Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Today's @bopinion post is about America in decline, and what it means for ordinary Americans.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/Decline started with a bunch of little stuff that we learned to live with.

Like buildings and roads that took forever to build.

motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201…

3/Or ridiculous, insane hospital bills that we grew used to paying (or avoiding).

vox.com/health-care/20…

4/Or huge pointless fees, like paying 6% real estate commissions when people in other countries were paying 2%.

graphics.wsj.com/table/commish_…

5/These were all small harbingers of our decline. We learned to grumble and put up with them.

Then came coronavirus. And suddenly, decline was no longer a small, gradual force in our lives. Suddenly it was at our very throats.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

6/This picture is an incredibly vivid illustration of a nation in decline.

7/Texans and Floridians are cowering in their homes for fear of a virus that their leaders refused to suppress, while Italians are walking the streets and eating in cafes again.

npr.org/sections/coron…

8/But coronavirus is only one piece of American decline, I'm afraid.

Another is our brutal, lawless police forces.

policeabuses.info/#/

9/Now we are hell-bent on accelerating our decline.

We're kicking out the skilled immigrants who are the absolute indispensable LIFEBLOOD of our high-value knowledge industries and scientific research supremacy.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

10/And we're probably going to let much of our university system -- Number 1 in the world, the tentpole of our high-value industries and scientific leadership and thriving college towns -- wither on the vine.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

11/We need to act to arrest this decline.

We need to act BIG.

And we need to act NOW.

12/Because if we don't, it's only a matter of time until the other shoe falls:

CAPITAL FLIGHT.

Maybe you haven't thought about the possibility of capital flight, or maybe you don't think it could ever happen here, but you had better worry about it.

13/Capital flight means investors deciding that Europe, Asia, Canada, etc. are better places to put their money.

Just one consequence of that would be a crash in the dollar, making it harder to afford the cheap imports that sustain our lifestyles.

bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

14/In order to keep capital in the country, the Fed would have to raise interest rates, choking off economic activity and creating stagflation.

Leaders -- especially idiots like the people who fumbled the coronavirus response -- would be tempted to impose price controls.

15/The endgame of capital flight is a Venezuela-style collapse.

nytimes.com/2019/05/17/wor…

16/We're not near a Venezuela-style collapse yet, but we are DEFINITELY heading in that direction.

We need a big change of leadership right now. And more than that, we need a big change in our national consciousness.

17/If we do not accept the reality that our nation is headed in a disastrous direction, and the necessity of a huge effort and big changes to turn things around, we are in dire trouble.

Consider yourselves warned.

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…