BANGKOK — Myanmar is a poor country struggling with open ethnic warfare and a coronavirus outbreak that could overload its broken hospitals. That hasn’t stopped its politicians from commiserating with a country they think has lost its way.
“I feel sorry for Americans,” said U Myint Oo, a member of parliament in Myanmar. “But we can’t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.”
The same sentiment prevails in Canada, one of the most developed countries. Two out of three Canadians live within about 60 miles of the American border.
“Personally, it’s like watching the decline of the Roman Empire,” said Mike Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, an industrial city on the border with Michigan, where locals used to venture for lunch.
juanzy on September 25th, 2020 at 17:44 UTC »
So many factors at play for why we are where we are. One of the major ones being the fucking electoral college and legislative setup. A small slice of our population can very easily elect a president, and we're trending towards 70 senators representing something like 30% of the population.
MontyAtWork on September 25th, 2020 at 17:31 UTC »
Remember this, every time you hear someone catching Covid, they are paying for it - literally paying for it out of pocket.
The "but there's low deaths!" folk don't mention the wave of Covid medical bankruptcies that will come from regular folks who didn't get that sick but ended up in the ER for a night and will never catch up.
America has no paid sick leave or medical leave or paternity and maternity leave. This means if you're sick with Covid, even asymptomatic, you're stuck at home not making a dime until you can get your results back.
Unironically, America and Americans will never financially recover from Covid.
Custergrant on September 25th, 2020 at 17:08 UTC »
Bingo. A superpower merely denotes military power, not administrative competence. We are no longer a first-world country.