Is US just a third world country wearing a Gucci belt?
Von seinfeld - aktualisiert: 3 Jahre vor - 14 messages
In order for a country to be considered a first world country, it needs 3 things. 1) It needs to have a first world country infrastructure, which means high quality roads, high quality homes, high quality buildings, top of the line power grid, top quality internet, etc. 2) A first world country needs to have extremely low poverty rates. This means that it cannot be above 5%. If it goes above 5%, then that’s a warning sign, and once it goes above 10%, said country is no longer a first world country. 3) It needs to have high quality of life. This means top quality food, education, technology, and comforts.
So let’s look at number 1. America’s infrastructure throughout 80% of the nation hasn’t been updated and upgraded for over 40 years now. Roads, homes, buildings, power grids, are all extremely dated and using materials that hasn’t been considered viable in over 20 years. Compare this to countries like Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, France, and London, and it quickly becomes apparent that America has stagnated while the rest of the world surpassed us years ago.
Number 2 is the big one as that’s how a country is truly determined to be a first or third world nation. America’s poverty rate hits above 40% as of 2019, 30% HIGHER than the standard. Now, compare this to America back in the late 40s to 70s, and poverty rates were between 3–7%, give or take. This is majorly impart due to how, until Reagan’s policies, cost of living kept up with the minimum wage, which meant that even the lowest earners could earn enough to thrive. Add in extremely inexpensive education, cheap homes, cheap cars, cheap gas prices and food prices, and it starts to become extremely apparent just how far gone America has become, where until the 80s, a minimum wage salary working 40 hours a week could afford a new home, new car, tv (which was really expensive), food to feed a family of four, and be able to pay for your kids education as well as buying them used cars, and with only needing one person to work in the household.
Number 3 is again an issue. America’s quality of life has become lacking in many ways. Food for example is low in quality, where if you want high quality healthy food, you’re going to pay double or triple the amount for those unhealthy meals, and this in major part is thanks to major corporations. Better homes have also become fairly non existent unless you’re willing to pay a pretty penny.
The only reason people still consider America a first world country is sadly because of the stock market and military, which America is very good at those two things, but the things that actually matter, America is lacking harshly in and is something we as a country need to fix bad.
But I do agree with your infrastructure point, and I DEFINITELY agree with how the quality of food is horrible.
By shacacoora - posted: 3 Jahre vor
I think a majority of your arguments fall short because of two aspects the USA has in comparison to the countries/city you listed above. 1: The United States is ranked 3rd in the world in terms of population. 2: The United States is the 4th largest country in terms of total area. So why do these things matter? Since the US is such a large country, focusing on infrastructure like roads is a major challenge as compared to a country like Japan or a city like London that you mentioned above. I will admit, China has been really good about expanding its infrastructure lately, but that's all I'm going to praise China for. Think about all the companies that are built on practically "slave labor" and how many of those come from China. And you want to complain about our cost of living/quality of life? A higher population also equates to less effective handouts. And to address your argument about the rising cost of food, shelter, and transportation. Those costs are rising partly due to inflation, but a majority of the reason is that if people are willing to pay those costs and there's sufficient demand to back that up, the price will rise. I'd encourage you to take a look at people's lives in India and China and see if you still have it really bad here in the US.
