
Coronavirus Brings American Decline Out in the Open - swyx
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-29/coronavirus-brings-american-decline-out-in-the-open
======
ikeyany
I always enjoy Noah Smith's articles. Great read.

 _> With its high housing costs, poor infrastructure and transit, endemic gun
violence, police brutality and bitter political and racial divisions, the U.S.
will be a less appealing place for high-skilled workers to live_

The above is a "concern" but it's not quite an "urgent issue" within the tech
world. Cries to bring our public transportation into the 21st century go
unheard (we can all afford to drive a nice car to work, so no need for urgent
change), along with cries to improve educational standards for those who
aren't upper-middle class (just pay for better schooling or simply move to a
nicer neighborhood, no need for urgent change). Racial disparities and police
brutality generally go ignored until there is overwhelming proof (well it
looks like the only ones getting it bad are people who seem to deserve it, no
need for urgent change). And then there's health care, which is tied to your
employment (but if you have a nice gig compared to the masses, why would you
want anything to upset the status quo?).

Perhaps the threat of industry moving away for good will be an incentive to
take notice.

"The US is a 3rd world country with a Gucci belt."

~~~
swyx
the professional opinion columnist is a rare breed. I am torn on their
practical utility but I also admire them and secretly wish I could be one.

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236dev
If people think that America is a 3rd world country, or anywhere near a 3rd
world country, then they haven't been to a 3rd world country. The US has major
problems, undoubtedly, but we have a long way to fall till we hit the position
of 3rd world. We are even leagues better than developing nations. I can say
this as I have spent a long time living in both.

~~~
Answerawake
Can you provide some hard examples to compare the two?

~~~
236dev
Sure:

Healthcare: \- In the US it is expensive but you get decent care. If you are
not making enough you get medicaid or subsidized healthcare that actually
works (even in most rural areas). \- In for example Ukraine, technically there
is socialized healthcare, but you still have to pay due to corruption. For the
average Ukrainian, it's not an unsubstantial amount. They don't have the
newest drugs, technology, or that sorts. I'm using Ukraine as an example but
also applies to other developing countries generally.

Infrastructure: \- US has bad infrastructure compared to Japan. But the roads
are generally paved (even in most rural areas), there is normally some sort of
government that fixes the infrastructure. Sure there are cases of the dam
breaking, but there are many, many examples of the government building parks,
dams, paving new roads, fixing things, etc. \- In developing or even worse in
an ldc, the rural roads are not normally paved except for 'main' roads.
Outside major cities the road quality, building construction rapidly
deteriorates. China is an exception to this, but I could talk a bit about
China and how it is unique.

Water: \- In the US water is generally safe. You are able to point to Flint,
Michigan which has a population of less than 100k, and a few others. \- In
developing countries the water is bad. For instance when I first went to
Moldova I got a very itchy and weird rash. When I started drinking bottled
water, it went away. In other countries you can get parasites or diarrhea from
drinking the water. This is not normally an issue in the US.

Corruption: \- In the US you can go to the government and not worry about
bribing or corruption in general. The police will not stop you and ask for
money. The opposite is true in many developing nations.

Internet: \- In the US, even in rural America, you can get Internet that is
somewhat acceptable. Most Americans can visit Google and watch YouTube without
major connection issues or that sort. Many places in rural areas of developing
countries have bad connections at best.

Banking: \- In the US you have FDIC, many banking regulations, solid legal
framework, trusted institutions. It's a bit sketchy in other countries, though
might be because I'm a foreigner. Banking fees are much higher from what I
have seen, especially in Argentina+Chile. I was blown away when I was there.

These are just some of the things I could think of from the top of my head.
There are many more things and experience I could talk about, but this is a
good start. There is a reason why millions of people try and immigrate to the
US each year, that's not just random. I'm sure you could point of exceptions
to what I laid out, but those are just exceptions.

~~~
m463
_" All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and
education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system
and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"_

------
mikestew
Could the U. S. collapse “like Venezuela”, as the article suggests? Mmm, I
think that has very low odds. But the fact that I’m willing to lay odds at all
is a huge shift from if you had asked me 20 years ago when I might have
laughed at the mere suggestion.

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dzonga
people, who have lived elsewhere, especially in the usual 3rd world countries
and have also experienced some 1st world ones. will know the US is a rich 3rd
world country, and has been since Reagan. the pain isn't felt yet much by the
middle class due to them swallowing the america is great, propaganda. but step
outside the us, and see a proper 1st world country, with fast transit, clean
cities, less police presence. and then you realize you've been living a lie.
hell, Westworld, had to shoot scenes in Singapore for a futuristic city

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hyperman1
While I believe the USA and most of the western world is indeed declining,
there is another side to this: Corona might be a wake up call.

Could anyone believe an article like this would be published in a major news
org before Corona? It was unthinkable.

But now we all see the governements blundering from one incompetent stupidity
to the next. All western governements, not only the USA.

Before Corona, people knew but didn't care much. Apathy and cynicism
everywhere. But now, reaction is building. Slowly, but at last something is
moving.

I think we need a rude wake up call. I just hope this is rude enough.

~~~
jobigoud
> Could anyone believe an article like this would be published in a major news
> org before Corona? It was unthinkable.

Yes it could. It wasn't unthinkable at all. In fact the entire campaign of the
current president was based on the fact that the USA is not as great as it
once was, that it is in need to be made great _again_. So yes, this sentiment
was very much spread all around before the pandemic, with widely different
ideas on how to correct the trajectory but that's beside the point.

~~~
hyperman1
Yes and no. The current US president has a completely different communication
style than the 'serious'-tone mainstream media. You're correct that he's
become president because of it.

And people were aware and complaining, but not _doing_ much themselves. That's
what changing now.

------
rayiner
> With its high housing costs, poor infrastructure and transit, endemic gun
> violence, police brutality and bitter political and racial divisions, the
> U.S.

At least the first five of these seem to mostly be a problem in New York,
where the author is based, and similar cities, not “America” writ large. For
example, the author complains about the housing costs, but the national home
ownership rate in the US is about the same as the UK or France, and
substantially higher than Germany. (And the median American home is twice as
big as in those countries.) The author complains about the lack of transit,
but the median American commute is among the shortest in the OECD. The
homicide rate in my Maryland county isn’t great (about 2 per 100,000) but it’s
closer to say Canada or Belgium (1.7-1.8 per 100,000) than those countries are
to Sweden (1.1 per 100,000). Racial divisions are a challenge throughout
America, of course, but that’s true all over the world. France’s Macron is
talking about a government takeover of Islam:
[https://www.ft.com/content/88c1e898-5269-11ea-90ad-25e377c0e...](https://www.ft.com/content/88c1e898-5269-11ea-90ad-25e377c0ee1f).
And Macron is the liberal! Le Pen, a far right candidate, is polling
dangerously close to him at 45-55. As a brown person, I’d much rather be in
America right now even with Trump than in France.

What the recent situations are bringing out is not that “America” is in
decline, but that “American cities” are in decline. The mayor of Chicago, Lori
Lightfoot, recently said that cutting police funding was impossible, because
given the union contracts the city would have to lay off mostly black and
Hispanic officers! This is a police force that was running Abu Ghraib-style
interrogation centers. For what New York is spending extending one subway line
a few miles, cities like Copenhagen have built entire new, fully automated,
lines. New York City spends $25,000 per student, or about 44% of the city’s
median income. London spends just 15% of the city’s median household per
student.

You can’t fix a problem unless you can properly identify the problem. Articles
like this are willfully blind to the problem.

~~~
dmwallin
You are making several false comparisons. Home ownership rate is not the same
as housing costs. A lack of transit options is not the same thing as the
length of commute. In both these cases they are likely barely correlated. Also
why would you assume that other countries don't also have an unequally
distributed patterns between their major metropolitan and more rural/suburban
areas? You compare statistics of your county with entire other countries as if
it provides some kind of useful data point.

~~~
rayiner
> Home ownership rate is not the same as housing costs.

No, but it’s a strong indicator that housing costs are not unaffordable
nationwide, but merely in some high cost cities where most people don’t live.

> A lack of transit options is not the same thing as the length of commute.

Talking about “transit options” presupposes a solution to a problem. The
problem is getting people to places, not transit per se. The US has chosen to
prioritize direct car travel over potentially indirect transit, and the result
is that Americans spend less time commuting than almost anyone else in the
OECD. Put differently, for most Americans, the fact they have a 25 minute auto
commute instead of a 45 minute train commute is not a sign of America being
“in decline” but rather an advantage.

As to homicides, other countries do not have the same massive differences in
homicide rate between cities and suburbs as the US. My county includes a small
city (the state capital). The homicide rate in the nearest big city, 30
minutes away, is almost 15 times higher. By contrast, the homicide rate in
London is only 50% higher than in the UK as a whole. Toronto’s homicide rate
is actually lower than Canada as a whole. The differences are small enough to
ignore for purposes of the point I’m making, which is that many parts of
America are quite safe. Large cities have stratospheric levels of violence,
but most of the population doesn’t live there.

------
fallingfrog
Gonna be honest, I’m taking my family out of the country as soon as we are
able to leave. I don’t want my children to grow up here, what are they going
to do in 20 years when everything is so much worse than it is now? Anybody can
see which way the wind is blowing. Good job baby boomers, you win. You used
the whole country as an atm machine and ran it into the ground. Hope that 5%
tax cut was worth it.

~~~
tanzbaer
Where will you go?

~~~
fallingfrog
Canada

------
SpicyLemonZest
I think we always have to be a bit skeptical of articles in this genre. A
decline narrative ought to imply different or at least refocused policies,
where some important things aren't relevant to the decline and other less
important things are. When an author ties every problem in the country to the
decline, and their proposed solution is enacting all their preferred policies,
it really comes across as more of a manifesto. Will investors really "abandon
the U.S. and the dollar in large amounts" because gun violence is high or the
subways are poor quality?

~~~
nine_zeros
No they won't. But only because there is no alternative.

The vast majority of global economic activity now happens in Asia. Tech was
one sweet area dominated by the US but even that seems to be sliding (happily
being enabled by the administration).

Once these economic activity participants figure out a way to avoid the
dollar, they will (there is no goodwill with the dollar). When this happens,
its done. We are busted.

That said, nobody is moving away from the dollar soon. However, we need to
elect representatives who don't jeopardize this. Being the global reserve
means moving in lock step with the world. It doesn't mean reneging or
bullying.

~~~
nickthemagicman
The US GDP in 2019 was bigger than the next three countries combined.

I'm not sure your statement is accurate

~~~
nine_zeros
GDP is an inaccurate measure since it's really comparing wealth of nations and
not total number of economic activity in nations. This metric massively skews
economic activity due to currency conversion.

This can be easily deducted from population. More population == more haircuts
overall. There is no way the US is getting more haircuts than China or India.

GDP (PPP) is a much better metric for economic activity overall. In this China
has the US beat and India is third. Makes sense with so much population.

~~~
nickthemagicman
That's a fascinating measure. Thanks for sharing that. I didn't even know
about that.

It would seem that our currency is overvalued then if our true output is
skewed by our currency exchange rates?

How does that reconcile?

~~~
nine_zeros
Because the demand for dollars is 7 billion people + entities vs demand for
say Chinese yuan is 1.4 billion people + chinese entities only.

Basic supply and demand. If demand for US dollar reduces (say all Asian
countries band together like EU to form a megacurrency), they will stop
keeping too many dollars in reserve and demand will drop, thus currency value
will drop and the US will drop in GDP rankings.

~~~
nickthemagicman
That's fascinating. Thank you for the info! Have been digging deeper into
this.

