Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I dont know if other OT members follow foreignpolicy.com, but I found this very interesting article focusing on very real domestic problems in America that would take us off the stage of being sole superpower.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/rotting_from_the_inside_out?page=0,0
-Note this is a opinion piece

It's an interesting article, though I've got to call it up on a few minor points.

For instance, the US does spend more per student than anywhere else in the world, and only gets average results for the median student (measured in reading skill, maths and so on as cited by the article). But this is because the prioritises the extremes, high performing and very low performing students. That is, a great deal of resources are put into giving high performing students every possible avenue for their talents, and considerable resources are put into bringing poor performing students up to a satisfactory grade. That said, the article does make a good point about the spending discrepancies between wealthy and poor areas, and this does lead to poorer overall results for the US system than might otherwise be the case.

The point on broadband is entirely misleading. Nations with large rural populations, and considerable distance between them, will always trail highly urbanised populations. Korea is among the best in the world for broadband coverage , but a weekend stay there will tell you they are not exactly the kings of infrastructure development. Once again, though, the overall point on the US steadily declining in the quality and extent of it's infrastructure compared to other developed nations is true.

Other than those minor nitpicks, I agree with the article. I'd like to say, though, that the difficulties in solving these problems are entirely cultural, and nothing more. The US easily has the resources to rebuild it's infrastructure, if it chooses to do so. Given the level of spending on healthcare and education, it could become the world leader in each, if it chose to reform its existing systems. That the people continue to pretend that such things are impossible, or even debate that such things ought not be done by government, is why nothing of effect happens at a political level.

If the federal government would trim its bloated defense budget by about 50%, find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs, we would have enough money to rebuild out crumbling bridges, dams and other infrastructure, stimulate the economy and put the United State back on top. Unfortunately, all we have is the whores on Capitol Hill doing whatever their corporate sugar-daddies tell them. We're drinking water with discarded (And peed out) pharmaceuticals, the drugs we're taking have horrific side effects because they're not being tested well enough, we're importing toxin-filled products from China. And anytime that anyone protests against this state of being, the massed media presstitutes gleefully read from their teleprompters that those disgruntled individuals may as well be terrorists. I say let it all crumble, and then try to rebuild something better.

The U.S. has never scored as well as other countries in the realm of education. We've always been about mid-tier. We are too large and our education system is still mostly decentralized down at state and county level. If we had a largely homogenous population, then it would be a different story.

I think we are fine where we are at.

I agree with Sebster. All of these issues are "big issues" but they could easily be resolved if we had enough people agree on what the answer was, an implement it.

That's the real rub, there is no clear way forward that has built a large enough consensus.

thedarksaint wrote:The U.S. has never scored as well as other countries in the realm of education. We've always been about mid-tier. We are too large and our education system is still mostly decentralized down at state and county level. If we had a largely homogenous population, then it would be a different story.

I think we are fine where we are at.

Thats not correct. The US was on the bleeding edge of education for a hundred years. The US was one of the first modern nations to have public education K-12.
I'd put our schools systems up against anyone until the late 1960s. Even now there are plenty of public school systems that I'd put against any nation in the world.

Education is one of those things that the entire focus of the nation needs to be put on, up to the extent of the constitution. Its a primary competitive advantage/disadvantage.

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

Frazzled wrote:

thedarksaint wrote:The U.S. has never scored as well as other countries in the realm of education. We've always been about mid-tier. We are too large and our education system is still mostly decentralized down at state and county level. If we had a largely homogenous population, then it would be a different story.

I think we are fine where we are at.

Thats not correct. The US was on the bleeding edge of education for a hundred years. The US was one of the first modern nations to have public education K-12.
I'd put our schools systems up against anyone until the late 1960s. Even now there are plenty of public school systems that I'd put against any nation in the world.

Education is one of those things that the entire focus of the nation needs to be put on, up to the extent of the constitution. Its a primary competitive advantage/disadvantage.

Agreed, if we could toss healthcare into the constitution as well and get some actual prideful and nationalistic effort into those sectors (rather than money grubbing bickerhammer) I think we could fix our issues. Sadly our voterbase is painfully sheepish and ignorant and that creates media demagogues in the roles of power, so that kind of wonderful nation building (done by educated elites, the kind of people you want doing that gak, not Alaskan hockey moms) can't occur anymore.

You don't need a Constitutional change (unless SCOTUS knocks the mandate provision out as not being a tax and thus out). You just need a better system. I will personally lead a crack team to Switzerland to check the efficacy of their medical system. Anyone have some skis?

EDIT: in case anyone noticed, I just agreed with Shuma. Watch out, the earth may open up and swallow us at any moment!

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

Not in the capacity that America is capable of having. We don't have enough skilled engineers/chemists/other workday scientific fields. There was a previous FP article that highlighted the fact that roughly half of all Ivy league grads in the last 15 years entered financial sectors. Sectors that do virtually nothing constructive for the economy. A statistic mirrored just before the great depression.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:You don't need a Constitutional change (unless SCOTUS knocks the mandate provision out as not being a tax and thus out). You just need a better system. I will personally lead a crack team to Switzerland to check the efficacy of their medical system. Anyone have some skis?

EDIT: in case anyone noticed, I just agreed with Shuma. Watch out, the earth may open up and swallow us at any moment!

I don't think we can figure out or maintain systems like those without the controlling impetus (the right to good health and education) being written into the constitution. American politics is full of fat, lazy, corrupt, unsympathetic monsters. Especially on the Right. Unless theres a big ass piece of paper that you can point to and demand that something be done than nothing can be done in our system any more. The media scrutinizes the government too much, it's a paralyzing effect and democracy can't survive that kind of direct observation all day. The courts are the only remaining part of our government that actually knows how to do it's fething job and that's just because it's too boring to put on television and we don't vote for Judges.

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They absolutely exist. You just need to be involved in manufacturing that requires skilled labor and not just assembly line work. See: Boeing.

Grakmar wrote:

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They absolutely exist. You just need to be involved in manufacturing that requires skilled labor and not just assembly line work. See: Boeing.

China can do skilled work too these days. It still doesn't pay well by American standards.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Grakmar wrote:

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They absolutely exist. You just need to be involved in manufacturing that requires skilled labor and not just assembly line work. See: Boeing.

China can do skilled work too these days. It still doesn't pay well by American standards.

"Skilled" is a moving target. Being able to simply work a machine tool is no longer enough. You have to be able to use it at a very high precision, use it efficiently, and know how to troubleshoot issues that come up.

Grakmar wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Grakmar wrote:

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They absolutely exist. You just need to be involved in manufacturing that requires skilled labor and not just assembly line work. See: Boeing.

China can do skilled work too these days. It still doesn't pay well by American standards.

"Skilled" is a moving target. Being able to simply work a machine tool is no longer enough. You have to be able to use it at a very high precision, use it efficiently, and know how to troubleshoot issues that come up.

China has an order of magnitude more trained engineers than America. An order of magnitude is a factor of ten. We don't have a competitive edge in skilled labor any more. We just don't. It's foolish to think so.

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They do.

Average net monthly PPP income in 2005 was ~2400 per month, works out to 29000 per anum. Not bad, not great, but not bad.

dogma wrote:

Melissia wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:If the federal government would [...] find a way to bring back decent paying manufacturing jobs

I'm not certain such things exist in these days and ages.

They do.

Average net monthly PPP income in 2005 was ~2400 per month, works out to 29000 per anum. Not bad, not great, but not bad.

That's pretty bad for a career labor job. Wages have been flat for a long time as well.

Really it all boils down to Americans need to accept higher taxes. More money for the educational system just doesn't exist right now as a practical reality. The same is true of our aging infrastructure. A lot of what we have was built in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and its getting a little... worn...

ShumaGorath wrote:
That's pretty bad for a career labor job. Wages have been flat for a long time as well.

Obviously it varies from location to location (and union to non-union) but if you assume a career laborer has no student loan debt, and a spouse who is also employed (or is single), then it works out alright. This guy isn't going to easily weather economic tumult, but he'll live fairly comfortably.

But yeah, wages have been flat, largely because its not financially sound to manufacture most products in the US.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:Really it all boils down to Americans need to accept higher taxes. More money for the educational system just doesn't exist right now as a practical reality. The same is true of our aging infrastructure. A lot of what we have was built in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and its getting a little... worn...

Lies...



...lies and half truths!

(I saw that happen, by the way, crazy.)

LordofHats wrote:Really it all boils down to Americans need to accept higher taxes. More money for the educational system just doesn't exist right now as a practical reality. The same is true of our aging infrastructure. A lot of what we have was built in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and its getting a little... worn...

Or we could halve our military and pour it into more deserving endevours. We'd still be able to crush any other military on the planet.

ShumaGorath wrote:Or we could halve our military and pour it into more deserving endevours. We'd still be able to crush any other military on the planet.

Sure but what are the chances of that happening? Military-Industrial complex and what not... Though I think we definitely need contractor reform and to take a really close look at R&D. Our costs in those areas are ludicrous compared to those in other countries. The Crusader project produced a weapon less effective than a German counter part at 20x the cost. How the crap does that happen...

EDIT: Not sure how much of the Education/Infrastructure problem is local/state/federal though. Virginia has some nice roads. Pennsylvania meanwhile is littered with pot holes.

LordofHats wrote:The Crusader project produced a weapon less effective than a German counter part at 20x the cost. How the crap does that happen...

Lobbying, and cultural and structural differences between the US and Germany.

Also, the Crusader is impressive because it managed to be such a joke that Donald Rumsfeld cancelled it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:
EDIT: Not sure how much of the Education/Infrastructure problem is local/state/federal though. Virginia has some nice roads. Pennsylvania meanwhile is littered with pot holes.

Climate is an issue of major significance.

All roads in Chicago are perpetually slated for repair.

America is not special. The rest of the world has figured out how to make money and they're catching up fast.
Americans are going to have to start facing up to the realities of sound government, their populace seems to be less easily swayed by artefacts of cultural hegemony.

Joey wrote:America is not special. The rest of the world has figured out how to make money and they're catching up fast.
Americans are going to have to start facing up to the realities of sound government, their populace seems to be less easily swayed by artefacts of cultural hegemony.

Just because the rest of the world has figured out how to make money doesn't mean they'll catch up fast. Only select countries will use that money for positive advancement (investing in education, infrastructure, technology).

WarOne wrote:

Joey wrote:America is not special. The rest of the world has figured out how to make money and they're catching up fast.
Americans are going to have to start facing up to the realities of sound government, their populace seems to be less easily swayed by artefacts of cultural hegemony.

Just because the rest of the world has figured out how to make money doesn't mean they'll catch up fast. Only select countries will use that money for positive advancement (investing in education, infrastructure, technology).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Education wrote:
the central budget for national scholarships was tripled between 2007 and 2009, and 223.5 billion yuan (US$28.65 billion) of extra state funding was allocated between 2007 and 2012 to improve compulsory education in rural areas
In 2009, Chinese students from Shanghai achieved the world's best results in mathematics, science and literacy, as tested by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance

You have already been overtaken educationally. Stop grasping for things you're marginally better than the rest of the world at (for now).

I'm sorry what industry is the UK known for again?

Frazzled wrote:I'm sorry what industry is the UK known for again?

Finance, actually.

But for anyone in the EU to say 'haha the US isn't a world leader!'; well, unless we're talking about creating insolvent bureaucracy, German dominion, or failed social experiments, I'm totally like 'LOL'.

Frazzled wrote:I'm sorry what industry is the UK known for again?

Producing women with egregiously large breasts.

Edit: turns out its hard to find well sized, non-nude pictures of page 3 girls.

Frazzled wrote:I'm sorry what industry is the UK known for again?

Aeromotive engines, cars, defence, financial services, pharmaceuticals. There are others.

Joey wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Joey wrote:America is not special. The rest of the world has figured out how to make money and they're catching up fast.
Americans are going to have to start facing up to the realities of sound government, their populace seems to be less easily swayed by artefacts of cultural hegemony.

Just because the rest of the world has figured out how to make money doesn't mean they'll catch up fast. Only select countries will use that money for positive advancement (investing in education, infrastructure, technology).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Education wrote:
the central budget for national scholarships was tripled between 2007 and 2009, and 223.5 billion yuan (US$28.65 billion) of extra state funding was allocated between 2007 and 2012 to improve compulsory education in rural areas
In 2009, Chinese students from Shanghai achieved the world's best results in mathematics, science and literacy, as tested by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance

You have already been overtaken educationally. Stop grasping for things you're marginally better than the rest of the world at (for now).

And China is one of the examples of a country that will use money for advancements such as in the field of education.

sourclams wrote:
But for anyone in the EU to say 'haha the US isn't a world leader!'; well, unless we're talking about creating insolvent bureaucracy, German dominion, or failed social experiments, I'm totally like 'LOL'.

Education.

Then there are those horrible failed social experiments in Scandinavia.