This. How many other countries came running to Haiti? Not many. Yet they make it seem like it's the job of the USA to fix Haiti. Same thing with Africa. The USA is the police of the entire world. None of those countries give back to us. We saved Kuwait, over threw a dictator in Iraq who set oil fields on fire. We put out the fires, do we get free oil from it? No.he also has the benefit of living in a country that doesn't feel like it has to pay for nearly all other countries of the world with aid.
Kuwait, Iraq, Haiti, Africa, still shit holes after everything we did.
Well that is nice. but those countries are so tiny they can't really support much of a population. I mean honestly no America isn't THE BEST place to live. But when you think about quality of life, combined with opportunity, and education (Yea maybe other countries do out do us on QOL and Education...but certainly no one is even close to opportunity) And then factor in how many godamn people live here and you realize that overall....American really IS one of the best places to live.
You are talking about small little countries that don't have much to offer anyone else in the world and focus specifically on their own citizens. Yea that may be the best place in the world for an individual to live, but in reality denmark only has a population of 5.5million and sweeden 9.5million.
I mean fuck France only has a population of 60 million. We are still supporting 310million people in our country.
That is my gauge of "best country to live in" Look at the population statistics for countries. United states is the only one in the top 10 (besides japan and I am not sure that is considered one of the best places to live either) that I would even REMOTELY want to live in.
It is a lot easier to provide for your people when there aren't as many to please.
Basically you need to find a country with 1/4 our population before you start finding countries I would actually consider someplace I would move.
While its pretty lame for American's to be like "America is the best place to live" and "America has the Most opportunity" I can't necessarily disagree...I'm not a big fan of shouting it out to the world. But there is still truth to the statement.
i don't think america is the best place to live
seems to me i have to work like hell and so does my female counterpart to have the best possible quality of life.
i might get 3 weeks vacation during a year and work long hours.
my friend who lives in europe has 2 months vacation. makes more than me. has free health care, and was able to afford a house before I could. his taxes are about equivalent and he can visit a number of other countries without crossing an ocean. he also has the benefit of living in a country that doesn't feel like it has to pay for nearly all other countries of the world with aid.
dunno, I don't really like working my life away. seems like I do and he doesn't. I'm not sure what I'm getting to make up for that?
This would be my major argument why living in US was not so great.
that and the cost of education etc.
In finland we have free education through high school, university costs me 90e a year (30e if I don't take the medical benefits) that is roughly 120 dollars a year. Which means free lectures, free activities & events... no tuition needed. And while I am studying goverment gives me money, pays 80% of my rent and I get 292e monthly (which is 400 dollars). This money is something I do not have to pay back ever, the requirement for me having this benefit is that I complete my studies in time. If this money is not enough the government loans me 1000 dollars a month, without intrest as long as I am studying.
Now i bet you might argue the quality of education will be lower this way, but feel free to google educational statistics. Finland is one of best educated countries in the world. By any measure.
Then there is the universal healthcare. And again you might argue the quality of treatment would suffer, but then again we have private sector for those who are willing to spend more money on their treatment, and the quality is also very very good. (we have soccer players from all over the europe coming to finland to get their surgeries done etc.)
And if you ever fall unemployed the government will support you.
and once your career is over, again the government pays your pension.
Granted our taxes are higher than anywhere in US.
US indeed has great opportunities for those that work really really hard.
But IMO quality of life is about having a good balance between free time & work.
In alot of places you don't have to work so much to have enough money to enjoy your freetime.
yes yes nothing is free.
that is however not the point here.
the point is if I want to have university level education, I can proceed to have it and not work my ass off at mcdonalds at the same time to raise the money for it.
i learned a lot about time management and budgeting while working 30+ hours a week and taking a full time course load while making dick for money
of course if i could trade it for a govt stipend and $100 tuition i would in a heart beat
Right, and it's going up even more when the Bush tax cuts expire. The government can not continue to print money. Needs to shrink, instead it's getting larger with more wasteful programs. I mean, you hear about programs that were started years ago that were supposed to be temporary, and now they have 100k+ employees. Why? Homeland defense is one of them.Yeah but Americans are Taxed Enough Already.