Thread by @doctorow

Bloomberg's #MiseryIndex tracks unemployment and inflation and ranks 60 countries year on year. America just tumbled 25 spots, from the 50th least-miserable nation to the 25th, slipping below Mexico and Russia.

bloombergquint.com/global-economi…

1/

Writing in the @NewYorker, @mashagessen describes what happens when a "great power" collapses: "Why America Feels Like a Post-Soviet State."

newyorker.com/news/our-colum…

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It's the nagging sense that any statistics are distorted to make the people at the top feel good about their performance, and to give their quackspeaking useful idiots something to shout when anyone criticizes the system.

(think of Trump's covid "statistics")

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It's the sense that, without data, and under pressure to hit meaningless targets, our institutions CAN'T perform: think of schools reopening, Deborah Birx toeing the party line.

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It's the sense that you're being led by a Mafia boss without a Mafia and the sense that the rich live in a completely separate system from the rest of us, insulated from the depredations and fears that keep the rest of us up at night.

5/

America wasn't the only country that slipped in the misery rankings, but its fall was much harder than other backsliders, like Iceland, Israel and Panama.

Tired of winning yet?

eof/