It can only happen here

Our waiter retired three years ago when he couldn’t work due to Covid, but he’s back in the workforce now because inflation has been so high and the government safety net he was promised isn’t covering his lavish lifestyle.

He’d probably be blaming Joe Biden, but he lives in Istanbul and his challenge is the declining value of the Lira. The latest inflation rate in Turkey has improved to just under 50%...yes, 50%...and the Lira has declined 79%...yes, 79%...against the dollar since Joe Biden took office. It turns out that inflation isn’t just an American thing, even though we sometimes act as if we’re all alone in our suffering.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to many parts of the world and to meet a large number of people along the way. Whenever I get the chance, I chat one up and find out that yes, we’re all the same on many levels. Geography and culture add to the complexity of our experiences, so it’s not surprising that the Ukraine war looks much different in Poland than it does in Pennsylvania and inflation is different in Istanbul than in Iowa. Where we stand on issues depends on where we sit, sometimes literally, and we sit on a catbird seat pretty much everywhere in America.

That’s why we’re at a huge disadvantage when it comes to understanding the rest of the world. We are the 500-pound gorilla, which is a slight improvement from 800 pounds before Ozempic, but we are the one beast that cannot be ignored. Specific nations need to pay special attention to China or Russia or India or Brazil, but pretty much everyone needs to consider what the United States is doing to affect their economy and trade and military security.

We, on the other hand, don’t really need to think that much about anyone. We should, of course, because we have many serious adversaries and competitors and risks. Having a sense of what’s happening around the world would give us much-needed perspective about our local issues. But who has time to even think about any other countries when we hardly have a spare moment for our daily cat videos? And Wordle?

I'd say we're Number One and every other country is Number Two, but that would require recognizing that other countries exist. And maybe they do, at least in theory, but not in the world we Americans inhabit.

So, when the inflation goes up in the United States or products are in short supply, we tend to think it’s all about us, it is only happening here, and only our local politicians are to blame. And it’s not just inflation. Remember that Covid thing? Hundreds of countries trying to figure out how to contain it, how to protect people, how to maintain an economy in the midst of a pandemic, but we broke it down into just two perspectives: blue states versus red. It was the same thing with avian flu, just as it was with AIDS and just as it will be with whatever comes next.

Seriously, folks, we need to get out more.

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