I love a simple Gladwell-style opinion piece that actually makes me think with a few carefully revealed key facts.
My big takeaway here is that America is not and never has been one country. In Europe we are wringing our hands that the Southern states are too poor and being carried by the richer North, that migration must be controlled lest we depopulate a country and why can't we be more like America who just seems to go from strength to strength
yet, it's not true - all we fear in Europe apparently happens in the US anyway - different areas have different economic cycles, mass migration, vastly different state laws and yet it seems to balance out ...
Oddly I guess Anerica is a small working example of Keynes' International Monetary Fund - perhaps call the Fed a Continental Monetary Reserve.
It also suggests that acting more like a proper country might not be very good for you.
edit: The IMF was originally conceive as a way to balance out economic cycles - countries would pay in in good times, draw down in bad times. It seems however that politicans like the spend in bad times, but happily forget the pay in in good times part.
My big takeaway here is that America is not and never has been one country. In Europe we are wringing our hands that the Southern states are too poor and being carried by the richer North, that migration must be controlled lest we depopulate a country and why can't we be more like America who just seems to go from strength to strength
yet, it's not true - all we fear in Europe apparently happens in the US anyway - different areas have different economic cycles, mass migration, vastly different state laws and yet it seems to balance out ...
Oddly I guess Anerica is a small working example of Keynes' International Monetary Fund - perhaps call the Fed a Continental Monetary Reserve.
It also suggests that acting more like a proper country might not be very good for you.
edit: The IMF was originally conceive as a way to balance out economic cycles - countries would pay in in good times, draw down in bad times. It seems however that politicans like the spend in bad times, but happily forget the pay in in good times part.