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I didn't know what to put up as the thread title. I apologize if people have beaten this topic to death but I didn't see a thread about it in the first page of threads so I figured I'd try.
My wife and I are American - have been for our whole lives. We're both in our 30's - old enough to see how America is going down the drain but not so old that we couldn't start again.
What's not to like about America? Oh let's see... in no particular order...
-The police can't protect themselves using deadly force against a rampaging criminal thug without being pilloried by the media (and by connection the barking dog chorus we call the general public) and causing destructive riots to happen.
-If you try to make a living on your own in America (as opposed to "having a job"), you are slapped with unavoidable gigantic taxes (I'm looking at you, SELF EMPLOYMENT TAX, and you, HEALTH INSURANCE MANDATE) which could bury you even if you're living beneath the poverty line.
-Freedom of speech? Don't make me laugh. Say the wrong thing in America and it can get you fired, beaten up, killed, arrested, etc. People in this country have very thin skins.
-America has never been as racist as it is now, at least in my recollection. Is it possible that the 1960's were worse? Maybe, but the 2010's are sure worse than the 1990's and 2000's were.
-If you want to get rich, you have to have a lot of money... or you have to be very, very lucky. It cannot be said that all it takes is hard work... the hardest workers I've ever known have been poor. My dad worked 80 hours a week for 13 years (not to mention "full time plus" for 25 additional years and part time for many more years than that) and never "got ahead". The people who are out there working 3 jobs, sleeping in their cars sometimes, to make ends meet - how many of them are living comfortably?
-In 2012, the total personal income of everyone in the USA was $13.4 TRILLION. Divided by the approximate population of the USA in 2012 (313 million people), that yields $42,812 for every man, woman and child. With that amount of money, heck, even HALF that amount of money, not a person in the country should be poor! Yet there is a huge poverty problem in America, and with it, a huge crime problem.
-The system in this country is set up to concentrate wealth and power at the top, and prevent all those who aren't already there from getting there. It is almost impossibly difficult to become a "one percenter" if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth. All you have to do to see how this plays out is look at a chart showing the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay, over the years. You'll see it go from a factor somewhere in the 40's a mere four decades ago, to a factor well over 1,000 now.
-An overwhelming proportion of the people in America dislike and distrust the government.
I could go on and on but you get the idea. I'm not the type of person to complain about something without either doing something about it or removing myself from it. My wife is in agreement about the problems of this country. We haven't done any "world travel", to speak of. I've been to Canada twice and that's it. So I have a question for those of you who know the world better than I do.
Is there a country out there where:
-To be on welfare, you are required to work the hours of a regular job if you are physically capable of doing any kind of beneficial work?
-Crime is so low that even in the big cities, you don't feel like you must have a security system, or even really good door locks, in order to have little to no worry about the safety of your dwelling?
-It's easy to get a well-paying job? (or, put differently, that ALL jobs are sufficiently well-paying such that someone who does good work for 40 hours per week will be able to live comfortably without having to be "hand to mouth", "paycheck to paycheck", etc?)
-"Being who and what you want to be" is encouraged and rewarded, so long as it doesn't result in inconvenience or harm to others?
-People actually care about each other's well being more than they care about the almighty [unit of money]? (After all, when the Wal-Mart owner family is worth over $100 BILLION collectively, and so many of their workers can't afford basic necessities that there are food drives going on at Wal-Mart to help needy Wal-Mart workers, SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!)
-The prevailing culture is one of RESPECT, for people such as law enforcement officers, teachers, and most importantly, PARENTS?
-You CAN immigrate to the country but it's harder to get in than it is to get into the USA? (As in, they weed out the chaff and only let in people who give every appearance of being the law-abiding and productive type?)
-The prevailing opinion of the people is that they DO like and trust their government?
-Racism is minimal or nonexistent?
-The country has "its way" of doing things and WILL NOT BEND THE RULES for immigrants (something America LOVES to do)?
Let's stick with this. It'd be great if the country was English-speaking, but I don't mind learning another language. I've done it once already and could do it again. We're just tired of "the American way" where people only care about making money, you aren't encouraged to pursue your dreams unless those dreams are likely to make you a huge amount of money (if you want to be a doctor or lawyer, great - if you want to be anything artistic, no, don't do it, you'll starve to death.......... even though the arts are what make a culture... just ask any archaeologist), you're at the mercy of the army of lawyers that can be afforded by the richy-rich, the government is under the influence of lobbyists that are paid for by - you guessed it - the richy-rich, and the people who get elected are either richy-rich themselves or supported by richy-rich people who expect favors in return. This isn't the America that the Pilgrims set out to establish in the early 1600's. This isn't the America that the colonists fought for in the late 1700's. The Founding Fathers would be rolling around in their graves so much that there'd be endless earthquakes. We want to find a different and more pleasant way of living, which is not as soul-destroying and anger-inducing.
Any ideas?
Last edited by RomaniGypsy; 12-06-2014 at 07:05 PM..
I get your grievances, but there's no such thing as a perfect country, and certainly none that fit your very narrow descriptions of what a perfect country would be like. Even if Fantasyland was real and you had moved there, maybe you would have found that it lacked compared to the US in other ways. Perhaps they are less outgoing and friendly there, or consumer goods were pricier, or they were a bit xenophobic even if not racist etc.
All that said, I think the closest country to the one you described may be Australia, but obviously it does not perfectly match all of your criteria. Certainly, that welfare system you described, there's nothing like that in any country, but it's not the only system that would prevent abuse. Certainly, people don't complain about welfare in my province of British Columbia, but it's nothing like you guys have in the US. I mean, there's nothing like foodstamps in Canada and I get the impression welfare doesn't last as long if you don't find a job and aren't on disability. Maybe that's all that's needed?
I get your grievances, but there's no such thing as a perfect country, and certainly none that fit your very narrow descriptions of what a perfect country would be like. Even if Fantasyland was real and you had moved there, maybe you would have found that it lacked compared to the US in other ways. Perhaps they are less outgoing and friendly there, or consumer goods were pricier, or they were a bit xenophobic even if not racist etc.
All that said, I think the closest country to the one you described may be Australia, but obviously it does not perfectly match all of your criteria. Certainly, that welfare system you described, there's nothing like that in any country, but it's not the only system that would prevent abuse. Certainly, people don't complain about welfare in my province of British Columbia, but it's nothing like you guys have in the US. I mean, there's nothing like foodstamps in Canada and I get the impression welfare doesn't last as long if you don't find a job and aren't on disability. Maybe that's all that's needed?
Not sure. I know very little about Canada. I can say that the two biggest gripes that people have about welfare in America are as follows:
1) There is no drug test / substance abuse test to receive welfare. Hence, lots of people on welfare blow the money on cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, and that sure doesn't qualify as "welfare" in the dictionary definition of the term. You have to pee in a cup to get a job, but to have such required as a condition of receiving welfare is deemed by the government to be "an invasion of privacy".
2) There is no work requirement for welfare, assuming that the person is capable of working (and if you can live on your own, you are capable of working). So, people are, in essence, being paid to sit around and do nothing else but smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and snort coke.
A large portion of people complain about welfare in America. Anyone with more than half a brain in this country knows that the welfare system sucks. When you say they don't complain about welfare in BC, is that just BC or is it pretty much a nationwide thing in Canada that few people complain about the welfare system? Regardless, why are British Columbians / Canadians satisfied with the welfare system, unlike Americans?
I get your grievances, but there's no such thing as a perfect country, and certainly none that fit your very narrow descriptions of what a perfect country would be like. Even if Fantasyland was real and you had moved there, maybe you would have found that it lacked compared to the US in other ways. Perhaps they are less outgoing and friendly there, or consumer goods were pricier, or they were a bit xenophobic even if not racist etc.
All that said, I think the closest country to the one you described may be Australia, but obviously it does not perfectly match all of your criteria. Certainly, that welfare system you described, there's nothing like that in any country, but it's not the only system that would prevent abuse. Certainly, people don't complain about welfare in my province of British Columbia, but it's nothing like you guys have in the US. I mean, there's nothing like foodstamps in Canada and I get the impression welfare doesn't last as long if you don't find a job and aren't on disability. Maybe that's all that's needed?
-America has never been as racist as it is now, at least in my recollection. Is it possible that the 1960's were worse? Maybe, but the 2010's are sure worse than the 1990's and 2000's were.
I didn't know what to put up as the thread title. I apologize if people have beaten this topic to death but I didn't see a thread about it in the first page of threads so I figured I'd try.
My wife and I are American - have been for our whole lives. We're both in our 30's - old enough to see how America is going down the drain but not so old that we couldn't start again.
What's not to like about America? Oh let's see... in no particular order...
-The police can't protect themselves using deadly force against a rampaging criminal thug without being pilloried by the media (and by connection the barking dog chorus we call the general public) and causing destructive riots to happen.
-If you try to make a living on your own in America (as opposed to "having a job"), you are slapped with unavoidable gigantic taxes (I'm looking at you, SELF EMPLOYMENT TAX, and you, HEALTH INSURANCE MANDATE) which could bury you even if you're living beneath the poverty line.
-Freedom of speech? Don't make me laugh. Say the wrong thing in America and it can get you fired, beaten up, killed, arrested, etc. People in this country have very thin skins.
-America has never been as racist as it is now, at least in my recollection. Is it possible that the 1960's were worse? Maybe, but the 2010's are sure worse than the 1990's and 2000's were.
-If you want to get rich, you have to have a lot of money... or you have to be very, very lucky. It cannot be said that all it takes is hard work... the hardest workers I've ever known have been poor. My dad worked 80 hours a week for 13 years (not to mention "full time plus" for 25 additional years and part time for many more years than that) and never "got ahead". The people who are out there working 3 jobs, sleeping in their cars sometimes, to make ends meet - how many of them are living comfortably?
-In 2012, the total personal income of everyone in the USA was $13.4 TRILLION. Divided by the approximate population of the USA in 2012 (313 million people), that yields $42,812 for every man, woman and child. With that amount of money, heck, even HALF that amount of money, not a person in the country should be poor! Yet there is a huge poverty problem in America, and with it, a huge crime problem.
-The system in this country is set up to concentrate wealth and power at the top, and prevent all those who aren't already there from getting there. It is almost impossibly difficult to become a "one percenter" if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth. All you have to do to see how this plays out is look at a chart showing the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay, over the years. You'll see it go from a factor somewhere in the 40's a mere four decades ago, to a factor well over 1,000 now.
-An overwhelming proportion of the people in America dislike and distrust the government.
I could go on and on but you get the idea. I'm not the type of person to complain about something without either doing something about it or removing myself from it. My wife is in agreement about the problems of this country. We haven't done any "world travel", to speak of. I've been to Canada twice and that's it. So I have a question for those of you who know the world better than I do.
Is there a country out there where:
-To be on welfare, you are required to work the hours of a regular job if you are physically capable of doing any kind of beneficial work?
-Crime is so low that even in the big cities, you don't feel like you must have a security system, or even really good door locks, in order to have little to no worry about the safety of your dwelling?
-It's easy to get a well-paying job? (or, put differently, that ALL jobs are sufficiently well-paying such that someone who does good work for 40 hours per week will be able to live comfortably without having to be "hand to mouth", "paycheck to paycheck", etc?)
-"Being who and what you want to be" is encouraged and rewarded, so long as it doesn't result in inconvenience or harm to others?
-People actually care about each other's well being more than they care about the almighty [unit of money]? (After all, when the Wal-Mart owner family is worth over $100 BILLION collectively, and so many of their workers can't afford basic necessities that there are food drives going on at Wal-Mart to help needy Wal-Mart workers, SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!)
-The prevailing culture is one of RESPECT, for people such as law enforcement officers, teachers, and most importantly, PARENTS?
-You CAN immigrate to the country but it's harder to get in than it is to get into the USA? (As in, they weed out the chaff and only let in people who give every appearance of being the law-abiding and productive type?)
-The prevailing opinion of the people is that they DO like and trust their government?
-Racism is minimal or nonexistent?
-The country has "its way" of doing things and WILL NOT BEND THE RULES for immigrants (something America LOVES to do)?
Let's stick with this. It'd be great if the country was English-speaking, but I don't mind learning another language. I've done it once already and could do it again. We're just tired of "the American way" where people only care about making money, you aren't encouraged to pursue your dreams unless those dreams are likely to make you a huge amount of money (if you want to be a doctor or lawyer, great - if you want to be anything artistic, no, don't do it, you'll starve to death.......... even though the arts are what make a culture... just ask any archaeologist), you're at the mercy of the army of lawyers that can be afforded by the richy-rich, the government is under the influence of lobbyists that are paid for by - you guessed it - the richy-rich, and the people who get elected are either richy-rich themselves or supported by richy-rich people who expect favors in return. This isn't the America that the Pilgrims set out to establish in the early 1600's. This isn't the America that the colonists fought for in the late 1700's. The Founding Fathers would be rolling around in their graves so much that there'd be endless earthquakes. We want to find a different and more pleasant way of living, which is not as soul-destroying and anger-inducing.
Any ideas?
perhaps singapore
regarding your list of gripes
the wellfare system ( i exclude corporate and farmer wellfare ) in america is the least generous of any developed western country and by some distance
taxes in america are far lower than in western europe , especially for high earners
the size and reach of the goverment ( when it comes to the economy ) is far more restrained than in western europe
singapore might be what suits you but its much less socially liberal than the usa or europe
if you want to pick a country in europe , id say germany , strong emphasis put on work ethic but also on society and workers rights but without the kind of irrational adversarial attitude of worker unions in the likes of france , the place works well
It is very difficult to get a permanent residence visa in most countries of the world unless you have something to offer that country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elnina
Chava is right! If there is a place close to the fantasyland you have in mind, I am sure that immigrating there is almost impossible...
Generally you need to be rich to immigrate, or have skills that are wanted. Yes, there are some developed countries who need immigrants, but most want highly skilled foreign professionals and will compete for qualified people from abroad.
This sounds so perfectly logical. Does anyone know why the United States of America doesn't do the same? Honestly I think this country would be a lot better if Lady Liberty dropped that lamp and closed the "golden door" unless you were a highly skilled professional.
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