The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ America's 250-Year Scorecard

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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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 07, 2026

PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ America's 250-Year Scorecard

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