The infographics of this excellent New York Times opinion ‘The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why.‘ are quite enlightening about some trends that make the USA stand apart from the rest of the developed world.
The US appear to be very specific on such aspects as life expectancy, ratio of added value going to workers vs CEOs, healthcare expenditure (the double in terms of share of GDP!), incarceration rate (more than double again, even 3x or 4x!), or income inequality.
It seems quite clear that there is apparently something broken in the way the US socio-economics work. The question is out whether this situation is actually sustainable even if the US economy is quite self-sustaining. I am convinced however that despite the powerful US softpower, we need to be careful when we are importing in our societies typical US issues, which are not necessarily valid in our societies.
The USA is clearly an outlier in may socio-economic aspects. It is a very large outlier of course, but let’s not necessarily make it a model or try to adopt its solutions, which may not be adequate for the rest of the world.
