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With every passing day I find myself asking "Who are these people still falling for the 'American Dream' scheme?". I mean, it's just so obvious that this countr

by benevol 11y ago

With every passing day I find myself asking "Who are these people still falling for the 'American Dream' scheme?". I mean, it's just so obvious that this country is slowly falling apart, there are so many huge problems that I don't even know with which issue to start. I guess John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight' is quite honest and does a decent job at scratching the surface. But for myself, following Edward Snowden's work and understanding it in the general economic/political context was the final nail in the coffin.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
this country is slowly falling apart People are literally dying to leave some other countries and people are literally dying to come here. And I mean literally as in actually not as in figuratively. People are voting with their feet. Quite a few years ago Ken Hamblin[1] wrote a book titled Pick a Better Country. That same sentiment still applies. What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration as the USA does? To riff on the old Winston Churchill quip: America is the worst country there is, except for all the others. there are so many huge problems It's hard to disagree with that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin
- grecy 11y ago
  > What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration as the USA does? America has ranks #40 on the list of net migration per capita [1]. So to answer your question: Every developed country on the list before #40, like, oh, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, etc. etc. etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    It sounds good/bad (depending on your perspective) if you put the USA down at country #40. However, data and statistics are tricky things. For example: 1) Many of the first 39 countries don't come anywhere close to the "pick a better country" requirement. E.g. Lebanon at #1, Zimbabwe at #3, Libya at #6. 2) Many of the countries are tiny. E.g. British Virgin Islands has a population under 29,000. So they might look good per capita, but they hardly matter in absolute numbers. 3) There will, of course, be requirements for immigrants. But some might be rather draconian. E.g. will the UAE even allow an immigrant unless he's already a Sunni Muslim? 4) While it sounds impressive that 39 countries are "ahead" of the USA, I totaled up the population of the first 10 on the list and it came to 51,533,343. (I was too lazy to cut/paste the rest out of Wikipedia). The point is that even though the USA per capita is lower than those, we make up a lot by having 321,605,012 "capita" already here. 5) I did a quick search for number of illegal immigrants per year into USA and came up with 500,000. The estimates differ widely, so who knows the real numbers. We probably (wild speculation!) have more illegal immigration than the other developed countries on your list. E.g. it's hard to get into New Zealand by sneaking across the border. Oh and BTW New Zealand is actually #45, not "before" us.
  - hiram112 11y ago
    I'd be careful about those statistics. The amount of legal immigration is more or less known, but the US government implicitly turns a blind eye to a rough estimate of 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the last two decades.
- gaius 11y ago
  Those people are risking everything for the America they saw in the movies, not the reality, which they obv can't know in advance.
- Daishiman 11y ago
  Well, the reality is that there are several clusters of different migrants and they're choosing the US for several reasons: * The very poor choose the US simple because they can; they may have the conctacts from family, they may have an idealized vision, or it's just the closest they can afford. But being able to marry or just keep their head down and avoid deportation is better than what they have, so since legal alternatives are not really a choice to begin with, they'll take what they can and not complain too much. * The educated middle class will only go to places with exceptionally high standards of living that are comparable to any well-developed place in the world. These people are going to New York or the Bay Area, maybe Chicago or LA at best. They can ignore the US's massive inequalities because they're reaching for the best of their professions and available quality of life, and they know that if things go sour they can go to their homelands with a pile of cash and live like kings back home, which is a seriously good Plan B. * Truly wealthy people can move around freely throughout the world and can enjoy the best that the US' global cities offer with none of their drawbacks, so long-term issues are mostly irrelevant unless we're talking business, and the laws in the country favor corporations massively. So yeah, a lot of people in academia go to Europe, a lot of the educated middle classes in developing countries nowadays choose to stay put because they enjoy good benefits from a globalized economy and fewer of the drawbacks of their countries. And the poor who have no choice will try for whatever they can and accept it as an improvement.
grecy 11y ago
In a lot of meaningful measures, America is at the very bottom, or close to the very bottom of Developed countries. It's often in good company with the better Developing countries. So I think it's safe to say in many ways it's not a world leader, but it's also very far above undeveloped countries, where billions of people live.
ck2 11y ago
Actually the country is LITERALLY falling apart. There is near zero work on our infrastructure because politicians don't want to spend the dollars. Decades now. Think about that the next time you are driving across a bridge that you figure "oh they wouldn't let us use it if it wasn't safe".

by benevol 11y ago

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

this country is slowly falling apart People are literally dying to leave some other countries and people are literally dying to come here. And I mean literally as in actually not as in figuratively. People are voting with their feet. Quite a few years ago Ken Hamblin[1] wrote a book titled Pick a Better Country. That same sentiment still applies. What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration as the USA does? To riff on the old Winston Churchill quip: America is the worst country there is, except for all the others. there are so many huge problems It's hard to disagree with that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin

grecy 11y ago
> What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration as the USA does? America has ranks #40 on the list of net migration per capita [1]. So to answer your question: Every developed country on the list before #40, like, oh, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, etc. etc. etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  It sounds good/bad (depending on your perspective) if you put the USA down at country #40. However, data and statistics are tricky things. For example: 1) Many of the first 39 countries don't come anywhere close to the "pick a better country" requirement. E.g. Lebanon at #1, Zimbabwe at #3, Libya at #6. 2) Many of the countries are tiny. E.g. British Virgin Islands has a population under 29,000. So they might look good per capita, but they hardly matter in absolute numbers. 3) There will, of course, be requirements for immigrants. But some might be rather draconian. E.g. will the UAE even allow an immigrant unless he's already a Sunni Muslim? 4) While it sounds impressive that 39 countries are "ahead" of the USA, I totaled up the population of the first 10 on the list and it came to 51,533,343. (I was too lazy to cut/paste the rest out of Wikipedia). The point is that even though the USA per capita is lower than those, we make up a lot by having 321,605,012 "capita" already here. 5) I did a quick search for number of illegal immigrants per year into USA and came up with 500,000. The estimates differ widely, so who knows the real numbers. We probably (wild speculation!) have more illegal immigration than the other developed countries on your list. E.g. it's hard to get into New Zealand by sneaking across the border. Oh and BTW New Zealand is actually #45, not "before" us.
- hiram112 11y ago
  I'd be careful about those statistics. The amount of legal immigration is more or less known, but the US government implicitly turns a blind eye to a rough estimate of 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the last two decades.
gaius 11y ago
Those people are risking everything for the America they saw in the movies, not the reality, which they obv can't know in advance.
Daishiman 11y ago
Well, the reality is that there are several clusters of different migrants and they're choosing the US for several reasons: * The very poor choose the US simple because they can; they may have the conctacts from family, they may have an idealized vision, or it's just the closest they can afford. But being able to marry or just keep their head down and avoid deportation is better than what they have, so since legal alternatives are not really a choice to begin with, they'll take what they can and not complain too much. * The educated middle class will only go to places with exceptionally high standards of living that are comparable to any well-developed place in the world. These people are going to New York or the Bay Area, maybe Chicago or LA at best. They can ignore the US's massive inequalities because they're reaching for the best of their professions and available quality of life, and they know that if things go sour they can go to their homelands with a pile of cash and live like kings back home, which is a seriously good Plan B. * Truly wealthy people can move around freely throughout the world and can enjoy the best that the US' global cities offer with none of their drawbacks, so long-term issues are mostly irrelevant unless we're talking business, and the laws in the country favor corporations massively. So yeah, a lot of people in academia go to Europe, a lot of the educated middle classes in developing countries nowadays choose to stay put because they enjoy good benefits from a globalized economy and fewer of the drawbacks of their countries. And the poor who have no choice will try for whatever they can and accept it as an improvement.

grecy 11y ago

In a lot of meaningful measures, America is at the very bottom, or close to the very bottom of Developed countries. It's often in good company with the better Developing countries. So I think it's safe to say in many ways it's not a world leader, but it's also very far above undeveloped countries, where billions of people live.

ck2 11y ago

Actually the country is LITERALLY falling apart. There is near zero work on our infrastructure because politicians don't want to spend the dollars. Decades now. Think about that the next time you are driving across a bridge that you figure "oh they wouldn't let us use it if it wasn't safe".