tagged w/ standard of living
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Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
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http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/americans-have-worst-standard-of-living.htmlAmericans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the... more
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If you still have a job and you can put food on the table and you still have a warm house to come home to, then you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. The truth is that every single month hundreds of thousands more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. The statistics that you are about to read are incredibly sobering. Household incomes are down from coast to coast. Enrollment in government anti-poverty programs sets new records month after month after month. Home ownership is down, personal bankruptcies are way up and there are not nearly enough jobs to go around. Meanwhile, the price of basics such as food and health care continue to skyrocket. Don't be fooled by a rising stock market or by record bonuses on Wall Street. The U.S. economy is not getting better. After World War II, the great American economic machine built the largest and most vigorous middle class in the history of the world, but now America's middle class is disintegrating at a blinding pace.If you still have a job and you can put food on the table and you still have a warm... more
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Some people seem to think illegal immigration isn't a problem, not to sound like a bitch but you wouldn't if you or your parents were illegals and if they weren't your grandparents. And what's with everyone saying that this country was built on the backs of immigrates, i didn't know slaves migrated to this country it was built on slavery and free labor that's the truth. Wanting a better life is great but it's hard to say i want better life and can't get to where i come from and then claim you deserve to be a citizen because all you want to do is work and have a life for your family and kids. What about the guy who's family knows nothing else besides America and also wants a better life but can't achieve that because someone says i'll do the work cheaper and longer with no health coverage and no benefits, cash only.
In no other country can illegal immigrates demand anything, only in the great USA, so i say give them their citizenship, you want to claim to be true American citizen then pay taxes, you believe you have a right to the same health care and rights then you should pay for it. If we registered every illegal immigrate and then taxed them out the ass, set in place laws that had harsher penalties like actual jail time instead of a free trip home, i bet you people would think twice about running across the border or coming to America for vacation and staying. I'm just wondering why people feel if you say "you don't deserve shit and the fact you get taken advantage of is your own fault", their a racist and that America and should be open for any and everyone.
But it is your fault you get paid low wages and have no health care and get taken advantage of, since when is anything in this world for free..? why do you think that what you go through in your country gives you a right to come to another and make it hard on another man. Mexico's president even stated to the world "that illegals take the jobs that not even blacks want"
and he's damn right we've worked them since 1506 for FREE and the little bit of minimum wage blacks fought and died for won't go up cause someone with no papers will work for anything. Rules are set in place for a reason, they might suck but you can't make a change if your willing to be happy eating shit all you do is make it stink for the rest of us.
Not only would it help us out with our hugh debt, create jobs and force us to over haul the entire system cause you know someones gonna get mad and swear a great injustice but wheres the justice for us actual tax paying, social security card carrying citizens...?
i love George Lopez but he's an idiot to think that illegal immigration only upsets white people as if AMERICANS don't need a job. He represents his country to the fullest yet we as Americans don't have the same right?. If we flooded his country and under cut his fellow men,push them out of jobs then tell them you really don't want to work this job let me do it as well as stressed the medical system and basically did what we wanted in Mexico they claim the capitalist Americanos were destroying his homeland and we'd just continue to be the big mean super power.
i think any time people think it's OK for any group of people to break the law to better your self, at the expense of others.....your the true capitalist, liar, cheat and thiefSome people seem to think illegal immigration isn't a problem, not to sound like... more
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A recent review by the Oxford Economics consultancy has suggested that us Brits do have a higher standard of living than our friends across the pond in the United States. Thats thanks to a slightly higher wage (which is balanced out by a higher cost of living) and our average of 4-6 weeks holiday a year compared with two weeks in America.
The NHS seems to add yet more positive happy points to our lifestyle, despite our endless moaning and wingeing about it.
In a battle of words that developed between bloggers over the issue of "who's country is better" one blogger put the debate to rest nicely when he said,
"I lived in the U.K. for 30 years and hated it. I've lived in the U.S. for the last seven and hate that too."
What are your guys thoughts on the Oxford Economics consultancy's findings?A recent review by the Oxford Economics consultancy has suggested that us Brits do... more
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If we are effective in securing that region it will potentially untap 250 million people of valuable intellectual capital.If we are effective in securing that region it will potentially untap 250 million... more
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