[jitix]

Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc.

Things that let workers focus on innovation. IT workers in cheaper countries have it much easier while we have to juggle rising cost of living and cyclical layoffs here. And ever since companies started hiring workers directly and paying 30-50% (compared to 10-15% during the GCC era) the quality is almost at par with US.

[palmotea]

>>> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs.

>> What does this sentence mean?

> Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc.

Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom?

Cheaper education? Public K-12 schools, the GI bill, generous state subsidies of higher education (such that you could pay for college with the money you made working a summer job).

Free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support? Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare.

[jitix]

> Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom?

Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. I work in edutech and our goal is to cut costs faster than revenue. Enrolments are down, students are over burdened with student loans, and new grads can't compete in the market.

Also, do you think kids going to K-12 in the US can compete with kids who go to international schools in China and India? High end schools in those countries combine the Asian grind mindset with western education standards.

> Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare.

This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a common western idiom based on centuries of observations. Just because there was 20-30 years of unnatural economic growth doesn't make it the global or historical norm.

[sparrc]

The US is not perfect by any measure, but your argument that the US doesn't have innovative nor "high-value" jobs is absurd beyond belief.

[judahmeek]

Right, because Europe is so innovative.

The mother of invention is idiomatically necessity, not comfort.

Ultimately, increased levels of competition should lead to higher levels of innovation.

Btw, what is "the GCC era" a reference to?

[jitix]

Europe is quite innovative on per-capita basis. Not like US but the workers there have much happier lives and their societies don't have extreme inequality and resulting violence like the US.

China is arguably more innovative than all and has terrible work life balance, but their society is stable and you won't go from millionaire to homeless just because you had to get cancer treatment.

GCC = global consulting companies, the bane of innovation. Outsourcing of all kinds (even domestic C2C) should be banned.