The USA spends more tax dollars per capita on health care than any other country. And then people have to buy insurance and pay out of pocket on top of that.

If the USA just magically cloned any public healthcare system in the world they would save billions in tax dollars and insurance and out-of-pocket health costs would disappear.

If all the resources we spent blowing shit up and killing innocent people had been put to good use instead, we would be in a Star Trek-esque post-scarcity society by now. Possibly on our way to being Kardashev type 1 society.

It can’t fully displace jobs because it’s super unreliable and makes tons of errors all the time. But it can do some tasks well if you know how to handle it.

Still not worth anywhere near what it costs, either to the user, the CAPEX investment, society or the planet.

Exactly.

I’ve always been in favour of tiered consumption taxes. Basic neccessities of life aren’t taxed. Sorta nice stuff gets taxed a bit. Uber lux stuff and harmful stuff gets taxed all the fucking way.

Example: bus pass? Free. Subcompact cheap EV? 20% tax. Lambo? 300% tax.

Rich fuckers have way too many ways of getting out of paying income tax. Tax the stuff instead so that you can’t live like a rich person without paying the kind of taxes rich people should be paying.

Lost Korea.

Lost Vietnam.

Lost Iraq.

Lost Afghanistan.

Is in the process of losing Iran.

The USA hasn’t won a war since 1945, despite spending more on their military than the whole rest of the world and being constantly at war the whole time and having the best tech by a long shot.

Losing that much with all those advantages isn’t “might”. It’s incompetence.

Why even bother mentioning the US in the headline? They’re irrelevant.

Meanwhile at a Stellantis boadroom:

“Why are these Chinese cars selling so well? Maybe we can get out market share back with an 800-hp piece of shit rattlecan that has the build quality and comfort of a wet fart.”

US won’t even have a cultural legacy like France does. Hot dogs, Jersey Shore, and Las Vegas don’t hold a candle to Crème Brulée, Rénoir, et Montmartre.

Lost already. When half your country doesn’t believe in the basic process of science and the dominant political force has been doing everything it can for 50 years to kill education, you tend to lose the edge in innovation. Heck, even the research that does still happen in the US is more and more being conducted by immigrants.

The lead is gone, has been gone for a long time, and is not coming back.