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Stuck: A Root Cause Analysis
By Shlomo Maital
Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. by Yoni Appelbaum. Feb. 2025.
In Root Cause Analysis (RCA), you keep asking questions, until you get to the bottom of the problem.
How did Trump gain a (small) majority of voters to support his crackpot ideas – now weaking havoc on America and the world?
Yoni Applebaum is deputy executive editor of The Atlantic, a leading magazine. His new book offers a root cause explanation.
The problem is costly housing, which limited mobility, which was the traditional way low-income Americans made more money.
Here is how it worked.
Under the Democrats, America off-shored its manufacturing to Southeast Asia, mainly China. This hurt the industrial heartland and manufacturing workers, in the Midwest, the South, and elsewhere.
In the past, a US worker thrown out of work picked up, packed up, and moved to where there were jobs.
But because housing became super-expensive, and hard to find (try to find a rental in Boston!), moving for this group was not an option, because while their wages would rise, they would be more than eaten up by hugely expensive housing.
Not so for the elites. A lawyer could leave Alabama, and earn fortunes in New York City, more than enough to cover the housing costs.
Hence, Americans, who once were highly mobile, are far less so today. They are stuck – Stuck in backwater places like Flint, Michigan, once a manufacturing hub, now a slum with water full of lead.
The elites (who vote Democrat) have escaped long ago. The working class are stuck and left behind.
Hello, Dems? Are you listening? Did you see the problem of housing? Did you do anything? NO?
In November 2024, you paid the piper.
America! Open the Windows!
By Shlomo Maital
One of the most annoying things about MAGA Make America Great Again is this:
The basic premise of MAGA is, America is NOT great, at present. Understatement. Poor healthcare. Unaffordable housing. Poor schools. Wealth and income inequality. Racism. Antisemitism. Polarized paralyzed politics… just for a start.
So, how to make America great again? Place a Nazi sympathizer in charge of destroying public services. Smash alliances abroad, suck up to dictators, appoint incompetent loyalists to key positions, engage in vengeance, ….
There is another way. It is found in this new book, Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. – by Natasha Hakimi Zapata. 2025
The simple, obvious, key point – overlooked by the current Administration. Other countries, far less wealthy, have solutions to America’s problems. Right under our noses. But American exceptionalism means, that is not possible. Because .. well, just because.
Singapore (NOT a leftist socialist liberal country) has extraordinary affordable public housing. I’ve seen it first hand. Check it out, America.
Canada has national health insurance. I was born in Saskatchewan, the first province to implement it, in the 1950’s. Check it out, America. Canadians all have health insurance. So do the British – and most civilized European countries.
Estonia has income tax filing online. Fast, simple, easy. Check it out, America.
Most German public universities (and they are mostly outstanding) charge no tuition. America? Michigan has great state universities – but if you don’t live in the state, you pay $60,000 – $65,000 tuition yearly. Not including room and board.
Schools? America is not among the top scoring countries according to the PISA benchmark. Not even close. Way behind China.
Housing, healthcare, education, public services, ….things that drive our quality of life. America trails, despite high GDP per capita.
Why? Closed windows. Other countries have found wise, pragmatic solutions to key problems. The US refuses to learn from them. Costa Rica? Denmark? Learn from them? Get serious, American politicians spout.
In years of teaching managers, I taught them how to define their key operations (marketing, quality assurance, production, innovation) and benchmark which other companies did these things best, how they did them, and – learn from them, adapt and adopt. Pretty simple idea. Best practice benchmarking. Works for nations too. Yes, even for America.
Learn from others.
The most blatant stupidity is Trump’s desire to annex Canada. Why in the world would any Canadian choose to be part of a nation that is hopelessly divided politically and systematically destroying its public services? A country that blindly asserts its superiority, against all evidence, while refusing to learn from others wiser and smarter?
Natasha Hakimi Zapata’s book is MUST reading for MUSK. But don’t hold your breath.
TIMnovate 