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chgough34

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Registered Member
That's not a useful, or even stable metric due to a myriad of reasons.
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The article just said the U.S. is large and heterogeneous; and taking the face value of averaging oecd and other estimates, the U.S. would be middle of the OECD pack with much larger sprawl. So infrastructure is fine.
You data stops at 2008. These are from last year.
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None of your citations prove it’s getting worse over time; nor has anything about American governance changed since 2008 so the evidence of decline is weak. The fact that any present situation isn’t perfect compared to a hypothetical ideal isn’t news.
That's also a funny metric to use. "Busiest" is not the most "modern." Indian roads are super busy and they're not even paved.
How do you handle large passenger volumes without competence? Planes, airports, and ATC doesn’t handle itself. The purpose of the safety cite was to show that air travel has gotten substantially safer over time - that’s good governance by the FAA.
Dude, your source is Union Pacific, the people praising themselves.
They are citing to a bunch of other sources; most of which are DOT sources
I wouldn't talk about that if I were you, especially after the East Palestine Derailment...
well within the historic norm, not at all evidence of “decline”. The proclivities of TV editors are well, random.
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and then the derailment of the train carrying the clean up debris from the first derailment... And although the numbers are fairly pretty stable recently, it does seem that US train derailments and causualties have risen every year since 2019.
Yes. COVID made everyone drive much more crazily and that will show up in all kinds of motor vehicle accidents (which are broadly down,
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Boiling the tap won’t solve pfas, arsenic, or lead lol. But regardless: the United States is improving and there are many problems are not contradictory. The Guardian doesn’t provide any evidence the problem has gotten worse, because in fact, water has gotten safer over time -
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.
As a developed nation, these things shouldn't even be mentioned.
No. The claim was things are getting worse than before. Yet, as the statistics clearly show: air conditioning and indoor plumbing have become much more frequent than before. That shows things are getting much better and it shows good governance. Facilities are infrastructure. Building regulations are governance.

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Real incomes can rise but not for all items. Most people in the U.S. have fixed-rate mortgages (due to government intervention in Freddie and Fannie); so this is mainly stressing young people. This is indeed a problem that is getting worse, mainly from COVID, but it should resolve as housing construction is now booming -
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Violent crime only?? Why so specific?
Because other crime is much harder to measure because of reporting biases (some people are much more likely to report petty crime than others), the amount the officer cares, and differing definitions between states. Comparisons between time and between geographies are going to be measuring different things

When the United States is compared against its former self and/or other countries, the U.S. is generally doing better than it ever has and one of the best performers in the world. Doesn’t mean things are anywhere close to perfect
 
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chgough34

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Here's more recent data showing increases across the board:
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The first one shows a y/y increase but that same survey also shows substantial declines in substance abuse disorders since the 1990s. The second one doesn’t show increases in drug abuse. They show increases in admissions for substance abuse disorders. So again, it’s not that drug abuse has increased; it has decreased but those with drug abuse disorders are much harder cases than before.
Nobody said anything about sex. Sex is natural; drugs are not.
Premature sex is also a strictly negative risk that has declined substantially. Broadly on strictly negative health risks - those metrics have improved for everyone 20th percentile and above but the remaining individuals are worse off. That’s not evidence of “everything is worse”. That’s evidence of adverse selection and negative peer effects
Arrests, not actual crime rate, which is reported and has been demonstrated to be increasing above.
Even retail lobbies recanted that claim:
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Reduction in arrests with a rise in crime means an inadequate police response, and that is most likely because of new laws in America making petty theft basically not a crime.
No, actually. Non-violent misdemeanor crime such as petty theft is hard to measure because some people care to report and others don’t (but those patterns are not random), some police departments and prosecutors care and others don’t, and definitions are different both between time and across states. The most consistent measure across time, states, and individuals (violent crime) are uniformly down.

What's with the selective year and age group? Did I say child povety only??
Main thing I wanted to show was the time-series graph on the census site showing the decline before 2020-2021 (the child tax credit) increase in 2022 from 2021 was due to the child tax credit expiring which cut into the incomes of lots of people. All poverty was declining prior to COVID and the large increases in fiscal transfers anyway (
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This is why I said that you need to consider things relative to the world and to your main rival(s). It is an incredibly low standard to say that you are, in raw wealth (aside from the house, of course, which is most people's most expensive and important possession), stronger than you were 30 years ago, or even a few years ago.
You claimed things were getting worse. They aren’t. Things are getting better.
They want to compete with China, and compared to China's rise in wealth and technology, the US is just moving backwards every day.
No dispute here
Once again, if you set your standards to an incredibly low threshold of absolute progress
It’s not. You wanted to argue things are bad when compared to a hypothetical ideal but when you bring out the time-series, it shows things are getting better in the U.S.

No, not correct. China was that, but after the initial teething issues, management basically shot up to the top of the world. Now, it has taken the leading positions in the world in many fields and it is moving faster in all parameters regardless of whether they be lagging or leading and this is due to it being the best-managed country in the world.
China’s GDPPC is $12K and is currently dealing with severely underdeveloped capital markets and a real estate/financial crisis. China is also growing slower than other Asian countries at similar levels of development. The cross sectional data is also worse for China in most metrics compared to the United States. Par the course for any developing country and of limited probative value but not evidence of super management you claim.

the U.S. and China are both reasonably well managed countries (key word, reasonably) with broad improvements in most policy areas; but since China is both larger and poorer, it will have faster growth as it converges to the technological frontier and catches up on physical and human capital formation.
Are you an American? Do you live in America? Or are you just some cheerleader from abroad?
Yes, yes, and no.
You're basically the first person I've spoken to who thinks that America should just step aside to China and try to do well in its own bubble.
No. I don’t care. Whether the U.S. declares war on China or moves to accommodate China are irrelevant to the United States. That is my position.
 
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huemens

Junior Member
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Dutch court orders halt to export of F-35 jet parts to Israel​

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A Dutch court on Monday ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law during the war in Gaza
The Dutch government said it would appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that it should be up to the state to set foreign policy, not a court.
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
You claimed things were getting worse. They aren’t. Things are getting better.
Honestly with so many horrible things happening in the US that I've never seen before growing up, I imagined things to be worse than this. 45 people looting a store in broad daylight didn't used to happen when I was a kid. Stores telling employees that they cannot obstruct looters from exiting or chase them outside wasn't a thing when I was a kid. People curled up on the street in masses from taking Tranq didn't happen when I was a kid. I went to San Francisco and had a great memory of it but now the pictures are unrecognizable and the homeless encampments look like a third world country. I saw videos of tenants using the law and the wait times for a trial to essentially force landlords to let them live for free, and the US laws are increasingly supportive of tenant rights; and then to my shock, I saw that the vast majority of comments sided with the tenants blaming the greed of landlords for why they're struggling in the first place. Essentially, they think landlords deserve to be squatted on because they're trying to make money while others are trying to survive. Reminded me of the Cultural Revolution in China where being rich was evil. I saw the news filled with young Americans lamenting that they could never afford a house like their parents because housing prices went up 300% and salaries grew 30% in the same time. This signalled to me that things are getting worse in the US, however, I don't count on it being true because America's absolute decline was never a necessity or even expected to be true for China to surpass it.

I still don't know if, through all this, American is actually improving very slowly as your data suggests or if it's some instance where politicians in need of re-elections are playing their hand (since different sources have different data as there are discrepencies between your sources and mine) but the data that you show me does sink in and cast doubt. It seems that COVID is a point of inflection in many graphs so I'd doubt the usefulness of comparing to pre-COVID times. I'm not dead set on a narrative that the US is in absolute decline; its GDP certainly isn't.
No dispute here
I'm of the general opinion that despite the recent pain and complaining from the less financially-rooted Americans, that the country, as an overall (instead of just the living standards of the people), is still slowly rising; it's just that it's divorced from the common people because due to rivalry from China, America has had to devote more and more resources to competition rather that things to improve peope's lives.

If you're also of the opinion that China is simply moving much faster than the US regardless of America's current actual speed, then there's not fundamental difference between us here.
China’s GDPPC is $12K
Depends on the measure. By PPP, it's about double that in 2023, with America at about $80K. Varies between IMF and World bank too but this just shows that China has a lot of potential for growth because it is not, overall, a developed country with slower developed country speeds.
and is currently dealing with severely underdeveloped capital markets
Chinese markets work differently from American ones and it allows China to grow at its world-beating clip so I'd be cautious with any change.
and a real estate/financial crisis.
What crisis? The GDP grows over 5%. China's control over its markets means that often, what amounts to a crisis in the West is just an adjustment for China.
China is also growing slower than other Asian countries at similar levels of development.
There are no countries at similar levels of development to China; we are at a level of reaching autonomy while still charging to the forefront of technology. No other country has ever done this, especially not in Asia where Korea and Japan tethered their rise to subservience to America while North Korea's autonomy led it to become technologically poor. No other country can win a trade and tech war with the US and its Western henchmen and keep marching forth; there is no comparison to China.
The cross sectional data is also worse for China in most metrics compared to the United States.
I have no idea what data you are talking about but if you mean things like per capita income and personal wealth, then of course. The importance is that they are rising and China has much greater overall numbers.
Par the course for any developing country and of limited probative value
Unsure what data but if they are to conclude that China's just like any developing country, then yes, severely limited, crippled probative value.
but not evidence of super management you claim.
Well, if you're drawing evidence from things that you know are of highly limited probative value, then that's your error there. Rather China's management is shown through the fastest and largest proverty alleviation in human history and China, within a few decades, rising from a country that produced nothing worthy of mention to one that could challenge the highest standards of the world in basically every major technological field. Russia pisses the US off but there is no second country in the world that the US fears losing its title to other than China.
the U.S. and China are both reasonably well managed countries (key word, reasonably) with broad improvements in most policy areas; but since China is both larger and poorer, it will have faster growth as it converges to the technological frontier and catches up on physical and human capital formation.
The US is "reasonably well managed" compared to its other developed country peers in Europe which honestly don't set a high standard. In that sense, it's probably better than average. But China is the best-managed country in the world doing things no other country can, faster than anyone's ever done it before (of the things they have), and improving (I mean actually improving its cutting edge technology and economy rather than just its GDP by doing business and selling out to richer countries) faster than any other competition.
No. I don’t care. Whether the U.S. declares war on China or moves to accommodate China are irrelevant to the United States. That is my position.
Surprising, truly a live and let live American. Unfortunatly, the America you envision is not the America that most Americans and all American rulers envision, and so there must be struggle, self-harm and friction with China.
 
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