This is to be expected for a country and empire in massive decline. The US should be compared to countries like Brazil and Argentina, not European nations and C

This is to be expected for a country and empire in massive decline. The US should be compared to countries like Brazil and Argentina, not European nations and Canada. That would be a much more apt, apples to apples, comparison at this point. The US was an outlier in the western hemisphere in terms of prosperity. Argentina, at one point, was too. It seems to me that western hemisphere countries (maybe to a lesser extent Canada) have similar problems: vast inequality, massive corruption (including legal corruption in the US), racial tensions, immense poverty, etc. Some like the US and Argentina managed to be massively wealthy at points but were unable to solve their underlying, foundational problems. If we are to look anywhere for our future, it would be a country like Argentina, that was once one of the richest nations in the world but no longer is. That seems to be the inevitable future in the US also due to its intractable political system, anti-intellectualism culture, the lack of empathy or compassion in the culture, the rising cost of all necessities, the falling life expectancy, massive racism, horrific legal (as opposed to justice) system, etc. In the US, you can't always get what you need (healthcare, decent job, etc.), but if you try sometimes, you might just get what you want (a big screen TV, iPhone, etc.).