But if you have a family of 4 in the United States, you are just above the poverty level, which officially is $30,000. Even if you are young, healthy, and single, in most American cities, $34,000 offers a bare survival. Your optimism comes from an unrealistic assumption that one can earn $34,000 in Chicago but live in Acapulco.

I follow your writing and respect your knowledge, and I learned a few things from you. But in this text, you missed it big time.

I have been living in America since 1985. Before that, I lived through the unprecedented collapse of a relatively large European nation, Poland. In the 1970s, I was among the top political writers there who prepared the nation for the change of 1989. Analogies between Poland and the United States are profound.

Since 1913, America has entered the same path that Argentina took roughly about the same time. Thanks to stronger democratic traditions, America is advancing on that path much slower than Argentina did. I wrote about it: “Argentina — a warning to the United States and China.”

More to come.