True. Just for some comparison, if Finland was a metropolitan in US, it would be ranked 10th. Above Phoenix metro and Below Atlanta Metro. I understand the good intentions of people trying to show case 'Scandinavian countries' as a model. They miss many things including Scale.
I really dislike when American exceptionalism gets to the point of brushing away any kind of role model that could be used as an inspiration to be adapted to American needs as "it won't work because we are different". Guess what, every nation and society is different. Learn from others what worked, adapt to your local needs, that's how progress works.
The USA has the largest economy in the world, there's plenty of money that other countries lack for solving social issues. The main issue is allocation, American society does not think that solving social issues is worthy enough so you don't invest in it. After experiencing all the side-effects of such negligence them comes the exceptionalism excuse, that the scale is different, that X, Y or Z are hard because of A, B, C, so on and so forth.
It's just an excuse, a lame one at that. Yeah, Nordic countries don't have a large population, as a whole there's around 28 million people across the Nordics (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland), with around US$ 1.8T of GDP. Texas in the USA has 29 million people with US$1.8T GDP in a much smaller area than all the Nordics combined, with better weather, why the fuck can't Texas be like the Nordics then?
The problem is that states are choosing to address this problem by bussing homeless to other states.
This is the primary issue with federalized states, solutions are crafted in the interest of each state, negative externalities be damned.
The federal government doesn't have the ability under the constitution to address this problem in any real way. Until it can, it'll be cheaper and more politically expedient for those in charge to maintain the status quo than to actually work towards a solution.
What is stopping EU members from doing the same thing between each other? Why are US states exceptional in this case?
> For example, Texas doesn't have an income tax, and its tax revenue in 2022 was only 3.5 times that of Finland, despite having 5.5 times the population.
That's exactly my point, it's a failure of policy, not an issue of scale. The policy is to have low taxes, small government, whatever, and from that failure a US state comparable in terms of economy and population to the Nordics is not even close to these countries in social development.
Yes, it's very easy to completely miss scale, as well as missing sensible priorities, etc, and embrace a mantra of exceptionalism as a convenience.
Apropos ranking, the United States spends more on military / defense than the next 10 countries combined.
We should stop doing that, and invest more in domestic needs.
If 'we' is the USA, then I'd suggest the USA pays to maintain a very lucrative industry, and as far as anyone can tell, they pay way over the going rate, and have very poor book-keeping.
The idea that some older equipment, rather than being retired or disposed of, is being sent to Ukraine, as somehow being exclusively a defence of a distant place, and 'for free' feels asymmetrical to reality.
The USA has some serious risk / concerns coming out of this conflict - not so much petroleum products, but certainly iron ore, argon, neon, cobalt, etc. That's the practical resource based risks, and then there's the whole regional stability, opportunity to assist in the downfall of an enemy empire, etc etc.
> We should stop doing that, and invest more in domestic needs.
If 'we' is the USA, then I suggest you won't stop doing the former, and you won't start doing the latter.
In the past twelve months the USA's sent US$30B (list price) of equipment to Ukraine.
That's out of an annual budget of around 1,900B (or 845B) depending if you're looking at resources or obligations, but either way, 30 is a small component of that.
For context, the most recent US DoD audit identified at least 220B worth of equipment that they simply can't determine the whereabouts of.
So, yeah, I reckon the USA could look after its own interests by sending some equipment to Ukraine and address homelessness within its own borders, if it really wanted to.
Providing decades of national defense as a service is quite a different thing. Especially when the beneficiaries are some of the richest nations in the world.
OMG, you can't actually believe that?
I live in the UK. We have an independent nuclear deterrent that we buy off the US for billions. We have plastic fighter jets we buy from the US at over $100m a pop. We have every credit card payment taxed by Visa and Mastercard. We allow US companies to operate here tax free, destroying local business.
When I was a teenager in the 1990s we finally managed to pay the US for selling us WW2. The US took our gold and the rights built military bases on a bunch of strategic islands. They left us as a vassal state.
The US base their front line in the UK against Russia so we get wiped out first. We are a buffer zone for the US defence of itself against Russia.
The US protects Europe 'for free' in the same way that the UK 'protected' India 'for free'.
Your (rather common) attitude will be the eventual downfall of the US empire. Every time the US acts as the world's arsehole (like by electing a protectionist moron as president) it loses legitimaticy. You also find Europe starts buying gas from Russia and turning a blind eye to its military adventures. When it starts looking bad for the US they turn up like 'Team America', blow up our gas connections to Russia and magically find cheap gas to sell us instead.
I find this attitude ironic. If you didn’t engage in this trade there is high likelihood you would not have survived the air battle waged by the German Air Force.
Also the debt wasn’t repaid until 2006.
And the implied threat that you’ll buy Russian gas (and become dependent on it) because we elected a shit-talker? Lol. Salty tears all around, except without a valid reason.
There are cultural and institutional bonds -- of course layers of Geopolitical and strategic interests.
But the boys, who are dreaming Americans picking their marbles and going home should really be careful what they wish for, because it might actually come true.
Sure, it's that too. It's both.
Regardless, it should stop.
I don't see how that could happen after the US pushed for globalism, globalism inherently requires keeping trade routes protected from interference, the moment the US pulls out from providing protection is the moment where these routes start to erode. If you are ok with all the impacts that will have in your life, go for it, I'm all in for less American interference around the globe.
You just need to be aware that the life you are used to (if you live in the USA) will be vastly different after this.