Degrading public institutions is not the conclusion of the article, it's an objective fact. The conclusion of the article is that public don't want to do anything about it because people don't like bad news and prefer to shoot all the messengers.
So, that commenter was just wrong, and his wrong assumptions are perfectly explained by the article.
Except it's not an objective fact. It's a widely held opinion, with a fair amount of strong evidence behind it, but there's nothing objective about measuring the strength of public institutions.
There's folks who profit off panic, and prophets of doom should be treated skeptically like anyone else.
Half of my country is destroyed and showered with hundreds of thousands of dead humans and who knows of how many dead animals, while half of US politicum support the invaders and destroyers.
Everything may look as an "opinion" to you, but only until facts start hitting you literally.
>prophets of doom should be treated skeptically like anyone else.
the only difference between a cold truth and a prophet of doom is the lens you view it in. In other words, the opinions of the ones receiving the news.
Skepticism is good to have, but this article wasn't about an anthology of 2000's to 2020's unfettered capitalism. The audience of such an article needs to have some awareness of the modern economic situation to get the most out of this.