The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 07, 2026


PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ America's 250-Year Scorecard


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Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

151.31

Word count

4,052

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

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Hate speech

19

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we review America's performance as a country now that it's entered the young adult adult stage of countryhood, and compare it to the rest of the world, including China, Japan and Russia. We also look at how the US stacks up against other countries in terms of GDP and GDP per head.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokonomics. Now, in this episode, I'm filming this a couple of days and
00:00:26.960 you'll see it presumably a couple of days after, America's had its birthday.
00:00:31.520 So happy birthday, America.
00:00:32.700 You are now apparently 250 years old, which is relatively modest by country standards.
00:00:40.140 But you're old enough to drink, maybe drive.
00:00:45.680 So congratulations on that.
00:00:47.960 Now, the only thing I would say is I'm not sure I necessarily agree with your date.
00:00:53.760 So as far as I'm concerned, America did not become a country
00:00:56.360 until the Treaty of Paris, which was in September 3rd, 1783, wasn't it,
00:01:02.800 when Britain recognised America as a country.
00:01:05.760 But you guys like to use 1776 for whatever reason.
00:01:10.180 So, okay, fair enough.
00:01:11.640 So we'd go with that because I suppose it's your birthday,
00:01:14.700 so you get to say, and we're going to be very polite about it.
00:01:17.500 But we do need to give you a scorecard now that you've reached
00:01:21.100 the young adult adult stage of countryhood um so what we're going to do is we're going to review
00:01:26.700 the class and see how america is getting on and hopefully is going to enter adulthood as a country
00:01:36.440 very sensibly we are hoping that it is not going to be like those but you know you see them all
00:01:42.260 the time before and after university where some you get a very pretty girl and then she goes off
00:01:47.500 to university and then she comes back and she's got that ssr stare ssir whatever it is you know
00:01:54.680 the drugs they take the stare and they've got a nose ring and they put on weight and they've got 0.58
00:01:58.860 blue hair um we are really hoping that that doesn't happen to america it doesn't it doesn't
00:02:04.080 you know wokeify itself so we're going to look at a couple of categories and we're going to compare
00:02:08.900 you to the rest of the class which is going to be more the uk obviously germany that's a good
00:02:16.060 comparison. Russia, all of those are about 1,100 years old. I mean, Germany gets a bit ropey because
00:02:24.260 it likes to reinvent itself periodically. So you can make an argument for 1,100. I suppose you can 0.97
00:02:29.700 make another argument for 155 if you went with a Bismarck number, or 70 years if you went with a
00:02:35.880 post-war settlement, but whatever. And also we're going to look at Japan and China, who are sort of
00:02:42.540 double these numbers. They're sort of 2,200 years old. So they've had to repeat the class
00:02:49.140 a few times. So yes, let's start with a little bit of opening data on what we're looking
00:02:56.320 at here. In 1776, the US had about 2.5 million people, which isn't a lot. By 2026, you're
00:03:07.540 to something like 342 million so you've had 130 times growth from the early days which is you
00:03:15.980 know impressive scaling i will give you that you've gone from 13 colonies to global superpower
00:03:21.760 so well done and on the first entrance in the in the scorecard we're gonna have to go with economy
00:03:28.680 aren't we? Now, on that, America looks really bloody good, doesn't it? It's about 28.75 trillion
00:03:38.540 is your GDP. And the closest to that is going to be China, with about 18.75 trillion GDP.
00:03:47.200 The only thing I would say is that when you are measuring that in US dollars,
00:03:52.980 the US is going to do well I can pretty much guarantee that if I started a country and it
00:03:59.000 uses Dan dollars then it that the Dan Astania would come out incredibly well on that comparison
00:04:07.560 because it can print as many Dan dollars as it likes and it can basically borrow as many Dan
00:04:12.280 dollars as it likes from itself so it does matter that you're measuring this in US dollars
00:04:17.640 But on the strict interpretation of GDP, the US is still rocking and rolling sort of 10 trillion ahead of its closest competitor, China.
00:04:28.200 If you look at things like energy production, if you measure the economy based on energy, which is probably quite a good way of doing it, 0.66
00:04:34.500 because it shows how much useful work you can do, China is well ahead of the US at this point.
00:04:39.540 The rest of the class, Germany's about $5 trillion, Japan maybe $4 trillion, UK a bit below $4 trillion, $3.6 trillion, something like that.
00:04:51.300 So yeah, well done, America. You're still crushing it on the economy front.
00:04:56.480 GDP per head is probably a nicer way of looking at it.
00:04:58.920 US, again, holds up very well there, about $84,000 per head.
00:05:04.120 Well clear of even Germany next at $55,000 per head.
00:05:09.540 UK about 53 we're a bit behind there Japan down 32 now for Japan they're they're suffering lately
00:05:17.560 aren't they and then China only about $13,000 per head so so by that you know America is looking
00:05:24.760 good I will give you that it is still looking good on many metrics but I wanted to look at a number
00:05:29.640 of explicit categories and the first real category that I want to look at is going to be foundational
00:05:34.480 design you have to give it to the americans on foundational design don't you i'm a huge fan
00:05:40.700 of the of the founding fathers um i mean they they of course they called themselves englishmen
00:05:47.140 for most of their lives and and what they were trying to do is uphold the very best of what
00:05:51.260 should have been english values even though england had slipped away from them and the i mean
00:05:56.580 everything from the declaration of independence to constitution itself or the various other
00:06:01.560 documents are exceptional documents. And it is really a testament that America could have
00:06:10.700 withstood so many Democrat governments, including the Obama and Biden years. And yet it is still
00:06:18.320 mostly functional, thanks to an absolute golden set of constitutional documents setting it up in
00:06:25.980 the first place so a plus to america on that uk is actually quite a good comparator here because
00:06:32.620 it doesn't have a written constitution it has a sort of evolving one um and it is actually held
00:06:38.340 up as remarkably stable over a very long time you know rich people just are very happy to come and
00:06:43.380 live in london because of the stability and the financial security of everything that goes with
00:06:47.720 it germany isn't bad on this front and japan i suppose because of the language issues doesn't
00:06:52.760 get much of this. Russia does abysmally on this one, I'm afraid. You don't see wealthy people
00:07:00.420 running off to Russia, and China is very poor indeed. People deliberately keep their money
00:07:05.200 out of China. So I will give you that one. What about durability? What about if we looked at that?
00:07:13.380 So the US actually, again, another A plus on that one. I mean, they're 250 years,
00:07:20.860 and they haven't really changed the fundamental design principles.
00:07:26.720 They have been rotted, they've been infiltrated,
00:07:30.140 they've been subverted, but still 250 years
00:07:33.200 on basically the same platform is absolutely A+, I'll give you that.
00:07:40.480 Britain is also doing very well on this,
00:07:42.840 probably an A+, for Britain as well.
00:07:45.180 Long, long periods of stability.
00:07:47.480 Germany starts to get a bit ropey for historic reasons
00:07:50.560 that we know well they they have not been remarkably stable and and they've had to sort
00:07:55.700 of re-engineer themselves a number of times but i mean america they had their they had their ups
00:08:02.080 and downs didn't they their civil war you know held up came through it you know various shocks
00:08:08.280 along the way but they they they've managed to be a remarkably durable nation and and the rest of
00:08:14.120 class really can't you know say that japan very similar reasons to germany have not been that
00:08:20.900 durable i suppose they kept the emperor that's something and what is he russia and and china i
00:08:26.100 mean they've they've just been all over the place haven't they including long periods of embracing
00:08:30.680 communism which which didn't work out particularly well for them next mark in the scorecard the
00:08:36.440 constraints on executive power so brilliant america on this one um you wrote those you got a plus for
00:08:46.120 your foundational documents and then you constrained executive power from doing basically anything
00:08:53.260 which is which is wonderful and it stopped you going off the rails sooner but it does mean that
00:09:00.040 now everything has been so utterly infiltrated it's you can change the executive you can't really
00:09:05.360 do much with it, which is a little bit of a problem. You're constrained by Congress and
00:09:12.180 more to the point, the courts. And as Trump has found, you can't really do anything without
00:09:15.900 unanimous agreement of every Ninth Circuit judge, which is a bit of a handicap. So that
00:09:21.660 is unfortunate. UK, this is a bit of a mixed blessing. Constraints on executive power.
00:09:27.140 Well, Blair has built some in, but still Parliament is sovereign
00:09:34.360 and in theory can do pretty much anything.
00:09:36.740 So actually once Western nations have been subverted to this point,
00:09:41.800 the UK is probably one of the very few countries in the world
00:09:45.000 that could get itself out of it just by having an election.
00:09:48.420 Because Parliament is sovereign, it can pass whatever laws it likes
00:09:51.120 and it could very swiftly extricate itself
00:09:54.240 from the sort of post-war liberal rot, if it chose to.
00:09:59.620 So technically, this is a win for the US.
00:10:04.560 I've got to give it that.
00:10:06.000 But although this constraint on executive power,
00:10:08.720 even though it has helped slow its decline in the liberal post-war era,
00:10:15.360 it also makes it harder to get out of.
00:10:17.700 It's unfortunate.
00:10:20.280 Germany, lots of constraints on executive power,
00:10:23.600 but very difficult because it's kind of hard-baked in.
00:10:26.340 Their constitution is actually directly a liberal post-war constitution,
00:10:31.900 which kind of means they could be stuck without a bloody revolution,
00:10:35.620 which is, of course, very sad.
00:10:38.000 Japan, parliament, I mean, is quite strong, but it's very bureaucratic.
00:10:42.920 Russia and China, I mean, they just have revolutions, don't they?
00:10:46.220 And there's absolutely no constraint on executive power whatsoever.
00:10:50.060 I mean, a tiny token amount in Russia, but none in China.
00:10:54.760 So again, America is doing very well on that.
00:10:57.740 Separations of power, I suppose if you treat that as a separate category, again, another 0.77
00:11:02.400 A for the US, maybe an A plus for them there. 0.75
00:11:07.000 They've done very well.
00:11:07.920 They've separated out those powers.
00:11:10.580 UK is probably getting a C there, but like I said, that could turn out to be an advantage.
00:11:16.400 Germany is actually quite strong in separation of powers. 0.89
00:11:19.040 Japan is decent, but Russia and China, again, there's no real separation of powers.
00:11:24.560 So again, everything we've looked at so far, if you consider them all to be virtues,
00:11:29.720 America is just slam dunking A's and A-pluses all over the place.
00:11:35.320 Federal autonomy?
00:11:39.140 America should be getting an A-plus here, shouldn't it?
00:11:41.520 but it's probably more like a B at this point
00:11:46.440 because you should have 50 states
00:11:49.780 who can basically chart their own course
00:11:52.760 but this has just been eroded
00:11:54.940 eroded year after year
00:11:56.820 where basically the states have to do
00:11:59.120 whatever the hell they're told by central government
00:12:01.280 otherwise they get their highway funding cut 0.99
00:12:03.080 or some other damn thing 0.98
00:12:04.080 so federalism 0.98
00:12:07.960 really the the u.s should be excelling here should be excelling but its grades have dropped
00:12:15.040 significantly lately because it has allowed the center to exercise more and more control so so
00:12:22.680 very sad very sad to see grades dropping in in federalism um not the uk does much better in fact
00:12:29.960 none of our i mean germany does all right here germany does have reasonably strong federal
00:12:35.900 development, but none of the other countries on our list have any of that. But still, another
00:12:42.140 top of the class from America. Well done. Good work there. Rights architecture. Again,
00:12:50.380 got to give it to the US, haven't you? Do we give them an A for rights, for freedom? I mean,
00:12:56.280 that's what my American friends like to talk about. Freedom. You can make a decent case for
00:13:00.900 this i mean you don't get arrested for saying things unless you're that hendrix woman who went 0.98
00:13:07.080 to a play park and got annoyed with a kid stealing from her um so i mean in practice you can get
00:13:15.140 arrested for saying things in the u.s but it is much rarer much much rarer basic freedoms do tend
00:13:21.460 to hold up the only thing is i found when i when i when i've been to america it's kind of weird
00:13:27.060 because they have this image of themselves as being, you know,
00:13:29.720 very much do what they want.
00:13:31.200 But I've never been told what to do as much as when I went to America.
00:13:35.500 There's so many things, don't do this, you must do this,
00:13:37.960 and apparently you can't cross the road because it's a crime,
00:13:40.580 which I think they're making up,
00:13:41.620 but apparently that's a crime in America, crossing the road,
00:13:44.680 jaywalking or something, whatever they call it.
00:13:46.480 But, you know, and whenever you go into any sort of public space,
00:13:49.660 there's always very, very, you know, told what to do at all times.
00:13:54.240 You know, you have to walk this way and do that and whatever else.
00:13:56.380 okay fine um but i suppose if you're if you're at home you know living your life you can pretty
00:14:03.540 much get on with most things with a reasonable minimization of permits and all the rest of it
00:14:09.560 unless you're trying to build anything or do anything or you live in california or a number
00:14:14.240 of other states so again grades are dropping here on rights should we give them a b do you think
00:14:19.860 that's fair was an a was definitely an a plus in the past but i think i think their grades are
00:14:26.540 dropping here as well um uk germany yeah rights are in the toilet aren't they especially the uk
00:14:33.620 you need a license for everything you get arrested if you say anything keir starmer doesn't like so
00:14:38.300 that's not good japan i suppose is holding up reasonably well but they've got such a monoculture
00:14:43.280 that nobody thinks to take offense of anything because they all think the same thing because
00:14:46.800 all japanese at the moment um russia you can speak your mind on anything apart from the government
00:14:54.120 and china you can speak your mind on almost nothing maybe food the virtues of eating dogs
00:15:03.120 or something um yes so again well i suppose top of the class again to america
00:15:09.540 but you're probably only getting maybe a b plus b plus at the moment has been stronger
00:15:17.320 oh i suppose unless you take into account the the you know the the civil rights stuff
00:15:24.400 but i don't care so anyway amendability amendability ability to change course
00:15:33.580 let's let's treat that as his own category
00:15:35.620 i mean in theory you can pass a constitutional amendment and do whatever you like
00:15:46.580 the the president does have broad executive powers
00:15:51.020 but the courts have just massively overstepped their role again and again and again
00:15:58.240 and and we don't have presidents these days who are willing to say
00:16:03.860 nice ruling now let now let's see if you can enforce it because i've got an army and you haven't
00:16:10.780 and and realistically is is there going to be any constitutional amendments ever again
00:16:17.820 when you know the the legislative is always split more or less 50 50 and they just disagree
00:16:27.880 on absolutely everything it has the u.s baked it in so while in theory i can see them changing
00:16:36.400 course and i suppose they did everything they did within the confines of the constitution so all this
00:16:42.560 wokery nonsense has wormed its way in slowly so i suppose you could worm it out slowly but
00:16:48.580 That's not good.
00:16:49.380 That's slow.
00:16:51.520 Maybe a C plus for adaptability politically.
00:16:59.240 Am I being too harsh?
00:17:00.600 Possibly too generous?
00:17:03.240 The UK is probably an A minus adaptability.
00:17:09.100 You know, sovereign parliament can just change anything
00:17:11.440 it damn well wants to at any time.
00:17:12.860 Germany isn't too bad. 0.93
00:17:14.100 In theory, it can change things.
00:17:15.920 But a lot of it's baked in at the constitutional layer.
00:17:18.400 So even if you get a party that wants to change something like the AFD, they just get blocked.
00:17:23.040 Japan has become a bit struotic.
00:17:27.680 I suppose Russia and China can change things on the basis that they can just have another revolution.
00:17:32.840 But, I mean, probably very low scores there.
00:17:35.800 So, I mean, it's difficult to argue that on flexibility, political flexibility, the US is definitely not first in the class.
00:17:44.240 That goes to the UK on that one.
00:17:45.920 And maybe Germany is second.
00:17:48.400 Because even though it does have a constitution, it's slightly more adaptable than the US one.
00:17:54.020 So, yep, yep. I'm going to have to drop your grades on that one, America. Sorry about that.
00:17:58.620 What about demographics? Should we talk about demographics?
00:18:01.780 I mean, just headline to frame this.
00:18:04.340 As we mentioned, America is now up to something like 342 million people,
00:18:09.120 which is a very big increase from the 2.5 million they started with in those 13 colonies.
00:18:14.700 And in order to do that, of course, 0.62
00:18:18.480 they couldn't just rely on breeding up the English 0.78
00:18:23.640 that they already had, which is a shame
00:18:26.360 because imagine what it would be like if it was all English today.
00:18:30.040 That would be quite stellar, wouldn't it?
00:18:33.420 Incidentally, having worked in London,
00:18:36.100 you meet a lot of Americans come to work in America.
00:18:42.160 That's right, in London, or comes a visit or whatever else.
00:18:45.980 And I was forever meeting Americans who described themselves
00:18:48.340 and saying, oh, I'm German-American or Spanish-American
00:18:50.820 or some other American.
00:18:53.860 Never once have I ever met an American who describes himself
00:18:57.400 as English-American.
00:18:59.520 Never once.
00:19:01.740 But isn't that supposed to be the largest group comfortably
00:19:08.380 in America who's English-American?
00:19:10.920 They never say that.
00:19:12.060 I don't know why.
00:19:14.060 Maybe because it's just American.
00:19:19.340 But you could describe yourself as English-American, couldn't you?
00:19:21.860 But you never do.
00:19:23.540 Yeah, so 342 million of you.
00:19:26.140 Well done.
00:19:27.800 China, apparently 1.4 billion, although some suspicion that's being overstated.
00:19:33.060 So you're not the biggest.
00:19:35.060 Russia, about 150 million.
00:19:37.600 So decent size.
00:19:38.740 Only half the US, though. 0.90
00:19:40.040 after you lost the USSR, the bits around it. 0.98
00:19:44.400 But I don't know how good those bits around it were. 0.98
00:19:47.640 Japan, actually, Japan is surprisingly large,
00:19:49.580 124 million people there,
00:19:51.880 although they are declining rapidly
00:19:53.360 because they've all forgotten how to have sex. 0.99
00:19:56.560 And their birth rate is horrific. 0.99
00:19:59.840 So that is unfortunate.
00:20:01.160 Germany is actually a reasonable size, 84 million. 0.82
00:20:04.880 Decent size, that, for a European country.
00:20:06.920 and the uk is supposed to be 69 and a half million although i severely doubt it because we
00:20:13.260 are probably not counting as many invaders as we should um so let's get to the scorecard shall we
00:20:20.080 fertility that's important america is 1.6 for every for every woman or couple whichever way
00:20:30.300 1.6 children now that isn't good until you compare it to the rest of the class
00:20:38.160 i mean population decline is baked in which is very unfortunate given that western countries 0.93
00:20:47.220 have a lot of boomers who require an awful lot of pension um so not ideal so you think 1.6 well
00:20:54.580 that really isn't good is it but but america is surprisingly actually still top of the class even
00:20:59.520 with numbers like that and not a good subject for the class uk one and a half fertility rate
00:21:06.180 and and and you've got to think that is propped up by immigrants a lot i mean a lot of the american
00:21:13.880 will be as well but but but still germany 1.4 not great you can see why they went down the
00:21:20.560 immigration route and japan very worrying 1.2 when that really is bad they're just come on it's not
00:21:29.000 hard find a good looking girl talk to her maybe buy her a drink but no they can't do it for
00:21:38.600 whatever reason um very worrying russia is people always say the demographics in russia are all for
00:21:45.160 1.4 i mean it's it's about the same as germany it's only slightly worse than the uk it's not 0.73
00:21:52.140 that much worse than the us and and china is bloody abysmal it's like one they're just halving 0.96
00:21:58.540 every single generation very concerning for their for their demographic collapse so so nobody has 1.00
00:22:05.420 done well but for some some reason america's c-minus here is is still going to put it top
00:22:12.040 of the class so a difficult subject for the class having children which which you wouldn't think is
00:22:20.600 that card people have been doing it for a long time but people have forgotten aging where are
00:22:24.900 they going to score on that? Well, America's only about 30% of its population is over 65. I say only.
00:22:34.480 Again, you think that sounds bad until you hear about some of the other comparators. Mind you,
00:22:40.700 Germany isn't quite as bad. Germany is 23% of its population is over 65. So actually,
00:22:47.820 they're doing better uk is high teens like 18 19 something like that um sorry did i say america is
00:22:58.100 30 over 65 i meant japan bad damn yeah japan is doing very badly with 30 over 65 no america i
00:23:08.240 meant to say is about the same as the uk 18 19 percent over over 30 over 65 so yeah not good
00:23:17.940 not good china mid-teens as well as russia mid-teens so i mean out of all of that
00:23:27.440 i suppose you've got to you've got to score it to russia or china on that one
00:23:35.040 they're top of the class when it comes to an aging population and then you've got
00:23:41.440 germany uk and us are all disappointing and japan is is absolutely flunking it
00:23:49.520 so we've had the first top of the class go to china and russia because of their relatively
00:23:56.420 young population and by relatively i just mean very slightly worse off in the population imbalance
00:24:02.980 so no sorry america you've dropped another category your parents will be disappointed
00:24:09.480 well we're not well we are in some ways but okay um immigrant stock
00:24:15.640 yes tougher one this one japan i think is going to come top of the class isn't it no it might be
00:24:22.860 no it might be china actually so only about three percent of japan is is foreign born
00:24:29.960 So well done, well done.
00:24:32.480 China is also extremely low, but it's difficult to put a finger on how much.
00:24:37.720 But top of the class is with an A at least, probably an A plus,
00:24:45.400 is Japan and possibly China if we had good data.
00:24:49.020 So well done.
00:24:50.940 Russia, it depends if you count ex-Soviet migration. 0.96
00:24:57.740 but they have had a fair amount of non-Russian
00:25:04.500 but the exact percentage varies
00:25:06.940 depending on how you treat the ex-Soviet state
00:25:09.360 US, something like 18% of their country
00:25:14.800 sorry no, 14.8% of their country
00:25:19.320 is considered immigrant population
00:25:23.200 and by immigrant population I mean as in relatively recent
00:25:27.220 as in yeah modern modern immigrants not people who came over you know island in
00:25:36.400 1909 or whatever the hell it was um yeah you can't you can't you really expect to win in america
00:25:44.380 on immigration china was certainly got that one germany is very high
00:25:49.580 about 17 million out of the 85 i think you said it was and uk uk 12 million
00:25:58.860 out of out of their 69 and a half apparently so yeah germany and the uk are completely flunked
00:26:06.760 this one us has maybe scraped a passing grade but only just what's a passing grade is that a d
00:26:15.240 yeah we probably give we probably give america d d or d minus here and japan is just absolutely
00:26:23.360 crushing it with an a plus so not really in contention there where are you america that's
00:26:28.580 unfortunate if you enjoyed that content and of course you did because you are a smart person
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