are you referring to hip hop culture and break dancing? no wonder the dollar keeps hitting hitting new lows against the swiss franc and asian currencies. plus it is it still in a long term downtrend against the euro. your post is typical american hubris.
i agree that there is that minimum economic threshold that needs to be met in order to be happy in life. However, the human spirit to survive and get used to one's surroundings is also a key factor. People get used to their surroundings and compare their own situations with others of the same status. If economics was the only key factor in happiness than the majority of the developing economies would be strife with depression. As someone who comes from a developing economy i know that isnt true. Furthermore, when people think of Mumbai slums they think of slumdog millionaire. However, what many people dont know is that land is incredibly precious in Mumbai due to overpopulation so the property owners in the slums are worth tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. These guys are not your 2 bowls of rice per day types. You dont get the full picture without living in the third world.
A two-room house at the Matunga labour camp on Dharavi's 60-feet Road, for instance, can cost up to Rs 40 lakh, say local brokers. Ajay Kanchikurve purchased a 200-sq-ft tenement in the neighbourhood a few years ago for Rs 13 lakh and built a floor over it. He claims that today his "well-furnish flat" could fetch him Rs 35-40 lakh. In upmarket localities like Worli, Nepean Sea Road, Cuffe Parade and Colaba, the rate for a shanty can shoot up to over Rs 25 lakh-the offer generally made by builders keen to redevelop the slum enclave. In the Bharat Nagar slum adjoining Bandra-Kurla Complex, some residents received over Rs 1 crore a shanty to shift permanently a few years ago. "One man showed me a cheque of Rs 1.75 crore he had received from a builder," says housing activist Chandrashekhar Prabhu. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...-slums-for-rs-40-lakh/articleshow/9586158.cms A house in a mumbai slum costs 40 lakh rs which is about 85k us dollars. I'm saying this again that living in a slum doesnt automatically mean your destitute. A crore is about 100 lakhs RS which is about 210k US dollars.
No, I refer to American culture as in the size of their mini mansion, automobile they drive, size of their backyard, size of their wife's tits, etc. so an average european or asian foreigner has no problem living in an apartment the size of a closet cos everyone else does back home. Moment he comes to New York and sees the excess does he turn into another status crazed zombie. How do you account for so many single people in NYC. They are constantly obsessed with upgrading partners. Average length of employment at any one firm is now a record low 18 months.
"Work ethic" had nothing to do with the American economic "miracle". Western Europe has come farther and faster in the past 60 years than has the US, and did it with six weeks vacation and perma-maternity-leave for all, heroin injection sites and euro-per-litre wine in the grocery stores. The liberals won. Period, full stop. The US "miracle" was a happy confluence of harnessing oil and blowing up all industrial competitors. That is IT.
They get free military protection courtesy of the USA so all the money they save goes into social programs.
how sad... they just got the USA to Vanguard their Libya operation for them... courtesy of the Peace Prize winning US Prez I guess the US owes them something, after all, most Europeans have been fighting the US war for democracy in Afghanistan... I bet they can win if they take 10 more years... maybe 10 more decades?
I don't think the US can man... As you wisely noted in your above post: "The US "miracle" was a happy confluence of harnessing oil and blowing up all industrial competitors. That is IT." The US needs its military around the world to secure the oil you speak of, and to throw around its weight... After all, the US just assisted the Europeans to secure "Democracy" in Libya - all that Libyan oil and gas will strategically keep many Euro countries less dependent on Russian gas and oil.... and therefore more in the US sphere of influence (Note the US selectively ignored the cries of the oppressed in Bahrain during this "Arab Spring", which badly needs a democratic gov't to replace its repressive monarchy, - wait, the US has a Navy base in Bahrain...) Bottom line, the solution is not that obvious if the US wants to continue as # 1 in world affairs - what do you think?