That Used to be US: How American fell behind and how we can come back

[Guest hitoallusa]

It's a book by Thomas L. Freidman, the author of The World is Flat and Michael Mandelbaum, the author of The ideas that Conquered the World. Tom opens up his first chapter with his experience in Tianjin, China. Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin, China is an impressive piece of work that contains a total floor area of 230,000 square meters. It took only 8 months for Chinese to build it. On the other hand, based on his research it took the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority 10 to 12 weeks to get someone to fix escalators at the Bethesda subway station in Md. I am not sure whether you can objectively compare a new building in China to the escalators at a US subway station but it surely caught my attention. My friend who recently visited NYC recently told me how bad the subway station was there.

Is the book about China becoming reigning supreme power in the future and bashing the US? It's not. On the contrary the authors use the term "frustrated optimism" and tries to identify problems that are dragging us down and suggest solutions. There are many arguments in the book I don't agree with but it's a start we need.

There is a comment for a Tom's column on The New York Times(December 1, 2010) by Eric R. in the book. I didn't know a random online comment for a column could be used in a book. We should all be careful. Someone might cite us. lol. Anyways, the comment by Eric was

" ... We used to embrace challenges, endure privation, throttle our fear and strike out into the (unknown) wilderness. In this mode we rallied to span the continents with railroads, construct a national highway system, defeated monstrous dictators, cured polio and landed men on the moon. Now we text and put on make up as we drive, spend more on video games than books, forswear exercise, demonize hunting, and are rapidly succumbing to obesity and diabetes. So much for the pioneering spirit that made us (once) the greatest nation on earth, one that others looked up to and called "exceptional".

I still believe america has great talents that can put this country in the right path we just have to start again with a can do spirit.

[Guest CharliePS]

The Chinese are building lots of things very quickly, but not always well. Already their high speed trains and subways are experiencing newsworthy failures.

From experience I can tell you that the reason it takes so long to repair escalators in this country is the scarcity of replacement parts, and of mechanics who know how to fix them. Unlike elevators, escalators tend to be specialty items.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I agree Charlie. I don't think it was a valid comparison. I like the book because it tries to identify problems and I think we can start from there.

[Guest Anton]

For a long time I have seen the U.S. from the perspecitve of a European. Recently I've been often in the U.S. and something interesting happened. Now I also start to see the U.S. the way the Americans do.

I think that the U.S. are putting themselves in a vunerable position by being so much into debt. I think that if it hadn't been for China, the dollar had devaluated significantly. For the moment China has a good reason to lend huge amounts of money to the U.S. . This way China can keep it's export to the U.S. going. However, I wonder what will happen when China doesn't need the U.S. any longer to keep its economy going. The question is not if that moment will come, but how long it will take for that moment to come.

I wouldn't be surprised if China stopped lending money to the U.S. and if China wants the U.S. to start paying back by then. That sounds like a challenge for the U.S. to me. If you've been fueling your economy with the money from someone else, then a change is not easily made. However, if the U.S. want to prevent the Chinese to tell the U.S. what to do and how to behave, then something has to change.

Is Europe doing better? I don't think so. There are countries in the euro-zone that have been spending clearly more than they could afford. If it's about Europe then I have seen headlines in newspapers that wrote about the bankrupcy of a country. There are politicians who don't even exclude that scenario any more.

Am I being negative? Most of all I'm trying to be realistic.

Sincerely, Anton.

ps: Oh, I wouldn't compare a new building in China to the escalators in a US subway station. The security standards in both countries are a bit different, let alone the working conditions of the workers.