I wish Der Spiegel would make up its mind.

Personally, I think they just want to hate on the US. As a liberal Democrat, I'm far, far beyond tired of my country and countrypeople being insulted from abroad. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

We don't have to model for ANYONE. Other countries need to find their own way. We went without health care and any but the most minimal societal support systems in the guise of "saving nations" who could afford to give their citizens everything we never could. Americans have to do what's right for OUR people, not for multinational companies.

I couldn't really find anything in the article that was not accurate.

One hopes that Der Spiegel will also examine the policies of their own government as critically.
The weaker economies in the Eurozone are suffering from some of the same problems lately, in no small part due to austerity being forced on them by the stronger ones, especially Germany.

They need to be their own role model. We need to care for our people.

Is that we were on track, through much of the 20th century, to satisfy both sets of criteria. Doing what's right for our people, AND setting an example for success to the rest of the world. And then we loosed the greed and short sightedness to which the article alluded.

We know our way to be, that's it. We have to stop ordering people around to live by the dictates of our own beliefs.

As if such a thing existed... There is no single set called "our beliefs".

Only honest open experimentation will discover a workable solution for a prosperous free society to emerge.

And for the most part, we don't order people to live our way (whatever that is). We either bribe them, or show them how they too can develop an elite sub class to the detriment of citizens, environments, peace, debt loads...