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Comment by cal_dent | Hacker News Reader

What i find fascinating is that, if we hold that Trump being elected twice was because of frustration and rage against society, this is the way they are now when the US is literally the most dominant country in the world. Can you imagine the rage, if the US actually saw real decline. Christ

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America has already been living in a decline of living standards relative to Europe for many decades.

EU vs US Comparison

Life expectancy EU: 82 yrs US: 78 yrs

Infant mortality (per 1,000) EU: 3.3 US: 5.6

Poverty rate (below 50% of median income) EU: 15% US: 18%

Public debt EU: 81% of GDP US: 120% of GDP

Top 1% wealth share EU: ~25% US: 40%

Student debt EU: ~€0 US: $40k

Homicides (per 100k) EU: 2 US: 5

Prison population (per 100k) EU: 111 US: 531

Women in workforce EU: 71% US: 57%

Workplace deaths (per 100k) EU: 1.63 US: 3.5

Source: OECD, Eurostat, CDC

All of those are true, yet the US's (PPP-adjusted) per capita GDP was over 37% higher than the EU's in 2024 [0], and GDP growth has significantly outpaced the EU for years. Basically, whenever there was a choice between anything and economic growth, the US chose growth. Other places made different choices. You can argue about which choices were better, and how the results are distributed, but the difference in salaries for most people using this site are even more stark.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

Most of their numbers were about the quality of life. It's absolutely absurd to say,

> Well you're twice as likely to be killed, more likely to be sick and obese, will die earlier, are more likely to be in poverty under a tech baron, have a poisoned ecosystem, your babies or wife may die or your kids die in school, or they'll go in insane debt to go to their higher education, and if you're not a white man you're basically less human and risk becoming a part of the permanent ~~slave~~ criminal caste... But think of the moderately higher salary potential!!!!

> You know, as long as the economy grows forever and nobody calls any of your debts.

Counter to your point, what's most striking from that chart is how comparably similar both Europe and the United States are in their GDP per capita growth.

I wouldn't bank too much on those high salaries for U.S. tech workers. The U.S. tech industry has been in a contraction since the post-COVID hiring boom: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

As AI tooling improves, tech workers are finding their opportunities for high-paying prosperity fizzle out. Non-AI tech jobs are going the way of the rust belt and most tech professionals have seen their pay flatten. https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/02/05/tech-salaries-stag...

The labor market is cratering, but tech worker pay remains higher in the US than anywhere else on the planet.

> All of those are true, yet the US's (PPP-adjusted) per capita GDP was over 37% higher than the EU's in 2024 [0], and GDP growth has significantly outpaced the EU for years.

And? So what? What has that gotten the US?

Lower life expectancy, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher (violent) crime, and generally much less happiness with life:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

Getting more GDP/money is not the goal in itself: money is a tool to get other things (health, happiness, etc).

> And? So what? What has that gotten the US?

Its billionaires are richer. Does anything else really matter?

What does GDP give me?

If I work for a megacorp and they sell more widgets while paying me the same amount then GDP goes up. This is not actually a direct measure of human flourishing.

But they can't sell more widgets if nobody has any money to buy them.

Sure, you could model a pretend economy where only the wealthy ever buy stuff, but that's not how the US economy works, and Consumer Confidence has a massive influence over our GDP - so when our GDP goes up, it's often hand in hand with our population buying more widgets with extra money, even as they complain that they don't have the cash for "necessities" (I.E. burrito taxis, vanity pickup trucks, and owning a house with two spare bedrooms with a <30 minute commute to their workplace).

Note: I'm not saying that low-income Americans don't genuinely struggle, just that there's a mismatch between the Americans that are genuinely low-income and the Americans that perceive themselves as low-income because they need to save a little to make major purchases or need to tell themselves no sometimes.

And yet we see all of these better outcomes on metrics more directly tied to human flourishing in countries that have worse per-capita GDPs.

> you could model a pretend economy where only the wealthy ever buy stuff

In the United States, the top 10% of income-earning households are responsible for approximately 50% of all consumer spending.

GDP is meaningless. Look at Ireland: one of the highest GDPs in the world yet none of the people feel that wealth in their day-to-day lives.

So we chose growth, and now are trying empire, because of memes about our supposed strength on paper, pushed by unserious “conservatives” who can’t form a cohesive argument about anything?

We stand a good chance of this totally destroying us, because the “technocracy” set actually believe their own Paper Divisions are unstoppable and the legal mind of “stick your fingers in your ears and say NAH NAH NAH” to be unassailable.

What an embarrassing ending to the American story this all is, eh?

Maybe whatever comes next will be more serious and will choose differently.

High GDP per capita does not immediately mean that people are rich. As one other commenter noted, Ireland has a very high GDP per capita, but your average Irish person is not living rich

Yup, the worst and most dangerous time is yet to come. This is the country that has the worlds second largest nuclear arsenal. The biggest military logistics infrastructure on the planet and shown a constant willingness to use any force necessary to bend other people to their will.

One hopes, if it gets that far, somebody in the military will finally defy orders, and although the US has its first coup d'etat, the rule of law can return.

I still remember some redditor saying what happened in Nazi Germany couldn't happen in the US because of patriotism. Oh how smug I'd be to ask him "how did that work out?". Hopefully the military doesn't lock step into Armageddon, but "hope" is doing a lot of work there.

I hope so, too. But rule of law and democracy at it's core are cultural achievements - enough people must want it and believe in it. I feel like people start to forget why we have them in place.

ICE aka executive overstepping is a good example. Police actions are highly regulated for good reasons, it won't only affect "the right people".

From what I have heard, a lot of people who voted for Trump don't like the extend of ICE's actions. Even Joe Rogan spoke out. So maybe there's hope.

Europe is fighting the very same battle btw. it just has not manifested that obvious everywhere yet. I fear for Germany falling into the hands of fascists once again in the next years, though.

The US is considered to be a flawed democracy for about 10 years now[1]. Europe, especially the powerful west, has the most healthy democracies.

It's absolutely not a given that the European democracies will survive, people here need to step up in strengthening it against illiberal forces as well, but it's in a much better starting position.

Example: in the Netherlands there was a government with an illiberal far right party (Wilder's PVV). They didn't achieve much, but there was a year of stagnation and the far right talking points have become even more normalized. Other democratic institutions, like judges had to be more on the defense. However, nothing fundamental is broken.

1. https://cpsblog.isr.umich.edu/?p=3417

One flaw we have in Germany in particular is that the chancellor is allowed to stay in power indefinitely if people vote for that person, which potentially gives a lot of time to rebuild the society. It worked out with Merkel who is the anti-thesis of an authorization figure, but that might have been luck.

I don't know how resistant the German constitution and democracy is. I believe it's robust but that's also what people thought about the US with that "checks and balances" that turned out being fake for the most part.

Execution of laws is left to the executive branch. The constitution says power of the executive is vested in one person.

Currently that man is someone who's been convicted of breaking several laws, indicted for others, and has instructed his regime to also ignore some laws...

…and still got elected a second time, despite two impeachments on top of all his other legal woes, his previous term, etc...and he still managed to gain more votes each time he ran.

People seem to forget what this says about the other party.

note, - the - other party. the die was cast long ago.

When the European "far right" are distancing themselves from the US and Trump then you know there's trouble.

Many in the US would regard an EU far right as very liberal.

Except the German fascist (*) party AfD, they get along with Musk and Trump, but then again, other far right parties have distanced from them.

(*) I am not one of the people that uses such harsh words easily. It's just... it's actually that bad and they get more and more votes every year.

> From what I have heard, a lot of people who voted for Trump don't like the extend of ICE's actions. Even Joe Rogan spoke out. So maybe there's hope.

The opposition is milquetoast and purely performative. They'll fall right back in line.

They all knew what he was after his last stint.

What would you consider real decline?

I would say children having worse prospects than their parents at the same age is a good indicator of it. The big issues IMO are: The housing market locking out young people and The jobs market being brutal to graduates.

Things are not so great at the moment.

> What would you consider real decline?

Honestly? When America nukes someone or itself. Empires decline slowly then suddenly, and that final bit tends to involve a tantrum. The only exception is when they’re conquered.

> I would say children having worse prospects than their parents at the same age is a good indicator of it.

People talk about "worse prospects" all the time. It irks me: you know nothing what your "prospects" are. That's why they're prospects!

> The big issues IMO are: The housing market locking out young people

The housing is still there. All those old people are gonna die. Who do you think will get the housing?

The housing is a house, but it's also a financial vehicle to wealth accumulation. Younger generations have been shut out of that wealth. When the old people are dead can we be so sure the wealth enrichment mechanisms will be left standing?

We know for a fact it won't. Care systems and demograph-targeting machines (sunsetter vacations, scams, etc) are siphoning every drop of wealth from the elderly.

i think they'll be lots of kids out there banking on inheritance who will find themselves surprised by how much aged and end of life care cost soon

In the middle of it right now with a grandparent. $5000 - $8000 month and you might still find them frozen to death out in the snow if the staff drops the ball in the middle of the night.

Sure, if someone wants to get rid of their parents in a humane 21st-century way, by way of an elder care facility, it probably costs a lot.

People used to die living with their family. Perhaps they died earlier, and sure there were some problems with that setup, but I don't think it was necessarily worse for the dying. It was certainly cheaper for everyone.

I don't know anyone who wanted to go to an elder care home. My grandma spent her last three months in an elder care home: all she talked about was going home.

I agree with the sentiment of this post but there is also a consideration here that the world has moved on from a non-elder care end of life for many. Jobs have become increasingly concentrated in certain cities, which has prompted more migration away from many people's place of birth (whether town, region or country). You also have many people having much smaller homes relative to the past because they've moved to high density cities for jobs. Their ability to just have their parents in the home isn't so straightforward anymore.

In the US, once you are in an elder care facility and you run out of money, the facility will try to keep you in. At that time they will apply to Medicaid in your name. After you die, Medicaid will try to claw back funds by putting a lien against your house. There are extremely complicated rules about exemptions etc.

https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-estate-recovery-nursing-...

The system feels broken because not everyone benefits equally from the American led Western liberal order. The liberal order allowed the creation of the most rich and powerful companies in the US, who had unprecedented access to markets and resources. The people owning these companies or earn super high salaries from these companies tend to believe their success is 100% their own. On the other you have people living pay check to pay check and are one unlucky fall away from medical bankruptcy.

> Can you imagine the rage, if the US actually saw real decline. Christ

You mean if the decline wasn't focused on poor people in unfashionable areas, and it hit the elites, too?

Parts of the US have actually seen real decline, and that's why we have Trump. This wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had policy set by technocrats chasing easily-quantified statistics, and lecturing everyone about how they really ought to feel better because the GDP number go up.

I think you misunderstand where the rage is coming from.

If all their countrymen were equally down on their luck, then there would be no rage. Instead, it's the result of one group of people that used to enjoy success watching it all fall apart while different people just do better and better.

Exploding inequality simultaneous with DEI obsession was a perfect storm of radicalization. The only thing that's really surprising is that "smart" people didn't see it coming.

>If all their countrymen were equally down on their luck, then there would be no rage. Instead, it's the result of one group of people that used to enjoy success watching it all fall apart while different people just do better and better.

Sure, but hasn't that been the case the world over, or at least for developing economies? This isn't terribly unique to the US.

Most "smart" people could see this coming but as always the question is when? Just have to go back a small ways to the last heydays of communism and inequality was the stick to beat capitalism with.

The issue now is that if there is successful destabilisation of world economies in the way this could currently play out, if some brinkmanship isnt pulled back, you're left with a situation where the group of people who have already seen it fall apart realise it can fall apart even more for them, and the other group also see it start to fall apart.

All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage

> simultaneous with DEI obsession

there is a group obsessed with DEI, it's true. It's the MAGA folk

Hiring people based on their race is immoral and framing this as moral is strange. That’s where classical liberals, centrists and the right are coming from when they say the left is obsessed with DEI. I understand you think they are obsessed with dismantling it and that’s a reasonable view too.

Here's some reading material[1] which is basically a direct refutation of that claim. However you want to characterize what happened between 2016 and 2024, it's not nothing.

If you think the efforts were not misguided, I'm just wondering, how is everything working out lately? Pretty sh*t if you ask me.

[1] https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/

"Loss of privilege feels like oppression". I see the numbers showing hiring shifts, but i don't see any numbers backing up the claim that there was once an pure and fair "American meritocracy" that has now been "gutted". and this [1] seems to show that the privilege has not actually been lost

[1] <https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/12/17/what-does-th...>

Saying you shouldn't hire based on race, sex, or other immutable characteristics should be an obsession by everyone.

A CEO, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant sit down together at a table upon which there is a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, then whispers in the ear of the blue-collar worker "Hey, I think he wants your cookie."

It’s actually the opposite. It’s not about raging regarding the decline. It’s about many things going well and raging against prosperity for things they don’t agree with. They want to destroy America because it feels good, not because it makes sense.

At the peak of the Gilded Age in 1910, the richest 0.00001% of the US population owned wealth equal to 4% of national income.

Now, the richest 0.00001% owns 12%.

US billionaire oligarchs today are even wealthier than the original robber barons.

Source: https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2020JEP.pdf

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