Barack Obama: Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive | Hacker News Reader

Barack Obama: Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive

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62 pointsdpc59145 comments

This is basically the thesis of Hans Rosling's 2006 Ted talk* . Things, on average are better.

What bothers me about this way of measuring progress is that for some, e.g. drug addicted or abusive families, people living in war torn regions, things are not better. For some, things are bad and have been for generations.

For this reason I try to refrain from "things are better" rhetoric, because it feels cruel to those people. Like I'm saying "I know it's bad for you, but I don't really care because it's better for many".

And personally I think from a moral standpoint we have the same responsibility to lift up the bottom as we do to lift the average. The trouble is people at the bottom are often at the intersection of multiple intergenerational disadvantages, which makes helping extremely difficult.

It's exactly this reason that I think it's so important not to say "things are better" without qualifications. If we can't help these people, the least we can do is acknowledge their situation.

* https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

On the other hand, something must be done to push back against those opposite sentiments that, “the whole world is on fire”, “everything is getting worse” or “the world has never been more violent”, all of which are notions that are spread in media and on social media.

I think the better approach is to highlight progress. Sure, many people still live in difficult situations, but overall, we've made a lot of progress over time.

The single, biggest problem is that the progress isn't being shared.

In all first world countries wages are stagnant, housing is completely unaffordable, education is a luxury rather than a right and the rich are getting richer and worst of all more brazen e.g. Rich Kids of Instagram.

The Western countries are not a uniform block. Many European countries have free or affordable colleges. Wages are not stagnant in Germany. Housing is affordable in many places, including USA except for a few coastal cities. Etc.

indeed, Calendar advancement is not progress.

This sentiment coming from Barack Obama plays directly into Peter Thiel's claims that the liberal elite are ignoring the plight of so many Americans. The fact that nearly 50% of the population support Donald Trump and his message "Make American Great Again" should make that clear.

See Thiel's pro Trump speech from this afternoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE

Nearly 50% of the population also would have supported Vogon Jeltz and his message "I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon!" if he were a Republican. I don't think that proves much about Thiel.

Sure, but there's a reason Trump was picked over the other Republicans in the primaries.

The Republicans spent the entirety of the Obama presidency trying to make sure Obama did not get any credit for anything good that happened, and would get blame for anything that wasn't good.

For instance, when we started recovering from the recession and would get good news on something like jobs or growth, the Republican message would be that the numbers were too low. The standard they held Obama to was that of boom times, ignoring that we were still recovering from the recession, and that much of the rest of the first world was still in that recession.

When health care costs would rise, the Republican message would be that it was due to Obamacare, completely ignoring that the increases were about the same or even slightly less than they had been before Obamacare. Nope...if your health care costs had been rising 5% a year for the last 10 years before Obama, and then rose 5% a year under Obamacare, the Republican message was that Obamacare made your health care costs go up 5%.

Republicans seemed to think that if they spent nearly 8 years telling people that things sucked, people would turn against Obama and the Democrats, and sweep Republicans into complete control.

Of course, that's not what happened. They successfully convinced people that things sucked, but the blame fell on all politicians, not just Obama and Democrats, making the GOP primary voters receptive to the idea of an outsider. Several of the major GOP contenders ran as outsiders (even Jeb Bush claimed to be an outsider...), but they all had extensive political careers and so Trump trumped them on the outsider thing.

Could Thiel be the first gay US president in a few years?

BTW don't miss the ridiculous article [1] which basically says Thiel is not gay because he s not a liberal.

1. http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/10/14/peter-thiel-sh...

Not without a constitutional amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan

Sure but he's not wrong on a global scale. Despite the high wealth inequality in the USA and many places abroad (many much less friendly to democracy in any form even our semi-hijacked, obstructed, weaker than it needs be in many areas, and stronger than it need be in many others seemingly oligarchich in many ways form) poverty is down, hunger is down, death in violent manners is down, and wars have been less prevalent and less region and globe encompassing than most periods of human history.

There's plenty of people and regions hurting, but he's not wrong.

I would wager those are "normal" things, not good. When did hunger, poverty, death etc go up outside wars?

When did hunger, poverty, death etc go up outside wars?

About 50% of the time throughout human history? We've been making constant progress for a very short time.

Widespread famine happened in Europe as recently as the late 19th century, and all it took was one or two cold summers.

Trump is a salesman. He's pretty successfully selling the idea that America used to be great and that he's just what you need to make it great again.

Regardless of whether it's wrong or not, it certainly doesn't have to be true for it to sell. Americans especially seem to love buying hot air.

Now, to address your point, ask yourself if the same class of people you claim Obama is ignoring would have been better off 50 or 100 years ago.

Spoken like someone who lives in a different country and is unfamiliar with the nuances of current American political sentiment, which is the reason why Trump's pitch is resonating with just about half of the USA.

Trump connects with Americans on many issues that either affect regular people or make them feel disempowered...loss of jobs, national debt, corruption in Washington, illegal immigration, excessive warfare in foreign lands...it's a little silly to say he's totally full of hot air.

If you don't have a sense for the zeitgeist, you can never understand why a populist is, well...popular.

It's resonating with white identity politics. No magic here. It's white nationalism. Sugar coating follows:

Which mirrors what has been happening in Europe for a while now.

Mirrors what is happening in all Western countries e.g. Australia.

Right wing politicians are exploiting the population around the world by blaming migrants/refugees for all their problems.

What benefit does the migrants/refugees bring?

The downvotes but no reply to your comment is telling.

Engage in discussion people. Downvotes are for quality, not disagreement.

I've asked this question probably two dozen times to various people, in as earnest and non-confrontational a manner as I can , and the only time I've been able to receive a response that departed from "You're a racist." was when I was told by my professor to leave the room.

I cannot figure out how to get an answer to this.

I apologize you keep getting downvoted.

What benefits do migrants bring to a country? Immigrants of some sort probably do most of the menial tasks that the vagaries of which uterus you emerged from let you avoid. They're also the doctors who treat you, your coworkers if you're in tech like most of us are, the people who cook both whatever trendy food you enjoy and whatever comfort food you enjoy. They're the people who actually believe in the fictions the West tells itself about what it is and what it wants to be. They're the people who work twice as hard as you do because they actually know the value of what you were born with and never appreciated like they did.

If we strip your comment from the emotional affect, you're essentially saying that immigrants are happy to do menial jobs that the locals do not.

How do countries without large immigrant (I won't even go to refugees) populations handle this? Switzerland seems to be doing fine. Japan isn't falling apart because there's nobody to cook. Most of Asia is doing fine without allowing any immigrants.

So on a strict analysis of whether immigrants are beneficial to the host population, your argument isn't made.

Did you actually look at information for either of the countries that you cited? Immigrants make up 20% of Switzerland's population. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland). Japan's economy has been struggling for years now (http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-japans-economy-is-laboring-1...), and their population is aging at a rapid rate, compounding the economic stagnation, something immigration helps to combat (http://qz.com/173379/immigration-is-saving-the-us-from-an-ag...).

1. I don't think of foreigners who live in Switzerland as 'immigrants' (despite the article calling them that). They are foreigners who are residing in the country (and most of them come from Europe anyways). It's extremely hard to obtain Swiss citizenship.

2. All the talk about Japan economy doing badly is nonsense. If you believe that narrative (which is totally understandable as that's the conventional wisdom), I strongly suggest you read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-st...

Basically many Japan watchers (ie people who live there and know the country intimately well) subscribe to this 'alternative' view.

So your response is:

1. Some inconvenient Swiss immigrants aren't immigrants.

and

2. Read this article from 2012 and ignore the last 4 years of Japanese GDP. (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp)

Care to try again?

As a white person, why would white nationalism not be in my interest?

As a resident of the eastern side of my street, why wouldn't forming an identity and political system based on east-dweller supremacy be in my interest?

I guess because the rivalry would have no meaning and no real benefits, and could lead to needless aggression. And because having conflicts with faraway people I'll never meet is bad enough; having conflicts with my neighbors is an unsettling proposition.

If the residents of the eastern side of your street were, on average, more intelligent, wealthy, and altruistic than those on the western side, while being frequently victimized by west side residents who proudly declared their resentment of easterners, then yes, I believe it would be in the eastern residents interest to form a community separate from the westerners.

Interesting. My well being is so intertwined with that of my neighbors that I don't know how well separating our communities would work. Would I have to build a wall down the middle of the street?

How permanent is that solution? If a child born on the opposite side of the street had access to good education, health care, and jobs, could they also become "intelligent, wealthy and altruistic," and if so, wouldn't it be in my best interests to help that happen? Or even for no direct benefit, wouldn't I just want to help because of that altruism you mentioned?

Conversely, if they are kept isolated from us, wouldn't it make it even harder for them to achieve that potential? If so, doesn't their enduring poverty and lack of intelligence and empathy mean that they're more likely to grow up to commit crimes on my side of the street?

Tell you what, if you're in New York right now, I'll buy you a beer and spend the rest of the evening telling you why Trump's pitch is resonating with this country. Otherwise I'm not interested in arguing with this kind of uninformed trolling.

Edit: Since the parent post has been heavily edited now its author found out what an assumption (and a visa) is, I want to stress that it started off as blatantly nationalist crap claiming one can't possibly understand Trump if their website says "Athens, Greece".

There's a ton of reasons why Trump's pitch is popular. The core reason is because he's making it resonate. The driver behind that is that trump is in fact a salesman rather than a career politician. Plenty of people have made this point far better than me; one of the cleaner explanations I found is from youtuber NerdWriter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFo_BV-UzI

Sure. You live close to the Lower East?

I'm in Manhattan on 51st right now, so if you actually want to meet up, my email is in the profile you've already looked at. :)

Let's pretend that this is HN 8 years ago. You guys absolutely HAVE to meet up and become friends and start a startup together that aims to solve the problem of people from different political ideologies misunderstanding one another! Do it!

We just spent a few hours talking politics over drinks. He's a cool dude.

Good meeting you.

Best of luck in LA!! Killem!

Was fun! Let's do it again :)

it's relative though.. unless you can go back in time and ask them

This is exactly the conclusion of an interview of Barbara Corcoran[1] (a business-woman who has known Trump for years) back in May:

"He's probably one of the most powerful & effective salespeople I have ever met in my life"

But as she mentions, good salesman skills aren't what is expected of a President's job. It's certainly a very good asset for winning votes in the election, but not what people should want to see in a leader. In a smaller scale, it looks similar to the absolute best car dealership salesman elected mayor of his town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va5oTjuYOvc&feature=youtu.be...

> liberal elite are ignoring the plight of so many Americans

Which is a ridiculous and bizarre premise.

Because up until Trump it was the conservative elite who were most in favour of free markets/trade/regulations etc that have been allegedly responsible for a collapse in blue collar jobs.

Anyway the problem isn't the ignoring of the masses. It's that there has been a failure to communicate in a way they can understand. Free trade isn't responsible for the loss of their jobs and globalisation was always going to happen. The issue is that rather than help them transition to 'jobs of the future' politicians took the easy road and blamed foreigners.

>Anyway the problem isn't the ignoring of the masses. It's that there has been a failure to communicate in a way they can understand. Free trade isn't responsible for the loss of their jobs and globalisation was always going to happen.

By and large the people who benefit the most from free trade and immigration aren't the people who pay the price. We could have fashioned policies such that both the benefits and the pain from globalization were spread more evenly, although there would have been a cost in terms of overall growth.

This isn't a communication problem. The problem is trade policies, environmental regulations, the legal environment, and immigration policies reflect the concerns of well-educated upper-middle-class and wealthier people to the exclusion of everyone else.

The gap between the upper 5% and the bottom 95% is larger now then at any time since he 1930's. Thats not an accident its a predictable consequence of the Free trade agreements that were enthusiastically promoted and enacted by the that same 5% at to top that has benefited so spectacularly from them.

>The gap between the upper 5% and the bottom 95% is larger now then at any time since he 1930's. Thats not an accident its a predictable consequence of the Free trade agreements that were enthusiastically promoted and enacted by the that same 5% at to top that has benefited so spectacularly from them.

That's an oversimplification. You have to work backwards into the Reagan era and the deregulation from the 70s before you can start really taking NAFTA into account.

If you want to throw turds at the top earners, look at the total system and don't just blame single causes. It's a very complex economic system.

Further, consider the advantages of free trade: millions (billions?) of people in China have gotten better lives.

Protectionism and mercantilism is not a great system for increasing total wealth...

There's a narrative that the blue collar class have that politics is dirty and you shouldn't get involved. Then, because those who show up to vote affect the election...

> The problem is trade policies, environmental regulations, the legal environment, and immigration policies reflect the concerns of well-educated upper-middle-class and wealthier people to the exclusion of everyone else.

Welp, if you don't show up to vote, you don't get to push your policies and concerns directly. Instead you have to organize in more indirect ways.

> Because up until Trump it was the conservative elite who were most in favour of free markets/trade/regulations etc

NAFTA/GATT was enthusiastically passed during Bill Clinton's Presidency. And both Bush senior and junior have publicly backed Hillary Clinton in this election. The 'Liberal' refers to 'Neo-Liberal'. Both the Democratic and Republican party establishment, and most of Washington policy makers support Corporate Free trade and USA global military dominance. Neo-Liberal policy regardless of what language you use to support it has been the core of US policy for the better part of 50 years regardless of which party the President belongs to.

> ignoring the plight of so many Americans

Trump's supporters are richer than most Americans, so it's hard to make the case that they're suffering more than others.

Source: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-...

This is about ideology and race more than economics.

Wait a second. I keep hearing that Donald's biggest voter group is unemployed, poor white guys. Which one is it?

Regarding the Thiel speech you linked and Trump in general, those are absolutely real and troubling issues for our country. Donald Trump does not offer realistic solutions to any of them. The only thing on the Trump platform remotely resembling a plan is making all health care insurance providers compete with each other nationally. Or as Trump says, "I'm going to remove all the lines, it'll be fantastic."

Thiel's reason of "Trump is an outsider" is not enough for me.

Oh please, every politician does that. I'm going to solve problem X by doing Y. They say it because it gets votes. Not because it's true.

A great example is closing the gun show "loop hole". Is it a smart thing to do? Sure, you can think that. Will it reduce gun crime? Probably not since most guns used in crime are acquired through illegal means.

But it get votes!

Except Donald Trump skips the Y part of your equation. He just states it will be the "best" or "great" or we'll do it "bigly".

Sure he does! We have a security problem, or an illegal alien problem, build a wall. Do I actually expect him to do that? Probably not. Just like every other politician.

Your claim of "nearly 50% of the population" support him needs a source. I put his support at closer to 40% than 50%.

>I put his support at closer to 40% than 50%.

Based on what?

Most of these polls (as of today), put Trump at within a few percentage points of Clinton:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

Those daily tracking polls are garbage and should be ignored.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/n...

Trump is on average closer to 40%.

538 isn't really any less biased a source than Rasmussen or RealClearPolitics or the LA Times poll. They have a pretty clear agenda, and appear to be drafting on the tailwinds of past successes. They've been dismally wrong throughout the primary season.

Keep in mind that tracking polls track likely voters.

It's erroneous to extrapolate from likely voters to the population at large. Granted that the sentiment of likely voters will line up quite well with the population at large, it's just that a likely voter poll necessarily rejects people who don't give a shit. The people who don't give a shit shouldn't be counted as supporting anything.

I'm surprised that nobody looks at the insipid presidency of Obama as one of the explanations for the rise of Trump. Obama has been little more than a figurehead of a system that runs itself and therefore can be considered as "out of control". Throwing a monkey wrench in the system may at this point be the only way for the voter to take back control.

Having family on the "other side" of that divide: their lives are measurably better now than 25 years ago. Pay generally better, education is better, knowledge more common, health care better. Most things cost less. Not everything is better, and incremental fixes to policies need to take place. Probably the biggest extant bug is the cost of health insurance and its rising.

Things get much worse if you're in a rural area and not willing to relocate to better your life when the local money engine dies. That Americans aren't moving as much is a known fact; that American's aren't is likely a key contributor to certain economic 'dead sea' effects IMO.

Generally, you have to look past the panic and doom of the 24/7 cable news cycle to see the bettering of the US though. It takes a bit of a long view. The key thing - and this is what Obama is trying to go for though - is that we can't pull up the ladder behind us.

Regarding the current election.

* The cable news networks are mostly a dumpster fire: Fox and CNN more than others. Written journalism has been adequate to excellent in general.

* Mr. Thiel has been known for some time to be more of a neo-reactionary type. That he supports Trump is not surprising.

* That the Republicans turn out to support the Party candidate is not surprising. It's a known characteristic of the Republicans.

* That the song and dance of a mythical 50s appeals to so many white people should also not be surprising. We've spent 40 years mythologizing it. Also, 'Make America Great' Again largely is a dogwhistle to "Make America run by White Men Again", with a helping of good old traditional isolationism to boot. It's almost a no-op slogan, everyone can read into it what they want, based upon their current grievance - so long as they are aggrieved.

One more note. I've worked good jobs, and I've worked minimum wage jobs, and I've been broke, and I've been not-broke.

My overall estimate is that in order to assure prosperity and a better life to the blue collar workers, unions have to be re-energized across the board, taxes on corporations have to go up, and marginal taxes rates on the very wealthy have to go up. Better government services from the taxes, and better pay from the unions. This will lead to a better quality of life. That's a straight liberal playbook. We can look back on the 50s, 60s and the 90s liberal playbooks and iterate on them. There are things to improve, but they got some stuff right.

Interesting. I haven't heard him speak about politics before, and I only knew that he was thought of as a Libertarian. I am very confused now about what he believes.

He talks about our expensive college and health care systems, contrasting them with the rest of the world's, but my impression is that the most effective models currently in place are built on the opposite of free markets, so I can't tell what his solution would be.

He praises Trump for being against open markets and military interventionism. But Trump has historically been in favor of open markets (and I thought Libertarians were as well), so it doesn't seem to be a deeply-held belief. And Trump may not believe in our current wars right now, but he has given many indications that he'd be willing to use nuclear weapons against enemies who don't have them, and to encourage our allies to develop their own arsenals, so I'm not getting a sense that a more peaceful world is his priority.

Can someone please explain what I'm missing? I usually think of Libertarians as aiming for a logically consistent system, so that even when I disagree with them I can follow their reasoning. But I'm not getting Thiel at all.

There was a WSJ article awhile back that theil authored about Trump. His basic argument is that it's a vote against a political establishment that can't accomplish anything. I was as confused as you are about the seeming inconsistencies.

>And Trump may not believe in our current wars right now, but he has given many indications that he'd be willing to use nuclear weapons against enemies who don't have them, and to encourage our allies to develop their own arsenals, so I'm not getting a sense that a more peaceful world is his priority.

If your enemies know you are willing to use Nuclear, they will not attack. If they won't attack, then there will be no war. No war = peace.

>...he has given many indications that he'd be willing to use nuclear weapons against enemies who don't have them...

He said "as a last resort." In other word, if America is about to go down, he will use Nuclear to save America as a last resort.

If your enemies have nukes, and they are willing to nuke you, and you are not willing to nuke them back, then they'll just nuke you to bits, because they know you won't nuke them back. Remember, just because America is a good country doesn't mean that North Korea is also a good country. North Korea will not think twice about nuking America if America is not willing to nuke them back.

>...encourage our allies to develop their own arsenals...

Go read the Theory of Nuclear Deterrence. Nuclear Deterrence prevents war. It encourages countries to solve their problems through other means, instead of through war.

Trump just wants peace. And he understands how to get it.

All these advances in medicine are great; It's so wonderful to know that rich and powerful people like Obama and Hillary Clinton will live to be 150 - I'm so happy for them - With all the stress I'm under, I'd be surprised if I make it to 50. Maybe the elites can harvest my organs when I'm gone; it's nice to give back to this wonderful society that the elites have created for us.

Yes, social media is great; I have lots of friends on Facebook! Except that in real life I can't even see them because I had to move to a different country to escape the high property prices and high cost of living... And I'm actually one of the lucky ones - Most people don't have the option to work remotely and are stuck paying half their income in rent.

I can't even buy a house because some reserve bank somewhere will mess with the interest rates and cause another housing crash (at the most inconvenient time possible) and I'll have to declare bankruptcy and watch the big banks reprocess my home.

Regarding global warming - I don't care about it at all! With the way things are going, AI will probably destroy us before global warming ever becomes a problem (and by 'us', I mean 'those who are not elites').

50 years ago, the notion of moving to a different country and still being able to work remotely was science fiction. Now it's not only possible, but it's not a crazy luxury -- you're saving money by doing it! And you can still keep up with your friends using a free global network and all sorts of options for video conferencing. (Remember when international phone calls cost many dollars a minute?)

This all sounds like amazing progress to me.

You complain that you "can't" buy a house because something might happen to interest rates at some point. Guess what -- it's always been like that. Housing loans come with risks, and renting has always been relatively expensive for low-income workers. Nothing new under the sun.

I challenge you to point out an era in human history when the élite was less powerful than it is today. The primary reason why it seems that they're gaining in wealth is increased visibility and transparency brought on by the global network -- again, progress.

My point is that happiness is not about material things; it's about doing what you want to do - Not what you have to do.

There is a difference between doing something because you want to versus doing it because you have to. I'm not saying that I'm not responsible for my own decisions, but I certainly feel like my hand was forced to some extent.

When I think about people who are less fortunate than me, I think the feeling of powerlessness must be 100 times stronger - Most of these people aren't even aware of what's happening to them.

I guess this article is part of the democratic campaign, in which the obamas are the shining beacons. The US president may know better than anyone if his country is in its best state ever, but the rest of the world is not. My country greece has not seen bodies of drowned refugees being washed in our shores since 1922. It's a shocking reality that we never expected we 'd see. The US campaigns in the surrounding region have been failing so abysmally and for so long that we, as a globe, have acquired learned helplessness with regards to wars. War is not the only possible answer to everything, and when its used, it must be used wisely. For that reason alone, i hope trump's inward-looking, anti-inverventionist agenda wins.

Bullshit. The 90's were much greater. People had money to spend their way into economic growth that was measureable at the street level. And "asset based recovery" was a term yet to be coined.

"That’s one reason why I’m so optimistic about the future: the constant churn of scientific progress. Think about the changes we’ve seen just during my presidency. When I came into office, I broke new ground by pecking away at a BlackBerry. Today I read my briefings on an iPad and explore national parks through a virtual-reality headset."

Those changes are relatively minor.

Which raises the question: What _was_ the most significant scientific discovery during the Obama era? Can we even quantify it yet?

Deep learning

CRISPR most likely followed up by the Higgs Boson.

CRISPR?

I'd say it's likely that the most significant discovery of the past 8 years hasn't gone too far past the initial discovery phases.

CRISPR is a good example of a discovery that has just come into the public consciousness in recent years, but history for that dates back 20 years!

LIGO & Higgs boson too, decades upon decades of research have gone into these.

snapchat & blockchain(?)

the rest (crispr, higgs, deep learning) are not even american, let alone obama-age

Yeah that shows that he is out of touch with most Americans. He is in touch with the HN crowd, perhaps but someone who is out of job because the factory was moved to Mexico doesn't a give a shit about VR headsets and Blackberries.

> the constant churn of scientific progress.

That is a relatively silly remark. Science and technology never go back, by definition. Not even after world wars. Economies can go back, or cultures.

Obama: "Look at me and my rich friends. We upgraded from BlackBerry to iPad."

Meanwhile, normal Americans are finding it hard to find any normal jobs, because they've all moved overseas.

Silicon Valley is also out of touch with the common Americans, because STEM jobs are plenty, so people on Hacker News do not understand the struggle of the average American who can not find a normal job (that is not in the STEM field).

They still somehow scrape money to get an iPhone though

>> Once-quiet factories are alive again, with assembly lines churning out the components of a clean-energy age.

Has he been to the rust belt? How can he say that with a straight face?

There needs to only be two examples for the statement to be true. I know of Tesla's Fremont factory, I'm assuming there is another?

Buffalo theoretically.

Some examples here:

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-donald-trump-...

Who said they were going to be the same factories ?

Those factories were never and are never going to return.

But these new factories are all located in Mexico. So that's a huge problem for these American people who are not in Mexico.

Shouldn't these new factories replace the old factories in the same town?

Otherwise, Obama is just talking bullshit again.

China is outsourcing to the US certain factories now.

I agree that more funding in science and technology is what we need. But Barack Obama had more in common with the status quo than with what his commentary is suggesting.

There also seems to be a disconnect between what is being said in this article versus the reality. Yes there have been improvements in crime and poverty perhaps, but the quality of employment, the quality of general life for the average person in the West seems to have only degraded in the last decade or two.

I would also argue that the pace of technological advancement has decreased. Despite on-going advances in computer science, we have stalled in many other fields since the end of the cold war, in particular space.

> quality of employment, the quality of general life for the average person in the West seems to have only degraded in the last decade or two.

can you cite some data sources for that claim?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...

http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/05/01/in...

http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/working-paper-domesti...

https://www.amazon.com/When-Good-Jobs-Globalization--unioniz...

http://www.ledevoir.com/documents/pdf/CIBC-eqi_20150305.pdf

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/twec.12238/full

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/halshs-01301803.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology-is-...

https://www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/econrev/pdf/13q1tuzem...

https://www.princeton.edu/ceps/workingpapers/172farber.pdf

The question was about "the quality of general life for the average person in the West". I looked through most of the links and I don't think they address the topic.

Income inequality for example measures relative equality, not absolute "how well off" someone is. If for the sake of argument an alien benefactor made everyone in on the planet 100x richer in the sense of material wealth, there'd still be the same levels of wealth inequality as today. The articles about job quality and job polarization also do not address how well off people are in an absolute sense.

You wanted to understand why a Trump supporter is voting for Trump. The Trump support tells you of his experience and why he is voting for Trump. You then demand scientific data to back it up. You are not even listening to what he has to say, and you are not listening to his experience. And this is why you can never understand why he is voting for Trump.

There are multiple factors addressed in the links I posted, loss of manufacturing jobs, employment opportunities, job quality, etc. I think you are getting hung up on semantics, when I made a fairly general statement, which might have been a little too broad but I don't feel it is an incorrect generalization about the current situation in many Western countries.

Speaking from my experience (note, I'm not even from the US, I'm from Canada) what I said appears to hold true, for example just the other week our finance minister told people get used to the job churn as the employment field has entirely changed. Recent graduates aren't able to pay off their student loans either, and the government as of today (November 1st) is issuing student loan payment halts on incomes below 25,000. On top of that the housing market in Canada is going insane, prices skyrocketing in multiple major cities for detached housing, while interest rates and growth is stagnate. If that's not a sign that things are getting worse, I'm not sure what is. As far as I can tell the news in other Western parts of the world is just as bad.

I just want to point out I'm not a Trump supporter, in fact I'm in Canada so I cannot vote in the US election. My original comment was just a general observation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/get-ready-...

https://www.ft.com/content/13603aa2-0185-11e6-ac98-3c15a1aa2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt8h0GC2KdY

Can he be please be President for the next 4 years as well?

regards the rest of the world

Because we need more Libyas and Syrias...

The Libyan intervention was probably a mistake (though it's important to note it was a NATO operation with full support from European partners, unlike the invasion of Iraq).

But what should he have done about Syria?

stayed in iraq longer, stop supporting the saudis, stop selling arms to saudi/rebel/others

Might want to brush up on your world affairs.

Iraq is a sovereign country. They asked the US to leave and quite rightly they did. And all of this happened under GWB's watch.

A permanent occupation of Iraq in a situation where you've intentionally broken relations with Iraq's large and powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia sounds like a recipe for much larger trouble than even current Syria!

Stop defending Aleppo.

Obama should stop defending Aleppo? How? Asking the rebels to surrender?

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/us-advisers-wound...

Stop giving terrorists (Al-Nusra) advisors.

Is there any reputable evidence that the US is supporting Al Nusra?

Yes.

And who do you think these U.S. advisors were helping, really? The Syrian army?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/us-support-for-...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/america-siding-w...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-equipme...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/715977/al-nusra-us-armin...

> And who do you think these U.S. advisors were helping, really? The Syrian army?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Democratic_Forces

Your four links show zero cases of the US supporting Al Nusra. One's talking about how in the chaos the lines between groups get blurred, one's random op-ed spitballing from a newspaper owned by a Russian oligarch, one's talking about a rebel group negotiating for safe passage (six pickup trucks and some ammo - having to include that really helps make my point), and the last is claiming that the US supporting UAE/Saudis means the US is supporting Al Nusra.

> it's important to note it was a NATO operation with full support from European partners, unlike the invasion of Iraq

Not wrong in the general thrust, but I think "full support from European partners" is overstating it a bit. By raw numbers, it had support of about half of the European NATO members. It's true that the half supporting were generally more important/core members than the half abstaining or opposing though; the only really core NATO member who conspicuously abstained was Germany. Others abstaining were mostly new or more peripheral members, but still a significant number: Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Hungary.

Libya was going to happen with or without US support. And let's be clear the involvement of the US was limited to refuelling, air support i.e minimal.

But remember Gaddafi was imminently going to wipe out significant numbers of opposition supporters. So it was always going to be a lose-lose situation.

Obama's probably significantly less likely to create as many Libyas and Syrias than Clinton or Trump.

That's what's crazy. Some of the US wants Trump to be president, 99% of the world doesn't. What's the disconnect?

if that were true, which it's not, what does it matter? it's not their country... sovereignty is a thing still

International treaties are a thing too - e.g. ANZUS treaty here in Australia at a time when China is sabre rattling in the region. We don't want a US president who is going to dismantle such treaties at a vital time.

So what? what does the United States care what anyone else thinks? We need to have a strong country first before we can share our prosperity. Nothing he has said is unreasonable...

So, outside of the war of Independence, can you show me a list of wars that the US has been involved in where they did NOT have any allied countries fighting alongside them? But lets just piss off all countries who have fought alongside the US in most of the conflicts in modern history anyway, because there can't be any negative ramifications, right?

Isolationist policies are great in theory. Just ask Kim whatsisname in North Korea how it is working out for him.

You're comparing "America First" to North Korean isolationism? That's not what he's saying. He's saying we need to be smart in our treaties and stop being the country that pays for everyone else. We have 20TRILLION in debt.

The US is different? I'm sure if you polled Americans on the next UK election you'd get a very different answer.

If you knew that 99% of other NFL teams didn't want your team to hire a particular coach, would you see this as an indicator that he is a poor choice?

99% of the world benefits from the US making poor trade deals.

Less direct connection to the political duopoly?

Also, less exposure to American news as it hits the American public?

I'd bet that a great number of people in Australia (for example) might talk trash about Trump, but vote for him had he emerged here, from their favoured party, taking a hard line on immigration, etc. We do have a political system that allows more effective voting for minor parties, but I still think he'd pick up primary votes. I know of a lot of who I would consider smart people who have very strong, negative feelings on Muslim immigration for example.

>What's the disconnect?

The millions of immigrants who have to leave their homes because of Hillary and Obama's failure in the Middle East probably don't want any more of that incompetence.

What were they supposed to do with Arab spring? They didn't intervene. Should they have intervened?

Many failures. Not all failures.

99% of the World sees Americans arguing and fighting with each other about which Lizard Person is slightly less evil.

They're still Lizard People...

It sure beats being in Europe 100 years ago.

Or Syria now.

Or Libya now, to name another country improved by our esteemed Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

If you're cherry-picking 1916, almost any year would be a better year to be alive than then. WW1 is close in the running for the greatest display of collective human stupidity.

...unless the military of the USA has decided that you need to be annihilated via drone strike.

The man commands more violence than most of us can comprehend. It feels out of place for such a person to tell the rest of us how great things are going. The cost of progress of the United States is measured in human lives and the ones doing the killing are the ones deciding it is justified. That's some nasty accounting.

I wonder how those drone strikes, and other violence commanded by Obama, would register on a graph like this:

http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/heres-how-many...

or this

http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ourworl...

Yeah, I forgot, justice is statistical.

The real world kind of is. I'd prefer a president to have the good sense to use military approaches that cause the least amount of deaths. Statistics is a good way of making rational decisions rather than basing them purely on emotion.

Like most people, you've found a way to rationalize the violence of your government away as necessary, realistic, justified, pragmatic, etc. Everyone has their own words that magically make killing OK.

Entire families of civilians have been destroyed by drone strikes. There is no evidence for the efficacy of drone strikes. There is no evidence that the military actions the USA has taken in recent decades has been at all worthwhile. The people who decide it is justified are the same people who commit the violence.

If it were American families being destroyed all of a sudden out of the sky with no justice or recourse, I think, perhaps you would sing a different tune. Or, perhaps, the death of a few Americans is easily rationalized away. After all, you can just look at the statistics.

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.p...

Ok. Vote for Trump. Maybe he'll be better.

You're kidding, right?

There's a reason why the entire political infrastructure of United States can only produce 2 competitive candidates, both of whom are fully in support of global neoliberalism. Yes, if my politics had to be constrained by a system that is specifically interested in denying me alternatives that would challenge its hegemony, then I would pick Clinton over Trump.

But I don't have to. I can say that the whole thing is a rotten mess. Because it is. Eating shit because the chef only serves shit and worse shit isn't rational or realistic. It's just eating shit.

And there will be people who continue to die in order to uphold this hegemony, and so long as they are unimportant people that can be written off as statistical inevitabilities of rational decision-making by the people who benefit from their suffering, I suppose the system will continue receiving the support of people like you?

The thing that puts me off most about mainstream politics is how easily everyone who accepts the system (that includes liberals and conservatives and a whole spectrum of people who accept the basic tenets of the system) writes off the deaths of others. Just what makes you so qualified to rationally decide which deaths are acceptable and which aren't?

On the one hand, I'm not a fan of the two party system, I've done tons of work on that and spent tons of time trying to find solutions that may actually take hold before I die.

As for "what makes me qualified"....well, I'm a citizen in a democracy, and therefore my opinion counts. I'm glad I don't have to make those tough life and death decisions directly, but I am glad someone is doing it and they don't have a "burn it all down" attitude, nor do they have such a black and white view of morality that they are unable to do the best thing for us.

Very interesting. The Pax Brittanica looks pretty good

Poverty is down absolutely, but never have it been so high relatively. Rich people never lived so well and poor people never struggled so hard to try to live 1/10 of what money provides today. People don't feel less poor when they have a 2000' car and everyone in Instagram has a brand new.

Ok. Obama. Thanks as always.

Is president taking credit for successes of private enterprise?

People do not respond to authenticity. Obama was the greatest president of my generation, and from the looks of it, that is not going to change anytime soon.

Wow, lots of bitter conservatives in here. I thought HN was smarter than that.

values != intelligence

lots of emotional liberals as well

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