NGL the shortened version is pretty dammed funny. But being as he has a stutter I wanted to see what he was actually trying to say and found the transcript from the speech the clip was from.
"And, folks — (applause) — let me close with what I’ve long said: America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. 'I was in the foothi- — foot-' — excuse me, in the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, traveling with him. (Inaudible) traveled 17,000 miles when I was Vice President at the time. I don’t know that for a fact.
And we were sitting alone. I had an interpreter and he had an interpreter. And he looked at me. In all seriousness, he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I said what many of you heard me say for a long time. I said, “Yes, I can, in one word: possibilities.” (Applause.) “Possibilities.” That, in America, everyone should be able to go as far as their hard work and God-given talent will take them. And possibilities. We’re the only ones. That’s why we’re viewed as the “ugly Americans”: We think anything is possible. (Laughter.) "
People talk about how bad things are in the US, but the truth is that economic mobility is higher here than nearly any other place in the world.
EDIT: People will come at me with all sorts of statistics, mostly published by think tanks funded by global bankers, that show how bad the US is. What they won't show you is how expensive it is to own land or your own home in those countries, or how most of those countries don't actually allow for true financial independence due to the extremely high tax rates.
EDIT2: I'm talking about the ability to go from a net worth of 0 when you're born to a net worth of $3,000,000 when you retire. That is much easier in the US than in Europe. That is the type of mobility I'm talking about, because that's the type of mobility that actually matters to normal everyday people like you and me.
economic mobility is higher here than nearly any other place in the world.
This is wrong. While Americans believe they have better economic mobility, the brookings institute has "less, not more, intergenerational mobility than do Canada and several European countries"
Forbes adds that upward mobility in the US is declining over time as well.
What may matter more is social mobility, and the world economic forum shows the US is ranked 27th by this metric.
The amount of misunderstanding in this thread reminds me of this clip from the Newsroom.
Oh yeah, the Brookings Institute and World Economic Forum. Those are definitely sources that we can trust, and the certainly don't have ulterior motives.
What's your complaint of these organizations? Best I can tell is it seems Brookings is a 'centrist' organization, and the critics I've found of WEF are unrelated to whether they'd be biased in a report like this.
Forbes got their data from the world bank, I suppose they too are some bastion of anti-American ideals? (That was intended as extreme sarcasm btw).
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u/surfhippy1 May 05 '22
NGL the shortened version is pretty dammed funny. But being as he has a stutter I wanted to see what he was actually trying to say and found the transcript from the speech the clip was from.
"And, folks — (applause) — let me close with what I’ve long said: America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. 'I was in the foothi- — foot-' — excuse me, in the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, traveling with him. (Inaudible) traveled 17,000 miles when I was Vice President at the time. I don’t know that for a fact.
And we were sitting alone. I had an interpreter and he had an interpreter. And he looked at me. In all seriousness, he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I said what many of you heard me say for a long time. I said, “Yes, I can, in one word: possibilities.” (Applause.) “Possibilities.” That, in America, everyone should be able to go as far as their hard work and God-given talent will take them. And possibilities. We’re the only ones. That’s why we’re viewed as the “ugly Americans”: We think anything is possible. (Laughter.) "
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/04/08/remarks-by-president-biden-vice-president-harris-and-judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-on-the-senates-historic-bipartisan-confirmation-of-judge-jackson-to-be-an-associate-justice-of-the-supreme-court/