better outcome at cost of majority. Giving anyone advantage because of race is racism.

[Protean]

All the education in the world won't help people if the jobs don't exist. There aren't enough high paying technology and corporate jobs for the whole workforce or even a large portion of it.

This is what uneducated people are taught, so they will stay happy serving McDicks to customers with a smile.

[Vash The Stampede]

Remember when the amount of jobless people in USA was 10% in like 2010? Now it's like less than 5% and people think it's Obama? Well, it's not. People just took jobs that don't offer good pay, cause being homeless sucks. This is why people voted for Trump. They want more better paying jobs. But this of course shrank the middle class some more. Because of Obamacare, there's a lot more part time jobs, which requires Americans to work 2 or even 3 jobs to make ends meet.

This won't change anytime soon. We can change some things like reduce the cost of owning or renting a home. Force a work week to be 30 or 35 hours. Maybe even push for solar powered homes so there's less utility expensive for people. The more money people have, the more they can put it back into the economy, and the more free time they have the more opportunity they have to put it back into the economy. Eventually the only real solution is basic income. Gotta tax the wealthy more to pay for this basic income.

[Sky High]

IDK, what really get me is how bad our wealth inequality is and how it's pretty much at the point before the great depression hit less than a century ago. at some point most people wont be able to contribute to the economy and shortly after that things will go right in the shiter.

[Spectral]

nothing surpising - the only reason US economy boomed so wildely in 20th century was because EU was ravaged by 2 world wars - now after 70 + years EU rebuild its markets to what shoudl have been - aka better state then US

you cant produce shit products and then expect people to prefer it - US got left behind and will be droping with each year.

The EU's per capita GDP is lower than that of Mississippi, which is the poorest American state. Mississippi! That's pretty amazing. The state that's considered a backwards laughingstock here, the punch line in any joke about shitty states that can't get out of their own way is still home to more productive citizenry than the median European.

In any case, this just isn't how competition works. There doesn't have to be a loser - the United States, Europe, Japan, and China can all get richer by trading with each other.

[Sky High]

And the fact that you are touting the ACA as some sort of achievement completely invalidates your point.

I'm sorry, do you think the GOP made better headway on that front? of course not.

[Spectral]

I mean, if you're getting more opportunities because you're rich and you're rich because your ancestors had opportunities to accumulate wealth that were outright denied to others, that's pretty explicitly ensuring that people don't have equal opportunity. Attempts to mitigate the benefits of a better starting position won by the lottery of lineage and not by merit shouldn't just be sneered at as special privileges.

This is rarely how the world actually works though. With the exception of extremely wealthy people, generational wealth just doesn't have the juice that people seem to believe it does. The claim that generalational wealth is a primary driver of educational attainment is pretty thoroughly undercut by a combination of looking at correlation between IQ and educational attainment (the really important inheritance for getting an education isn't cash - it's intellect) as well as looking at the educational attainment of first generation Asian-Americans, who surely weren't starting with that sort of wealth.

Edit - this blog post on the matter is also worth reading and elaborates more than I care to. Section III is particularly relevant. Inherited wealth just isn't near as important as many people believe.

[Belize]

And the fact that you are touting the ACA as some sort of achievement completely invalidates your point.

I'm sorry, but come back when your party can get its shit together, and pass anything.
Until then, you have 0 highground to stand on.

[Masark]

USA produces more relevant (not peace or literature) Noble Prize winners than the rest of the world combined. At least one part of the education system is working extremely well.

Incorrect. The USA has 40% of the scientific prizes.

And that's largely by dint of population. Per capita, you're 11th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...entific_prizes

[Zython]

All the education in the world won't help people if the jobs don't exist. There aren't enough high paying technology and corporate jobs for the whole workforce or even a large portion of it.

Which raises the question: If we don't have enough work to go around, but GDP is nevertheless increasing, doesn't that mean that maybe we should move to a system where not everyone HAS to work?

[NED funded]

Incorrect. The USA has 40% of the scientific prizes.

And that's largely by dint of population. Per capita, you're 11th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...entific_prizes

Rank 1: Saint Lucia. Ok

[Nitros14]

Which raises the question: If we don't have enough work to go around, but GDP is nevertheless increasing, doesn't that mean that maybe we should move to a system where not everyone HAS to work?

You won't get an argument from me, but good luck convincing enough important rich people of that.

[Osmeric]

Rank 1: Saint Lucia. Ok

I'm reminded of a time a few years ago when "astronomer" became the most dangerous profession in the United States.

This was because one single astronomer died in a freak accident at an observatory, putting the per capita death rate at the top of the list.

[Post]

If this is what developing nations are like I guess the world isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

[Adam Jensen]

Is anyone really surprised by this?

You have governors who poison their own citizen's water.

You destroy your own heritage land.

You piss all over the native people and build pipe lines through sacred ground.

You elected a president who lives in a fantasy world.

You shoot yourselves and your children every damned day because of shitty gun laws...

People are afraid, YES AFRAID, to mention that they are atheist in your country...

People, RATIONAL THINKERS who don't watch Alex Jones or fucking Young Turks.... are AFRAID... to let others know... they don't believe in the Christian God. I'm sorry... this stat alone should have people thinking of certain sand-people who share similarities.

And you think your country is better then a third world nation because... what... you have fucking Coca-Cola and Cheese Burgers?


I mean jesus fucking christ, I just got done reading a story about police going into a school and arresting A FUCKING EIGHT YEAR OLD and putting him in handcuffs... America, not sure if you notice, but the rest of the world takes one look at that shit and collectively goes, "what the fuck..."

When people comment on America becoming a third world country, and you all laugh at the silly notion... maybe stop laughing.

Yeah, we're in decline and we elected an angry over-ripe tomato to fix it.

[Themius]

problem is changing your economic class DEMANDS some 4-year degree, and not everyone has the ability to juggle both college and a job, then once you get said degree you have to get a job to go with that degree, also you need 5 years experience in your field which you won't have because you just graduated, good luck. Also odds are you will have over 30K in debt from the loans you had to take to take that college course, which could have been done in 3 years but they make you take 4 because they fill in useless junk not even related to your field for the sole purpose of making more money.

Okay that's just total bullshit you made up "also yo'ull need 5 years experience becuase you just..." no... no...

[NED funded]

I'm reminded of a time a few years ago when "astronomer" became the most dangerous profession in the United States.

This was because one single astronomer died in a freak accident at an observatory, putting the per capita death rate at the top of the list.

What's funny is that even using that metric Canada ranks lower than the USA. Something wrong with Canadian higher-ed?

[Themius]

Are you delusional? I don't think anything in your reply has any factual basis.

And no, ours are no different to you politicians, except corruption over here is a little better hidden away and spread also among the honours system, which at least you don't have to deal with.

Delusional about what?!

Your sales tax is mostly 20% on everything where here it varies between nothing and fucking about 10% right now I pay 6.85% I couldn't imagine 20% on almost everything I buy.

Also UK wages are typically lower across the board for doctors, engineerings, financial professioanls, much much lower pay than the usa and not only that but higher tax rates plus the ridiculous sales tax rate. Also in the last OECD breakdown concerning countries by mobility the UK was first as far as being the worst, followed by France followed by the USA. So... no it's not "delusion" it is fact based.

[Masark]

Rank 1: Saint Lucia. Ok

And then you ignore the other 9 nations ahead of you, which don't have skewed per capitas due to low population.