US infrastructure is far behind Europe (wages, money, states, Colorado)

[slowlane3]

Originally Posted by Botev1912

England has one of the worst roads in Western Europe according to Englishmen.

One pothole every 120 yards on England's roads - Telegraph

That article reminds me of the famous Beatles song A Day in the Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One of the verses starts off, saying "I read the news today, oh boy. Ten thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all".

John Lennon wrote this, after he had read in the "Daily Mail" newspaper, that a city inspection had counted 10,000 potholes in the town of Blackburn near Liverpool.

[afonega1]

315 million people in the U.S. and at least 20 cities with metros over 1 million people.
More universities and colleges per capita.
More people who want and can afford cars as its there right to or not to. Hence higher salaries and less taxes.
If given these alternatives what do you thnk people would choose between in most European countries?Not sayings its better or worse,it just is what it is.

[CinSonic]

Theres a show about our infrastructure on the history channel. I saw an episode in Seattle and some of the roads and bridges scared the crap out of me.

[BruceTenmile]

Originally Posted by afonega1

315 million people in the U.S. and at least 20 cities with metros over 1 million people.
More universities and colleges per capita.
More people who want and can afford cars as its there right to or not to. Hence higher salaries and less taxes.
If given these alternatives what do you thnk people would choose between in most European countries?Not sayings its better or worse,it just is what it is.

I know Americans love to go on and on and on about how every one of them has 'a right' to this, that and the other, but here's a newsflash: you have no more 'right' to own a car than any other western nation. No one in France will block you if you try to buy an auto mobile. Or Germany, or Spain, or the UK, or .....

Also, I'm not sure how many people here would say, 'Hey, I hate paying all this tax, I'd like to pay a little less and have to pay healthcare insurance, and have crappy highways.' Also, again, it is part of the 'USA is the best' mentality, but you can't generalise and say the USA has higher salaries, because I think they are probably comparable to most western countries.

I do want to move to the US, but it's got nothing to do with the lower taxes.

[jm02]

Originally Posted by BruceTenmile

I know Americans love to go on and on and on about how every one of them has 'a right' to this, that and the other, but here's a newsflash: you have no more 'right' to own a car than any other western nation. No one in France will block you if you try to buy an auto mobile. Or Germany, or Spain, or the UK, or .....

Also, I'm not sure how many people here would say, 'Hey, I hate paying all this tax, I'd like to pay a little less and have to pay healthcare insurance, and have crappy highways.' Also, again, it is part of the 'USA is the best' mentality, but you can't generalise and say the USA has higher salaries, because I think they are probably comparable to most western countries.

I do want to move to the US, but it's got nothing to do with the lower taxes.

Bruce - I worked for a multi-national based in Europe for over 25 years, and went there 4 - 5 times per year. I can support that the salaries of my European colleagues were similar, and even though taxes were higher, services and benefits were also better (as I assess them). For example, many of them couldn't believe how our health care system, unemployment and pension systems operate. The fact that even with these differences, the European economy tends to at least hold its own against our shows that there is more than one way to prioritize taxes and services provided by them.

Each place has its merits. I have typically found those who travel recognize this. It is generally those who have not have never (or only a few times) been outside the country who feel the US is best in every single way. Anyone who points out to them that something might possibly be better in another country can even be advised to "go live there, then!" Don't take these childish rantings as representative of all Americans, however. I can admire and acknowledge that aspects of different cultures are better than ours without actually wanting to live there.

If it remains your dream, I hope you get to live here one day.

[bolillo_loco]

It’s rather odd to compare the vast expanses of America to all of Western Europe. Both America and Western Europe are roughly the same size, however, Europe has twice as many people than America.

America is a car-based society. Therefore, we have more miles of roadway per capita than Europe, so it shouldn’t come as any shock that roadways in Europe are better than those in America. America is rife with urban sprawl. Europe is not. American cities that saw huge population increases since WWII have been designed around the car. In Europe, most cities date back to a time before train travel was invented. Therefore, there was no room for massive roadways. Since train lines use much less space than roadways for autos, much of Europe’s money was invested in train travel.

America spends more than twice as much money on defense than all of Europe combined. I’m not championing defense here, I’m simply pointing out that when somebody bashes America for it’s lack of innovation, lack of free heath care and education, and America’s failing or lacking roadway/rail in comparison to Europe, all one has to do is look at what America is blowing its money on, and it shouldn’t come as any shock. Europe spends its money on less frivolous things and invests it better. What I’m saying is that if we reduced our spending on defense to match any given country in Europe, we’d have more than enough money to invest it in making America more appealing to industry, we could afford free health care, free college education, and all those things that the average person in Western Europe enjoys.

As far as rail goes, America was the leader in the world prior to cars becoming the norm. Standard Oil, Firestone, and GM did a lot to destroy our vast privately owned railroad network in America.

The point behind all this is that for those that sit around complaining about why America is so far behind in all things that have been brought up throughout this thread, I’d suggest looking at why we’re behind. Big government, out of control defense spending, and huge powerful corporations brought all this on, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With our defense spending alone, we’ll never have the things that Europeans take for granted. We simply cannot afford it. We invest so much of our money in defense, that spending it on other things isn’t a possibility.

[afonega1]

Originally Posted by BruceTenmile

I know Americans love to go on and on and on about how every one of them has 'a right' to this, that and the other, but here's a newsflash: you have no more 'right' to own a car than any other western nation. No one in France will block you if you try to buy an auto mobile. Or Germany, or Spain, or the UK, or .....

Also, I'm not sure how many people here would say, 'Hey, I hate paying all this tax, I'd like to pay a little less and have to pay healthcare insurance, and have crappy highways.' Also, again, it is part of the 'USA is the best' mentality, but you can't generalise and say the USA has higher salaries, because I think they are probably comparable to most western countries.

I do want to move to the US, but it's got nothing to do with the lower taxes.

I dont recall saying I said that.You missed the point of what I was saying.I was basically saying that although things should and could change,we forget that there are trade offs.The number of people in this country makes it difficult always change because it works somewhere else.

As far as rights go, its about which countries make having those rights more accessible than others.How many barriers do you have to overcome to achieve those rights

h Btw the way I dont have a mentality that the U.S. knows best but I do know what I like versus what I dont.
As far as higher salaries have been told repeatedly by French, Italians,Germans and Mexicans when they come here that they cannot believe the money the can make doing the same job here as they do in their native country

[rranger]

Originally Posted by BruceTenmile

I know Americans love to go on and on and on about how every one of them has 'a right' to this, that and the other, but here's a newsflash: you have no more 'right' to own a car than any other western nation. No one in France will block you if you try to buy an auto mobile. Or Germany, or Spain, or the UK, or .....

Also, I'm not sure how many people here would say, 'Hey, I hate paying all this tax, I'd like to pay a little less and have to pay healthcare insurance, and have crappy highways.' Also, again, it is part of the 'USA is the best' mentality, but you can't generalise and say the USA has higher salaries, because I think they are probably comparable to most western countries.

I do want to move to the US, but it's got nothing to do with the lower taxes.

What he said ... and it's people who keep voting against all of the above that are about to permanently relegate the US to second class status. Time is running out - it's not about the size of the budget, but it IS about the amount and distribution of taxation. Wake up America before it's too late!

Thanks BruceTenmile for putting it so succinctly!

[Joke Insurance]

Originally Posted by CinSonic

Theres a show about our infrastructure on the history channel. I saw an episode in Seattle and some of the roads and bridges scared the crap out of me.

What was the show called?

[Shizzles]

Originally Posted by Botev1912

The taxes here are not even that low. There are federal (15-25%), state, city, social security (6.2%), medicare (1.45 %), property taxes (3000+ a year!) What do we get back? Free healthcare? Free college? Perfect roads? Modern public transportation? The property tax doesn't even include garbage! Cell phone companies charge for incoming calls! Something that has never been seen or heard in Europe because the government has rules and they have to follow them. How can you charge twice (2 people) for the same call? How about the 0-day paid vacation by law. Most people get from 5 to 15 days a year while people in Europe get 25-40 days because this is the law.

Where does it go? Into the pockets of public employee unions and their members, in the form of ridiculously expensive retirement and health packages. Couple that with generalized waste and corruption and you have your answer.

People get mad when the Tea Party addresses this issue, but maybe we would have more trains and nice things if we dealt with this issue, no?