Manc

but nowadays IP, it's not just the dumb.
I kept getting turned down for a job with State farm corporate as an underwriter. I kept getting turned down as I had no degree.
The job paid $32,000 a year.

I hear stories all the time of people out on the road who went to college, got their degree's and the jobs for $80,000 a year they were expecting just aren't there anymore.

we cannot have a nation of solely doctors and lawyers.........

garbage men and janitors are needed JUST as much as the above for a society to function. everyone needs a living wage.........and right now, people are struggling.

another bloody yank

That's ridiculous. I believe it's your attitude that is insulting. The only people that don't have a snowballs chance are those who give up, or those who never try.

Redlippie

But that's the thing ABY, there are millions who just don't have the smarts to get on the ladder of success. They have low IQ's and are consigned to being wage slaves in a society that doesn't really give a damn about them. They are the invisible people. In Europe they'd have a safety net to fall back on - healthcare, etc.....here, they fall through the cracks and get nickel and dimed at every turn.

That is the point I was trying to make about the American con. Yes, you can come here and be a success, but so could you in any first world country. It isn't only here that you can achieve the 'American Dream'. And in fact, many immigrants start to live the American Nightmare.

God help you if you are just unlucky enough to be born without the smarts - which millions of people are. You'll be chewed up and spit out in this country.

Mallory

Safety net in the UK? My parents didn't get caught in any safety net. Both of my parents died because of the inadequacy of the NHS. My mum had a nice life because her children helped her out. If she had not had children she would have been up shite creek. She spent all of her 70s half blind waiting for lens implant surgery, and crippled up waiting for a hip operation. The last time I sent her back to the UK it was in a wheelchair.

Manc

sounds to me like she died of being old.

Mallory

She was 79.

Tracym

Reasonable age I suppose. It seems to me what you're referring to was the quality of her life in the later years.

another bloody yank

Well now I agree with you. Point 1: Smarter people are probably more likely to be succesful than people of lower than average intelligence (although I think that's universal), and point 2: Healthcare is available for all in European countries. I assume it is, anyway.




If people believe that the US is the only place they can be sucessful, or that living here is easy, that's not a "con", it's a misconception. The "American Dream" as it existed for European immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries is now the "American Dream" for those from southeast Asia, eastern Europe and Latin America. It wasn't easy for the early immigrants and it's not easy now. The common thread is that they moved here for the opportunity to build a better life for their children, an opportunity that was evidently lacking in their old country. Could they have had the same opportunity in a European nation and healthcare besides? From what I read about the influx of immigrants to England and France, apparently so.

Or you could end up President.

Bob

your phooked them you ain't allowed to do more than 20 hours on campus on a student visa...

Bob

apart from kids, probably can't afford it...it's not like it's cheap jumping ship these days...

Bob

and that's if you don't have to take sick time out of the holiday allowance.

Anyway....the dream alive? For some it can be, for many, it's just a dream. You've got to work hard where ever you live, and it's great when some make it, but I think there's far less safety net to help those back on their feet who have gambled and failed which doesn't give confidence for many to bother.

Nice weather and doing a job helps, but it isn't the be all and end all of life and it's not like I couldn't do the same in the UK.

Am glad to be here though, because it has given me perspective. Sure I whinge about stuff here, but then I'd do the same for what bothers me back in blighty, but there it would be down the pub with my mates. I don't have that here, so I bitch here. Doesn't mean I think the place is crap, but it's not all golden either.

Bob

The NHS ain't perfect...sure plenty of it is shit...but for a standard base service and for the number of people it serves, it really isn't a bad service and there is plenty that is fantastic about it, especially if you are diabetic, asthmatic etc.

There just isn't that safety net for many over here. It's the meh society. I've got it pretty good so I don't care sort of thought...but it really doesn't take much for it to not be so good.

If I was sick or really poor, I know where I'd rather be.

Mallory

If you are very poor and sick then you qualify for Medicaid. Isn't that a safety net? It's all the same, rationed care for the poor and needy. What's the difference? You act like Medicaid doesn't exist.

snowbunny

Even the rightest of wingers acknowledge that illegal immigrants (well -- that's the only way to come here unskilled without marrying in) have depressed the wages of "unskilled workers." I guess they don't count eh?

Bob

It might as well not, because for many who have inadequate medical insurance, but who are employed, or own a home won't quality. The average middle class family is kicked in the balls far harder here than anywhere bar perhaps scandanavian countries for the most part.