California does have sales tax, and the weather in Oregon is quite different from that in California! The two states are not interchangeable.


They're probably in debt up to their eyeballs!


Just to clarify... one is a city, the other is a state!


Visiting the US and living in the US are two completely different things! You, and many thousands of others, have no concept of the culture shock you're about to experience. Thanks for the chuckle!

Ian

No thank you for the chuckle as you clearly think i'm some sort of naive idiot.

Think you need a climb down off that high horse of yours.

Hi all
I broswe around here quite often and I just hate to see members being so sarcastic to one another.Pumba is just asking for advice and other members can be just hateful.

It's not being hateful. The feedback is based on people's own experiences. The U.S. is not just like the U.K. with funny accents, better weather, bigger houses and bigger cars. It's a totally foreign country with different values and attitudes than we're used to. The (mostly) common language is, to my mind, a bad thing. It leads to an attitude of familiarity.
Before we moved to the U.S., my U.S. wife lived with me in the U.K. and we'd spend 3 weeks a year on vacation in California to see her family. Of course, all that was wonderful. When we moved over it was a different story. One small example (among many) was work. In the U.K. it was never an issue. I didn't even interview for my last 2 positions. I was well enough know in my field that I could quit in the morning, make a phone call and have multiple offers by the afternoon. Not boasting, its just the way it was. So, even though I was moving to the U.S. without a job, I thought it wouldn't be an issue. Well, that was one stupid mistake. In the space of 6 months I went from Head of Operations for one of Europe's largest data centres to selling cars in southern California for minimum wage and a crappy commission.
Also, even if you're young, don't under-estimate what the (lack of) health care system can do for you. Even with decent coverage, co-pays, deductibles, un-covered treatments, prescriptions, etc can add up to a small fortune. One of the pills my wife takes costs over $190 per month with insurance. In the U.K. it would be free at the point of purchase. Think nothing bad can happen to you? Our next door neighbours just moved out of the house - a young family with 4 kids. The mother was diagnosed with lung cancer just over 3 years ago. Both her and her husband had health insurance through work. Despite that, they still ran up medical bills into 6 figures. They moved out because their house was repossessed.
By all means, Pumba NI should try the US if he wants, but some of the remarks he posted were a little short sighted based on his limited experience.

It's a shame you can't pick and choose though isn't it?

And Oregon has lots of other ways of making up for the lack of a sales tax. You're going to pay for it somewhere down the line.

I wonder how much shopping (without a trip across the Columbia) the residents of Vancouver do?

Fortunately, your naïveté can be cured!

Ian

Many Vancouverites work in Oregon anyway and Oregon taxes income earned in Oregon by out of state residents. So Oregon is getting a cut even though they don't have a sales tax.

This is the deception that people fall for, seen it many times, it's a consumer nation. In reality though it isn't cheap, because the reason people spend all their money is because interest rates on savings are generally worse so you lose money that way, plus healthcare is fantastically more expensive, plus you need a car and there are all the costs that go with that. In many European cities you can use public transport or at least not depend on having a car.

Another reason things are so cheap is because the US dollar is the international unit of exchange so there are no exchange rate costs, however I think that will change once this recession is over as the Chinese and others are tired of using the US dollar for international trade.

Well not an idiot, but naive yes. Sorry but your first impression of the US is not unusual, I've seen it many times and that was basically what I was getting at by starting this thread. At first glance it sounds great but when you look at it in detail over time it isn't. Unfortunately imo too many people go with their first impression.

Like your comment about the cars. Why is everyone driving a car, ask yourself that. Because there is underinvestment in infrastructure. Another comment I often hear is that gas prices are lower - whoopee until you realize you need to drive further to do anything.

Also on diversity - the US is in fact not that diverse generally speaking, only 13% of the population is foreign-born which is less than in most European countries.

Right, I've done 11.5k in 7 months... and that's not extreme.

Why will it be over? Wages have not increase for most in real terms for 10 years ish.

I can not see anything positive on the horizon. I can see energy prices going up, ditto food, and certainly where I am water is becoming an issue.

And we have the Politicians watching for another 4 years whilst everything burns.

Really?

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cac...-11-034-EN.PDF

According to this, 11.8% of the US population is foreign born:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/census...oreignborn.htm

The figure for the UK is 11.3%. So as far as the UK v US is concerned, it's a wash.