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You're right about a lot of the social problems in the US. You're wrong about almost everything else. It boils down to the following in the US. If you are upp

You're right about a lot of the social problems in the US. You're wrong about almost everything else. It boils down to the following in the US. If you are upper middle class or above you have a very high quality of the life in the US. Healthcare is excellent, taxes are very low for the wealthy and unlike some parts of central and South America, you're free to openly enjoy your wealth here without fear of retribution. My parents live in the US and would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. China may end up being the dominant economic power but it's unlikely to ever reproduce what the US has in the last century. While the US has societal issues, it's not (currently) committing genocide and it's not facing a demographic time bomb with no ability to incorporate immigrants into society. For all the problems in the US, within a generation or two immigrants become Americans and participate at the highest echelons of American society. Please call me when that's the case in China. What has made the US great is that it's been able to convince the brightest people in the world to make their homes here. From Albert Einstein to the Google founders and Elon Musk. I really don't see any of that that happening in China.

mapmap 5y ago
>would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. Could you expand on that? Does Spain heavily tax retirees?
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Not really and they could opt for Portugal which gives 10 years tax free. I know the US taxes his citizens on global income though, so they would be taxed like US retirees.
coliveira 5y ago
You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions here. Nobody in the world expected that China would be in this position 50 years ago. Very few people expected the US to be in the current situation either: a country saddled with debt, with periodic economic crisis, with a shortage of workers, making life very hard for immigrants, with an increasingly unstable political system and unable to solve racial problems that span already more than 200 years. Nowadays every serious analyst of the economic landscape sees that the future seems brighter for China than for the US. Unless the US is able to do a very serious overhaul of its current path, which it doesn't seem able or capable or doing. My opinion is that the US will become a worse Europe: with more money to spend but with a population immersed in third world problems.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  I think 'racial problems' is the last thing China gets to throw stones on. When minorities in the US feel oppressed they protest, the system (slowly sometimes) improves and everything goes on. When minorities in China feel oppressed the CCP initiates a program of cultural or actual genocide until such time that the minority is dead or convinced that they are Han Chinese. The U.S. has plenty of problems but I think moral contest with China in this area is not one of them.
  - coliveira 5y ago
    Tell this to several millions of native Americans who where victim of genocide. Oh, wait, they're not around anymore to protest...
    - idiotsecant 5y ago
      True - I am excluding historical events and looking only at current state. I'm excluding the american genocide of the natives for the same reason i'm excluding historical Chinese atrocities. While these are important events and did influence the cultures and societies of their respective countries I think it's more important to examine what the current generation of living people is actually doing to understand the structure of both systems. [edit] - I incorrectly identified China as the bad guy in a historical event where they were the victim. My bad. Point still stands.
      - throwaway210222 5y ago
        The Chinese were the victims in the Rape of Nanking.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
I like the way you formulate the problem. While I agree we're still not there, China is positioning itself in a way to do so. They're actually recruiting foreign talent, they're building futuristic and liveable mega cities, they're collecting the capital needed for venture and they're growing their global VC investments. I really don't like this development and I wished a free country would have achieved what China is doing (I think of them like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars), but I think they'll get there. People are quick to forget the past and the majority of young people favour socialism. I'm sure they will be quick to move and work for the CCP. I really don't have much hope left for Europe and the USA, things just keep getting worse. I hope South America will grow its economy and become the free society that can oppose China.

mapmap 5y ago

>would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. Could you expand on that? Does Spain heavily tax retirees?

jokethrowaway 5y ago
Not really and they could opt for Portugal which gives 10 years tax free. I know the US taxes his citizens on global income though, so they would be taxed like US retirees.

coliveira 5y ago

You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions here. Nobody in the world expected that China would be in this position 50 years ago. Very few people expected the US to be in the current situation either: a country saddled with debt, with periodic economic crisis, with a shortage of workers, making life very hard for immigrants, with an increasingly unstable political system and unable to solve racial problems that span already more than 200 years. Nowadays every serious analyst of the economic landscape sees that the future seems brighter for China than for the US. Unless the US is able to do a very serious overhaul of its current path, which it doesn't seem able or capable or doing. My opinion is that the US will become a worse Europe: with more money to spend but with a population immersed in third world problems.

idiotsecant 5y ago
I think 'racial problems' is the last thing China gets to throw stones on. When minorities in the US feel oppressed they protest, the system (slowly sometimes) improves and everything goes on. When minorities in China feel oppressed the CCP initiates a program of cultural or actual genocide until such time that the minority is dead or convinced that they are Han Chinese. The U.S. has plenty of problems but I think moral contest with China in this area is not one of them.
- coliveira 5y ago
  Tell this to several millions of native Americans who where victim of genocide. Oh, wait, they're not around anymore to protest...
  - idiotsecant 5y ago
    True - I am excluding historical events and looking only at current state. I'm excluding the american genocide of the natives for the same reason i'm excluding historical Chinese atrocities. While these are important events and did influence the cultures and societies of their respective countries I think it's more important to examine what the current generation of living people is actually doing to understand the structure of both systems. [edit] - I incorrectly identified China as the bad guy in a historical event where they were the victim. My bad. Point still stands.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      The Chinese were the victims in the Rape of Nanking.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

I like the way you formulate the problem. While I agree we're still not there, China is positioning itself in a way to do so. They're actually recruiting foreign talent, they're building futuristic and liveable mega cities, they're collecting the capital needed for venture and they're growing their global VC investments. I really don't like this development and I wished a free country would have achieved what China is doing (I think of them like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars), but I think they'll get there. People are quick to forget the past and the majority of young people favour socialism. I'm sure they will be quick to move and work for the CCP. I really don't have much hope left for Europe and the USA, things just keep getting worse. I hope South America will grow its economy and become the free society that can oppose China.