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594 Comments
- adholes, on 12/26/2008, -28/+524This is one of my favorite articles in a long time. Too many Americans don't leave the country enough to even realize how far behind we've fallen.
- Rotzooi, on 12/26/2008, -20/+215Great article, dugg!
No, seriously, it is. But, since he touches on "tax cuts we can't afford", and basically tells it like it is (America is falling behind the rest of the world), 90% of Americans won't want to hear this. - ha3er0, on 06/16/2009, -23/+173If I see anymore fake, one line comments, I will kill myself. WTF is wrong with these people?
- purplelantern, on 12/26/2008, -14/+147Sound and fury. Signifying nothing. But hot air.
"All I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us?"
A typical middle income HK family of four lives in an apartment of six to eight hundred square feet. Both parent works six days a week. Each working day will likely be 8 ~12 hours depending on your profession. More if you are not a professional. Pay as you go minimal universal health care. Most middle income family pay out of their own pocket for better private health care.
"We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford,.."
HK's income tax rate is 13%. No capital gain tax. Low corporate tax rate.
HK got brand spanking new infrastructure *because* of low tax rate, not in spite of it.
HK is what it is because of one word: competition. You start competing the minute you wake up and don't stop until you go back to bed. Those who can't compete got steamrolled over.
It is a disney world for those who got what it takes. Not so much for those who do not. - ReemonIJ, on 12/26/2008, -23/+145I think that this also goes for a large number of European countries.
- blugill, on 12/26/2008, -12/+126Hong Kong and China are like comparing apples and oranges.
China is not a place I would ever want to live. - hbskinner, on 12/26/2008, -14/+128First the author described holding a "static free" conversation on a Chinese cellphone while standing out in to open, then complained about dropping a call when traveling on a train? That's not really a valid comparison. Using AT&T I get crystal clear calls even in the middle of the woods in Santa Cruz.
He also said: "These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions."
Granted our auto industry sucks, but look at who's still designing most of the technology. What web browser are you using to view digg? Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, and Chrome are all designed in America. Windows, OSX, and a lot of Linux research is done in the US. Linus Tovalds may be Finish, but he now lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Most of the state-of-the-art Japanese cellphones are using OSs and platforms researched and developed in the US. Intel and AMD are both American companies, so is nVidia (ATI is Canadian though). Half of the last Nobel prizes went to Americans.
The worst part is when the author claimed people in China are living better than us. Perhaps he should try leaving Hong Kong (which is prosperous partly because it was a British colony for so long). Half of China is still living on less than $2 a day. I'd take a job at 7-11 over that any day. And Chinese factories and mines, where much of the country is employed) are extremely unsafe places to work.
My girlfriend in a first generation Chinese immigrant. She and her brother are the first people in their entire family to even finish highschool much less go to college, something China could have never offered them.
Maybe when China stops selling products laced with lead and melanin I'll start caring. - quaxon, on 12/26/2008, -5/+118exactly, everytime i step out of this country and travel to another developed nation i never want to come back home. Coming back from Tokyo and having to use San Francisco's muni/bart made me feel like i had just returned to a third world country (or like the article stated so perfectly, "going from jetsons to flinstones"). It always makes me chuckle when americans claim that this is the best/freest country in the world yet they have never left their state much less the country.
- Wholekernalcorn, on 12/26/2008, -30/+119Bright shiny airports, wifi and fast trains do not make the "Jetsons"....far from it...
HONG KONG Harbour View, Slum View
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=317 ...
"It looks like maintenance is not a very co-ordinated effort. The government has been trying to get owners to fix old buildings such as these. Once in a while some concrete chunks come off and fall onto the ground." - inactive, on 12/26/2008, -8/+93 Hey Friedman maybe we should look at who runs our education, media, government and banks and try to figure out what happened to rot out America these last few decades.
- 3szoom, on 12/26/2008, -16/+81But at least we have guns......
/s - benderillo, on 12/26/2008, -7/+71http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_th ...
- duckyinc, on 12/26/2008, -11/+74"If we’re so smart, why are other people.."
Your mistake right here. - fuckingusername, on 12/26/2008, -23/+86fake one line comment
- drlha, on 12/26/2008, -12/+73Sort of like comparing New York to the rest of America?
- DonWigler, on 12/26/2008, -36/+90That's right Friedman, government spending and taxes are not out of control. How can we allow the moronic American citizenry keep and spend their own money on what they deem their most important interests? We should centrally plan entire industries, since we know our glorious government will run them flawlessly as they have a perfect track record.
- rootnik, on 12/26/2008, -10/+57I love this comment!
- inactive, on 12/26/2008, -13/+58The problem is private industry isn't giving us what we want. They refuse to build up infrastructure, despite great consumer demand. Have you checked out the state of broadband in this country lately? Or how about the RIAA/MPAA, which refuse to adapt to new technology? I don't mean to bitch, and of course I support the free market, but you have to admit that a major thing holding us back is their unwillingness to take any risks to actually build up any of the infrastructure we need to be successful in the 21st century.
- zhenya80, on 12/26/2008, -8/+52A few of you are trying to break down the author's argument by proving one or two of his points wrong. However, the general idea is still correct.
Today, most Americans live in "real world", as in real word sold to us by television. Billions and billions of dollars poured into marketing, has turned us into brainwashed zombies. - niradg, on 12/26/2008, -4/+47There are buildings that are just as dilapidated in every major American city.
- quaxon, on 12/26/2008, -3/+41From what i can see their slums still look a lot better than the slums in the US. It looks like they atleast have stores and business's around, not just liquor stores and check cashing places like the slums in the states.
- spince, on 12/26/2008, -0/+38How does that make any sense? Just because you agree with one point of view a person has doesn't mean you agree with everything they say.
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest economic expansions Germany had ever seen, but recognition of that fact that suddenly mean you recognize the holocaust as legitimate.
It's bizarre how desperate you are to try to link a justification of the war to an article that discusses why America is behind technologically. - aleksandar, on 12/26/2008, -0/+36You would be surprised how much progress some of those Eastern European countries made in last few years.
- fuckingusername, on 12/26/2008, -13/+48Bios fail no operating system found
- dngermouse, on 12/26/2008, -6/+40Good for you
- 955701, on 12/26/2008, -5/+39And the Chinese population is overrun with advances the way we were back when the US highway system was paved through people's homes. Just saw the article about Japanese elderly resorting to petty theft. Japanese suicide is at an all time high. Chinese immigrants are moving back to their towns in absence of work.
Advancing for the sake of advancement is a losing game. - ha3er0, on 06/16/2009, -4/+37Very funny guys :)
- jakem1, on 12/26/2008, -7/+40And Jesus.
- quaxon, on 12/26/2008, -2/+34i didnt say that people who have never left the country/dont have the means to go to other countries are "stupid americans," simply the ones who never have and still make the claim that the US is the best country/freest country on earth.
- td001, on 12/26/2008, -1/+33"OMG Jane! Terrible day at work... I had to push the button THREE times today, my finger is killing me!!!"
-George Jetson - inactive, on 12/26/2008, -7/+39Agree with ya totally good stuff mate!
- T8erT0T, on 12/26/2008, -3/+34Kennedy Airport's slogan: "We've been renovating ever since we stopped building."
Friedman is comparing Hong Kong, a city, to the overall condition of the United States. For such a smart guy he has a little trouble with the whole "proportion" thing. Agree that we in the US could use a great overhaul in infrastructure and mentality, but let's realize we're not exactly dealing with the same size ballparks. - Marvelboy, on 12/26/2008, -2/+31The destruction of the opulent old Penn Station is one of the biggest architectural travesties of American history.
- Oline61, on 12/26/2008, -15/+44Please everybody, more fake one line comments. Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!
- pseudocitizen, on 12/26/2008, -9/+372005 the U.S military budget is almost the cumulative defense budget of all other countries combined. :O
Im sure the treasury has watched closely over that cash......NOT..... - deathweaver108, on 12/26/2008, -1/+29True, however their failure to update is little excuse for us to do so also.
- inactive, on 12/26/2008, -5/+32A+++ comment. Would digg again.
- inactive, on 12/26/2008, -7/+33new yourk has its ghettos, Mumbai has its slums and even france has their ***** part of town. That doesn't mean that the res of the cities accomplishments can be undermined. Also check the damn date. Reconstruction has already started in some of those old building. Why do you guys always have to point the negative and then say we are better, why can't you try to better the best that everyone has to offer? wasn't that what America use to stand for?
- Spoomeister, on 12/26/2008, -12/+37Thomas Friedman is an overrated, bloviating hack.
- j0hnk377y, on 12/26/2008, -8/+33Let's do like China and displace a million people to build a new high tech airport next to NYC. How would the NY Times treat the government as they trucked people out of their homes to build a shiny new airport with nice wireless access and wide escalators for the NYT reporters fat asses.
Or better yet, lets dump all of our trash off the shore to create a large land mass to build the new shiny airport, image the environmental demonstrations as we try and fill up an area a mile offshore to create more land mass to build the airport.
America doesn't suck, we aren't falling behind, but yes we have work to do (we always can get better). The airport argument depends on which one of a couple hundred airports you land at in the US. We don't have the luxury of having just three major airports to keep up to date. - humanerror, on 12/26/2008, -2/+27I was only able to click the green thumb once, but I clicked it really hard.
- Valyn, on 12/26/2008, -4/+28Soo.... Where is the picture of the slums?
If those at the bottom are the 'slums,' your proving how much worse off we are. I could not find a single picture worse than what Ive seen myself in major American city. - Valyn, on 12/26/2008, -3/+27Problem is, if we keep doing what we are doing, the US will NOT be a place I want to live.
- lroche, on 12/26/2008, -17/+41America is sinking into Idiocracy. Watching the election from Canada I was struck by the notion that the President shouldn't be too smart. That people would rather vote for someone they would like to have a beer with than someone who could use full sentences and have a wide vocabulary, I am so happy that Obama won the day. Hopefully he can start America on the course of once again being a World leader in new technology and innovation.
- deathweaver108, on 12/26/2008, -8/+32I agree. Private companies like the RIAA/MPAA and GM have done a great job in meeting all of the demands of the public market....
- mfc5200, on 12/26/2008, -2/+26The guy basically just talking up Hong Kong. HK has one of the lowest simplest tax structures in the world.
http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/
It is ranked #3. The U.S is ranked #46
Also, HK is ranked #1 in terms of having the highest measure of economic freedom (small government intervention).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_freedom
This guy is diagnosing the problem correctly (American infrastructure sucks) but is coming up with the wrong cure. If we want to be more like HK, we need smaller government, lower taxes, etc. NOT MORE! - AmazingSteve, on 12/26/2008, -10/+32After being to Asia myself, as far as technology among other things go, North America is a bad joke. Mind you, this stuff is only being held back here because the powers that be haven't figured out how to squeeze the maximum out of consumers yet. If they can't make obscene profits from it, then you ain't getting it.
- mk2ja, on 12/26/2008, -3/+25I'd take it one step further: the /sole/ reason Hong Kong is so prosperous is that it was a British colony for so long. And when it returned to Chinese rule, they didn't subject it to the same economic principles exercised throughout the rest of the country, rather, they said, let's keep that city prosperous and just let it carry on as it has been.
- rowjimmy, on 12/26/2008, -4/+25france is not a city.
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