America might wield its ultimate weapon of mass disruption
economist.com
economist.com
Furthermore, our allies are pretty accustomed to America's always shifting between hyper focus and apathy towards the rest of the world. Think about things on a larger context, think 100 years not 4 years.
Even if the next POTUS does make nice, there will thereafter always be the memory of how rapidly Trump tanked the USA's relationships. As a result, nobody will be able to count on US cooperation/amity for long term planning purposes without building in contingency plans for a "what if the next POTUS reverses course abruptly" situation.
It might be fixable with a constitutional rebalancing to reduce the ability of the president to rule as an executive without congressional oversight, but that hardly seems likely short of there being a revolution or civil war.
So US "soft power" is probably irrevocably damaged, at least for the next 8-20 years.
The US shouldn't be the world's babysitter. Countries need to work together and not look to a single country for leadership.
> The US shouldn't be the world's babysitter.
The US declared itself the world's babysitter. The current state of multiple countries that "require babysitting" has been a direct effect of unwanted and unwarranted American involvement. A lot of it was due to an extraordinary fear of communism, but most of it due to corporate interests.
America may like to think itself the best and the most important, but it would do well to reign in its corporations and government from putting fingers where they don't belong. There are far more domestic issues to be tackled first than foreign ones: opiods, healthcare, weapons, internet freedom, monopolies, discrimination, fake news, education, the prison industrial complex, surveillance and lots more. Take care of your citizens first.
Oddly enough, Trump's mantra is "America first", which many people take to mean exactly the things you just mentioned.
So yeah, Trump 2020!
The Fed would be forced to buy those bonds to maintain its interest rate targets. And since the Fed by law must remit its profits to the Treasury, the end result would be the net interest rate on that debt would drop from whatever it is now to zero. Hardly what I'd call a crushing blow. Imagine trying to threaten your banker by telling him if he's not careful you're going to move your money from your savings to your checking account.
The system is a detail here, a major one sure, but the main thing is that the Yuan is not fully convertible
Cutting China off means that either they turn the Yuan into a fully convertible currency or they'll use something else (limited choices here)
Cutting China off: US sellers can't pay China. Will they cut everybody else from transacting with China? I think that China would see this as justification for very harsh actions.
Funny thing is, if China is forced to make their currency convertible, this will result in a more Open China, not less. Weird times we're in
China also constantly bans US companies[1] from accessing Chinese customers (eg. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter etc).
It's imperative that the US castrates China & CCP and doesn't allow it to spread its toxic influence further.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
It's never about the actual money. Or the technical aspect of it. It's about trust.
An attempt to cut China off from the USD international payments system will lead to a parallel system denominated in some other currency, possibly Remnimbi. That will be bad for the US too.
Not for nothing they call Afghanistan the Graveyard of Empires.
The fact is that the dollar is king. Even the BRI, which many describe as China's master plan to influence the world, are denoted in Dollars.
That's because USD is used one one side 88% of all FX trades[1]. If you were going to buy something from another country you already were going to use dollars.
Lot's of silent downvotes - I'm happy to debate, do not be afraid to comment and tell me what you disagree with.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Please note also the second-last guideline, against going on about downvotes.)
The best geography in the world for food, energy, transport, physical security. The best security apparatus. Favorable demographics. The largest group of dynamic and diverse people and economy in the world. Outside of North America, the American system does not need trade with the wider world to survive and prosper.
The United States is one of the very few countries in the world that does not need to consider security(food, energy, physical, etc) when it interacts with the rest of the world. That grants it huge flexibility. The US hasn't had a coherent foreign policy for 30 years. This domestic funk may last a decade, but some day Americans will figure out what they want from the rest of the world. Until then, the rest of the world should be happy America is taking a break.
I admit that I may be coming at this from too much of an American point of view.
[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/c8b172e2-8f70-4118-9e81-423e9a4b6... [2] - https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Instead, the deaths per 100k of population is a more meaningful number.
Also, don't look at the pretty graphs at the top of the page on https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality, as there are a bunch of countries excluded from that (e.g. Italy, Spain, Belgium, which are all near the top of the list but not featured in the graphs). Instead, look at the table below.
There's nothing 'middle of the pack' about the USA's performance. Like the UK govt likes to refer to everything they do as being 'world leading' or 'world beating', UK and USA continue to be 'world leaders' in killing off their own populations through ineffective leadership.
(I've been stuck in the UK since March, unable to get back to better led lands, watching this train wreck unfold)
The democratic process is screwed in my opinion, but yes...
To me, our recent limitations on immigration are the biggest canary in the coal mine as far as how America's future may end up being less optimistic than one would expect by extrapolating from the 20th century.
The United States is still the top destination for immigrants throughout the world. The United States still accepts over 1 million new permanent residents a year. Anything done by executive action by the current administration will be undone.
If you are talking about the recent halts due to the pandemic, I'm assuming those will all be temporary.
I will gladly read your reply if you have a different perspective on this.
They may be temporary, that's why I commented that we still have some time to improve this situation before it starts compounding and becoming a lasting part of the country. I don't think anyone can say for sure that it will all be temporary, at the very least Trump could remain president another 4 years, and republicans could remain in office even beyond that in which case I don't see them repealing anything Trump has done.
It's funny; when people say "American ingenuity", I'm not sure what reality they're living in because it often seems like they're claiming we are somehow... inherently brilliant. Do they think we're genetically superior? Or do they think it's the water we drink? It's really a head-scratcher.
As you said: the real answer is of course that we attract talent.
China does not stand a chance. Look at their BRI track record. Every ally of US during Cold war benefitted economically and places like ROK literally moved out of Poverty to become developed countries.
China has 19 neighbors and adversarial relationship with almost all of them. The disadvantages of Chinese economic system and demographic imbalance are not visible from distance. Their energy has to pass through two choke points and their main commodity exporter is a ally of US.
edited: changed vassal to ally.. but poor Australia does not have much choice. It has to be Tonto for the global maritime power.
The US no longer being hegemon doesn't imply China is. I.e., your argument is a straw-man.
China may never become hegemon. But the idea that the US is invincible like it was 10 years ago, is simply untrue anyore. Pride comes before the fall - no one ever expected goliath to fall, but sometimes, goliath does.
And I disagree too, and not focusing only on China: is there any other country, in the Earth, closer to true autarky, than the US? NOT saying the US is close. I'm asking: could any other country be as independent as the US of international relationships, including trading? Strong internal market, plenty of industry, plenty of new technologies and talent, plenty of resources, can feed itself, has clean water, access to 2 oceans, access to space, vast amounts of land, strong military with unparalleled projection...
Anyone who starts a debate with "demise of the already broken US" isn't asking for legitimate discussion. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms and geopolitical analysis of the current issues but you're not contributing to the debate at all.
This is just "US bad" level of discussion that educates no one.
I often see people online act as if the US is some "third world" country, and while they certainly have problems, and probably more problems than many other western countries, there still aren't that many places in the world where it is normal to own a large house in a safe area with a 30k car and no concerns about how you are going to pay for food.
Or realizing that China’s “partnership” program is really a thin veil for stealing American IP and technology.
It’s better to steal than to create. Just take a look at the new Chinese steal fighter and it’s resemblance to the F-35 steal tech [1]
It’s about recognizing reality, not vilifying another world power.
1. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/chinas-j-20-stealth-f...
Modulo that all stealthy fighters will look somewhat similar, you do know why the F-35 looks like the Russian Yak-141?
Yakolev was in a IP-technology-transfer with agreement with Lockheed Martin from 1991 to 1995 (approx) to show LM how it was done.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/did-old-russian-jet-h...
If you have specific things you want to discuss, please do so. “X country is leading to demise” - that’s a pretty powerful statement to make unless you’re talking about a stateless country.
* a viable education system which has led to the current wave of anti-science sentiment.
* a viable healthcare system which is causing people to get in debt over the smallest of medical issues.
* a viable political system which represents the will of the people.
* a viable economy where the younger generation can expect to do better than their parents.
Education: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/
US ranks higher than France, New Zealand, Austria, UK but behind large number of EU nations.
Health: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/
US ranks 7th after Canada, NZ, Australia, Israel, Ireland and Switzerland. Ahead of Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Finland, Denmark.
Civic Engagement: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/civic-engagement/
US ranks 8th in the world.
Jobs/Economy: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/jobs/
US ranks 4th after Iceland, Switzerland, Luxembourg.
I think the data shows otherwise. In terms of Jobs and Civic Engagement, EU nations fare pretty poor compared to US. US has a problem with the education system and it should be the top priority.
2. Again, enough people get by, it'd have to be a majority protesting/rioting for things to change. And they can be changed without the country dying.
3. Not unique to the US, sadly. But the government is nowhere near authoritarian enough for people to risk dying to change it.
4. It's one of the world's biggest and healthiest economies, and it's kind of rare in the whole modern world for the younger generation to do better than their parents. With remote work and automation becoming normal, it may be possible for people to live and work in cheaper places.
Even as it is, the US can continue to function for decades, even centuries, more or less. I just don't see it in terminal decline.
More evidence - the era of US exceptionalism is over.
> Even as it is, the US can continue to function for decades, even centuries, more or less. I just don't see it in terminal decline.
The UK still exists despite the demise of its empire. This is what is implied in the demise of the US as a worldwide force or leader.
Yeah, I agree with that. Much of the world has caught up in living standards and opportunities.
> demise of the US as a worldwide force or leader.
No, the US is still a global player/force and will be for a long time. Its economy alone is enough for that, but they also have ridiculous military capabilities.
Basic health for people not covered I grant you that is a problem but it’s not a unique one in the world.
It does represent the people; however since things are more or less 50:50 but polarized, it’s impossible to please two diametrical sentiments simultaneously.
Once your economy is mature one cannot expect to have indefinite growth whereby descendants do better than predecessors. We can teach a better stasis if we don’t allow undermining (like shipping jobs overseas and bringing in low wage workers to upset the economic stasis.
As a European I can say that the only people who still look up to the USA as a great country are the people who base their views on Hollywood instead of the news.
To me the most interesting part was about how Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan were pretty close friends:
"Then one day, I picked up the paper and read where he had made a statement about me that was pretty harsh. And I called him, and I said, Tip, I thought we had a relationship here, where we could do business together. And, oh, now, I read in the paper that you said--
And he interrupted me and said, well, buddy, that's just politics. He said, after 6 o'clock, we're buddies. We're friends. I did take it that every once in a while, when we had a meeting, I would visibly set my watch at above 6 o'clock."
As for America having an f'd up past? You bet we do, but so does much of the rest of the world. Much of the rest of the world likes to bury it under a rug and pretend like it didn't happen. We acknowledge bad things happened and try to learn and grow from those points.
Everyone just loves to make America a punching bag, because it's so easy to throw jabs at the big guy on the block. It's pretty much become expected than any comment section will somehow segway into how horrible America is. At this point we don't really give a darn what the rest of the world thinks about us.
It's evidence of something. The US covid response is a distinct, notable, and quite frankly disastrous outlier in the industrial world. No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively.
Shouldn't we be looking for an explanation for that? And maybe taking lessons that might hold for other things we're doing badly?
So, I think we'll know more in a few years. Hopefully we learn enough that we make better choices next time. As things are standing though, my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better." And we aren't out of the woods, yet, as it were.
If that is the case, most of what we are seeing is just more evidence that the majority vote lost out last time. Such that now we are seeing the majority is still upset about that.
You realize there are dozens of other nations that saw the same virus, right? That seems like a nonsensical response to me, as if you're asking "Well, who could have known?". Well, Germany. Germany seems to have known. Also Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (especially those guys)... Even nations like Spain and Belgium, which had disastrous early outbreaks got it under control at a time when we had a huge second wave.
You really don't think we have anything to learn from that data?
> my money is on prior exposure to corona and sars being the largest contributors to places that have "done better."
Uh... what? Let's ignore the pseudoscience argument and just talk demographics: you're saying that the United States, alone among all nations in the industrialized world, was unique in that it had no prior exposure to pre-existing coronavirii. Everywhere else in the industrialized world, every nation, had large pre-existing immunity? That's what you're going with? And you think that makes sense?
I'll ignore you being a jackass, and claim I am not saying we are alone in anything. This is a global pandemic of a novel virus. That is not really in dispute. The US is marked in how the numbers are, and there is every chance we remain that way. I just have a hard time reconciling much of the news of how contagious this is, with how well anyone contained it, without using something like vaccination. That would make this not just a novel virus, but a new one that has been contained in ways that we have never contained a virus before.
What are your thoughts on how Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Italy and Spain have handled things?
That said, I haven't checked on numbers a lot lately. Just checking quickly, Spain seems problematic in that they are growing again in cases. (Am I looking at bad data?) Italy is also growing, just somewhat masked by how giant their initial wave was.
Which is all to say, I suspect some places have done something "right" to contain this. I'm not convinced we know what that thing was, yet. Is akin to folks saying beer was drank because the alcohol made it safe. Really, it was the boiling of the water, but the evidence was hard to separate those.
So, to that end, I am not calling for reopening or anything of that sort. So, please don't take my scepticism for that.
I don't think that assertion holds up. Our economy didn't contract as much as others, our per/capital death rate isn't the worst, we blocked international travel sooner, etc.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/393903/
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
The US is probably one of the most globally interconnected countries also, which epidemiologically speaking is probably a worst case scenario. This is my speculation though, not sure I've seen any reliable information in this regard.
And don't ignore the long term impacts either. Just because you the U.S. has a low mortaility rate does not mean the disease will not have long term effects. People may die sooner, or suffer significant health effects later on that leave a lasting mark on the economy.
You suggestion that this is because the US is so interconnected is a foolish one. Europe is quite interconnected, has had similarly bad initial outbreaks, but has subsequently been able to address those outbreaks much better than the U.S.. What would you say about the politicization of preventative measures that we know work - wearing masks and social distancing?
It isn't an outlier by any statistical definition that makes sense to me and you are glossing over the way aggressive testing changes the "case numbers" and also aren't being clear if you are talking about "case numbers" or "cases per 1000 tests" or "cases per capita". These details matter in order to have a coherent discussion about the numbers.
It's close to the worst, though. We're sixth among industrial nations. And moreover that's down to luck: we had a terrible initial outbreak in New York, just as other cities like Milan, Madrid and Brussels did. And if you look at those metro areas, in fact NY is the worst. But we're a big country so the initial deaths were lower as a fraction.
But then what happened? We went to sleep as a huge second wave crested, and everyone else got it under control. So while it's true that we're still behind other nations in deaths, we're catching up rapidly, while their outbreaks are nearly flat (though starting to trend up a bit in many places -- they should watch that).
Give us a month at the current death rate and we'll have passed everyone but Belgium.
> No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively.
Now if you want to change the goalposts and talk about "close to worst", fine, but let's agree you are changing the goalposts. And of course everyone ignores the fact that we have no idea what the real numbers were in China.
> Give us a month at the current death rate and we'll have passed everyone but Belgium.
What does this even mean? It can only mean that you are trying to count total deaths, I think, which is a meaningless statistic unless you scale it to the population size.
Within the US, the numbers are terribly skewed due to deaths in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in and around NYC. If you consider our national numbers when those outliers are removed things look vastly different. But if you do that you would have to start being a bit critical of some decisions made by people with (D) after their name on TV and of course we all know that is to be avoided at all costs. Much easier to pretend that President Trump failed in some way.
I didn't say deaths though, I said "handled", so if there's any goalpost motion it seems to be on your part. Some cities just had bad initial outbreaks. Madrid didn't make better policy decisions than Berlin in February/March, they were just unlucky.
But in April/May, we knew how this virus worked, mostly. And, mostly, nations around the industrialized world made policy decisions designed to contain it. And it worked.
With one very notable exception. I'll say it again, and stand by it: No one handled this as badly as we did, objectively.
> It can only mean that you are trying to count total deaths, I think, which is a meaningless statistic unless you scale it to the population size.
Clearly I was talking per capita and extrapolating the current curve out. Here, check for yourself: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...
See how the total deaths per capita are quite flat now across all industrialized nations? See also how the USA is... not?
Basing your view on the "news" is a huge mistake. Mass media portrayal of the US (or really of any country) is much closer to a constructed narrative than a transparent view of "reality".
Do you think US "news" portrays Europe accurately? (honest question)
> ‘and it doesn’t have a functioning government or healthcare system’
Can you elaborate here? I can have no job or health insurance, and I can obtain treatment at the hospital.
Likewise, I participate in city council and roundtables with city and state officials. They listen to the community and policy changes are affected based on that. Govt seems to work pretty well locally. Federal govt is not relevant at that level.
Could it all be better? Sure. But your hyperbole is a bit much.
For emergency care, yes. Not for an MRI or a hip replacement or dialysis or physical therapy or cancer treatments or prostheses or cataract surgery or...
This is this weird myth that won't die. It's absolutely true that emergency rooms are universally required to treat anyone who walks in the door. It's also true that ER care makes up something like 3% of US health care delivered.
For many in the US, the opinions of Hollywood and the major news outlets are equally inaccurate and irrelevant.
Consider that the US is more comparable to the EU as a whole than any individual country in the EU, and a lot of things regarding US politics start to make more sense.
The EU on the other hand is broken by design[1]. It appears to be largely forgotten now, but the framers of the EU were well aware that monetary union without fiscal union was unsustainable in the long term. They, perhaps unwisely, assumed that reasonable compromises would be reached in relatively short order.
[1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastri...
It has been a long-time coming that the US has been getting more and more stagnant and unable to do certain things. It's like we've been on a freighter headed for an iceberg, and the rudder is broken so we're all just watching it in slow motion. Look at infrastructure projects, healthcare, college costs, housing, global warming, etc. They've been obvious, impending issues for decades and we've just sat by and done nothing while they become bigger and bigger problems for more and more people.
Still, at least in my opinion, America has continued to have a "superpower" of innovation in other, less constrained areas. Many of the brightest, most ambitious people in the world have continued to come here and do amazing things, as they have for the past century.
And when things have been truly dire even fairly recently, like the '08 financial crisis or even 9/11, we've managed to take action and address it. In hindsight there were obviously major flaws to our responses to those things, but they were over-reactions rather than inaction, and were arguably still better than doing nothing (with the notable exception of the war in Iraq, but that had a lot of more complex causes and wasn't necessarily America's direct response to 9/11).
For me personally, this is what makes the current moment so devastating to watch, and why I have started feeling like this time is different. We've had one of the top 5 biggest threats of American lives in all of history with Covid-19, and the federal response has been just ignoring it. On top of that, we're now going full steam ahead on shutting down or severely limiting immigration. That strikes me as just about the most idiotic, and profoundly un-American thing I can think of.
These things take time to cause major shifts so I am hopeful we still have a couple of years to correct the course before the effects start to compound too much, but it feels like a particularly fragile time and the future could go either way at this point.
Not sure what to say about this - I don't think anyone believes what America is on the basis of Hollywood. America is 50 states and depending on which state you're referring to - quality and standard of living, incoming, happiness, etc varies. It is like looking at the state of Romania and basing your views about Sweden, both EU nations.
Did you visit Lake Tahoe and any of the National Parks? The country side infrastructure usually is excellent and well maintained.
Certain states are better - Colorado and Utah have excellent roads even in the cities. Phoenix, Arizona is same.
Furthermore given the significantly greater number of cases shouldn't US death rates be significantly greater if it's healthcare system is non functional?
[1]: https://time.com/5876132/europe-coronavirus-second-wave/
That's not to say there aren't European countries which have done better, there are: Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, have thus far have significantly lower death rates per capita. How can you off handily suggest that the US is non functioning and broke while still beating countries which make up half of the EU, by population?
No logic, no reasoning, just bashing the U.S while hiding china's crimes.
The biggest proof that the U.S has a future vs china, is that I have many great chinese engineering friends who have emigrated, ALL of them love the U.S.A and MOST of them are upset with the way the CCP has acted in regards to IP, human rights, and hong kong.
I don't hear the same about people moving from the U.S to china, please keep your CCP propaganda to yourself.
Edit: you've done this repeatedly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23864391). Not cool. We ban accounts that repeatedly break the guidelines, especially when they ignore our requests to stop, so please fix this.
1 Question, people post the same kind of comment just pro china, I am just taking the other side. Is there a way for me to report those comments to you so that I do not need to break the rules by responding to such a comment with a comment?