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It is much easier for people from the poorer European countries to move to the better performing EU/EEA countries than to the USA. Countries such as the Germanics, Nordics, Benelux etc which has lower unemployment and often a higher standard of living than the USA. No immigration barriers.
The only people I've known to prefer the USA as a destination are from the UK/Ireland. Most are monolingual and figure learning another language is hard, so they'd rather deal with the immigration hassle.
With media focusing only on the negative news, it is easy to forget that the serious trobles in the EU are in the Latin/Greek area, plus Ireland. The Nordics, Germanics, and Benelux groups, plus the Swiss are doing quite well. France and the Uk are kindof treading water.
government programs shouldn't be considered in a standard of living survey. if it is, then it has an agenda. there is no way europe exceeds the states standard of living, be it disposable income, material goods, or whatever. europe tried so hard to be that utopian society and is failing miserably. americans are far happier, far more generous and giving people than europeans and we've managed to have a much more stable government and society in recent history. much of europe is going on what, 20 years of its "system" and stability and they all want to sit here and lecture us? get real.
do you believe what your relatives and other europeans like to believe that our standard of living is lower, meanwhile they pay $10 a gallon for gasoline, drive around in little basic cans all day, follow our trends, listen to our music, even imitate our frickin gangs? at the same time they dog us, they constantly look to us to either protect them, blame us, or set new trends for their people.
to me it only seems like it's more of an inferiority complex they don't want to accept.
I haven't seen many standard of living rankings that put America on top. The Scandinavian countries usually top these rankings. Their citizens are better educated, live longer, and have less income inequality.
Europeans are much more generous than Americans. In Europe this is even built into the government. The majority of Europeans don't have a problem with helping to provide healthcare and financial assistance for the poorer members of their society. This is unlike the US where at a major political debate the audience cheered about letting someone die who couldn't afford insurance. Europeans, as a whole, also give more in International Aid than the US. Individual countries give more of a percentage of their GDP than the US.
I, as a European, absolutely and without a doubt believe that my standard of living in France is higher than my standard or living in the US. In France we live longer than Americans, spend more time with our families, eat better, and have less stress than Americans.
$7-$8 gasoline isn't a huge deal. We've developed one the world's best high speed train networks and even small towns have effective public transport.
Americans follow a lot of French and European trends as well. A lot of music here comes from the UK and Ireland.
The US and the EU are friends. They have different outlooks for their domestic policy, but, by and large, a similar foreign policy. America protects parts of Europe because it believes that is in its best interest. The Europeans aren't forcing them to stay but it's a mutually beneficial situation.
Sorry but this has been proven false in several different studies. Americans donate more money and spend more of their time working for charity organizations then Europeans. The United States government donates less of a percentage of its budget then European countries do but does donate more money then any European country does.
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I, as a European, absolutely and without a doubt believe that my standard of living in France is higher than my standard or living in the US. In France we live longer than Americans, spend more time with our families, eat better, and have less stress than Americans.
France has also been plagued with consistent high unemployment as well before the great recession due to its economic policies and your fertility rate is currently below replacement level so going into the future the standard of living in France is going to drop similar how to how it will throughout Europe. One advantage France does have is that its fertility rate is much higher than other European countries and could potentially rise above replacement level so you might escape the problems other European countries will be facing in the coming decades but then again you might not especially if the EU as a whole tanks which is looking more like a possibility.
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$7-$8 gasoline isn't a huge deal. We've developed one the world's best high speed train networks and even small towns have effective public transport.
The United States has a very low population density compared to the majority of countries in Europe and Asia. Hi speed rail would be beneficial for the I-95 corridor but would do next to nothing for the plain states since the population in those areas are rural so higher gas prices hit the United States much harder and having $8 a gallon prices would be completely fubar in the United States.
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The US and the EU are friends. They have different outlooks for their domestic policy, but, by and large, a similar foreign policy. America protects parts of Europe because it believes that is in its best interest. The Europeans aren't forcing them to stay but it's a mutually beneficial situation.
Actually no, historically the EU and the United States have been at odds over foreign policy. The US and UK have had very similar foreign policy but the United States foreign policy has tended to be quite a bit different then mainland Europe's. As far as defense goes Robert Gates was absolutely correct with what he his comments before he retired.
Sorry but this has been proven false in several different studies. Americans donate more money and spend more of their time working for charity organizations then Europeans. The United States government donates less of a percentage of its budget then European countries do but does donate more money then any European country does.
I said in my post, Europe, as whole meaning the entire EU donates more than the US. This is a fact. Actually if you just combine France, the UK, and Germany, those 3 countries alone give more aid than the US. Of course one single country couldn't give as much as the US due to the differences in size of economy/population. However European countries do contribute a higher percentage of their budget to foreign aid. In my eyes this makes Europeans more generous.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
The United States has a very low population density compared to the majority of countries in Europe and Asia. Hi speed rail would be beneficial for the I-95 corridor but would do next to nothing for the plain states since the population in those areas are rural so higher gas prices hit the United States much harder and having $8 a gallon prices would be completely fubar in the United States.
Yes, but high speed rail does work for Europe and makes the gas prices much less of an issue. People still drive in France and drive nice cars. $8 a gas can be affordable in the right situation and France has made this happen. It doesn't bring down the standard of living as another poster said.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
Actually no, historically the EU and the United States have been at odds over foreign policy. The US and UK have had very similar foreign policy but the United States foreign policy has tended to be quite a bit different then mainland Europe's. As far as defense goes Robert Gates was absolutely correct with what he his comments before he retired.
The US and Europe need each other as allies. They may have minor squabbles but they have more in common than not when it comes to foreign policy.
I see alot of new British immigrants roaming around the US via Amtrak. Some have a place they want to go already, others are trying to land a job in whatever city they come across.
I see alot of new British immigrants roaming around the US via Amtrak. Some have a place they want to go already, others are trying to land a job in whatever city they come across.
Serious?! There has always been a tradition of emigration from this country regardless of the economic situation here, and the three countries that get mentioned most are Australia, Canada and New Zealand (or Spain, mostly if you don't need to work though). I'd love to visit one day but if I had to leave here and pick a new country the US quite honestly wouldn't even be in the top 5. I'm sure plenty of British people end up getting transferred over with their job or who marry Americans, but I can only remember hearing one British person in my whole life say he wanted to move to America independently and start afresh, but he ended up living in Adelaide, Australia.
Nope, not true. Where are the statistics? There's a Gallup study on generosity from 2010 that looked at personal contributions of both time and money to charity and the US was not #1. In fact it was #5. Plus Europeans have voted in many charitable laws into their governments that give equal access to health care and social programs for their fellow citizens. I'm telling you a scene like that republican debate where many people yelled for that guy to die because he couldn't afford insurance would never happen in Europe.
this is a study from 2011, called the world giving index. it's 39 pages long and gives you all the information you need. the us is ranked #1, while being in recession, and france nor germanic countries who you believe are doing well ranked well at all. it's a documented fact that individually, americans give the most to charity.
the guy at the republican debate who yelled to let them die is an idiot and not representative of republicans. we don't let people die. doctors have to treat them whether they're insured or not. if you want to take the risk of going into debt because you didn't buy health insurance, then that's your fault. you're going to have to make monthly payments to the doctor or be sent to collections. our health care's treatment and survival rates ranked #1 in the world overall. we have the best health care in the world proven with that ranking right there. do we have some problems, yes. but europe has problems too, rationing and the fact that it ranks lower in disease survival and treatment are a couple.
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I choose public transportation over my car every day for commuting to work. It improves my quality of life as I can read, work, relax, etc instead of worrying about driving. It's actually a way of being more generous to my fellow man by taking my car's space and pollution off the roads! If I go to NYC or DC, I take the train. I I usually take the train in France too but, if I wanted to drive, I could. Many people drive daily in France and the $8 gas prices haven't crushed the consumer economy. People still buy luxury items, go out to eat, etc. I can't think of one thing I have here that i would have to give up in France for the higher gas prices.
so we're not generous because we keep more cars on the road and it pollutes? lol are you serious? anyway, that could easily be reversed and say you're not generous because you want to take peoples money even more so that it can pay for your public transportation that the majority of the population doesn't even use nor do they want to, because if they did, the demand would be there but it's obviously not because our government hasn't purposely inflated our gasoline prices as much as yours to indirectly force people to use the public transportation.
Last edited by CelticGermanicPride; 03-28-2012 at 04:16 PM..
this is a study from 2011, called the world giving index. it's 39 pages long and gives you all the information you need. the us is ranked #1, while being in recession, and france nor germanic countries who you believe are doing well ranked well at all. it's a documented fact that individually, americans give the most to charity.
the guy at the republican debate who yelled to let them die is an idiot and not representative of republicans. we don't let people die. doctors have to treat them whether they're insured or not. if you want to take the risk of going into debt because you didn't buy health insurance, then that's your fault. you're going to have to make monthly payments to the doctor or be sent to collections.
so we're not generous because we keep more cars on the road and it pollutes? lol are you serious? anyway, that could easily be reversed and say you're not generous because you want to take peoples money even more so that it can pay for your public transportation that the majority of the population doesn't even use nor do they want to, because if they did, the demand would be there but it's obviously not because our government hasn't purposely inflated our gasoline prices as much as yours to indirectly force people to use the public transportation.
"The survey relied on data from the Gallup polling organization, and asked whether people had donated money (two-thirds of Americans), volunteered their time (43 percent) or helped a stranger in the preceding month (73 percent).
"The survey's authors noted that charitable behavior is not correlated with wealth. Of the 20 countries that the World Bank ranks richest by gross domestic product, only five made it into the top 20 of the index."
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There has always been a tradition of emigration from this country regardless of the economic situation here, and the three countries that get mentioned most are Australia, Canada and New Zealand (or Spain, mostly if you don't need to work though). I'd love to visit one day but if I had to leave here and pick a new country the US quite honestly wouldn't even be in the top 5. I'm sure plenty of British people end up getting transferred over with their job or who marry Americans, but I can only remember hearing one British person in my whole life say he wanted to move to America independently and start afresh, but he ended up living in Adelaide, Australia.