I’m NOT Going to Pay a Lot for This Baby!
Belle compares the costs of — and general sense of confidence in — healthcare in the US and Singapore. As noted here (a link I found on Crooked Timber where Belle is a new artist in residence), it’s possible to have both socially progressive policy and a robust economy: the hard part seems to be believing you can. Here in the land of the vanishing middle class, I wonder if it will ever happen.
I can only assume this is rooted in the worst period of American history, when the Puritans held sway. There’s still a strong sense of moral superiority held by those who have been swaddled in entitlements and other advantages without realizing it: for them the poor deserve to be so, as though they themselves have worked for their advantages.
The best descriptive term I have heard — uniquely American as it is — refers to this as “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.” The unfairness of this is obvious, but fans of the game know that a triple is the hardest hit to manage.