General Society Got It Wrong

[mathlete]

Health insurers provide no benefit whatsoever and add immensely to the cost of care in the United States.

Sure they do. They handle the administrative burden of paying for healthcare services. They provide protection against the downside risk of getting sick, because most people simply can't afford to get sick otherwise.

They could lay people off and save many meetings through the year if all of this nonsense were offloaded to a government service like Medicare. 

Medicare has administrative costs too. CMS employs thousands of people, and it isn't like Medicare universally has a reputation among providers for being easy to work with.

It is often cited that Medicare is more efficient than private insurance because the admin cost is lower. While this is technically true, low admin costs (as a percentage of total costs) is easier to obtain when you're insuring a sicker population. Older people generally require more care. Higher claims -> claims as a higher percentage of costs -> lower admin cost %.

If you only insured 20 year olds, your admin costs percentages would be through the roof because they almost never get sick. That doesn't necessarily mean that your program is inefficient though.

Lots of people extract value from the way the system currently works. We could lower costs and cover more people if the government was the only payer and could engage in price setting. But stakeholders in the current system would lose out. Hospitals and providers might see lower reimbursements. Healthy, high income people like myself would pay more in taxes, while being no better served than we were under the old system.

I happen to think the switch would be worth it on balance, but there is value in the current system, and a switch would create winners and losers.

[runbikerun]

I don't get this at all. "The Nordic countries have enjoyed incredible peace and prosperity over the last few decades" - compared to the US?

And mathematically speaking, Mustachianism is better served in a country with high social mobility than one with low. If all you need for your happiness is to roll at least seven (eg; sufficient income to FIRE) then take the country that gives everyone two dice. Hell, even when we measure for happiness, Norway and Denmark come out best.

[MrsPete]

In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

Having attended college in the 1980s, I have to disagree.  It was not possible to pay for a university education with a part-time job. 

Of course college is more expensive now, but younger people seem to have the idea that it was a breeze then and now is awful.  It was pretty tough then too. 

[TreesBikesLove]

Another reason Engineering can take 5 years rather than 4 is the increased courseload compared to 20-30 years ago. My professors (who have been teaching for decades) constantly told us how the course requirements have consistently moved upward as the industry becomes more specialized and yet there still remains only one "Electrical Engineering" program at Universities. This is also why post-grad degrees are becoming more prolific and required in the industry: more specialized knowledge that couldn't possibly be taught in an undergrad program.

The increased courseload was most obvious when looking at the math prereqs for Winter term freshmen classes. Our school had four quarters per year (most people took the Summer quarter off). By the second quarter, you were expected to have taken pre-calculus, differential calculus, and integral calculus. That is three quarters worth of math expected to be completed in the Fall quarter. Of course each preceding class was a prereq for the next class and I think someone who was taking pre-calc for the first time ever would have a really difficult time in integral calc. Most engineering students had taken Calculus in Highschool so they could skip both pre-calc and differential but the students who the program cared about the most (underserved and under-represented minorities) were mostly not planning on doing Engineering in College and hadn't thought to get three years ahead in Highschool Math to prep for Engineering. I don't blame them! Driving to the local community college at 830pm on a school night to take a Math class that wasn't required to graduate highschool sucked but thank God my parents forced me to do that.

A lot of my peers took 5 years because we were in a coop program that alternated between 6 months school and 6 months coop at a Engineering company for years 3, 4, and 5. It is an incredible program to be a part of because you are paid as an entry level Engineer while on coop so the 6 months of working translated to a full year of tuition.

Engineering and STEM are clearly better choices from a "personal capital" investment decision than Liberal Arts. That doesn't mean that LA is useless and I don't think a good solutions is, "only wealthy families get to study art." Maybe take the sacrifice and study STEM so that one day your children can afford to study arts without worrying about the payoff horizon.

The grass is always greener. I'm gonna step up to the plate for the USA here...

There are issues, but if I had to start all over, I'd still pick the United States. Ten times out of ten. I think it is unequivocally the best country to live in if you're a high achiever.

If you're a high achiever born to the right family. Social mobility in the US is poorer than in the bulk of other developed economies, meaning that a Danish high achiever born to someone in the bottom 20% is significantly more likely to "succeed" economically than an American high achiever born to someone in the bottom 20%.

Many of American policies are created from the emotional concept of "motivation." You are arguing that our policies should be formed based on the emotional concept of "equity." Neither reason is right or wrong but the policies are very different in their implementations. 

[shelivesthedream]

So here's a question I came up with the other day: has the American experiment failed?

America as a country is very young. Sure, other countries have been dissolved and created since then but I cannot think of one that was populated by people who wanted to create a country (as a geopolitical entity) from scratch. America broke away from the way it's parents countries were governed and basically said "We can do a better job running this new country our way." So did they?

We've talked about some stuff already on this thread. Your insane healthcare system. Your insane university system. Both of which may technically achieve the same outcome as the NHS or UK student loans for people who can work out how the system works (Obamacare/ACA and all this community college transfer stuff) but is SO FUCKING OVERCOMPLICATED. Yes, you can have choice and FREEDOM but at the expense of making everything so bloody difficult that it's hardly a fair, free choice at all. How is it FREEDOM to have to navigate in network and out of network providers and procedures when you're really ill? How is it FREEDOM to have to not only take exams and apply to university and work out what to study and where you want to go but also to weigh up all the thousand different cost implications and apply for aid and scholarships and work out where is the best bang for your buck? In England, Cambridge costs the same as Thames Valley ex-polytechnic. And it's easy to see that. You fill in one form for a means-tested grant and it's the same anywhere you apply. Simples. I second Linda_Norway's post above about where the real choice is in education.

America is violent. Guns or not, you live in a violent society. Is it because you are descended from rugged individualists? Is it a quirk of geography that means policing is less responsive because of distances? Is it because y'all just love guns?

You allow substances in your foods that are illegal over here. How crazy is that? We have deemed these things too dangerous for human consumption but you are perfectly legally chewing down on them. You advertise prescription medication on television. I still feel like I must have misunderstood this somehow because that is fucking insane. Sure, it gives you choice and FREEDOM, but wtf?! Business, it seems, trumps all, in a way which seems rather unpleasantly Dickensian to me.

I mean, I don't want this to turn into some big America-bashing post. But to return to my original question: do these things mean that the American experiment has failed? Country experiments do fail. Soviet Russia, for example. I'm not sure about the Third Reich, whether that failed under its own steam or was defeated. But is it time to ask ourselves whether the American experiment has failed?

There woul be options if people were up for it. For example, disunite the United States. America is VAST. Why not chop it up into more manageable pieces? Another example: amend your constitution again. Replace the right to bear arms with the right to healthcare.

[gaja]

This (funny) TED talk compares wealth and social mobilitet in the US and the Nordic countries: https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU

[Cranky]

In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

Having attended college in the 1980s, I have to disagree.  It was not possible to pay for a university education with a part-time job. 

Of course college is more expensive now, but younger people seem to have the idea that it was a breeze then and now is awful.  It was pretty tough then too.

Well, in the mid-70s, tuition and fees at the University of Colorado, Boulder - the main campus - was around $325/semester. That included medical care, including a small hospital.

My dh's parents paid his tuition, but he worked fulltime every summer and paid all of his living expenses. (I was a slacker, my parents paid for it all.)

[Hash Brown]

Sure they do. They handle the administrative burden of paying for healthcare services. They provide protection against the downside risk of getting sick, because most people simply can't afford to get sick otherwise.

Wrong.  The insurance companies waste huge amounts of money on advertising/branding.   They waste huge amounts of money on the commissions paid to the stooge salesmen who get companies to switch from one insurer to another.  They waste huge amounts of money on dividends paid to shareholders.  Because there is a delay in payment for copays, the hospitals must keep much more cash on hand than they would need otherwise in order to make payroll and keep suppliers paid. 

None of that happens with the VA, Medicare, or Medicaid.  The VA hospitals don't rebuild their lobbies every 5 years.  They don't leave their perfectly fine buildings to build a new one next to the interstate in the wealthy part of town.  They don't run endless television and radio ads. 

[Cranky]

So here's a question I came up with the other day: has the American experiment failed?

America as a country is very young. Sure, other countries have been dissolved and created since then but I cannot think of one that was populated by people who wanted to create a country (as a geopolitical entity) from scratch. America broke away from the way it's parents countries were governed and basically said "We can do a better job running this new country our way." So did they?

We've talked about some stuff already on this thread. Your insane healthcare system. Your insane university system. Both of which may technically achieve the same outcome as the NHS or UK student loans for people who can work out how the system works (Obamacare/ACA and all this community college transfer stuff) but is SO FUCKING OVERCOMPLICATED. Yes, you can have choice and FREEDOM but at the expense of making everything so bloody difficult that it's hardly a fair, free choice at all. How is it FREEDOM to have to navigate in network and out of network providers and procedures when you're really ill? How is it FREEDOM to have to not only take exams and apply to university and work out what to study and where you want to go but also to weigh up all the thousand different cost implications and apply for aid and scholarships and work out where is the best bang for your buck? In England, Cambridge costs the same as Thames Valley ex-polytechnic. And it's easy to see that. You fill in one form for a means-tested grant and it's the same anywhere you apply. Simples. I second Linda_Norway's post above about where the real choice is in education.

America is violent. Guns or not, you live in a violent society. Is it because you are descended from rugged individualists? Is it a quirk of geography that means policing is less responsive because of distances? Is it because y'all just love guns?

You allow substances in your foods that are illegal over here. How crazy is that? We have deemed these things too dangerous for human consumption but you are perfectly legally chewing down on them. You advertise prescription medication on television. I still feel like I must have misunderstood this somehow because that is fucking insane. Sure, it gives you choice and FREEDOM, but wtf?! Business, it seems, trumps all, in a way which seems rather unpleasantly Dickensian to me.

I mean, I don't want this to turn into some big America-bashing post. But to return to my original question: do these things mean that the American experiment has failed? Country experiments do fail. Soviet Russia, for example. I'm not sure about the Third Reich, whether that failed under its own steam or was defeated. But is it time to ask ourselves whether the American experiment has failed?

There woul be options if people were up for it. For example, disunite the United States. America is VAST. Why not chop it up into more manageable pieces? Another example: amend your constitution again. Replace the right to bear arms with the right to healthcare.

What do you think was the American experiment? For a lot of Americans, it's "individualism" rather than a "city on a hill".

[mathlete]

Wrong.  The insurance companies waste huge amounts of money on advertising/branding.   They waste huge amounts of money on the commissions paid to the stooge salesmen who get companies to switch from one insurer to another.  They waste huge amounts of money on dividends paid to shareholders.  Because there is a delay in payment for copays, the hospitals must keep much more cash on hand than they would need otherwise in order to make payroll and keep suppliers paid. 

None of that happens with the VA, Medicare, or Medicaid.  The VA hospitals don't rebuild their lobbies every 5 years.  They don't leave their perfectly fine buildings to build a new one next to the interstate in the wealthy part of town.  They don't run endless television and radio ads.

With the utmost respect, I have a lot of experience in the health insurance industry, including a lot of interfacing with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so I'm a bit reticent to continue a conversation in which my perspective is dismissed with, "Wrong."

A word of advice though, if you're making the case for the government being the sole administrator of healthcare (something I'm on board with), pick anything but the VA.

[mathlete]

So here's a question I came up with the other day: has the American experiment failed?

No. Without reservation.

And I'm not a jingoistic person. Gun violence, high tuition, and medical bankruptcies are frustrating. I want more to be done to address them. I write my congressman all the time to say how sick I am of gun violence. I wrote my senator, just today, to express my displeasure with our President's needless dismantling of ACA that will hurt at-risk people.

But you have to take the good with the bad, like with anything. In the one hand, we have 30K gun deaths a year (2/3rds of which are suicides, but that is still unacceptable) and a 10% uninsured rate.

On the other hand, we have the defeat of the Nazis, with Americans like Oppenheimer and the people at Los Alamos beating them to the atom bomb. We have Americans like Margaret Hamilton putting a man on the moon. We have the world's most powerful economy. We have the best hospitals. We have internationally renowned universities.

The United States also aggressively courts people from around the world. The US leads the world in net migration, because people want to be here. And we (...most of us) want them here. We want Sergey Brin coming from Russia to become an American citizen and found Google. We want Dr. Bennet Omalu coming here from Nigeria so he can study, become an American citizen, and do his groundbreaking study to show us how American Football is destroying our brains. We want Elon Musk coming form South Africa, becoming an American Citizen, and helping get us off our fossil fuel dependency.

[snowball]

Miscellaneous Reasons America is Great

Everyone wants to be here.

I don’t.  :P

Yes, I know (I think?) you intended that as hyperbole, but...I always notice that in these conversations, Americans seem to vastly overestimate the level of natural appeal that living in the U.S. has to the rest of the developed world.  It seems to be a widespread unexamined cultural assumption there that "everyone wants to move to the U.S.", probably reinforced by the fact that the immigrants you interact with did want to move there (selection bias...)

I don't think you could even say most people in the developed world want to move to the U.S.  In the developing world, maybe you could, but then, the appeal of moving to developed non-U.S. countries will be pretty high for those people too.

I'm really not U.S.-bashing here;  as you say, no other country is perfect either, and in addition to its problems, the U.S. does genuinely have a lot of things going for it.  And I've enjoyed visiting your country.  But I don't particularly want to live there, and I don't know many people who do.

...You have to remember that, first, most non-desperate people just aren't interested in the kind of massive uprooting involved in moving to another country.  But compounding that, I think there's also some effect from...well, this is a bit unfair, because the U.S. gets more of a spotlight shone on its problems than most countries do, but these problems are very well known outside your borders, and do influence the impression of what it's like to live in your country.

(Personally, I'm adventurous and rootless enough to be willing to move far, far away from home, even though I don't need to do that for good opportunities.  And if I were looking at a U.S. move, I'd discount violence as an issue, because I realize news reports like that skew the idea of what daily life is like.  But.  Even if I got a high-paying U.S. job offer, with employer health insurance and all, I'm not sure it would be enough to convince me to deal with navigating your health care system and the in-network/out-of-network nonsense.  I'd rather deal with the Middle Eastern health care system where I am working now, which is actually pretty good.)

(I think health care is that kind of deal breaker for a lot of talented people in the rest of the developed world who might otherwise consider immigrating.  Our expectations of how that stuff should work are just very different.  Pre-ACA, I remember U.S. health care came up in my friend-group of young professionals, and we were unanimous about not even considering moving there unless that mess got sorted out, which...apparently it's still not, I am sorry to see.)

[shelivesthedream]

People move to the UK and invent things and defeat Nazis too. We are currently having a national debate about whether "too many" people want to move here - are we "too awesome"? :)

[gaja]

The grass is always greener. I'm gonna step up to the plate for the USA here...

It is very difficult to discuss differences between countries, because as soon as the topic of USA enters the discussion, Americans* step up to defend their country. Everyone is proud of their country, but I wonder if maybe the US school system takes this patriotism too far. For instance; I don't know any other democracy where parents would accept that their kids should learn to "pledge alligience to the flag".

A few examples of how something that must be trained into kids at school in the US, because it comes out so automatically in every discussion, and it just looks weird (or even slightly insulting) from the outside:

1) The WW2/Nazi thing.
All the allied countries learn to be proud about what their country did in the war. The UK take great pride in how they kept on fighting on even though London was bombed to smitherins. Norway is very proud of our skiing saboteurs who stopped the Nazis from getting enough heavy water to develop the atom bomb. The Faroes are very proud of their sailors, who ensured that goods and food got into the allied countries, despite staggering losses of men and ships (largest per capita in Europe). Even the Swedes are proud of how their neutral diplomats managed to care for refugees and save people from the camps. But we all learn that we were part of an alliance, and that this joint effort is what won the war, with three main turning points happening around 42/43: the major one was Germany's losses on the eastern front, where millions of Russians died in their effort to decimate the German troops. 3/4 of all German losses were by Russian troops, and the war in Europe was over when Russia took Berlin in 1945. The second turning point was in Africa, mainly thanks to the Commonwealth forces from India, Australia, New Zealand, etc. This knocked out Italy, and spread the German forces even thinner. The third turning point was the US entering the war.

When discussing this issue with people from USA, it sounds like they have only been taugth about their own part of the war, and that they are convinced the only reason Germany didn't win is that the US "came in and saved Europe's ass". When annoyed Europeans then respond with "hey, thanks for showing up late and claiming all the glory", it often seems like the Americans are hurt and feel attacked. This is very different from the banter the rest of us can have about this issue - about how the Russians turned their cape when the wind shifted, how we lost the battle of Norway in less than a week, how the French... were French, etc. There is no room for making light of the US military, that is taken as ungratefulness and insults.

*By Americans I mean US citizens. I know America has a large number of countries, but don't know any good word for the people living in the US.


2) The Constitution.
The US pride of their consititution, and how they view it as ancient, sacret, and unchangeable, is just weird for an outsider. It doesn't seem like they know that all other western democracies have similar laws, and that most of those are much older? Laws age, and need to be updated. Norway just changed several parts of our 1814 consititution; although it is younger than the US one, it still needed updating. If we were to become originalists, we would have a problem: The consititution has ties back to "the Law of Norway" from 1687, that replaced (or really revamped) Magnus Lagabøtes law of 1274-1276. This again was based on "the Gulating law" and "Frostating law", that have ties back to the 5th century. The UK have their Magna Carta, the southern Europeans have proud traditions stretching back to the Romans. The US consitution is nice, but it is really not that special. The Roman laws, and the Magna Carta, are the ones that really changed the world.


3) "Everybody wants to come here"
As shelivesthedream and snowball explained, a lot of people from poor countries want to move to any rich country to have more opportunities (they even want tocome to cold and dark Norway), and a lot of people in rich countries too find it interesting to try to live in different countries and experience different cultures. My mother is a scientist, and every so often she takes a semester abroad as a visiting scholar. She has been to other Nordic countries, the UK, parts of eastern Europe, etc. Last year she went to the US. It was a weird experience, and she will probably not try to do that again. I think we were 10 people involved to navigate the paperwork at its worst. Even going to Russia caused less and easier paperwork. Blank forms were printed and sent in the mail for her to fill out and send back. We had to find a bank that knew how to, and were willing to, handle paper checks. She had to drop everything on a days notice to get to the nearest US embassy for interviews. It was all so cumbersome and old fashioned.

And the really weird thing is that if you tell a Russian that the paperwork and bureaucrazy was a bit of a struggle, they will agree with you, and crack a few jokes about it. If you tell that to an American, they will often angrily resond with "yeah - if you think it is so bad, maybe you should just stay at home".

[MrsPete]

In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

Having attended college in the 1980s, I have to disagree.  It was not possible to pay for a university education with a part-time job. 

Of course college is more expensive now, but younger people seem to have the idea that it was a breeze then and now is awful.  It was pretty tough then too.

Well, in the mid-70s, tuition and fees at the University of Colorado, Boulder - the main campus - was around $325/semester. That included medical care, including a small hospital.

My dh's parents paid his tuition, but he worked fulltime every summer and paid all of his living expenses. (I was a slacker, my parents paid for it all.)

I was in elementary school in the 70s and clearly don't know what tuition cost then, but a quick google search says minimum wage was $2 in the mid-70s, so $325 would've required 162 hours of work and was still "real money".  Tuition was definitely more by the late 80s when I was in college, and minimum wage was $3.35. 

My point isn't that tuition hasn't increased (clearly it has); rather, my point is that people today seem to have the idea that tuition was essentially nothing in the past.  It wasn't a picnic in the past either; I certainly did not make it through college working part time. 

[mathlete]

1) The WW2/Nazi thing.

Americans are definitely parochial. No argument there. Although, in our defense, I'll say that this is mostly because a bulk of the US News cycle, as well as a large chunk of the World news cycle, is devoted to the United States. Probably because of how influential it is.

This was actually discussed on a podcast I was listening to recently. One of the hosts made the point that if you use relative GDP (an admittedly imperfect measure) as proxy for how much people in a country should be informed about what is going on elsewhere, the United States should be expected to know about as much about Brazil, as Brazil knows about the Czech Republic. So probably not much, in either case.

In my own defense, I'll say that my bringing up of WWII was mostly about the US Manhattan project, and beating out others to the atom bomb. As much as I hate WMDs, I'm glad we got there first.

But for sure, there is a bit of the, "Back to back World War Champs" mentality in the United States. While many times it is a bit cheeky, I have no doubt that it appears incredibly obnoxious from abroad.

2) The Constitution.
The US pride of their consititution, and how they view it as ancient, sacret, and unchangeable, is just weird for an outsider

The Constitution has been amended 17 times since the original bill of rights. There's also been a lot of non-amendment federal law made, such as to establish our socialist, old age programs like Medicare and Social Security.

But the US is exactly that. United States. A lot of governing is supposed to be left to the individual states. That's become less the case over time, but there are pros and cons with this approach. Sometimes, slow moving states have to be dragged over the finish line for obvious, good change, such as when the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage the law of the land a few years back. That can be frustrating. And it's an indictment on the system. I don't know that it blanketly means the system is bad though.

3) "Everybody wants to come here"

Yeah, as snowball correctly assessed, there is a bit of hyperbole here. But it's rooted in the fact that the US leads in net migration (people in less people out). If you're a high earner in a developed country, maybe you have no reason to come, you're probably perfectly happy. But low skill laborers, and high achievers in competitive fields still rate America rather high as a potential destination.

I know that people desperately want in to other countries too. And for good reason. Most first world nations are great places to live. I'd be glad to live in any of them, really. Both for the high standard of living, as well as for the advantages that many of them hold over the United States.

Just defending the US because I'm an American, and I felt like being the one to take up for America.

Thanks for the chat. Thanks to snowball and others too. Good responses!

[Bucksandreds]

We Americans are taught since elementary school that we are the greatest country in the world. Obviously, we are a far superior to non developed countries so when we see videos of Africa, Central America, South East Asia it reinforces our bias.  The problem is we had such an advantage post WW2 that we were so far superior to so many countries in so many ways that as we’ve slowly devolved (or maybe more accurately less quickly evolved as much as Western Europe)  over the years, most Americans have not experienced that moment where the info is presented that shows how many countries have caught up and or surpassed us in many ways.  If we continue on our current trajectory then as things get worse for the non rich here over the next few decades, it will become more and more obvious that we need to copy best practices from countries that have found more success.  We have everything we need to sensibly limit guns/violence, give everyone health care, shrink the gap between the rich and poor. It’s going to take voters to dismantle the current Republican Party, so that politics can become center right v center left instead of far right v center left. 2020 will be the first real chance for that to happen.

[boarder42]

A few things

1. not everyone needs a higher education - people still have to do and trade labor is a great way to make a lot of money

1a. technology will decrease the cost of higher education and it will be accessible on and as needed basis for much lower cost than we have now.  So instead of paying for 4 years of partying people will be able to take the courses they want when they want and pay substanially lower prices. 

2. Healthcare. - yes we have done this majorly incorrect to date.  A single payer system non for profit is really the only answer here.  The biggest fundamental issue i see facing society in healthcare is the progression of new tech to fight and cure the ailments that kill off humans before we believe it is their time.  In most if not all other areas of human advancement the advances are first paid for by the rich.  So the only real way i see to fix this in the short term is for a single payer to fund preventative treatments and checkups as well as a basic set of tech that has acheived its return to shareholders - what that return is should be regulated like the Utility industries are, so there is easy profit for advancement.  but again the people with means will be the first to achieve these treatments and we will have to be ok that we cant save everyone all the time.  Its a very tough pill to swallow since it involves human life.

At the end of the day education and healthcare cannot continue to outpace society technology will bring them back down to earth ... healthcare much more slowly than education.

[zinnie]

Posting to follow. Interesting conversation.

[boarder42]

on the flip side of all of this America has the highest employment rate of most developed countries.  I was quite surprised to hear/realize the unemployment rates in the greater part of europe compared to the US.  Now should we be emphasizing employment for the sake of employment - NO.  but these far more socialist countries do have some greater disadvantages when compared to how the US operates.  Dont want to derail this thread but we should be looking at all sides.  our tour guide in multiple Med countries stated greater than 50% unemployment of the 18-34 year olds.  This is huge.  To me it means maybe i work a bit longer to make sure my kids have money regardless of how our society goes.  But if we go the way of western europe its arguable that unempolyment will rise with the increase of entitled benefits.

[kei te pai]

I live just about as far away from Norway as you can get, but Gajas post really resonates with me. I just dont get the America the greatest ,hands on hearts, flag worship stuff. Its a bit um, North Korean, if you know what I mean.
Some countries have wonderful landscape, some have great music, some have political and social structures that reward individual efforts, others focus on the greatest good for the greatest number. It doesnt mean that one is superior , or inferior.
We are are all citizens of this beautiful and vulnerable planet, we are all human, and our lives are mere moments in eternity.

[shelivesthedream]

Really excellent post, gaja. We Brits are always self-deprecating about things we like and are proud of, so the "hand on heart" patriotism is a bit weird. But you've also done an excellent job of explaining why American exceptionalism also rubs us up the wrong way. We've had our fair share of "GREAT!!! Britain!" in the past but I don't think we genuinely believe that we are unique as a country. We have too much history intertwined with other countries to believe that. As you pointed out, many other countries have things like constitutions... why is the American one suddenly the only one written in stone and handed down from God?

[Alps]

1) The WW2/Nazi thing.

In my own defense, I'll say that my bringing up of WWII was mostly about the US Manhattan project, and beating out others to the atom bomb. As much as I hate WMDs, I'm glad we got there first.

Not to pile on, but... this is actually exactly what non-US people mean when they talk about the self-centered US perspective. Did you read what Gaja wrote? Americans developed the atom bomb first because, yes, they were working on it, but also because other countries were actively working to hinder Germany developing it first! And yet Americans think and proclaim it was solely their own achievement.
Of course everybody is glad the Americans got there first, but they still didn't do it alone!

About wanting to live in the US, I did my undergrad in the US and then went back to Europe. I think pretty much every American I told this was very surprised about my decision: "But don't you want to stay here??" :D no thank you, I don't want to spend my life either at work or in a car. Now with a family I would have additional concerns about health care and the idea of the importance of school districts.

Most other fellow international students stayed in the US - they were not from first world countries. But as somebody else said this is selection bias. Here in Europe I don't meet anybody who wants to live in the US, but many who want try staying in Europe (including US citizens).

[shelivesthedream]

^+1 Pretty sure the US was working off a lot of Allied research and it just happened in America because it was physically safer as harder for the enemy to bomb.

[gaja]

on the flip side of all of this America has the highest employment rate of most developed countries.  I was quite surprised to hear/realize the unemployment rates in the greater part of europe compared to the US.  Now should we be emphasizing employment for the sake of employment - NO.  but these far more socialist countries do have some greater disadvantages when compared to how the US operates.  Dont want to derail this thread but we should be looking at all sides.  our tour guide in multiple Med countries stated greater than 50% unemployment of the 18-34 year olds.  This is huge.  To me it means maybe i work a bit longer to make sure my kids have money regardless of how our society goes.  But if we go the way of western europe its arguable that unempolyment will rise with the increase of entitled benefits.

Yes, youth unemployment in Southern Europe is a big problem. But since this discussion started with a comparison to Norway, in Northern Europe, we have an employment rate of 74.4, compared to the US at 69.4. The U.K., in Western Europe, are at 75.3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_employment_rate

I don't think your theory about benefits holds water. But I also don't think the US wants to aim for Norwegian employment rates, since a large reason for the difference is that most Norwegians think SAHMs is something that is bad for society. We'll cover parental leave for one year, and you can get a little bit of support for one more year. But after that, you will get stares and loaded questions if the kid doesn't at least go to kindergarten part time. Homeschooling is very rare. The parliament is negotiating the budget for 2018 now, and seems to have overwhelming majority for removing the last of the tax benefits for couples where one spouse stays at home. Everyone, from conservatives to communists, support the notion. The only opponent is the Christian democrats, who are very small but in a good negotiation position.

[maizefolk]

Most other fellow international students stayed in the US - they were not from first world countries. But as somebody else said this is selection bias. Here in Europe I don't meet anybody who wants to live in the US, but many who want try staying in Europe (including US citizens).

Isn't there equal selection bias with both of those? Here in the USA I don't meet anyone who wants to live in the EU, but many who want to stay in America (including citizens of EU countries).

I think there are a lot of things going on in this discussion that are difficult to unpack. But one think I'm noticing is that it sounds like a lot of the comments are coming from posters in Eurovision-participating countries.* When I've been in europe (or talked to europeans over on this side of the atlantic) it is clear that the very idea of what a country/citizenship means is pretty different over there. You can drive a couple of hours and be in a different country, without going through customs or passport control. You're much more likely to work in a country that is different from the one you were born in. I've been told for academic posts it is essentially expected that people will go leave their home country for several years to do a postdoc before they can be competitive for a position in their home country. Given all that, nationality and citizenship in a particular eurovision country vs citizenship in any eurovision country just doesn't define people as much probably did 50-60 years ago.

So it makes sense to me that, for people who grew up in eurovision countries and are comparing the USA to other eurovision countries, we're going to come off as a bit... odd and out of touch. Both because we're not part of the eurovision cultural context, and because we're not going through the same experience of having the importance of national identity (as opposed to group-of-nations identity) fade away. It might be more relevant to compare the degree of investment the average american has in their national identity to countries like Japan or China, which are also large nations which aren't in the process of developing a shared trans-national sense of identity with their neighbors.

*I'm using this metric because it avoids arguments about what counts as Europe, plus includes a few important countries like Australia that seem to share some of the same views on nationhood, but definitely aren't European.

[Alps]

Most other fellow international students stayed in the US - they were not from first world countries. But as somebody else said this is selection bias. Here in Europe I don't meet anybody who wants to live in the US, but many who want try staying in Europe (including US citizens).

Isn't there equal selection bias with both of those? Here in the USA I don't meet anyone who wants to live in the EU, but many who want to stay in America (including citizens of EU countries).

Of course! The difference is just that we generally don't regard Europe as heaven on Earth, and can believe it if somebody doesn't want to live here ;)

It might be more relevant to compare the degree of investment the average american has in their national identity to countries like Japan or China, which are also large nations which aren't in the process of developing a shared trans-national sense of identity with their neighbors.

Yeah, I would be interested in that as well. Although I'd say that I didn't get a sense of patriotism from the Asians that I've met so far. Actually, the people with similar levels of patriotism as the US (that I've met) would be the Turks - and that is a country that experienced more than a hundred years of intense patrotic indoctrination.

[aspiringnomad]

I'm loving the conversation here. I'm an immigrant to the US from a developing (now-chaotic) country, who identifies as an American, but also holds permanent residency in another developed country through my wife. We plan to FIRE outside the US, first travelling then settling in her country, so I'm often thinking about these issues.

I did almost all my schooling in the US, and yes, growing up we were often taught the US is the best without giving much critical thought as to why, in what ways, or which countries might have a better approach to certain things. That sort of jingoism is not very productive, in my opinion, as it closes off the mind to different approaches. But I am optimistic that the younger American generation is much more open to other ideas partly because travel has become much more common in recent years and partly because it's harder to escape the fact that the US lags other developed countries in certain ways (e.g., access to healthcare, quality of infrastructure, much higher levels of gun violence).

But general society is just a reflection of the culture and the institutions prior generations have built to support its citizens, and what's impressive about the US is that it's managed to lead the world in many ways while sustaining and benefitting from such a massive and diverse population (We often hear comparisons to Denmark, but just the state of Minnesota has nearly as many people as Denmark and is more racially diverse than Denmark, despite being among the least diverse US states). Our institutions, including our constitution/legal system, our economy/financial markets, and our social safety net have been relatively successful at absorbing people from all over the world and using their varying experiences and skills to our cultural and economic advantage. And our culture, for better or for worse, has been entrepreneurial and individualistic. I wouldn't say that necessarily leads to the best quality of life for all or most, but it does lead to an incredibly dynamic economy and it does tend to attract many migrants who place a higher value on monetary reward, technological innovation, or fame. Since I'll personally be very focused on quality of life during FIRE, it'll probably be in another developed country, but since my investments will still be focused on low-fees and good returns, they'll still be domiciled here in the US with about half my overall allocation in US company stock.

[maizefolk]

I would say that the Chinese people are often (thought not always) extremely patriotic/nationalistic if the conversation turns to that topic. I'm not picking on China in particular it is just the non-eurovision country that I have the most interactions with.

Turkey is a eurovision country, but culturally it (and maybe the three countries out in the caucasus) are probably the least integrated into that shared cultural context, so it makes sense to me that they'd be more invested in their own national identity.

Do you mind if I ask which (general) part of the USA you did your undergrad in, where no one would believe you wanted to go back home afterwards?

[dresden]

In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

Having attended college in the 1980s, I have to disagree.  It was not possible to pay for a university education with a part-time job. 

Of course college is more expensive now, but younger people seem to have the idea that it was a breeze then and now is awful.  It was pretty tough then too.

I went to two years of community college followed by 2 years at a university for 7,000 total which I paid for as I went without loans.   According to ssa.gov the index factor is 2.89.  That means in today’s costs it would be 20,230.  I have no idea whether 20k is what it costs for a 2+2 education while living at home in 2017.   I made $8/hour cleaning windows in the mid 80s. That is also about what ups paid back then.  Not sure if a college student can make over $20/hour it seems to me college students have fewer good paying jobs compared to the mid 80s,but I have no visibility to those jobs.  The tax credits today are much better.

Well, in the mid-70s, tuition and fees at the University of Colorado, Boulder - the main campus - was around $325/semester. That included medical care, including a small hospital.

My dh's parents paid his tuition, but he worked fulltime every summer and paid all of his living expenses. (I was a slacker, my parents paid for it all.)

[Cranky]

In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

Having attended college in the 1980s, I have to disagree.  It was not possible to pay for a university education with a part-time job. 

Of course college is more expensive now, but younger people seem to have the idea that it was a breeze then and now is awful.  It was pretty tough then too.

Well, in the mid-70s, tuition and fees at the University of Colorado, Boulder - the main campus - was around $325/semester. That included medical care, including a small hospital.

My dh's parents paid his tuition, but he worked fulltime every summer and paid all of his living expenses. (I was a slacker, my parents paid for it all.)

I was in elementary school in the 70s and clearly don't know what tuition cost then, but a quick google search says minimum wage was $2 in the mid-70s, so $325 would've required 162 hours of work and was still "real money".  Tuition was definitely more by the late 80s when I was in college, and minimum wage was $3.35. 

My point isn't that tuition hasn't increased (clearly it has); rather, my point is that people today seem to have the idea that tuition was essentially nothing in the past.  It wasn't a picnic in the past either; I certainly did not make it through college working part time.

The University of Colorado only started charging tuition to state residents around 1960. The California system was later than that.

But I seriously did not know one single person in college who was attending CU in state who had student loans, and I really did know a number of people who worked part time and paid their own expenses.

My father-in-law worked his way through School of Mines in the 1930s by working at the slaughterhouse, which remarkably did not make a vegetarian of him.

[tralfamadorian]

I attended one of the public ivies in the early 00's for ~$2k/semester- easily payable waiting tables very part time.  Price has gone up almost 400% since then.

Sure, every college, or even most colleges, could not be realistically paid with a part time job in the past.  But now I'm not sure if it's possible anywhere.

[Hash Brown]

An under-appreciated feature of American society that is rarely mentioned is the effectiveness of the FBI in destroying the Italian Mafia and keeping big-time corruption for the most part out of local government.  My uncle was a bartender at a mob-run place in the 1970s that was burned to the ground on a night when he luckily wasn't working.   Unfortunately, the low and mid-level nonsense the mafia was still pulling off through the 1980s has been wildly outstripped by all of the privatization schemes (prisons, charter schools, etc.) as well as finance deregulation that has given rise to hedge funds and the aggressive activities of investment banks. 

Wall St. is truthfully the insidious danger within American society.  It is solidly entwined with the soft-fascism that has always been a factor since industrialization but snuck its foot back in the door and has stayed there thanks to Reagan.  This secular force has tricked most of the self-described Christians into voting for the party acting against their self-interest.  The wealthy individuals promoting "patriotism" are the very souls who have no loyalty to the United States. 

[Duchess of Stratosphear]

The cost of education has skyrocketed over the past 20 years. In the 1980s you could work part time and actually pay for college with minor loans left over.

I have no right answer but the cost of education is too darn high.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Even in the 90s I was able to pay for grad school at a state school with my assistantship and part-time jobs. That seems to be much harder to do now.

[mathlete]

Not to pile on, but... this is actually exactly what non-US people mean when they talk about the self-centered US perspective. Did you read what Gaja wrote? Americans developed the atom bomb first because, yes, they were working on it, but also because other countries were actively working to hinder Germany developing it first! And yet Americans think and proclaim it was solely their own achievement.
Of course everybody is glad the Americans got there first, but they still didn't do it alone!

Of course I read gaja's post. And believe it or not, I actually did learn about the critical British and Norwegian campaigns to sabotage heavy water transport in high school. Some time between Apple Pie class, baseball class, and pledging fealty to the stars and strips in a cult like fashion. ;)

I recounted something positive that America did in response to the silly notion that the world's largest economy, and a fairly progressive nation has failed and we should blow it up and start over.

That doesn't mean I don't recognize the contributions made by others. I feel a bit as if Americans are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here. It's American centric if I point out something positive without also mentioning every other country that was involved. However, I would get (rightfully) roasted if, for example, I didn't let a comment about the superior public health programs of other first world nations pass without chiming in that they piggyback a bit off the discovery of chemotherapy or the polio vaccine.

[cerat0n1a]

People move to the UK and invent things and defeat Nazis too. We are currently having a national debate about whether "too many" people want to move here - are we "too awesome"? :)

Britain has a higher percentage of immigrants that the US. So does Ireland. Kind of hard to believe how that has changed from the days of Ellis Island and "give me your poor, give me your huddled masses."

I think one reason why America is so big on flags everywhere, pledge of allegiance in school, playing national anthems before football games etc etc is that historically, the US was a nation of immigrants and there was a need to encourage people to forget their previous loyalties and adopt a new identity in a way that didn't need to happen in Europe (and was less required in Canada, Australia or other places built on immigration for other historic reasons.)

[nickinak]

One of the factors that sometimes gets overlooked when comparing European models to those of the US is the wide differences in one part of the US compared to another.  European education programs, health care, immigration issues, etc. tend to be run through the filter of a population that is generally more similar-thinking on such topics within a given country.  The US is quite the opposite.  Positions on social issues are significantly different from one region of the US than others.

Keep in mind that prior to the US Civil War, the country was referred to as "these United States" rather than the revised language of "the United States.''  While the word may be "the" today, the US remains a collection of very different states.  Trying to find common ground on challenging issues within that environment is probably the biggest barrier to reaching a reasonable compromise.   

[Bucksandreds]

Not to pile on, but... this is actually exactly what non-US people mean when they talk about the self-centered US perspective. Did you read what Gaja wrote? Americans developed the atom bomb first because, yes, they were working on it, but also because other countries were actively working to hinder Germany developing it first! And yet Americans think and proclaim it was solely their own achievement.
Of course everybody is glad the Americans got there first, but they still didn't do it alone!

Of course I read gaja's post. And believe it or not, I actually did learn about the critical British and Norwegian campaigns to sabotage heavy water transport in high school. Some time between Apple Pie class, baseball class, and pledging fealty to the stars and strips in a cult like fashion. ;)

I recounted something positive that America did in response to the silly notion that the world's largest economy, and a fairly progressive nation has failed and we should blow it up and start over.

That doesn't mean I don't recognize the contributions made by others. I feel a bit as if Americans are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here. It's American centric if I point out something positive without also mentioning every other country that was involved. However, I would get (rightfully) roasted if, for example, I didn't let a comment about the superior public health programs of other first world nations pass without chiming in that they piggyback a bit off the discovery of chemotherapy or the polio vaccine.

I agree with this post and I’m an American who believes that Western Europe has surpassed the US in many ways and I wouldn’t mind moving to several EU countries. I’d like to point out that the US spends much more than any country in the world and almost twice per capita on R&D (all types) than the EU. We do the same for defense like NATO (heard of Pax Americana). We need to become more progressive in this country but the indignation from some of the Europeans here..... Especially the Brits. You guys have little to brag about, yourselves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending

[paddedhat]

There is no such thing as a free college education.

Yes there is.  The rich kids have it all paid for -- the tuition, the living expenses, the car.  I own a rental near a state university with 40,000 students.  They are putting up apartments complexes left and right for the wealthy students -- pools, underground parking, etc.  Thousands of new units in the past 5 years, all with safe garages for the cars they didn't earn. 

The kids who are renting the cheap houses and working the service jobs with no cars will leave with $30,000+ in loans.  The kids living in the yuppie apartments have trust funds with their names on them.

I can't speak for other states, but within the last 4-6 years, both of my kids graduated from state universities in PA. Your description of luxury housing is what we experienced, but based on the market we encountered, you can basically switch the words, "for wealthy students" to, "for students that can't commute, and need a place to live."

What I got out of the whole dynamic was this. Most of our on state's campus housing, until recently, was severely outdated. A lot of non-accessible buildings, with the look of HUD elderly highrises, block walls everywhere, no real common areas, security and technology that was obviously slapped in recently, and a real soviet housing block charm to it all. Private sector developers started countering this with lots of really sharp off campus housing. Townhouse communities with a ton of amenities, and a lot more to offer, especially since they weren't flat out gross and depressing. They got a premium for these places, but really not much more than what the university got for the first two years of mandatory on campus housing. Universities responded with a massive building campaign of tearing down and replacing dorms with what was essentially direct competition for the new off campus stuff. Through some combination of private investment decisions, and municipal control, there never seemed to be an excess of student housing stock. One of my kids ended up in the luxury you speak of, for roughly $8K a year, she had a lot of other options, from the few remaining older university properties, to newer ones, and off campus housing that ranged from crap to over the top townhouses. Since there seem to be a convenient slight shortage of housing, every year, at both campuses, just about everything but true slum housing was magically, about $8K a year. My son could of moved into a luxury property, but ended up in a privately owned student housing complex that was a poorly run, old, crappy cash cow for the landlord, but located about dead center of campus, and was...............you guessed it, about $8K a year, per student.

So, like tens of thousands of other kids, one of mine lived in a crazy luxury complex, in a new townhouse, with a gym, coffee bar, social center,  private shuttle service, heated indoor pool, a granite and stainless kitchen, full laundry in the apartment, and individual "master bedroom" style suites for ever kid in each apartment. It cost little more that a sixty year old block room on campus, and like 95% of her peers, she did not come from a wealthy family, or have a trust fund waiting for her. Not saying that I agree with any of this, but it is what it is, and in this state, deciding who is and isn't wealthy, based on how luxuriously they live at campus, doesn't really work. Before my kids started school, my attitude would of been, "hell no, you're not living in a place that's nicer that anything your mom and dad ever lived in, and looks like a resort we would fly to for vacation!" Once you see the game, and realize that it's $8K a year, just about anywhere within five miles of campus, doesn't matter if it's a dump or palace, it's a whole other perspective.

[Alps]

Turkey is a eurovision country, but culturally it (and maybe the three countries out in the caucasus) are probably the least integrated into that shared cultural context, so it makes sense to me that they'd be more invested in their own national identity.

...and their founder Atatürk wanted to create a secular state, so he replaced Islam with national identity (a short and obviously too simplistic version of events, but that's the gist of it).

Do you mind if I ask which (general) part of the USA you did your undergrad in, where no one would believe you wanted to go back home afterwards?

West coast. Not sure how much you can read into the location..

Of course I read gaja's post. And believe it or not, I actually did learn about the critical British and Norwegian campaigns to sabotage heavy water transport in high school. Some time between Apple Pie class, baseball class, and pledging fealty to the stars and strips in a cult like fashion. ;)

Hah! I also learned about apple pie thanks to American movies ;)

I recounted something positive that America did in response to the silly notion that the world's largest economy, and a fairly progressive nation has failed and we should blow it up and start over.

Speaking for myself here, I don't think the US has failed at all. I just see it as more of a mixed bag than many many Americans do. There are things the US does very well (for sure R&D and military) and others that they don't (having a sense of humor about themselves? :P).

It's probably not apparent in this thread, but I actually have a fond place in my heart for the US. Even though I didn't want to live there, I quite enjoyed my four years and I've often defended US culture to other Europeans (like the "shallow" small talk that people always complain about). But that being said, I and apparently many others see the different developed countries as being on a similar level (with different strengths and weaknesses) instead of the US as the "leader".

[maizefolk]

Turkey is a eurovision country, but culturally it (and maybe the three countries out in the caucasus) are probably the least integrated into that shared cultural context, so it makes sense to me that they'd be more invested in their own national identity.

...and their founder Atatürk wanted to create a secular state, so he replaced Islam with national identity (a short and obviously too simplistic version of events, but that's the gist of it).

We're only ~3x older than the modern state of Turkey. One could argue we also used a secular national identity as a big part of what was going to bond us together when we became an independent nation, and as we continued to maintain that national identity though a couple of centuries of high immigration. Even today with slower immigration than in the past, 46% of our population consists of people whose families have been americans for three generations or less (so immigrants, the children of immigrants, and the grandchildren of immigrants).

Do you mind if I ask which (general) part of the USA you did your undergrad in, where no one would believe you wanted to go back home afterwards?

West coast. Not sure how much you can read into the location..

A fair bit actually. I did grad school in one of the big west coast cities and I met lots of people who had never left that broad urban area, could never imagine leaving that urban area (and actually haven't since, even if they couldn't find work), and were perpetually shocked that I did plan to leave after I graduated (I missed snow, beers that cost <$7, and apartments that could be rented for <$1,000). So I'm wondering how much of the shock you were seeing was "you'd actually leave the USA?" and how much was "you'd actually leave (SD/LA/SFO/PDX/SEA)?"

[A Definite Beta Guy]

So, the American experiment should be defined as the 1776 notion of a constitutional republican government established without monarchs, deriving its authority SOLELY from the consent of the governed and self-determination. This was NOT expected to succeed. The only nation founded in a similar manner and with similar government were the United Provinces of Netherlands, which was in the process of entering a civil war. The Netherlands would eventually have another King in the early 19th century when it looked like France might annex them (again).

England had actually abolished the monarchy in the 17th century, a state of affairs that lasted about 10 years. When England had ANOTHER revolution again, about 20 years later, Parliament basically invited a foreign ruler to come in and become King. This is weird ass politics from the point of view of an American, basically as if the US had invited Khrushchev to become King of the US because we didn't like JFK's Catholicism.

From this POV, the American experiment has been amazingly successful. Consent of the governed and national self-determination is taken to be a given in the Western world. Our relevant competitors (constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy, enlightened monarch, communism, fascism, etc.) have all been defeated.

If the American experiment (which at this point is just run-of-the-mill basic Western values) fails, it's going to be because of one of the following:
1. We lose our military edge to China, and they defeat us decisively and assume de facto control over us.
2. We are unable to assimilate our new immigrant populations and die a slow internal death.
3. We are so terrified of terrorists/global warming/economic chaos that we surrender all of our liberties to a new Caesar.


Among these, I rate #3 the most likely.


The other advanced democracies are fine places to live and have done a good job governing themselves, but they are small in scale. In geopolitical affairs, quantity is a quality all on its own. The European Union, in our lifetimes, will never have more than a fraction of the unity that already exists in the US.



Re: "can't believe you'd want to go somewhere else," like Maizeman, I've seen a lot of this kind of chauvinism within even US regions. It really ticked me off when I heard my Wife expressing it about one of our co-workers, because he preferred living in a small town and she couldn't imagine that kind of person who would enjoy that. Plus I work in a city, with lots of young people, who all talk about how terrible and boring the suburbs are.

Different strokes for different folks...people should get over that.

[cerat0n1a]

England had actually abolished the monarchy in the 17th century, a state of affairs that lasted about 10 years. When England had ANOTHER revolution again, about 20 years later, Parliament basically invited a foreign ruler to come in and become King. This is weird ass politics from the point of view of an American, basically as if the US had invited Khrushchev to become King of the US because we didn't like JFK's Catholicism.

Classic example of history being written by the winners. The legitimacy of King William was pretty suspect, so there was a concerted propaganda effort on this. Dutch history books used to teach that as a successful Dutch invasion & takeover of the English monarchy. English history books are "we didn't like the king, so we chose another one." They're still arguing about this in Northern Ireland, 300+ years later.

[marielle]

Do you mind if I ask which (general) part of the USA you did your undergrad in, where no one would believe you wanted to go back home afterwards?

West coast. Not sure how much you can read into the location..

A fair bit actually. I did grad school in one of the big west coast cities and I met lots of people who had never left that broad urban area, could never imagine leaving that urban area (and actually haven't since, even if they couldn't find work), and were perpetually shocked that I did plan to leave after I graduated (I missed snow, beers that cost <$7, and apartments that could be rented for <$1,000). So I'm wondering how much of the shock you were seeing was "you'd actually leave the USA?" and how much was "you'd actually leave (SD/LA/SFO/PDX/SEA)?"

I think this applies to any location. I've lived in rural areas in the southeastern US most of my life, and many people downright REFUSE to consider leaving, or think you're crazy for wanting to leave. It's easy to stay where everything is familiar, I don't necessarily blame them. It doesn't really change no matter what type of location you're talking about, most people simply don't like change.

I've had many people here say stuff like, "You couldn't pay me to move to X city!" and complaining about things like high costs and taxes, traffic, crime, etc. Also, many southerners complain about northerners moving to the south in droves but almost as a way of bragging about how awesome the south is and how everyone wants to move here.

[Hash Brown]

I can't speak for other states, but within the last 4-6 years, both of my kids graduated from state universities in PA. Your description of luxury housing is what we experienced, but based on the market we encountered, you can basically switch the words, "for wealthy students" to, "for students that can't commute, and need a place to live."

What I got out of the whole dynamic was this. Most of our on state's campus housing, until recently, was severely outdated. A lot of non-accessible buildings, with the look of HUD elderly highrises, block walls everywhere, no real common areas, security and technology that was obviously slapped in recently, and a real soviet housing block charm to it all. Private sector developers started countering this with lots of really sharp off campus housing. Townhouse communities with a ton of amenities, and a lot more to offer, especially since they weren't flat out gross and depressing. They got a premium for these places, but really not much more than what the university got for the first two years of mandatory on campus housing. Universities responded with a massive building campaign of tearing down and replacing dorms with what was essentially direct competition for the new off campus stuff. Through some combination of private investment decisions, and municipal control, there never seemed to be an excess of student housing stock. One of my kids ended up in the luxury you speak of, for roughly $8K a year, she had a lot of other options, from the few remaining older university properties, to newer ones, and off campus housing that ranged from crap to over the top townhouses. Since there seem to be a convenient slight shortage of housing, every year, at both campuses, just about everything but true slum housing was magically, about $8K a year. My son could of moved into a luxury property, but ended up in a privately owned student housing complex that was a poorly run, old, crappy cash cow for the landlord, but located about dead center of campus, and was...............you guessed it, about $8K a year, per student.

So, like tens of thousands of other kids, one of mine lived in a crazy luxury complex, in a new townhouse, with a gym, coffee bar, social center,  private shuttle service, heated indoor pool, a granite and stainless kitchen, full laundry in the apartment, and individual "master bedroom" style suites for ever kid in each apartment. It cost little more that a sixty year old block room on campus, and like 95% of her peers, she did not come from a wealthy family, or have a trust fund waiting for her. Not saying that I agree with any of this, but it is what it is, and in this state, deciding who is and isn't wealthy, based on how luxuriously they live at campus, doesn't really work. Before my kids started school, my attitude would of been, "hell no, you're not living in a place that's nicer that anything your mom and dad ever lived in, and looks like a resort we would fly to for vacation!" Once you see the game, and realize that it's $8K a year, just about anywhere within five miles of campus, doesn't matter if it's a dump or palace, it's a whole other perspective.

I don't know the particulars of the school you are talking about, but there is a pattern at almost all of the state universities around the country, urban or rural.  The number of 18 year-olds rose 25% between 1975 and 1990 so we saw a steady increase in the number of college students at the universities after 2000.  Where I live the established real estate families colluded with the politicians they put in office and the university administrators they dine with every Sunday at the country club to get historic buildings torn down and get free publicly financed parking garages for their luxury student housing.  In a spectacular recent development they got one of the health systems to vacate a large 100 year-old hospital and sell its land to the port authority in order to avoid paying state sales tax on construction of several hundred units of luxury student housing.  After the thing is built the port authority is going to transfer it to the developer for $1 or something like that.  They went from announcing the plan to ground breaking in like 3 weeks.  The whole thing was pulled off behind-the-scenes. 

We have had about 6 large 100+ unit complexes go up since the recession, each uglier than the last.  In each case they took down nice historic homes and commercial businesses from the 1800s and replaced them with vinyl crap. 

[gaja]

So if I understand this correctly, the problems in the USA are difficult to solve because of the size and diversity. But it is very important to keep the large size, because? Power?

Meanwhile, I'm quite happy in my tiny little country, where I'm on a first name basis with at least 10 members of parliament. And don't diss Harald. He isn't as cool as Laffen, but he has done a decent job being a pretty front figure with no power. If we had gone the republic route, we could get lucky enough to get a cool president like Vigdis in Iceland, but we could also end up with someone like Trump. So we are sticking with our old fashioned monarchy, thank you very much. Are we a superpower? No. But we are debt free and FI. If we want to influence the world, we send diplomats and peace brokers. Or buy something.

A very important background for the Norwegian wealth is the small size. Yeah, we lucked out on oil, hydropower, fish, etc. But that would all have been gone now, if we hadn't built a system around it. We know and (generally) trust each other. Low levels of blatant corruption keeps the need for expensive bureaucracy down. Tax evasion is low, since we know or are related to a lot of the sick people and kids that benefit from the health care and welfare. My vote counts; the last election less than 100 votes decided if my candidate or the christian democrate got the last seat in our region, while on the west coast it was down to 12 votes (all manually counted). If we wanted to be part of a union, the EU would accept us in a heart beat. But what would be in it for us? We cooperate with a lot of countries on different topics, but we do it on our own terms.

[Gondolin]

fair share of "GREAT!!! Britain!" in the past but I don't think we genuinely believe that we are unique as a country.

Go ask an 1875 Victorian. Bet he'd have a different opinion. Or did you just mean UK citizens today?

Anyway, lots of great criticism and discussion here. I'm an American and I've always found obsession with "greatness" to be one of the weirdest parts of the American psyche. That said, are people really making the argument that America is some kind of failed state because a handful of small European states have cheaper healthcare or more equitable higher education system? Seems like a stretch to me. Mostly I wake up everyday thanking the stars that I'm not one of the 2-3 billion people living under real depotism.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Well, scale offers more than just power. Lots of people=chance for lots of growth. You can develop a lot of big companies, advanced technology, deep markets, and high culture if you have lots of people. Fewer people means less of that, and being at the fringes means less wealth than otherwise. It especially means less at the top of the economic chart. Oslo is probably never going to command world attention and wealth like London, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, etc.

That doesn't mean big is automatically better. I'd rather live in Oslo than Mumbai. But it does mean India will eventually have more global companies, more influence on the global economy, be able to drive more investment to its nation over time, etc. It's also why so many Norwegians left for the US in the 1800s. Oslo was a town of 10,000 people in the early 1800s. The US had 10 cities that size or larger, and NYC was 10 times that size. in 1900, Oslo was 230k people, which would've ranked #17 in the US per wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_United_States_Census#City_rankings

But, yes, scale offers power. Power is important. It's especially important when you are in a competitive neighborhood like Norway. Norway has done fine in post-war Europe, which isn't surprising, because the existence of NATO guarantees Norwegian security. That alliance is pointless without the US, and the US is pointless without its scale. Without NATO, Norway becomes a Soviet client state. Foreign rule has unfortunately been the norm in Norway, not the exception. 

[Hash Brown]

Meanwhile, I'm quite happy in my tiny little country, where I'm on a first name basis with at least 10 members of parliament.

Very few Americans have been to a city council meeting or any other sort of public meeting.  When you go to these scheduled meetings you will see how the right wing propaganda media ensures that the American public confuses heroes for villains and vice-verse.  A well-educated and self-made individual who campaigns for the welfare of ordinary citizens will be smeared.  They will see their lives turned upside-down by frivolous lawsuits.  The right wing has hijacked the country's self-declared Christians -- they have been fooled into being militant and denying their fellow citizens access to health care, in complete violation of the teachings of Jesus 2,000 years ago. 

Additionally, the right wing propaganda media has succeeded in coercing the Christian Right into believing that the secular Left -- the ones who are usually pacifist -- into being pro-gun and believing that pacifism is weak.  They achieved this by co-opting religious techniques -- comparing the U.S. Constitution to the Bible, making the Founding Fathers to appear as the Apostles and early followers of Christ, and hitting the public with this propaganda multiple times each day.

The FCC limited political activity on the radio and on television until the late 1980s.  That's when Reagan had the FCC radio guidelines changed and that opened the door to the right wing radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh.  Previously, one-sided political shows were illegal.  They were not able to change the rules with broadcast TV but cable was totally unregulated.  That led to the 24-hour Fox News, which many old people watch for 50+ hours per week. 

U.S. elections are typically very low turnout (20% or less) and the primary elections in the spring are even lower (as low as 10%).  Who votes in the primaries?  Old people and angry people.  That is how the right wing has built so much power in the past 30 years.  Make just enough people angry at invented villains and they'll show up to the polls in May and put some cockamamie right winger on the November ballot instead of a moderate.   

 

[teen persuasion]

Meanwhile, I'm quite happy in my tiny little country, where I'm on a first name basis with at least 10 members of parliament.

Very few Americans have been to a city council meeting or any other sort of public meeting.  When you go to these scheduled meetings you will see how the right wing propaganda media ensures that the American public confuses heroes for villains and vice-verse.  A well-educated and self-made individual who campaigns for the welfare of ordinary citizens will be smeared.  They will see their lives turned upside-down by frivolous lawsuits.  The right wing has hijacked the country's self-declared Christians -- they have been fooled into being militant and denying their fellow citizens access to health care, in complete violation of the teachings of Jesus 2,000 years ago. 

Additionally, the right wing propaganda media has succeeded in coercing the Christian Right into believing that the secular Left -- the ones who are usually pacifist -- into being pro-gun and believing that pacifism is weak.  They achieved this by co-opting religious techniques -- comparing the U.S. Constitution to the Bible, making the Founding Fathers to appear as the Apostles and early followers of Christ, and hitting the public with this propaganda multiple times each day.

The FCC limited political activity on the radio and on television until the late 1980s.  That's when Reagan had the FCC radio guidelines changed and that opened the door to the right wing radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh.  Previously, one-sided political shows were illegal.  They were not able to change the rules with broadcast TV but cable was totally unregulated.  That led to the 24-hour Fox News, which many old people watch for 50+ hours per week. 

U.S. elections are typically very low turnout (20% or less) and the primary elections in the spring are even lower (as low as 10%).  Who votes in the primaries?  Old people and angry people.  That is how the right wing has built so much power in the past 30 years.  Make just enough people angry at invented villains and they'll show up to the polls in May and put some cockamamie right winger on the November ballot instead of a moderate.   

 

The section bolded varies by state.  My local primaries are in September, not spring, and only people registered as a party member are allowed to vote in the primaries.  I refuse to register with a party, on principle, but I'm frustrated that that means I'm banned from voting.  My DH has said that his parents deliberately each registered with opposite parties, just so that they could be a part of the primary voting.  I'm beginning to consider the wisdom of their approach, given the stupid rules in my state.