The fuck is wrong with Americans that they see everything as a tax.

Situation: The government wants to stop producing a currency that costs almost three its face value times to make and distribute.
Americans: THIS IS ANOTHER TAX FUCK THE GUBBERMINT AMERICA FUCK YEA RA RA

You people deserve the absolute shitfest that your country is about to become. Your broken politics and collective idiocy have paved the way for the coming storm. I for one am going to enjoy watching your oligarchs burn your house to the ground.

Wow, this idea is dumber than anything I expected to see in this thread. And I came in with low expectations.

Well at least we're being honest.

I guess the option of ensuring that the playing field is level and companies don't tilt the board in their own favour by bribing regulators is out of the question.

The US government has as tight a grip on media narratives as any other despotic regime. It's just they have better PR about it.

As for killing democracies and engaging in genocide, well the US has been involved in more of that in just the last two decades than China has in its 2,000 year history.

OK let's look into this.

Countries bombed at the direction of the CCP: 0
Countries bombed at the direction of Washington: Lots

Countries invaded at the direction of the CCP: 0
Countries invaded at the direction of Washington: Lots

Democratic governments overthrown at the direction of the CCP: 0
Democratic governments overthrown at the direction of Washington: Lots

Drone strikes on foreign soil carried out at the direction of the CCP: 0
Drone strikes on foreign soil carried out at the direction of Washington: Lots

You may have some opinions on China and why they may be evil, and you're entitled to that. But I put it to you that however evil the CCP is, the regime in Washington makes them look like Care Bears.

You have been watching the news, right?

You know, I bet if Luigi Mangione stood up in court and announced that he wanted to go to the Bahamas this summer, the jury would find him innocent on that grounds alone.

The whole point of this law suit is that a monopolistic business (or at least oligopolistic) was forcing users to use their products. Although, I don't expect you to understand that. And I bet your next retort is that people can just opt out of Android. Which is true. Then go to the only other player on the block, Apple, who also force you into using their products and services.

Well, I don't mean "not as good as it could be", I mean proper failure, I'm just looking beyond headline numbers. I'm looking at true measures of social success such as how happy, stable, and healthy the majority of the population are. The majority of the population do not have adequate access to healthcare, rather they live in fear of unexpected adverse medical events. The majority of the population do not have financial stability, rather they live paycheck to paycheck just barely making ends meet in a constant exhausting grind to nowhere. The majority of the population are not living fulfilling lives, they are struggling just to survive.

The image that the US portrays, of a country that is mainly made up of a comfortable middle class, is patently false. It's an image that the rulers there want their population to perceive and also want the rest of the world to perceive. Those Americans who vehemently disagree with my description of their country would do so only because they have had the message drummed into them since childhood: "This is as good as life gets".

Once again, I encourage you to Google "rednote shock". Americans are for the first time seeing what its like to live in a country where you don't have to live in constant fear of an unexpected medical bill. Where being able to walk around safely at night is not a privilege reserved for the wealthiest areas. Where living hand to mouth is not the norm. Where the cost of living is easily met by an average family's income without both parents grinding 60 hour work weeks.

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps "failed" not the correct word, because the cart is still managing to travel down the road. Perhaps the correct word for me to use is "failing", because what I see is a state on the brink of tearing itself apart politically and with a social fabric held together with nothing but the emptiest of false images.

We agree on the principles I think, but differ on the definitions.
It's been an interesting conversation, thank you.

Sure, growth over the last half century has been strong. Basic metrics like child mortality etc have improved. By "failed" I'm not asserting that the USA is a failed state like, say, Argentina or Sudan.

If you exclude the top 5% of the USA by wealth, and assess the 95% of the population outside that bracket as though they were a separate country, then all of those metrics fall apart. GDP per capita is quite low when you take the skewing billionaires out of the mix. Education as measured by literacy is high, but that's a very low bar. Literacy was fine as a measure of education in the 1920s, but the requirements for education aren't the same any more. The modern world requires more. Witness the scientific illiteracy of the nation as exposed by the COVID period. Witness the degree to which the public discourse is manipulable by childish talk shows. I've spent a lot of time around Americans and Europeans and the difference in general intellectual capability is startling.

In a country as wealthy as the USA, homelessness just should not be a thing. Or at very least it should be a very rare thing. Despite the headline wealth and GDP of the USA, over 10% of the population lives below the poverty line, with around 2/3 of the population being underemployed and living paycheck to paycheck. Rural community farmers in South Africa (where I come from) have less uncertainty in their lives.

If the definition of success is "create the conditions for the emergence of a tiny capitalist ruling class in whose hands the wealth and comforts of the entire nation is concentrated" then yes, the USA is a success (and it appears this is kinda what you mean). But by any metric that even tangentially relates to the welfare of the general population, I cannot agree that the model has been a success.

I don't supposed you'd mind telling us what his dick tastes like?

Well then that's my point. Americans THINK the system isn't a failure because movies and their chosen talking heads channel tell them so.

But by objective metrics it is a failure. There is a lot of data and analysis that can (and has) been done, but to summarize, it does not provide a happy, healthy, wholesome life experience for its citizens. All but the richest few live paycheck to paycheck. Addiction to painkillers is rampant. Mental health medication is so common that FISH IN THE FUCKING RIVERS are getting affected by the Prozac in peoples' pee. A minor upset such as an unexpected medical bill, a car accident, or a job loss can send a whole family into poverty. Basic human services aren't accessible in regular meaningful ways.

Looking at the number of people accessing RedNote since the TikTok ban, and the visceral feeling of "WHAT THE FUCK" they are experiencing when they see that in China lifestyles are better than what they have is making these US flag wavers realize that they're waving the flag of an oppressive plutocracy that is, in fact, not the best country in the world. Just google "rednote shock". It's pretty hilarious.

So I ask, by what metrics is the US NOT a failure? Does the whole country have to descend into open civil war before we acknowledge that the social system does not serve its most basic purposes?

The US government has been filling about 300 million holes for the last half century or so.