USA. Still kickin. 30-40 years ago actually puts us right astride the end of the Cold War. Before that we were still terrified of the world ending in nuclear fireballs or rampaging hordes of raving communists zerg rushing through the Fulda Gap, after that we fell into a period of extremely hopeful and naive feelings (the 90s) where things seemed to be going very well, that lasted about 10 years. Then the divisive 2000 election and 9/11 occured, dashing that feeling for the next few decades.
I’d put our current state on par with that state of Cold War opposition, when things were still frightening.
Prospects are about as expected. We’re winning some and we’re losing some. We’re pinning most of our hopes on our ability to innovate at the technical level to figure out a way out of this climate mess, now, since we’ve run out of alternatives basically.
On the whole I am cautiously optimistic. Depends what happens to Trump, he’s a powerful symbol.
Hardy seems worth reiterating as it’s always in the news, but the US seems like it’s in overall decline for most any reason you can think of. Rising disparity, falling buying power for the average person, stagnant wages, increasing costs, rising political instability, rise of the far right with literal calls for civil war, rise of the far right looking to tear down any social, environmental, educational, or scientific advancements, the steady march towards oligarchy and corporatocracy, and then there’s the global climate crisis speeding up and the realization that we’ve been lied to about saving the world with recycling and EVs while the corporations rake in billions and pollute remorselessly.
30-40 years ago the economy looked steady, you could save the world by filling the recycle bin, and you could afford an education, home, and maybe retirement if you followed the “go to college and get a good job” path that generations before had followed.
Subjectively and objectively I’d say we’re worse off.
Sure, there’s some potential bright spots. Advances in medical care (that you probably can’t afford), fusion power advances (that will probably arrive too late to do any good), rising renewable energy (fought every step of the way by anti-environmental types), and a resurgence in the labor movement (also fought every step of the way by the wealthy and corporations), at least that’s something.
I’ve only been here for a comparatively more short amount of time, but I’m told it’s been more or less the same here, aside from recent natural disasters.
Overall, probably way better but the future is uncertain and unemployment is terrible. No Spanish governments seem to have the answer to this. We’re far too reliant on tourism and the pandemic hit hard, with some not recovering despite the support given.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”
You do realise that people who are awake during the night are of equal importance, who’s gonna run those power plants and radio stations and petrol service stations and police forces and whatever else? If they shut off during the night, there’d be chaos. At least a chaos that most folks won’t see because they’re asleep or something.
I actually wish you would say more. I only know generally how turkey is doing now and I know almost nothing about how it was in the 90s. Please feel free to educate us.
I make around 60k and I barely can afford to survive. And I have a decent rent (1000$), but car payments, insurance, phone, internet and food all got more expensive. I can’t even afford a vacation anymore ! I barely make it and I think of those single parents trying to get by with less and it breaks my heart. If I a single man with no kids have to skip meals once in a while I can only imagine what those poor kids have to go through.
US, my home state just sent a woman to prison for helping her daughter get an abortion. So, you know, living under a shitty theocracy that believes being poor or a woman is the worst sin imaginable.
My wife had a D&C after a miscarriage earlier this year. Luckily, our state isn’t as shitty as others, but the surgery was still labeled an abortion, and they made her answer a bunch of questions like it was a choice and not that our baby was dead for a month before the 12 week ultrasound. And the shitheel front desk woman lied to us and said that no one could be back there with her (obviously not in surgery, but I wasn’t even able to be back in the waiting area with her pre or post op), because that woman was a religious fruitcake and “didn’t agree with the procedure”
We raised some serious hell after finding that out and took it up through their patient advocate. It went up to the hospitals board and they issued an apology, which meant fuck all, and I think that woman was fired.
I don’t understand why people want to be involved in anyone else’s lives. I get it if you personally don’t agree with abortions, but that’s your choice. You don’t get the right to decide what someone else does with their own fucking body. The kicker is that most people don’t even realize that a D&C after a miscarriage is the same exact procedure and is classified the same. Excuse the fuck out of me if I don’t want my wife to die from sepsis or have to sit around for another 1-2 months with a dead fetus inside of her waiting for it to possibly discharge naturally. That whole experience was awful enough and she wanted it to be over as soon as possible.
Fuck your religious beliefs. Apply them to yourself, no one else should bend over to appease your stupid sky fairy bullshit.
That’s awful. So heartless when your wife is going through physical terrors and both of you through emotional. And thank you for sharing, I can only hope the shitheels pushing these laws finally start listening to them.
I’d imagine that whoever pays, that US companies will already be preparing their bids for the contracts. It may even be a condition of the military support that is being provided to Israel. This is my gloomy cynical view, assuming that the Palestinians in Gaza are all wiped out or removed, and Israel asserts full control and it becomes wholly part of Israeli territory. And based on past events in Iraq etc.
Everyone’s struggling. I can only speak for shy of 30 years ago (30 years old). But people can’t stay afloat or get started.
Jobs are fucked. They’re either entry level/service/retail jobs that pay nothing. Qualified or technical jobs that are paid less than 25k (I saw jobs requesting experience in coding languages and complex IT functions for around 23k) Then anything that pays more than 28k (still not enough to live on) has “senior” or “managing” in the title, requires experienced or qualifications that could single handedly run a business.
It feels like places are forcing more work onto individual people rather than hiring more people and spreading the work around.
I’m only at 24k and doing administrative work, Web dev, marketing, data management and some more technical stuff relating to the industry. But look at what’s available and I’m not suitably equipped to get anything with a higher salary. Even when I am, the response tends to be a negative despite being quite strong at applying. Presumably the competition is that strong.
Otherwise, collectively with my partner, we have nearly 60k income. We could secure a mortgage, but we can’t scrape together a house deposit. Even then the monthly repayments would be crazy high and inflation would screw us.
Both firm adults and living with parents despite having secure and intensive jobs. Can’t get anywhere even with budgeting so tightly that enjoyment money is very limited. My savings have started being eaten into for the first time as of this past month, so I’m walking into living off negative money.
When I look around I’m actually not in that bad a situation compared to some. But then others are living the dream.
Feels like the lows and the highs are so wide here right now. Where when I was growing up, my dad was a postman then a private courier and my mum a cleaner and we were fine, not well off, but didn’t live that differently to our middle class friends.
Moving on my mum took three menial jobs when we left my dad, but still paid rent and we never went without.
Don’t really understand it all, but it seems that its all going to shit.
As an American, I am dismayed to report that the bloodlust and empty-eyed support for anything Israel does is basically the only widely bipartisan issue that exists here. It is absolutely grotesque and disheartening. So, I expect that once the fascists have completed their final solution, the US will gladly help fund the reconstruction of the area, to make it shiny for a wave of American and Israeli settlers and for the sake of business relations. It makes little difference which party has the presidency.
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