Ah, the glory days of America. Yesterday, the local market was out of eggs and bananas. There were long lines at too few staffed checkouts. There's a homeless encampment in the mall's parking area. This is in Silicon Valley.
Today, unless you pay private insurance, you can wait 13 years ( not a typo, you wait a teenager ) for hip surgery.
Sweden today. One of the richest “socialist” countries on the planet.
To me the explanation for why everything got shitty all at once is obvious: the global pandemic “synchronized” all nations and produced hardship everywhere simultaneously. Fragile systems in every country were strained.