Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government instead?
Local government in the US has so much power, compared to many other countries. It makes you wonder if that's a mistake, and if greater centralisation would produce better outcomes.
Sometimes, the state has other skewed motives and will spend the money received from federal governement for unintended causes. This happened in Missouri as well.
Mississippi used welfare money for needy families to pay Brett Favre for motivational speeches
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-welfare-...
I get the impression that governments in the US are unusually corrupt, at least by the standards of the English-speaking world.
I think there are reports of bad water fairly often in First Nations communities, but I haven't followed the topic too closely. Some recent information: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-water-drink...
And another one I sort of remember more than 20 years ago was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak
But these seem to pale in comparison to the limited stories I've heard out of the US. The Flint water crisis, and some of the poorer communities in the US. I do believe water systems are incredibly expensive infrastructure, even for those of us living next to the great lakes.
Looking at major English speaking countries – New Zealand comes 1st as least corrupt country in world (equal with Denmark and Finland); UK is 11th; Canada and Ireland are equal 13th (along with Austria, Estonia and Iceland); Australia is equal 18th (with Belgium, Japan and Uruguay). The US is equal 27th, with Chile. So yes, among major English-speaking countries, the US is the most corrupt.
The short answer is 'Yes'.
The long answer is 'Yes, they do.' It may be more prevalent in the US, because of its particular political climate, but its omnipresent.
Looking at https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/usa I'm worried by how much more corrupt we became after Trump got into power.
You give it to their re-election fund. Because that is free speech.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/144068888518967706...
In the USA, private sector can provide much better housing, and much better jobs, for most people, so anyone capable of leaving the public ones does. So, public housing eventually becomes dominated by the least functional members of society, and public sector, with the exception of the idealists and the corrupt, mostly retains the incompetents.
The process is self-perpetuating too. Govt aside, in a tech company it's really hard to maintain a semi-crappy department given that people can leave - either it needs to be cleaned up and fixed, or the best developers will leave and it will just become crappy.
So there have been multiple generations of Americans who have marinated in this their entire lives, resulting in large populations who assume more local control is always better, people only deserve what they can afford themselves individually, and so on—and entire societal systems built atop the ensuing systematic deprivation.
At the same time, there’s also an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic “we’re the pinnacle of human achievement” nationalism so any change to the status quo is opposed even by those who would directly benefit because they don’t really believe it’s possible for things to be any better. After all, if they could be, they would be, because We’re The Best! So if things are bad, well, they’re worse everywhere else so quit complaining.
This is why Americans get such culture shock going elsewhere in the world. They see that others can actually have a society that’s just as good or better, and they have to figure out how to integrate that into their worldview.
TL;DR: Many things in the US stay as bad as they do because multiple generations have been brainwashed into thinking they’re the best they can be.
You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be.
In the fifth grade, I was sent home as punishment for not saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" in public school.
It's always been about brainwashing. Always has.
> You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be.
I've seen what an adult is. "You've been alive for 18 years". That's it. No knowledge checks. No requirement of anything, really.
And your response cements this pervasive idea that "My ignorant opinion is worth just as much as your well studied scientific opinion". That's what our society is facing right now, on every public forum.
Your "well studied scientific opinion" is nothing more than propaganda of a more refined form. Or at least it flatters you to call it "refined."
the most striking experience of this i was able to observe in US boy scouts. there were two boys of similar age who were close friends, until one of them turned 18. he then was made an assistant scout master. some time later the two friends had a falling out because the younger one did not respect his older friend as a leader. it's not that he wasn't qualified as a leader. they probably both were, but that birthday made one be the leader of the other, instead of allowing them to remain peers.
Some of Europe fluoridates tap water. Much of Europe has adequate fluoride levels naturally. Some countries supply fluoride in table salt instead of water. Some have insufficient natural fluoride levels and do nothing. Some have too much fluoride naturally in their water.
We give government special protections that prevent public accountability because it's expected that democracy effectively puts competent people into office. We are continually proving this to be wrong. Our election and powers structure is not accurate to the voter base. Most of these positions go in challenged, because people can't quit their job to fill a government role.
Further, private companies can't keep passing the ball like governments do. They can't pull from other funds, and they have contracted duties. Even better if the company is a co-op.
Tricky to swim in English rivers or beaches at the moment because they're covered in human shit. We have privatised water companies, and there's a good argument that privatisation made it worse.
People on HN think privatisation solves everything, despite the countless examples that show otherwise.
This statement is outright wrong. See this table[0] for details.
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-by-co...
Apologies for misinterpreting you.
I don't remember the details, but at some point Flint changed its water supplier over the protests of the water bureau. Different water -> different chemical composition -> more leaching (wikipedia says it was in 2014).
However, having services run by larger jurisdictions is directly at odds with the American need to ensure that the "haves" have distinctly better living conditions than the "have nots," and so this is a political non-starter. Put another way: poor services (such as healthcare, schools, and even potable water) are a design feature, not a bug, of American civics.