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I talk to quite a lot of Americans online and many of them really are not aware, as they are programmers they generally earn good (by UK standards very good) money but then you start talking to them about what good health insurance for a family of four costs and suddenly things start to look different.

I think in some respects the US has coasted on it's former economic glory - I mean sure Silicon Valley is a mecca for folks like us but then you look at things outside of the those types of Nexuses and its a very different picture.

In Europe the UK is often regarded (sometimes appropriately) as US-lite but we are still an ocean away literally and figuratively from them in so many ways.

Given a lever between moving our politics closer to Nordic countries or the US I know which way I'd push it, I'll take a more equal fairer society with better outcomes for more people over a decrease in the already tiny chance to be super rich - its not really something I've ever really thought about as an end goal anyway - the increase in freedom would be nice but I can't imagine I'd still work insanely hard for that second billion, I'd probably potter about the world learning about history and art and working on open source.

> I think in some respects the US has coasted on it's former economic glory - I mean sure Silicon Valley is a mecca for folks like us but then you look at things outside of the those types of Nexuses and its a very different picture.

This is not intended as a political statement or a commentary on current politics. But its often said that Americans vote against their own interests and I think this is particularly true in issues surrounding the social safety net, like universal healthcare, parental leave and other things that some other first-world countries have already figured out.

Unfortunately, this puts us at an ever growing disadvantage with the rest of the world as the only people who can attain these benefits in the US are FAANG, some fortune 500 and other megacorp employees. This also exacerbates inequality between the FAANGs and FAANGnots. (horrible pun, I know)

Isn’t health insurance, in the case of tech workers at least, usually covered by the employer?

Typically, only partially. I don't even remember what I pay now, but it's more than a couple hundred per month. And that still has out of pocket costs, deductibles, etc. It's a giant scam.

It's generally not that much money if you're single. Where it's really awful is when you have a family with kids; even with employer-based insurance, the out-of-pocket costs are very, very high. The employer will cover a lot of your insurance cost if you're single, but not so much for the rest of your family.

The US is a good place to make a lot of money if you're a single tech worker and can live cheaply and save, but it's not a good place to raise a family at all.

MS-provided insurance used to have $3500 deductible per family, which is very little in terms of salary percentage.

>The impression I got visiting the US in general (NY, Seattle, San Fram, LA), is that it all seems quite ran down, full of inequality and social problems, and lacking soul, mainly from being so consumerist.

As an American citizen, I completely agree. We can't get local infrastructure built, we can't house or feed the homeless, our roads are mostly all awful, we still have major clean water issues in a lot of places around the country, and culture is definitely being pushed out as larger cities are gentrified and sort of "segregated" by inequality.

I'd move to another country if I was wealthy enough. Taking a real look at American society by moving around, ripping off the mask of indoctrination, USA doesn't look so well and neither does its future economy. Just because we have technological gadgets coming out of every direction doesn't mean we're the ultimate place to be anymore. That consumerist fetishism has put blinders on American society.

> The impression I got visiting the US in general (NY, Seattle, San Fran, LA), is that it all seems quite ran down, full of inequality and social problems, and lacking soul, mainly from being so consumerist.

Having lived in at least two of the cities listed above I can confirm.

Thinking about this point, some of the most valuable US based companies make gadgets and consumer items for us to play with, or services to entertain or glue us to our screens… Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon (Alexa, etc).

While I can’t seem to live without my iPhone I wonder if our innovation is somewhat misdirected. Where is high-speed rail, broadly adopted forms of alternative energy, new feats of engineering in bridges and infrastructure, ambitious national projects that improve the lives of citizens and bring a higher standard of living not just to coastal cities?

Its worrying, but I wonder if we are here now, where will the US be in 20 years? No doubt the US will be still generating significant shareholder value but have a widening social inequality, crumbled infrastructure and disappearing coastal geography.

The most run down "empire", ever.

Possibly we're the first instance of an 'Overlay Empire', with its magnificent gleaming Imperial City hidden somewhere in the clouds ..

>Where is high-speed rail, broadly adopted forms of alternative energy, new feats of engineering in bridges and infrastructure, ambitious national projects that improve the lives of citizens and bring a higher standard of living not just to coastal cities?

It's in other countries. Western Europe and Japan and China have high-speed rail, with the most extensive network in Japan. Germany has an incredible amount of solar energy capacity installed, despite being pretty far north. Japan has the world's longest suspension bridge. etc. etc.

Infrastructure is a huge one. Our transportation infrastructure is down-right third world and there is powerful opposition to doing anything about it. America is still run by a generation that worships the car and thinks any infrastructure other than roads is communism.