I just feel extremely sad about the mass quantity of events like this happening right now because they are all aggregate to huge negative effects but the average person knows nothing of it. It feels so unfixable.
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(proposed/desired reductions in federally funded (NSF) science positions for FY 2026. 250,000 (75%) reduction in numbers)
EDIT: see also: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/american-science-bra...
Record numbers of US citizens seeking to relocate to Canada & the UK. In the last couple months I remember seeing several news stories variously about Doctors, Professors and students applying and/or relocating.
Layoffs in the tech sector haven't slowed at all, and couple that with the DOGE Govt layoffs and the recent jobs numbers stories.
I feel quite certain that if the U.S. is actually measured "at #1" for anything good, it won't retain it much longer.
Bias Disclaimer: I'm a former software engineer working an hourly labor job.
I don't agree that the US won't be relevant, it's more like the US will resemble the position of Russia in the next decade than the position it is in right now.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports
China exports more, but China also must import more, including more of the things needed for the survival of its people, like food, fertilizer, fuel.
US exports: https://www.ondeck.com/resources/every-states-top-import-exp...
Apple keeps half the sales price of every iPhone whereas the last I saw Foxconn gets only a few dollars per phone for the final assembly. It used to be that most of the expensive components (display, memory) in the iPhone were supplied by Japan, S Korea and Taiwan, but I admit that that might have changed over the years.
https://www.amazon.com/Were-Number-One-Stands-Falls/dp/06797...
For a sense of scale (only scale, money is definitely not the most important criteria), the EU currently spends twice as much on their military as Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...
So if (when) American support disappears, I expect Russia to continue to not go anywhere fast while wasting a lot of lives in the process. I also expect this to surprise Putin, as he thinks Russia is a Great Power and therefore can only be stalling if Ukraine is supported by another Great Power and doesn't recognise that (1) Russia isn't, and (2) the EU kinda is, sort of, when it feels like acting with unity rather than as 27 different nations.
Then you'll suddenly convert to how benefits are essential.
(In before: "I don't need a car insurance, I'll never get into any accident, I am too good a driver for that")
At least the US has at least a handful of themes to choose from among its many states.
1: https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-grand-plan-meet-nato-t...
Currently, but even then by nominal GDP not PPP (China's way ahead of the USA already by PPP). Nominal being different from PPP is not just about cost of living though: the US dollar is artificially high by about 10% due to being a dominant reserve currency, and China has a policy of keeping their currency weak. Flip both of those and China would be about equal nominal GDP as the USA.
Also consider that the comment you're responding to said "next few decades", and consider that China's GDP grew at four times the rate of the USA economy in the two decades between 2003 and 2023: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Nominal+GDP+China+2023+...
And that by GDP/capita, China has room to do the same again before reaching the top of the charts for existing countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
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But the real critical thing, is that economies can fall very fast when an a poor leader is empowered. Trump is purging anyone who says "no", which is already a dangerous place even if he was competent, rather than someone who tells such obvious lies on multiple health reports (recently his height(!), previously saying an exam had "only positive results" without knowing what positive means in a medical context), or facing a court case because he misrepresented the size of his penthouse apartment.
You remember right at the start of his term, there were fires in LA? And he ordered dams in NoCal opened? That aren't hydrologically connected to LA? When that kind of decision is criticised, it gets stopped. When people around are afraid to say "no", it doesn't stop, and the dams empty. In this case, it would have led to Californian agriculture approximately ending for several years due to the drought, and consequently to food shortages.
Same deal with the currently in progress attempt to deporting all the (Biden's team's estimate) 10-11 million undocumented migrant workers, many of whom are in low-paid agricultural roles, so kicking them out directly leads to less food and higher prices.
Worse than that. Consider that he got RFK Jr as the health secretary: by itself this is likely to have a measurable negative impact on US life expectancy.
Or the trillion dollar healthcare cuts (have they fully passed into law yet? Reporting from abroad is unclear how your system works): also likely to have a measurable negative impact on US life expectancy.
Then there's the incompetent attempt at tariffs, not just Penguin Island, but also that they were without any commensurate attempt to support local industry.
Or choosing a (defence) team so lax that they accidentally invited a journalist to a Signal discussion about active military engagement.
Or that he's banned trans people from serving in the US armed forces despite the US armed forces having recruiting difficulties: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/the-u-s-militarys-recrui...
Or consider the reports that Iran's nuclear project wasn't as utterly destroyed as he likes to publicly claim: what happens if Iran does rebuild it all over the next few months, as others say? Does his ego prevent him from responding, letting them get their nuke?
And of all this, only two examples ("positive results" and penthouse size) are more than 6 months old. When does congress get a chance to change, with the possibility of him being impeached (for a third time)?
It's all originates from each person's decisions. If a person wants to pay attention to their lifestyle and health, then in the US he will get one of the best results in the parameters you listed. That is just a fact.
And if we want to maximize these parameters among everyone, we need a ultratotalitarian government that will put all the people into concentration camps where they will work under threat of execution in the open air and eat a specially designed low-calorie diet.
> It also has its lowest-ever World Happiness Rankings.
Yeas, and North Korea has the highest.
> The U.S. is currently leading in global declines in reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive influence.
And that's good thing. For decades US has been doing atrocities all over the world, to the approving cries of other Western countries. So the only problem with US declines in reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive influence I see is that this should have happened decades earlier
That remains to be seen. Trump and his goons are breaking apart the foundations of society as we speak, not to mention the decades of Republican gerrymandering. The complete and utter loss of trust in the US on the geopolitical stage is another huge issue, it will be a long time before Europe or Southern America trust the US again - the hope that Trump would be a short-term one-off event went out the window last year.
> Compared to hard focus on socialism that was (and still is) prevalent in EU, some better balance is required in these times.
Where outside of Spain does Europe actually have socialists even as part of the government?
Most countries here are run by the far-right (e.g. Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, the Netherlands), centrists/conservatives (Germany, Poland, Croatia), Social Democrats, neoliberals (France) or coalitions of these.
> Nah I am not worried about [Russia], they are consistently unable to wage modern war to benefit of us all.
Never underestimate the willingness of Russian leaders to sacrifice their population for meat-grinder wars.
> In the meantime we arm and train ourselves, stronger Europe is always better for any future scenario, internally and externally.
Agreed, the problem is we can't be arsed to actually evolve to a truly federal society anywhere close to the US. Economically there has been a lot of integration happening, but politically... oh that's one hell of a clusterfuck.
That's a thing across all Western societies, and we got unchecked rabid capitalism and a complete lack of industry structural politics to thank for that one. Young people not living in an urban area have little choice but to leave there to find employment and higher level education.
So that's $5.80 / hr in our land that has a minimum wage of $24.95 / hr. Still, a bit over 20%, crappy for sure (if it was true).
Now, of course, most people are not on the minimum wage, and definitely not here on HN. The tax system benefits those at the low end more though, so let us look at median wages.
Median hourly wages (in main job) are $40 / hr (Source: ABS - August 2024).
Median incomes are actually a touch higher (because not just main job), at $102,742 / annum, which attracts a tax rate of 21%, before the MANY MANY middle class welfare rebates we get (Source ATO tax calculator for 2024-2025).
So, for most of us, maybe we pay approximately our Monday to the State, but that gives us free school education, one of the world's best health systems per $ value (seriously, there are studies!), not to mention a relatively well functioning society (roads, police, firefighters, etc), on top of that we get the horrendous welfare state that you are bemoaning.
That welfare state includes things like the NDIS, which is out of control and needs to find an equilibrium between all the rent-seekers, but the ambition is amazing! We SHOULD support all our disabled people to be the best they can in society! Meanwhile, even with such a fuckup, we're doing ok. Pull your head out, mate.
Do we have issues? Hell yeah. But our terrible "social security state" is not the start of them at all.
The sole reason Russia invaded Ukraine was that it was flirting too much with NATO.
Putin might be a lunatic, but he is not stupid.
How do you picture this? People in Paris disappear with a flash of light and baguettes falling on the ground? Or is ot more like the earth shakes and it all goes under the water? Or maybe something like Europeans collectively decide to do whatever Putin tells them? Or maybe suddenly adopt American and Russian way of life, like Italians burn their Fiat 500's and order Ford F-150's, throw away their wines and start brewing votka? Or maybe turn against each other and break down their functioning trade and cultural relations and just buy Russian and American stuff instead and pay with what?
BTW the blaming immigrants and tearing down the social state doesn't work for long because you have finite number of immigrants and social services. If you actually get rid of those and things don't improve people start to notice. A common strategy is to keep blaming those when not doing anything about it or even increase it but the problem with that is, people get tired and actually change you with someone who actually will do something about it and you end up doing something. This something can be to fix the issues and remove the pressure or remove the immigrants and the social sistem and you get a very strong counter action and flushes away those who did it. However way it goes it's not an end or beginning of anything as EU isn't an empire like the US, just bunch of sovereign states in coordination.
The big welfare state was born in the post-war boom, a period of big, strong families that believed in the future.
The dismantling of the Family and of the Welfare State, and of Unions, and of any kind of support and collaboration between salaried people go hand-in-hand. Late stage capitalism needs to extract everything from everyone, without opposition. Having people desperate for a job at any cost because they don't a a support network is the ideal state for our managers and bosses.
Welcome to the anti-neoliberalism camp :)
Is there an EU state government where a left-wing party has the majority? I can't think of one, certainly not one of the bigger countries in EU like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland...*
He even made a speech at the Sportpalast in Berlin in which he stated that the Sudetenland was "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe". So all's fine, and we don't have to worry about Germany.
You think he would learn at some point, but no.
Australian social security budget: about $120 billion
Australian NDIS budget: about $52 billion
Number of working Australians: 14.6 million
Number of welfare recipients in Australia: about 5.4 million, or about the entire population of Melbourne.
Number of NDIS recipients in Australia: about 661,000
That’s about $78,500 per NDIS recipient.
Democracy can last only up to that point the majority realise they can vote themselves largess from the public purse.
> The sole reason Russia invaded Ukraine was that it was flirting too much with NATO.
Which was only a problem for Putin because Putin's world view is that Great Powers (such as Russia, in his mind) should have a sphere of influence, whereas most everyone else thinks Ukraine is a sovereign nation who has the right to decide for itself which treaties it does or doesn't belong to.
Even then, more like begging than flirting; the invasion made it much more likely. Likewise EU membership.
Just to clarify to all.
> Number of welfare recipients in Australia: about 5.4 million, or about the entire population of Melbourne.
That's the number of unique Australians who get any form of income support at least once in a full reporting year, and there are a number of one off and short term payment types.
It includes many people who are working, a number on pensions, likely children (I haven't dug deep, etc), students, and others.
It's not the case that there are 5 million dole bludgers spending the year on the piss at the TAB, pulling bongs on the couch, etc.
There's quite the list of support types here: https://www.dss.gov.au/income-support-payments
It includes assistance for real Job seekers and helps keep them from being a greater problem, assistence with starting small businesses, etc.
You wish people would go back to forming loving families, but you believe people will naturally leave others to die in poverty and sickness once their eyes open.
Which one is it, nandomrumber?
The EU is closer to being one than Russia is today, and even then the EU is only kinda a bit of one in some measures but not all.
Those kind of scenarios aren’t that rare even in places with very family-first social safety nets (which, incidentally, are often places with high poverty and low standard of living).
We could guess, but there's been a lot of guesses (confidently made out to be facts and inevitabilities) made in this thread so far. I'm trying to ground the discussion in actual facts.
Is it? What are some obstacles to a similarly committed person attaining health/lifestyle benefits in other developed countries? What are the factors uniquely provided by the US that make this “fact” true? Are there factors in the US working against good outcomes for committed people?
The claim that Russia has a right to dictate the alliances of other countries simply because they border it is ludicrous and violates international law.
(Simo Häyhä had something to say about last time Russia invaded Finland)
> Europe will increasingly be ran by right-wing autocrats shredding the social state and blaming immigrants.
This does not:
> Ukraine losing the war will be the end of Europe
Both the question of losing (the war is somewhat stalemated, and Europe itself is rearming .. although still not breaking dependency on Russian gas!) and the idea that this will somehow "end Europe". If anything, Brexit pretty much demolished similar movements across the EU. The EU's squishyness is mistaken for weakness by too many people who are fans of "muscular" rhetoric.
Apple's total worldwide revenue for fiscal year 2024 was $391.035 billion. The Americas Segment (which includes the US) represented $167.05 billion of that, leaving $224 billion for the rest of the world.
Apple reports that their cost of goods sold was $210.352 billion, leaving 180.68 billion as so-called "gross profit". The majority of this gross profit will be used to pay salaries and other expenses (e.g., office space) of having employees, most of which goes to Americans. (Most of the rest will be "retained earnings", which means it either goes back to investors or is used to try to generate new streams of revenue.)
But only some of that gross profit will come from exports. Let's assume that exports are as profitable (per unit of revenue) as US sales are, which seems reasonable to me because competition (mostly from Android) would be the main thing keeping gross profit low, and Android is a major competitive force in the US market, so estimated gross profit derived from sales to the rest of the world would be 180.68 * (224 / 391.035) == $103.5 billion. That is revenue from all products and services, and Apple reports that revenue from the iPhone is 0.5145 of all revenue (worldwide) or about $53 billion per year flowing from the rest of the world to Apple (and to governments in the US in the form of taxes).
To be clear, that's assuming that zero of the hardware (more precisely, zero of what accountants call the "variable cost") that goes into an iPhone is bought from US suppliers (which seems a reasonable assumption to me).
Do you still get threatening letters with fines at home when you download a pirated movie?
A single party? No. But a coalition to form a leftist majority, yes.
Finland is a member.
Lithuania is a member.
The sad reality is that your logic is just a twisted pretzel to support the position you wish to take which is you support Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The US military industrial complex is a huge beast that needs an enemy to exist. There is so much money in the game.
The list of US backed military coups in the Americas does not fit on an A4 page with a font size small enough to be unreadable.
There is no such thing. Even if Ukraine cannot recapture all of the lost territory, it's Russia who has already lost. That a country four times the population, ten times as rich has incurred a million casualties, switched to a war economy, has to throw tens of thousand of North Koreans into a war in Europe, merely to creep forward by a few meters has to be the largest humiliation to an alleged "great power" in a century.
All of this while Europe has not even remilitarized, with Ukraine becoming a major producer of military technology in its own right, the country is now largely self sufficient in terms of its drone output among other things, is one of the strongest signs of resilience of this continent.
The USA did not make Russia attack Ukraine.
After Reginald Drax's mission to Moscow failed, the Soviet Union ended up signing its famous non-aggression pact.
Italy was allied, Spain was neutral/aligned. Turkiye was neutral.
Poland could only count on UK and France[0].
Compare to now, where the NATO military bloc is massive. No one would dare risking a military confrontation in these circumstances.
If anything, when there are any tensions between two non-NATO countries, it makes it more urgent for one to oppose the other joining NATO (attacking before they'd join NATO would stave off them joining, attacking after they'd join NATO would lead to an unwinnable fight).
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_military_alliance
I don't understand, are you trying to make Russia sound like an incel? It's not a flattering look.
Meanwhile, support rate for EU and Eurozone is highest ever among EU member states and Europe as a whole. If anything, people are annoyed that EU struggles to be decisive as Europeans want more EU, not less. This new situation even paved the way for collaboration previously thought to be far fetched dream.
I don't know how all this will unfold but if tonight Europe ends as we know it, tomorrow we will have European federation and the discussions won't be about the petty local issues but thinks like EU army etc. as all Europeans are very annoyed by Russia, USA and the current state of affairs in Europe.
Check the stats, Europeans don't buy into the agenda pushed by the American libertarians. People want bigger stronger EU to take over where USA abandoned.
Europe doesn't have coherent interests across the board but every country acts purely in its own interest even if it's at the expense of the other member states. EU is an org that replaced the battlefield so Europeans don't have another world war with each other but instead backstab themselves tough politics in the EU parlaiment.
See the illegal immigration issue that still hasn't been solved since 2015 and instead of solving it, they just ban anti-illegal-immigration right wing candidates or parties from being allowed to take part in elections and pretend the issue went away.
>Imagine if it was 1942 and Britain was still shipping millions of dollars of weapons components into Germany via Sweden or Switzerland?
1) Britain was at war directly with Germany in 1942, but Germany is not fighting Russia, Ukraine is, as the proxy, so German corporations can afford to profit form this war as the government looks away. Big difference. There's Realpolitik and then there's idealistic fantasy.
2) Britain could afford to declare war on Germany because Germany didn't have nukes, while now Russia has nukes and Germany doesn't. Even "better", Germany made its economy dependent on Russian gas. Britain didn't have its economy dependent on resources imported from Germany. Huge differences that make such comparisons not even in the same ballpark.
...and also #1 in healthcare costs, which just adds an expensive insult to multiple injuries.
If it is a fact, you should be able to back it up.
> And if we want to maximize these parameters among everyone, we need a ultratotalitarian government that will put all the people into concentration camps where they will work under threat of execution in the open air and eat a specially designed low-calorie diet.
Or the government could actually regulate things like food additives instead of just going with whatever industry lobbyists are saying. Sure, lobbying is of course a thing here as well, but clearly there are still differences there.
Hell, things like infrastructure funding could be used to encourage things like walkability which also helps with the health and quality of life of the population, but alas.
> > It also has its lowest-ever World Happiness Rankings. > > Yeas, and North Korea has the highest.
No, Finland has the highest. North Korea is not even ranked in the World Happiness Report.
> > The U.S. is currently leading in global declines in reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive influence. > > And that's good thing. For decades US has been doing atrocities all over the world, to the approving cries of other Western countries. So the only problem with US declines in reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive influence I see is that this should have happened decades earlier
While I am sympathetic to this line of thinking as a European myself, the current way this is going on over in the US just looks a bit silly. Basically just going out of its way to shed any remaining goodwill and soft power because... what, exactly?
When I search for list of superpowers, I get superheroes — obviously nobody on Marvel or DC is going to be listed as having "Russia" as their superpower, but this does illustrate what it is that search engines do these days, and it's not objective truth.
The quality of reasoned political and economic debate on this site, so full of self-congratulatingly intelligent people, continues to be generally absurd, deplorable and full of cliched foolishness passing for opinion.
Was it the one where the USA, along with the UK and Russia, all jointly signed an agreement to respect Ukraine's (and several other post-USSR nations') independence and sovereignty in their existing borders (as of 5 December 1994), including an obligation to seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used", so that Ukraine would give up the nuclear weapons it had accidentally inherited from the USSR?
Put it another way: given your stance on the US mil-ind complex, do you think this war would stop if the USA completely vanished from the international scene?
Because the EU is right next door and also doesn't want Russia thinking it can do stuff like this.
Sure, but also in writing this reply, "cia superpower list" to see if they had anything "authoritative" got me CIA's paranormal research: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000...
> Do you have a good authoritative source that lists the superpower countries that does not include Russia?
In most cases, the statement I see is that the USA is "the", singular, superpower. So none of my sources are lists.
What counts as a "good authoritative source", for you? And when?
Samuel P. Huntington was highly rated in his day, but "The Lonely Superpower" was 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20060427150630/http://www-stage....
RAND I think still are, and this was 2019, "Russia Is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China Is a Peer, Not a Rogue": https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE310.html
Is nationalinterest.org "authoritative"? "What Happens When America Is No Longer the Undisputed Super Power?", 2020: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-happens-when-ameri...
I could link to Wikipedia, which says of Russia "potential" superpower (along with the EU, China, and India), not currently an extant superpower. But that's not what I'd call "authoritative".
And this is the point where I got that link to the CIA's paranormal research. The CIA's World Factbook doesn't even describe the USA as a "superpower", at least not at the time of writing: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-stat...
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is anymore, so I'll stop here.
But no, he went for a 'quick' victory instead, and ended up bogged in a much higher intensity war, made the Russian military a laughing stock, and kicked the EU/Nato bees nest so hard that another 2 countries immediately joined NATO.
I am not aware of any party that could hope to win elections in their county pushing for anything close to this ?
The guidelines ask us to avoid flamebait. Please make an effort to observe all the guidelines in future.
Here's an idea... how about a "United States of Europe"... could even have an "electoral college" where Europeans come together to elect a decisive "President" type leader... ;-)
So I wanted to show that people have also used cheap excuses like this in the past, and that we shouldn't give Russian propaganda the benefit of the doubt.
Of course there weren't any atrocities commited against the Sudetendeutsche population, I just assumed everyone knew that, but that's due to my German-centric view of history.
I should have expected this, as sarcasm doesn't translate well over text, especially if people don't share the same cultural background.