snowbunny

Amen.

dlake02

Oh yes - there are plenty of expats from developing countries that haven't got a Scooby Doo.

In fact, I would say that the entire tech industry is full of them. To a man/woman, they are hopeless, out-of-their-depth, but filled-to-the-brim with educational qualifications (the Americans love that - those letters are a kind of status-symbol) but half of them can't spell "socks" let alone put a matching pair on every morning.

As to the poster that said "if she doesn't like it, just leave" - for me that sums up the difference between the US and the rest of the Western World.

European governments exist primarily to protect citizens and improve their standard of living. The various US governments seem to exist to pander to Corporate America.

Maybe if the majority of Americans stopped telling me what a "great" place this was and got out and did something about making it better, it would actually become a "great" place ?

scrubbedexpat099

My employees seem to have a different attitude....

ian-mstm

Alas, your premise is faulty. I'm constrained to point out that if the "majority of Americans" are telling you this is a "great place" then they are likely disinclined to do something about it... because it is already a "great place". Why would they bother to fix something they don't see as needing fixed?

Perhaps you should focus more on what you can do, rather than on what others should do. I think JFK said it correctly in his 1961 inaugural address: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

Ian

dlake02

You are of course (as was JFK), 100% correct.

I suppose what is SO different here is that there are many people that assume that everything is fantastic, perfect, cannot be improved on.

Now I may be a glass-half-empty kind of person, but I always work on the basis that everything can be improved. Take nothing for granted - always question. If someone tells you "that's just the way it is," challenge, question, probe, criticise. That is certainly the norm in the UK, France, Germany and can be done without appearing to "diss" the country. Here, any form of criticism seems to be taken as a personal attack on the US itself - highly insecure, as if any word out-of-place could cause the whole thing to collapse.

In fact, it is exactly the JFK mentality that seems to be missing or repressed right now in American culture.

Xebedee

I quite happily and with a clear conscience do sweet F-A for this country, its never done anything for me.

Have paid taxes here for 25 years now and what can I get for it? There's ****-all in the way of a safety net for my family if we were to need it (knock on wood) and as for the poor who're becoming a much larger and completely ignored proportion of the population, its nothing short of criminal neglect by their government at the worst time possible.
Right when this country is heading into an abyss, what do the yanks get as a choice of leader for the next 4 years of economic misery? (which is exactly what it'll be). Oh yeah....they get this marvellous choice between a "socialist" who's done absolutely nothing for the working class and some rich bastard who openly doesn't give a toss and has the appeal of a rampant televangelist.

I'm convinced that this country is irrepairably ****ed, the Amerikan dream is done - its been imploded by its own greed and now there is nothing left to be given out to help ordinary people.

Oh, but we'll have another war, won't we?
Another shit-filled election that takes 2 bloody years to elect someone to a 4 year term..........and how much does it cost to ride this nauseating political roller coaster? Millions and millions!

Don't get me started on the bacon; I'll have an anheurism.

Sally Redux

I think Obama has done a little bit for the working class but apart from that, I agree with you totally. The amount of money being wasted on the election makes me feel quite ill.

scrubbedexpat099

If you think the US is bad, have you been following the UK of late?

dlake02

Actually, I quite like the bacon here, especially now that Fresh & Easy has started selling "English style" bacon....

dlake02

That is a very good point, but I think half the problem with the view towards "Europe" is that the short-term US-centric economic view of life that people like Moodys work is is being applied to countries and governments in a way that is just wrong.

Yes - there is debt in Europe, but mostly that debt has gone to rebuild and provide much needed social services that will provide assistance for decades. The S&P and Moodys of this world try to ammortize investments like that over the same timescales that a WalMart or GAP would and the comparison is just plain wrong.

The amount of money and blather in the US election frankly makes me sick - I am very pleased to see the UK finally moving to public funding of political parties as is the norm in most other European countries.

So, yes, things are not good economically in the UK, but socially here they are a disaster where 60% of the population have no healthcare, there is no public transport that works, little-to-no social welfare, a growing gap between the rich and poor, 14th century attitudes to religion coming to the fore, etc, etc.

Richness needs to be measured in more than just money.

ian-mstm

I don't disagree at all! I think the problem lies in who it is that's saying it.

If a USC criticizes the US... that's okay. If someone other than a USC criticizes the US, then the reaction is more likely to be something along the lines of "That's just Johnny Foreigner trying to impose his will on the rest of the country, and perhaps he should go back to where he came from."

That said, Americans are brought up to believe that the US is the greatest country in the world... so it's difficult to get any native-born USC to acknowledge the country's faults with that sort of attitude. There's a chance of being labelled "unpatriotic" if you make the attempt. Of course, the people who would label you as such belong to the Ron Kovic school of thought: "America, love it or leave it".

Ian

Xebedee

Where are my rights in the workplace then?
I love you Sally and want to have your babies, but he's squandered more than one golden opportunity in the last two years. As the first ever non-white President he began with so much "credit" to use. Could have been a lot better than it is right now.

Yes, every morning I read online news and have a job that allows me BBC radio on all day. Really try to go back every year also these days.
Granted its hard to keep fully up-to-date, especially when you are in the US which is a bit like being on Mars most of the time.
My impression is that austerity slashings in England don't seem to be working and now they are claiming a second recession (when did the first one end??). Hack, hack, slash in tough times makes no sense........
Don't claim to understand it all fully - but then I doubt most over there would either!

Despite all that, I'm still going back as home is home. If the ships going down, at least it should be my own ship. Anyway, that's how I look at it.

N1cky

I'd vote for anyone whose election campaign was along the lines of I'm putting $300 million into the school system, consequently my campaign advertising will be some black and white flyers and me travelling around on a bus

dlake02

That's the problem. The UK and the US have a similar mentality - they can think no further than the next election and work like shop-keepers.

You cannot work in that mode with "long-term investments" such as education, transport, energy. Those are multi-decade events - you cannot apply 3, 4, 5-year budgeting to something that is fundamental to the social welfare of a country.

The irony is that both the UK and US appear to want to draw back state spending and debt, but are going out-of-their way to artificially suppress interest rates thereby encouraging personal debt.

But then again, the cynic in me says that personal debt is money spent with private companies that prop up those governments in the first place.....

ned1983

I start my first US job on Monday...I am now very nervous hahaha