A Wealthy and Unhappy Nation

[missy]

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Wealthy and unhappy​

Like many other Americans, Douglas Harris — an economist at Tulane University — has found himself worrying about the quality of public discourse. It is full of misinformation, cynicism and polarization. Americans seem irrationally angry about the country’s condition and can’t even seem to agree on basic facts.
Harris decided to do something about the situation in 2021. He recruited a politically diverse committee of experts to study the true state of the nation. He persuaded 13 other scholars — who together have advised each of the past five presidents, stretching back to Bill Clinton — to do so. They released their national report card yesterday.
It finds that the U.S. economy is performing better than any of its peers and pulling away from the economies of Europe and Japan. The U.S. remains far richer, per person, than China or India.

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Sources: State of the Nation report, World Bank​

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The report also finds that the U.S. fares less well in almost every other realm, including health, happiness and social trust.

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Source: State of the Nation report, UNICEF, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, World Bank, Gallup World Poll​

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“We’re so wealthy but so unhappy,” said Bradley Birzer, a member of the committee and a historian at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
In the end, the experts decided that 37 measures were important enough to list, including those covering economic output, employment, income inequality, life expectancy, environmental conditions, depression, community involvement, press freedom and voter turnout. For a measure to make the list, roughly 75 percent of the experts had to agree on its inclusion.
The group also commissioned a poll and found that a large majority of Americans agreed about the importance of most topics. The main exceptions were community involvement and environmental conditions, which only a slight majority of people thought were crucial gauges of our national well-being.
In this article by my colleague Ashley Wu and me, you’ll find more charts, as well as thoughts from the committee members about why economic performance seems to have become unmoored from health and happiness. As Birzer says, “It seems like the central question of modernity.”

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[Lisa Loves Shiny]

I don't want to say anything controversial and my take is just from what I see in my day to day life. I just see there is a great deal of disparity in wealth distribution where I live. You can have many individuals work for the same company, and the difference in pay scales can be dramatic. Not saying that people should not be rewarded for having a higher education, and enhanced job skills, but it would be nice for everyone who works full time to be provided a living wage.

I also think that we as people in general spend too much time interacting with each other by electronic means instead of in person. I love the convenience but there really isn't any substitution to sharing time in person with the people you care about.

And there really is no substitution for getting out of the house, taking a walk, or exploring new scenery. Interacting with the environment helps people care about it. I can rarely get any of my friends to take a walk with me. They just don't enjoy walks in the park and prefer being on social media or gaming for the most part. They come over for dinner, but it's dinner and a movie or dinner and a game. No one likes dinner and walk.

 

[Matata]

I think we're a nation of spoiled people who are so free to do as they please they don't know how to handle it. As a result we've become increasingly intolerant of anything that we feel impinges on our freedom yet we also want to impinge on the freedom of others with whom we differ. Perhaps it's our freedom that's making us miserable. We need to do a better job of teaching people how to be free because imo freedom comes with a huge mandate to use it wisely.

Can't make me wear a mask, Waaaaah
Can't make me get a vaccination, Waaaaah
Can't make me stop saying hateful awful things because FREE SPEECH, WAAAAAHHH
Woke is bad!! Kill woke!! Don't know what it means but kill it. Embrace ignorance. Ban and burn books. Ignore experts because social media influencers know better.

Sigh. Sorry, rant over...well not over, but paused for now.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

I can rarely get any of my friends to take a walk with me. They just don't enjoy walks in the park and prefer being on social media or gaming for the most part. They come over for dinner, but it's dinner and a movie or dinner and a game. No one likes dinner and walk.

Omg!!!! Off topic but sometimes one just randomly vibes with a person! I walk!!!! I walk everywhere!!!!! I’m ridiculous about my walking! I will walk and carry 6kg of groceries home because……well why not!

I’ll walk with you after dinner!!!!! I love walking after dinner! It helps the food go down! I walk every weekend while my kid is at sailing and enjoy the scenery.

When I visit a city I walk to their local parks and just enjoy the plants and wildlife.

 

[tyty333]

Interesting...I wonder how much obesity plays into the above? The US is ranked very high (and maybe the highest
large country) in the percentage of obese people. I assume this would keep our life expectancy from rising as fast as thinner
countries. Might this also be affecting Life Satisfaction and Prevalence of Depression?

I know this can be a touchy subject. If it bothers anyone, let me know and I will delete. I'm just trying to figure out why
we're seeing what is posted above.

 

[JPie]

I was on a long drive with my husband and he asked if we could listen to his book. Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America is basically case study after case study of the businesses bought and destroyed by private equity firms, and how they get wealthier by preying on everyday people, with no accountability for their actions.

The wealth generated by hardworking Americans is being drained from them by the billionaire class at an alarming rate. They own these private equity firms that lobby politicians to stack the odds in their favor, and many of the politicians join these firms when they leave office and continue leveraging their political network to ensure favorable laws and policies for their private equity firms. It’s not one party or the other that’s guilty - they are both bought and paid for.

The same billionaires robbing us blind own the media that’s gaslighting us about how great we are doing and also why we should never stop producing wealth for them:

View attachment 995315

So yeah, we’re all unhappy and it has nothing to do with which bathroom your neighbor uses and everything to do with how we are being bled dry.

 

[Avondale]

Turns out there can be a wrong way to be wealthy.

 

[ShinyPink]

Besides the wealth disparity, disinformation and lack of education are huge. People need critical thinking skills in order to tell what's true and what is a deliberate lie. No one can think, and given how horrid our educational system is, no one want them to. Bullies and racists are not happy - and there are far too many of them.

 

[Karl_K]

Spoiler: rant follows

The average American owns nothing and has no wealth.
They just rent everything from the big business, banks and government.
Whats worse is everything is a subscription and getting worse.
You wont even own your alarm clock soon and it will spy on you.
Wait that's called a cell phone.
When they do get a little wealth the crooks crash the markets and steal it. Then the government give them our money free.

Whew!!!!!
That felt good.
No wonder people are mad!

 

[kenny]

Interesting...I wonder how much obesity plays into the above? The US is ranked very high (and maybe the highest
large country) in the percentage of obese people. I assume this would keep our life expectancy from rising as fast as thinner
countries. ...

FWIW, just saw this.

 

[kenny]

Besides the wealth disparity, disinformation and lack of education are huge. People need critical thinking skills in order to tell what's true and what is a deliberate lie. No one can think, and given how horrid our educational system is, no one want them to. Bullies and racists are not happy - and there are far too many of them.

Education you say? ...

Today news: An EO to eliminate the US Department of Education.

Actually, nothing new.
Education is the billionaire's archenemy.

America's been dumbing down since the Internet, no, since video games, no, since TV, no, since Radio, no, since newspapers, and it all began with drugs (especially unhealthy food) and religion - still very popular today.

All have something in common, entertaining, distracting and pleasuring us with dopamine & endorphins, while eroding our critical thinking.

It is this lack of critical thinking that billionaires exploit.

There's a saying for finding the origin of evil, "Follow the Money", but I think a better saying would be, "Follow the Dopamine."
The owners of the things above, are dopamine dealers.

Oh well.
Haters gonna hate, and billionaires gonna billionaire.

 

[Matata]

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!

(Pink Floyd)

 

[Karl_K]

Education you say? ...

Today news: A new EO to just eliminate the US Department of Education.

Nothing new, really.
America's been dumbing down since the Internet, no, since video games, no, since TV, no, since Radio, no, since newspapers, no since religion.
All have something in common, entertaining and distracting us while destroying critical thinking.
This nurtures billionaires.

Haters gonna hate, and billionaires gonna billionaire.

No child gets ahead law killed education in the US.
aka no child gets left behind.

 

[empliau]

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!

(Pink Floyd)

A student band at my school used to sing this every time they played. I have fond memories of the cue cards for the audience/chorus. The first said "Sing with a British accent."

Good times.

 

[Lookinagain]

I also think that we as people in general spend too much time interacting with each other by electronic means instead of in person. I love the convenience but there really isn't any substitution to sharing time in person with the people you care about.

So true

 

[Lookinagain]

No child gets ahead law killed education in the US.
aka no child gets left behind.

Do you really think so? I don't really know if you are correct or not as I'm not sure how this works in a regular public school. Doesn't this mean that kids get extra help where needed? Again, I just don't know how this applied to schools in practical every day terms.

 

[ShinyPink]

@Lookinagain NCLB really just made it so that underachievers didn't get left behind - they continued on and graduated, instead of being held back. The achievement disparity encouraged teachers to focus on answers rather than fully teaching concepts. Some districts lowered standards to help kids look successful. Teaching was incentivized based on scores, so it was a mess. It looks great on paper, but in practicality teachers taught to the test.

Kids never learned to think critically or analyze. They could tell you 2+2=4, but not why. It also didn't address learning styles or just how subjects are interrelated, especially with music and art. I taught in a very successful, highly-ranked district. My kids had the highest math scores in that district for their grade level. I taught them how to think, but I'd get kids who were taught to the test the year before and it showed.

As for kids getting extra help, there never was enough funding. Some Title I schools have special programs because of the funding, but these are very poor schools with a lot more problems besides low test scores. There isn't enough money for them to provide all of the services students need to be successful and not be left behind. For middle-upper class schools there isn't a lot of funding and if there is a reading specialist, for example, it's usually a pull out program. Schools do fundraising for some of these.

But hey! Let's abolish the Dept of Education and really screw over the kids with zero funds!

 

[Lookinagain]

As for kids getting extra help, there never was enough funding. Some Title I schools have special programs because of the funding, but these are very poor schools with a lot more problems besides low test scores. There isn't enough money for them to provide all of the services students need to be successful and not be left behind. For middle-upper class schools there isn't a lot of funding and if there is a reading specialist, for example, it's usually a pull out program. Schools do fundraising for some of these.

So doesn't funding have to do with the school district too? I understand the issue for Title 1 Schools, but for middle-upper class schools, I would think the funding would be there from the property taxes. Where I live, schools are by town, not county and a huge chunk of the town budget goes to schools.

By pull out program do you mean the child is taken out of the regular class and put in a reading program? Kind of like kids with learning disabilities are pulled out for the subjects that they need support in? Is there something wrong with this? I guess I'm very confused about all of this. And how eliminating the DOE affects these things, since I understand that it mainly deals with funding, not curriculum.

 

[Karl_K]

And how eliminating the DOE affects these things, since I understand that it mainly deals with funding, not curriculum.

Billions in fewer Billions out.
It is also used for social engineering and pushing agendas.
Block grants to the states are a better idea.
The remaining functions can be moved elsewhere or a new one launched with much less garbage and overhead.

HUD is another one that badly needs an overhaul.
They do good things but it are hugely insufficient and corrupt.
Working with them adds 2x-10x the cost to any project.

 

[ShinyPink]

for middle-upper class schools, I would think the funding would be there from the property taxes.

We all pay taxes into a big pot and the government - state and federal - sends them on their way. In California, property taxes do not go to the richer areas or directly to the local schools. The funding is based on an old formula. Schools get money based on attendance and poorer areas suffer, and in some cases wealthy parents write checks for the absence. So in this case, wealthier areas do get funds, but it's all private funding. We do have some special taxes in newer areas, but it's for building schools and maintaining infrastructure.

Regarding pull-out programs, they must be consistent and on-target to be successful, plus presented in a way not to stigmatize students. Some are only 2-3x/week, plus the whole curriculum for a child can be impacted if they can't read well. I like pull-out programs as long as they are strong and consistent, but NCLB and districts didn't monitor their success very well as long as scores were up.

DOE's purposes are also to research learning and teaching, like a professional repository of good practices; fund schools - allocate where the tax dollars go, and this should be based on research and best practices; and collect data on all educational systems. These should be under the purview of an expert in education who knows what does and doesn't work.

 

[Karl_K]

These should be under the purview of an expert in education who knows what does and doesn't work.

This is government it will be a highly educated hack who never actually taught and would not last 5min as a real teacher telling real teachers how they should teach..
That is why it does not and never will work.

 

[Karl_K]

Pull out programs are a cure worse than the problem.
It might help in one area but its at the expense of falling behind in others in the real world.

 

[monarch64]

As far as education in the U.S., it is my opinion that charter schools are whack. I’ve watched a good (since childhood) friend of mine become increasingly…right? Far left? Idk what to call it other than insanity, tbh. Pulled her kid from public school to put her in a charter school that’s based on religious beliefs and saw the mother/my friend post something praising RFK Jr. the other day. She’s beat breast cancer 10 years ago and I cannot for the life of me figure out how she took this turn.

That said, I’m in the Midwest where people are dumb and easily influenced by whatever they consume via tv or social media. Discernment doesn’t exist here. I live in the tiniest of blue dots in a red state that only turned purple back in 2008 and swung waaaayyyy back to red since then. Another childhood friend dressed up as “trash” for Halloween last fall, a nod to the voter base to which she belongs. It’s almost glamorized to be willingly ignorant in these parts.

Also, I take walks!!! And I know lots of people who do. All is not lost, friends. We likeminded individuals are still here.

 

[Slickk]

@monarch64 So, people who think differently than you, “are dumb and easily influenced…”

Quote copied and pasted from your post.

 

[Lookinagain]

Pull out programs are a cure worse than the problem.
It might help in one area but its at the expense of falling behind in others in the real world.

Well, I can disagree with this. My daughter had learning disabilities. She was "pulled out" every day for math and reading for 3 years. She didn't miss any of her other classes. She now has no issues with either of those subjects and makes her living writing. So pulling her out let her succeed in the real world. She would never have learned to read otherwise. Math, she uses a calculator most of the time.

That's why I had questioned @ShinyPink about them as I thought she was saying they were problematic and my experience was exactly the opposite. But I will say I live in a very good school district in a state with very good schools overall.

 

[Karl_K]

Well, I can disagree with this. My daughter had learning disabilities. She was "pulled out" every day for math and reading for 3 years. She didn't miss any of her other classes. She now has no issues with either of those subjects and makes her living writing. So pulling her out let her succeed in the real world. She would never have learned to read otherwise. Math, she uses a calculator most of the time.

That's why I had questioned @ShinyPink about them as I thought she was saying they were problematic and my experience was exactly the opposite. But I will say I live in a very good school district in a state with very good schools overall.

Glad it worked out for her but I could talk about many cases in my circle it didn't. One on one or one to 2 tutoring outside of school is much more effective. My Wifey was the tutor for many of them. (she taught kindergarten for many years before we got married.)

 

[Calliecake]

I worry about them cutting special education programs for children. I’ve seen first hand how much they can impact a child's life.

 

[monarch64]

@monarch64 So, people who think differently than you, “are dumb and easily influenced…”

Quote copied and pasted from your post.

Yes.

 

[RRfromR]

I worry about them cutting special education programs for children. I’ve seen first hand how much they can impact a child's life.

Yes, this is huge. They are planning to cut the funding for 504 and IEP with devastating impacts on the children. A lot of families cannot afford expensive speech or other therapies and there's a significant shortage of specialists and very few take insurance.

 

[RRfromR]

Well, I can disagree with this. My daughter had learning disabilities. She was "pulled out" every day for math and reading for 3 years. She didn't miss any of her other classes. She now has no issues with either of those subjects and makes her living writing. So pulling her out let her succeed in the real world. She would never have learned to read otherwise. Math, she uses a calculator most of the time.

That's why I had questioned @ShinyPink about them as I thought she was saying they were problematic and my experience was exactly the opposite. But I will say I live in a very good school district in a state with very good schools overall.

Mine gets support for adhd and it's been amazing for him. He's also in the gifted program. We've also had a great experience with special services at our public school. Private schools are not required to accommodate our children's needs.