America the Shrunken
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
For the last decade or two, I have felt optimistic about my own future while really concerned about that of the USA in general.
For those interested in some of the facts underlying this assertion, please read Capital by Thomas Piketty, or watch Paul Krugman give an excellent summary of it [1].
1. http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-kn...
There are confounding factors, e.g. America is aging as the huge demographic bulge of the Baby Boomers age, and that especially combined with a nationwide sweep of shall issue concealed carry regimes has resulted in a lot of these older folk, perhaps realizing they're less able to physically protect themselves, buying guns and getting concealed carry permits (my class for that in SW Missouri was overwhelmingly middle aged or older). (If Puerta v. County of San Diego is upheld, which is the way to bet, 90% of the nation's population will be covered, already it's much easier to list the few states that don't do shall issue.)
ADDED: but that doesn't explain the run on rifles of military utility....
I think a factor was the government's response which essentially told us we were on our own (more details if desired).
But this is fine grained hard data, due to the taxation regime for guns and ammo (used to fund hunting favorable conservation stuff, ranges to a certain extent and perhaps more of than going forward, etc.), here we don't have to depend on anecdotes, surveys, etc.
The USA has - as a result of the cold war's and the current interventions in other countries - expanded the role of the NSA, set up extensive airport security programs such as the TSA, and through Homeland Security they scrutinise every tourist's history to the greatest of detail before actually letting them in. The ESTA application is only the surface of such. I consider the US government to be a very dangerous institution to safety and security for all human beings around the world.
I sincerely hope that the American public puts the US back on the right track. The current foreign policy is economically and socially unsustainable, the welfare state in the USA is crumbling and the middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate. The government seriously needs a big change. I am not encouraging revolutionary action, as I believe any government that needs violence to be instated is inherently flawed, but there needs to be a change. There's a lot of focus on the wrong issues in the USA, especially amongst the youth, while the entire nation is heading towards economical and social regression.
Your complaints about the US:
airport security
interference, of the soft political kind, in other countries
military intervention in the middle east (and Russia/Eastern Europe, which you left out, yet it was far more important than the middle east will ever be. And hell, if Putin doesn't back off, it may happen yet again)
Okay ...
Now let's open the history books, go back to before American hegemony, the 1918-1945 period. Britain and France in charge, with some lesser powers having a bit of clout in a few remote places. Do I really need to remind you what happened ? I don't just mean WWII, rather all the events leading up to it more than the actual event. The economic crises, not getting a few people fired, but throwing large populations into famine. Do you think, had you lived in that period, your complaints would have been about travelling security, political power of foreign countries ? Go ahead, ask your grandfather how society worked, what they were afraid of ... and the things that happened to them. Ask a Jew, and I'm not just talking about WWII. Go ahead, enquire about the period preceding the war.
Then go back a bit further. How was life, in Europe, during the revolutionary era, culminating in the creation of Soviet Russia ? Do you really want that, because that's what the society of Europe created ? It was one period of history where there is no denying : the people were in charge (or at least, they were the driving force behind the big changes). Robespierre. Napoleon. Constant wars, for moronic reasons. The eternal holy war of the muslims against Europe was still going, even if no longer at full blast, it may be downplayed now, but was a VERY real thing influencing the lives of a great many people very, very badly.
I mean, I'm not saying America really is the "shining city on the hill", BUT let's call a spade a spade here : American hegemony has been pretty fucking great for America, for Europe, for the whole world. Denying that makes you a moron, nothing more.
Let me state the blatantly obvious here : without American power being unassailable, maybe not globally, but at least on every ocean, our world will get a whole lot worse, very fast. Very fast. Once it happens it will take half a millennium to get liveable again. Can you at least consider for 5 seconds that knowing nothing about history and just having lived the last 30 years might not provide an entirely realistic view of how the world works ?
And if by globalized society you mean the UN, I suggest you check out the UN's successes. Oh wait. I'm looking over the list here. First there was the "League of nations", the UN. List of successes ... it's getting blamed for WWII, that's certainly a big thing I hear. But no worries ... the UN is so much better. They started out with the Katanga mission ... no sane person can call that a success. But surely things improved after that ? So then we have their attempts at negotiating truces between Russia and Eastern Europe. Great success for Russia, those ... Then the creation and various division(s) of Israel, and the UN's constant assurances of peace and peace treaties ... followed by massive attacks. That went so very nicely. Other highlights : Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Western Sahara, ...
No offence but the "globalized society" is not just a disaster, many people would have been better off living under a dictator ordering a genocide against them than with the result of having the "globalized society" that is the UN interfere with their affairs.
I am criticising all interventionism, not just American interventionism. I sort of made this obvious when I criticised Soviet interventionism.
>I mean, I'm not saying America really is the "shining city on the hill", BUT let's call a spade a spade here : American hegemony has been pretty fucking great for America, for Europe, for the whole world. Denying that makes you a moron, nothing more.
For the whole world? Really? What parts of the world, exactly?
As far as I can see, about half the world's population is in the absolute shitter and still very unstable, not made better by the military interventionism of the USA in the middle east for example. The progressive attitude we have here in Europe and that they have in America is not consistent throughout the world. In fact, the socio-economic situation of a lot of the world is very, very bad.
American "hegemony" as you call it has only been good to the US' closest allies and trade partners. China, Russia and India to name three big ones have had to develop by themselves independent of American support. In Europe, I think the leading cause for no repeated big wars is European cooperation and the lack of other political systems than the democratic one. While the American support is relevant, Europe at the time committed to preventing future wars, and to be honest no doomsday prophecies like the Versailles Treaty was made this time.
>Let me state the blatantly obvious here : without American power being unassailable, maybe not globally, but at least on every ocean, our world will get a whole lot worse, very fast. Very fast. Once it happens it will take half a millennium to get liveable again. Can you at least consider for 5 seconds that knowing nothing about history and just having lived the last 30 years might not provide an entirely realistic view of how the world works?
What makes you able to say for certain what the world would look like if this and that didn't happen?
>And if by globalized society you mean the UN, I suggest you check out the UN's successes.
Globalisation is a process mostly independent from the UN. Come on.
>No offence but the "globalized society" is not just a disaster, many people would have been better off living under a dictator ordering a genocide against them than with the result of having the "globalized society" that is the UN interfere with their affairs.
Globalisation, unless EVERY single nation on Earth adopts isolationism both economically and socially, is unavoidable.
Are you aware of the democratic peace theory? Check wikipedia. In short, [stable] democracies don't have wars. Not even USA starts wars with (or intervene in) stable democracies.
Most of the cases "suffering" from USA are ~ evil juntas.
India is an exception, they have voluntarily turned to Russia for e.g. buying weapons -- I don't know if the country "had" to do anything, re USA (they do benefit from the global market). But Russia's junta prefers to cooperate with non-democracies -- and actively demonizes the world's working democracies. China is doing even worse jingoism than Russia.
In short -- don't mix up packs of thieves stealing countries with the countries themselves. Or with democratic governments.
>> Globalisation, unless EVERY single nation on Earth adopts isolationism both economically and socially, is unavoidable.
Why would globalization necessarily be handled in a good way? We could get the military empire building back; Russia and China have started.
Yeah. I actually mentioned it in passing.
"In Europe, I think the leading cause for no repeated big wars is European cooperation and the lack of other political systems than the democratic one."
Other than that I don't think democratic peace theory really holds water when the involved nations are not committed to peace (like Europe is). Russia, a democratic nation (though exactly how non-corrupt it is can be discussed), is currently intervening in Ukraine and so is the USA.
>Not even USA starts wars with (or intervene in) stable democracies.
I'm not sure I really follow. They seem to have a great time intervening in non-NATO countries.
>In short -- don't mix up packs of thieves stealing countries with the countries themselves. Or with democratic governments
I've not said that either of these nations have a clean plate, nor have I said that they're a good influence. I've argued that I dislike all interventionism, and since the article /was/ about the USA, I criticised them.
India and China sure as hell have a cleaner plate than USA though.
>Why would globalization necessarily be handled in a good way? We could get the military empire building back; Russia and China have started.
I don't think it is being handled in a good way. That's the god damned point. No nation should have global military police forces.
Don't mix up criminal juntas -- which must have external enemies -- with the countries they steal. I don't really care about "rights" for the juntas.
>> Russia, a democratic nation (though exactly how non-corrupt it is can be discussed),
Well, you are unusual.
Few outside Putin's controlled media would describe Putin's Russia as a stable democracy. Most people would probably argue that Russia has never been close to democratic. :-(
>> I'm not sure I really follow. They seem to have a great time intervening in non-NATO countries.
That was a comment on when I wrote: "Not even USA starts wars with (or intervene in) stable democracies."
I wrote "stable democracies"... That is not the same as "non-NATO country".
Was it an honest mistake?
>> No nation should have global military police forces.
I agree with you in principle. But it is really naive.
Our moral comes from living in a country with a working police force (state violence monopoly, rule of law, etc). Before that, there were only clan societies. Then your only security was that clan members would revenge you. And they only did that, if you were willing to revenge them. Our present morals just didn't work.
The world's states today are like clans without a state police. There will in any given area be a bigger and meaner clan doing raiding.
Now, there will be peaceful clans which don't start stuff with other peaceful clans (democracies), but consider China and Russia -- they are bigger than their neighbours and behave like vikings.
You'd certainly see much more problems for the Philippines, India, ex-Soviet etc without USA and NATO...
Point is, we have been better off with USA. No, it isn't perfect.
Would a real world police even be desirable? What would happen if they did a coup? Who could fight against them? Think 1984, history as a foot that tramples a face. (The same as in the old communist states. Which was Orwell's point, of course)
Every last part of the world, with very few exceptions. Let's take a few examples:
1) Africa
Before European hegemony africa was the slave hunting ground of muslims (given that the orders were given by the muslim "pope" (caliph), I think this is fair to say). It was desolate, and there were constant attacks on villages to kidnap "black gold" (slaves) into the Ottoman empire, mostly to work (and die) in mines. Any amount of progress by the black villages was militarily exterminated in a matter of months to years.
Then, under European leadership after WWI, you have colonialism in Africa. I assume you know what was wrong with that, defending socialist viewpoints like you do.
Now, under American hegemony, and largely thanks to constant American milirary and economic support, and just plain free food, there's a large number of democracies, an >1000% improvement in money earned for the people living there. I wouldn't say it's stable but it's definitely an improvement.
2) India
Before WWI, a lot of Indian territory was being repressed and under constant genocides from muslims attacks, initially from the middle east, later from the region currently more or less known as Pakistan.
After WWI, British forces took over and administered India. Whilst I'm not quite ready to say this was a universal good, it was a definite improvement over the previous situation. This united India like it had never been united since over a millenium and built the state infrastructure that made the current India possible. This changed the life of 10-20% of India from subsistence farming to an actual reasonable existence.
Then, of course, Gandhi happened. Needless to say, given the chance muslims immediately tried to restart the previous situation, (read wikipedia's "partition" article) and failed (though they succeeded in Pakistan and Bangladesh). With American (mostly economic) and British (mostly military) support the current India was created : the world's largest democracy. It was recently celebrated that 50% of India has been lifted out of destitution.
We can go on if you like, but ...
Do you really believe the idea that liberals espouse, that forward progress happens automatically in all circumstances because the clock is advancing ? For the love of God, read some history, hell, you could just read papers of today, and you will quickly realize what role American power plays. Answer me this simple question : what would have happened in Eastern Europe if America didn't have nukes aimed at Moskow ? The short story : Germany would have a Russian border right now, which would be armed to the teeth. That would have destroyed the economic progress in Europe of the last 30-40 years at least.
Now imagine not just that one event, but like a reading of 20th century history will tell you, an event like that every 2-3 years. Can you imagine what would happen ? Can you imagine what would happen if Russia, or China, or Japan, or ... had global hegemony ?
> Globalisation, unless EVERY single nation on Earth adopts isolationism both economically and socially, is unavoidable.
Do you really believe that ? Allow me to introduce you to a simple concept : a gun. Answer me this : why isn't the Central African Republic exporting loads of fish ? Do you think the problem is isolationism ?
To read about a worst case scenario, read about the downfall of the Western Roman Empire, and the rise of islam and piracy and constant genocide in the centuries following that. It will show you what can go wrong with globalization, and it will show you how long such a problem takes to fix. I'd say we're about 1400 years after these events and we still haven't fully recovered. Or at least, certainly northern Africa hasn't recovered to the point it was at in 450 AD.
But generally look up the situation at the end of the 19th century (that's 120 years ago, not exactly an eternity), and ask yourself why globalisation didn't happen, despite America, and quite a few other countries, really, really, really trying to make it work.
The fact that Africa has been an absolute shithole for the past thousands of years is no secret, nor is it news.
>Then, under European leadership after WWI, you have colonialism in Africa.
Yes, I do in fact know about it. What's interesting to note is that while the conditions weren't good, there was in fact several places where people willingly worked for a decent wagei such as modern-day Ghana (Gold Coast). Slavery had already been abolished by the time the Scramble for Africa began (within the British Empire anyway). Belgium is in much worse light.
I know what went wrong too, but the point I'm making is that the colonisation of Africa wasn't all that bad. Lots of the infrastructure that exists there today was originally built during the colonisation of Africa.
And no, I am not British.
>I assume you know what was wrong with that, defending socialist viewpoints like you do.
What views is it I have that are socialist? Anti-interventionism? Because that's really all I'm arguing against.
>Now, under American hegemony, and largely thanks to constant American milirary and economic support, and just plain free food,
You must be ignorant to not know that all the European countries also contribute with foreign aid and food. This is not unique to the USA. Even bloody Russia does. Please point out where this American "hegemony" in Africa is.
Africa is a continent, excluding a few countries in North Africa, South Africa and one on the western coast, divided by religion, social inequality and corruption. It is the only place in the world that petty tribal wars even happen in the modern world. Do you honestly believe that the major population of Africa even knows where USA is on the map? Some of these countries have a literacy rate of just 20%. Sudan, Chad and Niger are all countries completely torn apart by internal conflict, and you call this American "hegemony"? Educate yourself.
>there's a large number of democracies, an >1000% improvement in money earned for the people living there. I wouldn't say it's stable but it's definitely an improvement.
Yes, Somalia, Eritrea, Congo and Ethiopia are truly great places to live compared to what they were before.
How about no? This assistance is not specific to the USA nor is it helping that much when all the money goes to the wrong people, that is, corrupt officials who take it all for themselves. The only African countries that are managing fairly well are places like South Africa who have had vast development spurred form colonial times.
I daresay current China is doing a lot more for countries like Angola than western foreign aid money does good. What is needed in Africa is not money which goes into corrupt hands. I think foreign investment is much more urgent, and profitable for both. Currently China and organisations like the Red Cross are the ones doing the dirty work. Not USA, and not Europe.
>After WWI, British forces took over and administered India. Whilst I'm not quite ready to say this was a universal good, it was a definite improvement over the previous situation. This united India like it had never been united since over a millenium and built the state infrastructure that made the current India possible. This changed the life of 10-20% of India from subsistence farming to an actual reasonable existence.
Yes, it really was an improvement from the old.
>With American (mostly economic) and British (mostly military) support the current India was created : the world's largest democracy. It was recently celebrated that 50% of India has been lifted out of destitution.
The UK has invested billions of pounds into supporting the current India for decades now. They've not provided military support, because India is VERY capable of doing that themselves. Need I remind you that India's strongest allies have been the UK and the Soviet Union (now Russia) for several decades now? Need I remind you that Indian military equipment is either exclusively Russian, or developed by themselves?
The USA has done about nothing for India. In fact, during the cold war, the two were enemies.
>Do you really believe the idea that liberals espouse, that forward progress happens automatically in all circumstances because the clock is advancing ?
I have not made that claim. I have made the claim that particularly after WW2 the world is entering a repeatedly globalised state due to ease of commerce and free trade agreements. This can easily be reversed if something triggers the reverse, but I really doubt it will turn around unless we end up in a new global war.
>For the love of God, read some history
I have, and I know that German interventionism (that is, Kaiser Wilhelm II's "World Politics" idea) was one of the biggest causes of WWI.
>what would have happened in Eastern Europe if America didn't have nukes aimed at Moskow ? The short story : Germany would have a Russian border right now, which would be armed to the teeth. That would have destroyed the economic progress in Europe of the last 30-40 years at least.
NATO != Murrica
I am in complete favour of European military alliances. It defends European nations against invasions, and it keeps us together instead of making us fight each other due to split alliances all over the place like WW1 and WW2.
>Now imagine not just that one event, but like a reading of 20th century history will tell you, an event like that every 2-3 years. Can you imagine what would happen ? Can you imagine what would happen if Russia, or China, or Japan, or ... had global hegemony ?
India and China are both two nations that are more concerned with themselves rather than what some anti-American terrorist group is doing i Iraq.
>Do you really believe that ?
You do not understand the concept of globalisation. The very fact that right now there's dozens of planes flying an Europe-America route is a sign of globalisation. There's even more cargo ships sailing the same route, and you deny the increasingly globalised economy? For God's sake, more than 20% of American government debt is held across the Pacific Ocean, and this is not globalisation you say?
>Answer me this : why isn't the Central African Republic exporting loads of fish ? Do you think the problem is isolationism ?
No. I think the main reason the Central African Republic isn't exporting fish is because it happens to be in the middle of a desert with no access to the coast.
Aside from that, the economy in Africa in general is very poor. This is not news, nor is the African economies well-being necessary for increasing globalisation to take place.
>To read about a worst case scenario, read about the downfall of the Western Roman Empire, and the rise of islam and piracy and constant genocide in the centuries following that. It will show you what can go wrong with globalization, and it will show you how long such a problem takes to fix.
There were LOADS of problems during the existence of the Western Roman Empire. The world was full of conflict at that time too.
Even so, the Western Roman Empire was not christian. This religion spread in Europe after the collapse of that empire, mostly because the persecution came to a complete stop. Christianity, as I am sure you know, is in the same religious family as Islam and Judaism. Moreover, after the collapse there were still stable empires in the world, such as the Byzantine Empire that collapsed because of relentless Ottoman assault.
You also seem to ignore the Holy Roman Empire, which was established later, but also had many long periods of stability.
>But generally look up the situation at the end of the 19th century (that's 120 years ago, not exactly an eternity), and ask yourself why globalisation didn't happen, despite America, and quite a few other countries, really, really, really trying to make it work.
Define globalisation.
Regardless, this has gone FAR off the point. I have made the point that military interventionism is something that breeds instability. It did so leading up to WW1, it did so inbetween the two wars, and it did so in the modern Middle East too due to Soviet and American interventionism. Military interventionism to accomplish one nation's goals has ALWAYS fucked over everyone else.
I do not want globalisation, which seems to be your main problem with what I said. I simply made the point that one nation cannot lead all. Only if there was a global government would the entire world be lead by one entity. Currently, the only government which does intervene to a great extent happens to be the US government. Since the article was about the US and how it's "falling from its glory", I voiced my opinion on that I think it'd be a good thing if the USA stopped messing with others. It would be a good thing if no nations intervened excessively with others.
Interventionism by the USA has had many negative effects, some of which I mentioned in my first post. The USA has many internal problems that needs to be solved rather than having occupation forces in over 1000 US military bases around the world. I have made very specific points, and I don't see why I have to argue about the development of African colonies to discuss the points I have made.
Also, don't call people socialists just because they happen to disagree with you. That is beyond pathetic.
Our fundamental point of disagreement is this :
> I have made the point that military interventionism is something that breeds instability.
I don't agree, at all, with this. Interventionism (well, mostly threats, not actual intervention) is what has kept the world stable the last 30 or so years. Stable, of course, relative to what came before and what will come after.
> I do not want globalisation, which seems to be your main problem with what I said. I simply made the point that one nation cannot lead all.
It not only can, IF it's the right nation, but I would say that one nation's leadership has lead to by far the stablest period of the last 4-5 centuries. Sure that period is ending, and very few people are likely to find that a positive, but it's ending because the power of that singular nation is waning. I'm not saying the US is the only nation that would actually use it's military in a somewhat moral fashion, but given what other nations did when they had their go at it, I certainly would not trust any European nation, Russia, China, Turkey (or generally any islamic nation, even Morocco has proven what it's made of) or Japan to use their military right.
Because the period is ending, the name of the game is now finding blame for the wars that result from the power vacuum. The reality is that the military superiority of America is no longer absolute (it probably is, actually, but Obama is not willing to bet 100% on it. Then again, Obama has a better view than I do, maybe he's right that the US could not easily win a conflict against Russia, or maybe Putin is just a really tough poker player)
Of course nobody sees fault with the nations that are mostly guilty of not protecting themselves, guilty of "neutrality", chiefly the European nations, because they're not doing anything, and nobody ever gets blamed for not arming themselves. But the reality is that they are responsible for the escalation. The problem is the hiding behind "neutrality". As the recent weeks have very clearly illustrated : "neutrality" boils down to supporting the most aggressive party in a conflict, from a strategic point of view. It should be a crime.
There's one other point I strongly disagree with :
> Christianity, as I am sure you know, is in the same religious family as Islam and Judaism.
I think the ideas of Christianity, Judaism and islam are very, very, very dissimilar. They have some of the same figures of legend, except of course the most central figures, which differ. In practice this creates a difference that is as wide as an ocean. Christianity and Judaism are basically concerned with creating a society of mostly farmers, a few traders. The goal : expansion, mostly through population growth. Islam creates a society based on constant warfare, with trade taking the place of supply lines (similar to the mongol society, for example). The goal : conquest, conversion through military means and the installation of a legally superior muslim society on top of whatever they found (like e.g. it happened in Northern Africa or India). You may call this "same family", then I would probably say that Nazism, Stalinism, Communism, European socialism and the democrats are all the same family too. I think you'll agree that rather large differences are possible "within" ideological families. Hell, even European socialists differ far more from the Democrats than the Republicans differ with the American Communist party.
And that islam doesn't match the ideals of modern society is no more surprising than the observation that neither does Roman law. There's just nobody stupid enough to attempt to bring back Roman law.
That might make some of us feel bad here in the U.S. --- we're no longer the undisputed top dogs in the world, as we were post-WWII --- but (to put it mildly) it's not entirely a bad thing for our fellow human beings in non-U.S. countries to be enjoying a higher standard of living than they had before.
The essence of "Americanism," it seems to me, is a desire to do better, for ourselves and our posterity (to paraphrase the preamble of the U.S. Constitution). That's not a quality unique to the U.S., of course, but we put a lot of emphasis on it. The mere existence of the linked article, and those like it, suggests we haven't entirely lost that quality; we shouldn't begrudge it when other countries and cultures "win" as well.
EDIT, responding to @waps: This issue is orthogonal to the question of how order can be maintained while still preserving peace, prosperity, and liberty. If there's an alternative to a light-touch military dominance by the U.S. and its allies, I'm not aware of it.
People forget what history looked like before the "pax Americana", because it's lasted more than a generation now. Even before that there was the colonial "peace" (compared to what came before it, it certainly was peaceful, compared to after, maybe not so peaceful), so even the pre-baby-boomer generation does not really remember what was the norm of history before WWI.
Let's just hope it'll all be different this time. That China will not do what it did in the early medieval times. That either the middle east will not reunite, or that it somehow will act differently this time. That the Russian situation does not resume the cold war (which wasn't all that cold in Eastern Europe as plenty of Americans know first-hand).
There is the strategic theory that there has been peace because of the superpowers. Let's just hope that that is very wrong, and that it can survive 3 or 4 superpowers.
Looking the results of the of the infinitely more brutal Pax Romana should give anyone pause at the prospect of the end of the Pax Americana.
Take a few moments, if you can, and put yourselves in the mind of a conservative american. Consider what things look like to a conservative christian in favor of small government, living in a town whose industrial base has been nuked and who is now living through a construction bust, with no obvious "next thing" in sight, except perhaps uprooting their families to the Dakotas for oil jobs.
If we don't make room for them, there will, eventually, be war.
World-wide the situation is far, far worse. In case you haven't yet noticed, most of the world still isn't Christian, and every other faith wants some variation of killing gays ... some faiths want them killed on sight even. The number of people wanting that is not really known, but reasonably, it's somewhere between 4 and 5 billion.
Liberalism is self-interest of middle class and upper-middle class people. But as you say, those social classes are disappearing, and not just because they don't seem to be having any kids.
The sad truth is, unless something fundamentally changes, the end of liberalism won't need to wait until the next generation, because those classes are being eliminated. You could say that it's economic policy, but that's not really true. I'd say technology and improved large-scale efficiency is mostly responsible. And that's inside America and Europe, in the rest of the world nothing remotely resembling liberalism stands a snowball's chance in hell of getting 10% of the votes.
Then there's general "environmentalism" and NIMBY/BANANAism that broken the compact between the city and countryside in California in the '70s, canceling the water projects necessary to keep up with the population growth of the former. Per farmer and intellectual Victor Davis Hanson, this year that's going to kill half a trillion dollars worth of agriculture, as an inevitable string of droughts require sending all the water to the cities.
Or the precipitous shutdown of the US coal industry; yeah, the stuff is extremely nasty and pretty much anything but bogus renewables (that can't scale, nor meet any demand cycle without even more expensive storage) would be better, but the speed and way this is being done is evil. And disproportionately hits fly-over country.
Or look at the XL pipeline, or unrestricted illegal, and way too great legal immigration. Etc. etc. etc.
All these are destroying working class jobs and lives, and the middle class ones that are based on them.
That said, I agree that HN should be mostly for technology.
With Asia's fast rise and outsourcing, the increase in global work force has been much faster than the increase in capital investments.
It seems natural that while that happens, the average salaries will go down [or at a minimum stagnate] for the middle class in the old rich countries (supply/demand), since there are lots of well educated people coming from a poor environment.
USA already had larger GINI coefficients than the rest of the western world, which is natural with the size (more heterogenous). So the median values etc for living standards will reflect that.
http://image.bayimg.com/6f1dce58aa37b2825e74cec05895180a1473...
Anyone know how to turn it off?