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Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

danielsjourney.com

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Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#111

Post by UpperBodyEimi »

irrational wrote: post #58
richardwhiuk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The endless interruptions of adverts every 5 minutes does tend to encourage me that the experience of US television is worse. Some of the actual content is much better, but the experience of watching television in the US is drastically worse.

If you are seeing commercials, you are doing it wrong.

I'm confused by this, how do you avoid commercials. From watching the off NFL game there's even like pre-commercial commercials. "Brought to you by and the official drink of and McDonalds - I'm loving it".

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#112

Post by bananasbandanas »

wozniacki wrote: post #44
lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around…

Absolutely, lets sweep the pandemic of knife crimes currently sweeping Europe - among a whole host of other related malaises and social evils too long to list here - neatly under the rug and call it a day.[1] [2] [1] Ten charts on the rise of knife crime in England and Wales https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 [2] Germany: Stabbings and Knife Crimes at Record High https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13802/germany-sta…

What misinformation. Germany just had the fewest crimes in 2018 since 1992, and generally has much fewer violent crime than the US.

Some actual sources which are not from a far-right 'think tank':

Crime statistic summary (english): https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/EN/publikatione...

Crime statistic full (german): https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikatione...

FAZ article (german): https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/kriminalstatistik...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#113

Post by ihaveajob »

jlawson wrote: post #71
exelius wrote: post #28

Americans don’t travel. If we did, we wouldn’t buy the myth of American exceptionalism. But then, we are largely becoming a country controlled by global financial interests rather than the population. Money is the deciding factor in our elections, and the most concentrated forms of wealth out there are sovereign wealth funds and large multinational corporations whose executives are largely above the law. Which means…

Money is not the deciding factor in American elections. Hillary Clinton spent twice as much as Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

That's one exception to the rule. A big one, being the most important election that happens every 4 year, but that doesn't negate the importance of money in campaigning.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#114

Post by roenxi »

EliRivers wrote: post #74
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can claim that for the list if you want. Torvalds is American and lives in Oregon; most of the major Linux contributors were sponsored by American companies if I recall correctly. Red Hats and IBMs of the world. America must be doing something right.

America must be doing something right. It is indeed. And a lot wrong too. This that you said; "It would be easy to have great life expectancy by raising the cost of living to be so high the poor are all forced to leave." I don't understand. Is that how France did it?

I don't know anything about France except that they are a good case study in nuclear power and they are currently rioting in the streets.

Maybe? I mean, rioting on the streets could be linked to high costs of living and I wouldn't be surprised, or it could be something else entirely.

Anyway, the point is you can't just compare life expectancy and have it mean something. It is completely plausible that life expectancy could be higher even if the medical system is worse.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#115

Post by Tor3 »

piker wrote: post #34
lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around…

It's hilarious that the author is citing television. Is there anyone on the Earth who believes, e.g., British television is better as a whole than US television? They must really like slow-to-never-developing low budget, single camera angle crime dramas. [Edit: Apparently so! Quite the controversial statement. However, when voting, do consider what percentage of television consumed outside of the US was produced IN t…

> Is there anyone on the Earth who believes, e.g., British television is better as a whole than US television?

Well, I do. Although my interest is more in science/nature TV than dramas. In the past Discovery Channel would be about.. discovery. Science. Nature. Then it became a reality show. Just as one example. I don't find anything to watch. British television has always been, and still is way above anything anywhere when it comes to science and nature. And to be honest I prefer the British crime dramas over the US ones too.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#116

Post by ptr »

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

One thing that I find interesting is that Sweden, a country at the high-end when it comes to taxes and social safety, scores pretty high on innovation:

https://www.su.se/english/education/student-life/stockholm-s...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-kor...

Apparently Stockholm is second to Silicon Valley when it comes to “unicorns” per capita. Makes me wonder why the rest of Europe isn’t at the same level? Is it the weather?

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#117

Post by JackFr »

exelius wrote: post #28

Americans don’t travel. If we did, we wouldn’t buy the myth of American exceptionalism. But then, we are largely becoming a country controlled by global financial interests rather than the population. Money is the deciding factor in our elections, and the most concentrated forms of wealth out there are sovereign wealth funds and large multinational corporations whose executives are largely above the law. Which means…

> Americans don’t travel. If we did, we wouldn’t buy the myth of American exceptionalism.

That’s some serious middle school wisdom.

I’ve travelled a fair amount, and I find the myth of American exceptionalism to be no more prevalent that the myths of French, Moroccan, Swiss and Japanese exceptionalism. The thing about the belief in American exceptionalism, is that it’s not exceptional at all.

When you travel and you get to know people all over it’s eye opening to discover that no single country has a monopoly on ignorance and chauvinism. I’m most familiar with it in the US, cause that’s where I’m from, but it’s certainly not unique to the US.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#118

Post by wolfgke »

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry.

I rather think a central reason (at least in Germany) lies in the complicated laws regarding founding companies (including taxes etc.).

Another reason is that Europe is no unified culture but a multitude of countries - each with its own language, law tradition etc. . Compare the federal states of Germany with the states of the USA and Germany with the USA and in each point of this comparison, you have similar level of culture similarity. The level of culture similarity in Europe should rather be compared to the level of culture similarity in North and South America together.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#119

Post by TheOperator »

creaghpatr wrote: post #29

The linked blog is by a notorious America-hater Umair Haque, almost all of his pieces are slammed for similar reasons you see in this comments section. It's hate bait, nothing more. (I recommend "Why the Anglo World is Collapsing" /s) Take a look at his other work to get an idea of how seriously you should take this guy: https://eand.co/@umairh

My word this is some interesting writing.

>Do you need more “indicators”? Are you one of those people that needs “statistics” to tell you what is true about you are already living? Very well.

>Where does this insane, bizarre, upside down illogic come from? I’ll answer that in just a moment. First let me spell it out a little more clearly at root, and then its roots will naturally reveal themselves

He just seems like he writes out a flow of conciousness. There is zero structure to his writing or arguments.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#120

Post by rat9988 »

huffmsa wrote: post #42
robenkleene wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think those people write poetry instead of creating side project businesses?

Regulations. Plain and simple. Your employees aren't allowed to work their asses off. They're going to expect to be able to get to work at 10, and be home by 5.

Huh? You can be an employee and have a side project independent of your boss.
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