As a german who has spent the past 5 years learning and constantly being surprised by how the USA differ from what i learned to know as "developed nations", i am quite glad to see this kind of article in american main stream media. It's an extremely concise, but still very accurate summary.
It makes more sense when you realize a lot of us don't have what you think we take for granted. And those of us that have it try not to pay attention to how easily it could come tumbling down.
Well, your forefathers were busy stuffing people in ovens, so we had to spend a lot of money to defeat your country, rebuild, and then protect it. You can talk about the USA once Germany starts spending 4.2% of its GDP on defence versus the present 1.15%.
Umm.. So much wrong with this comment. And the time German defense spending was highest was surely during the time you cite. This was also the period of America ascending rapidly on the world stage and becoming a superpower. Defense spending isn't what makes a country great to live in. The armed forces as a social welfare system isn't really ideal.
And the US didn't commit atrocities in that war? The US also rounded up people based on their ethnicity. The US also dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on Japan killing, by some estimates, a quarter million people the vast majority of which were civilians.
Additionally, half of Germany wasn't rebuilt and protected by the US.
And who cares what percent of the budget is spent on defense. A larger defense percentage means less is going to social services and other services dedicated to the betterment of society, instead of implements of war and destruction.
Here we go again! I see this all the time on HN. Insinuating two things are equivalent when they are not even close. Yes the US did bad things like rounding up the Japanese and putting them in internment camps, but no, this comes nowhere close to what the Nazi regime did.
I'm in agreement with you. I think it should be notes that the US military does have a fairly large social welfare component, education, health etc. Somehow this is ok (its hairy chested military spending!). But social welfare in a more transparent form doesn't get through. I can't find the great thing I read on this recently, but here is the Wikipedia entry on The Hidden Welfare State. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_welfare_state
This country was only progressive relative to countries that existed at its founding. The systems behind it are conservative by design, and I don't see how they can bring us up to speed with other systems running laps around us.
Speaking as an American that moved to Switzerland about 5 years ago, I'm shocked and depressed every year I go back to the u.s. to visit family and friends. Not only is the u.s. decades behind Europe and nowhere near Switzerland in terms of infrastructure, healthcare, etc, but the people in the u.s. are the fearful and cowardly and willfully ignorant. Just depressing and I'm not sure if this is something new or if we were always like that and I just didn't realize before I got out of that third-world hellhole.
Yet millions of people all over the world line up to immigrate to America (150M want to move to the US[1])! Something doesn't make sense.
A number of the "facts" in the article are misleading (infant mortality for example), but it won't matter. Those people who already think America is in the toilet will nod their heads because it fits with their world view.
This article is not about "improving" America, it's about trashing it. Why else would you use such hyperbole as to compare the US to a "third world nation" (which isn't that PC to be honest).
1 - How can we improve a country without talking about its deficiencies? (You can't)
2 - The article attempts to argue that comparing the US to a third world nation is not a hyperbole by offering six points. You are trying to argue the opposite without offering any points.
Because less people will click on an article titled "Six Ways America Could Improve". I don't know how Rolling Stone handles it, but often journalists and people writing op-eds don't even come up with the titles.
Ironic subtitle: Our society lags behind the rest of the developed world in education, health care, violence and more
Ironic because, really, we are kind of leader of the pack for violence. We don't lag at all in that area. (Yes, I know what they really meant. That's not what they said./pedant)
I doubt the problem with American education is the funding or the fact that we bomb international test scores compared to other nations. For example, it's not a good idea to copy South Korea because of their sheer emphasis on acing tests and pure rote memorization rather than seriously understanding concepts.
Meanwhile, what we do know is that the American system of education is medicore and in some way, self-sabotaging. For example, the time we go to school and the sleeping cycle of students conflict, which reduce our ability to understand and retain knowledge. Summer vacation destroy much of the continuity in our knowledge, which must be rebuilt at the beginning of the school years. We don't use spaced repetition to study and retain knowledge.
An article that aims to make a point, but exaggerates to make it.
> The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners
I wasn't aware Japan and Singapore weren't developed.
> The U.S. is among only three nations in the world that does not guarantee paid maternal leave
In practice, plenty of jobs offer this benefit in the US (and some states require it). Also, laws by be on the books in developing countries, but that says nothing about enforcement.
>Schools today are actually more racially segregated than they were in the 1970s.
No they aren't - I can't even see how this could be possible with so much more racial diversity now. The cited report speaks only of black/white segregation, not total racial segregation.
> the U.S. tops out OECD countries in terms of income inequality
Hang on, what's the definition of developed we've been using? Hong Kong and Singapore (non-OECD) are far more unequal than the US. Mexico (in the OECD) is more unequal. Besides for a country with such a high GDP per capita as the US (over double some other developed countries), I'd consider the comparison of income of bottom X percentile more important than Gini index.
> The United States infrastructure is slowly crumbling apart and is in desperate need for repair
Sure, it needs repair, but hardly to the levels of developing countries. According to the linked report, the US is tied with Canada and still 14th in the world.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 74.6 ms ] threadhttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/us-defense-spend...
(Not to mention your tone is uncalled for).
Additionally, half of Germany wasn't rebuilt and protected by the US.
And who cares what percent of the budget is spent on defense. A larger defense percentage means less is going to social services and other services dedicated to the betterment of society, instead of implements of war and destruction.
Here we go again! I see this all the time on HN. Insinuating two things are equivalent when they are not even close. Yes the US did bad things like rounding up the Japanese and putting them in internment camps, but no, this comes nowhere close to what the Nazi regime did.
Germany is extra super scared about becoming Nazis again, because they were Nazis. The US has no predilections against doing the same thing again.
A number of the "facts" in the article are misleading (infant mortality for example), but it won't matter. Those people who already think America is in the toilet will nod their heads because it fits with their world view.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/153992/150-million-adults-worldwi...
2 - The article attempts to argue that comparing the US to a third world nation is not a hyperbole by offering six points. You are trying to argue the opposite without offering any points.
Edit: Um, I upvoted you and agree with you, in case that isn't totally clear.
Quite an absurd claim here -- that expanding medicaid would save money? The author links to a survey that makes no such claim.
Ironic because, really, we are kind of leader of the pack for violence. We don't lag at all in that area. (Yes, I know what they really meant. That's not what they said./pedant)
Why is this on HN, anyway?
Meanwhile, what we do know is that the American system of education is medicore and in some way, self-sabotaging. For example, the time we go to school and the sleeping cycle of students conflict, which reduce our ability to understand and retain knowledge. Summer vacation destroy much of the continuity in our knowledge, which must be rebuilt at the beginning of the school years. We don't use spaced repetition to study and retain knowledge.
So I assume the rest of the article is similarly well-researched.
> The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners
I wasn't aware Japan and Singapore weren't developed.
> The U.S. is among only three nations in the world that does not guarantee paid maternal leave
In practice, plenty of jobs offer this benefit in the US (and some states require it). Also, laws by be on the books in developing countries, but that says nothing about enforcement.
>Schools today are actually more racially segregated than they were in the 1970s.
No they aren't - I can't even see how this could be possible with so much more racial diversity now. The cited report speaks only of black/white segregation, not total racial segregation.
> the U.S. tops out OECD countries in terms of income inequality
Hang on, what's the definition of developed we've been using? Hong Kong and Singapore (non-OECD) are far more unequal than the US. Mexico (in the OECD) is more unequal. Besides for a country with such a high GDP per capita as the US (over double some other developed countries), I'd consider the comparison of income of bottom X percentile more important than Gini index.
> The United States infrastructure is slowly crumbling apart and is in desperate need for repair
Sure, it needs repair, but hardly to the levels of developing countries. According to the linked report, the US is tied with Canada and still 14th in the world.