Musing on Krugman's column today makes me feel like Cassandra: doomed to never be believed. When you look around even a little bit, it's astonishing how good things are right now. I mean, take a look at this:
The poorest group of Americans has an average household income of $56,000. The middle class is at $99,000. Those numbers are nuts.
Even most of the things we're afraid of probably aren't that bad. I'll bet that the social media panic will eventually join the McMartin Preschool panic in the annals of misplaced fear. Democracy is going to be fine. The fentanyl epidemic will fade just like the heroin, crack, and meth epidemics before it. Medical costs are rising, but not by a lot—and few families spend more than 10% of their income on out-of-pocket health expenses.
At the same time incomes are high and we have the best standard of living on the planet. Crime is low. Teen pregnancies are down. Poverty is declining. Economic growth is spectacular. Technology is amazing. Divorce rates are down. Teen drug use is low. Racism is declining. Gay acceptance is rising. We're not fighting any wars. The federal government is not going bankrupt. Driverless cars are just around the corner. Medical care is on the cusp of a golden age. The war against abortion has largely failed. Our educational system does a top notch job for everyone except Black students. Bullying is down.
Now, it's also true that mass shootings aren't going away. Global warming isn't going away. Crazy politicians aren't going away. The black-white education gap isn't going away. The world is never 100% peaches and cream.
But overall, life in America is the best of any country in any era of history and looks set to stay that way for a while. Our lives are almost miraculous in their prosperity.
So it's remarkable that this obvious fact is widely denied thanks to the combination of ordinary daily frustrations and a single TV station with a moderate reach that picks on those scabs relentlessly. How the hell did we let that happen?
This has been a bonus edition of "That thing you're worried about (everything)? It's not a big deal to Kevin Drum, who also doesn't know the second big thing about Cassandra (1. Nobody believed her, 2. All of her news was bad)". The fictional character he's thinking of is Pollyanna. Cassandra was right about everything, Pollyanna was more, uh, ambiguous.
"How the hell did we let that happen?" Have you ruled out stupidity ?
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