At my current employer, though, the offshore developers in India have really found the secret sauce and are really nailing productivity and code quality to the danger of US employees.

That has to do with short job tenures (in the US) and industry consolidation. In the past, someone might have joined Upjohn in Kalamazoo, Eli Lilly in Indianapolis or Dow in Midland and stayed there their whole careers. Nowadays everyone changes jobs every 5 years and employment is in San Francisco, Boston and San Diego. It's problematic.

I'd say that's the understatement of the century.

Mass wealth accumulation and wealth inequality has shifted power so far towards businesses that the general populous requires solving a massive orchestration problem (together) in order to change that imbalance which I'm beginning to believe may not be something that can reach critical mass and a stable state in larger populations as historically peaceful revolutions were capable of.

As such, businesses are calling the shots economically, legislatively/governmentally, culturally, ... and their interests are falling further out of alignment with most peoples' well being.

We're becoming less innovative and working more to chase short-term profit margins for employers that keep us fed and sheltered instead of pursuing societal interests.

From your DOW example and the chemical industry, DOW and those they've acquired used to innovate. In their later years they've turned in an IP portfolio management business, focusing on strategic patent purchases to stiffle competitors and eek our royalties for certain processes.

This isnt unique to the chemical industry, it's happening across the board. In the neverending quarterly optimization search space, we're making tradeoffs that are hurting us more and more leading to instability in society all to inflate a few peoples' pockets and grips on control.

The labor market has always been a target but due to social ramifications, has been largely avoided. We're now seeing more aggressive attacks on optimizing costs in the labor market in order to meet growth expectations and it's really starting to press on people. I'm just wondering at which point enough people will crack or give up instead of continuing to support the madness.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/technology/ai-humans.html

Upstate suffers from high taxes and regulations introduced by the Governor with NYC in mind. Combine that with long winters and urban decay and we see that many bright young professionals born here end up fleeing once their parents retire.

I personally am planning on moving to Raleigh, NC in a few years. I only rent an apartment now so I'm mostly insulated from the astronomical property and school taxes, but I feel the state as a whole does not have my best interests in mind.

You should try no education and public services at all. Here in the rural South, 70 % of my students are incapable of doing 8th-grade math. These are the nursing school aspirants, and you genuinely fear for your life when you must go to hospital. Same with property taxes. You need functioning city services. Our county roads here are on a 70-year repaving schedule, and it shows. There was a storm a couple of weeks ago, and the town can't afford to haul away the debris. Inequality has a way of affecting even the wealthy. Hope you enjoy the Southernness of Raleigh.

Unfortunately it is fashionable (among people who choose not to live in them) to talk about non "tier-1" cities as if they are "shitholes", but IMO the quality of life people experience is probably higher on average: less crowding, more open space, more housing, cleaner, less expensive.