Swiss don't have the space to litter. Any small town in the U.S. is as clean as any small town in Europe. And yes in Switzerland they don't have places like Chicago,LA,NYC. Second they don't have large numbers of minorities. Go to Mexico and you will see what kind of culture they bring with them
I have lived in Europe, Japan and the United States as a younger person. Periodically I have reason to visit European cities. Frankly these comments are much different than my experience. There are many beautiful cities in the U.S., that are wonderful places to live. In each case, the inhabitants enjoy consistent services, a nice standard of living, access to the finest consumer goods and services from around the world In contrast, when you live in Europe it is not uncommon to see interruption in services including water, electricity, and transportation. access to consumer goods is often limited as well. There are many things that might be improved in the U.S., but as regards standard of living, nothing beats the United States. In view of these comments I think it is interesting that Europeans often visit the U.S. on vacation, while people here often stay "at home" for their vacations. As an example, I would challenge any European resident to name a city that competes with Las Vegas as far as affordable adult and family entertainment. Finally, I notice that when I have guests from Europe, they always want to visit in this order, Las Vegas, San Francisco, The Grand Canyon and Los Angeles. I think the fact that someone finds a comment, opinion, or survey on the internet ("I googled it") does not mean it is accurate. Steve
Sorry Steve, but you don't know what you are talking about. I can remember that in New York there was a big power outage for some days not long ago. Have you ever heart something similar from a big european city? Or how about the power supply problems in california every summer? Standard of living is higher in the US than in europe? It always depends what you want. If you want a Burger King or McDonalds in every corner than you are right. If you want a clean and safe environment than you better live in europe. Why do european people also visit the US? Because your country has a lot to offer and a lot of nice and well educated people. Unfortunately it seems that you do not belong to this group. Maybe it would help to visit europe some day and get first hand information instead of only listening to guys who think what europe could be but also never left their country to verify this information.
You are most likly correct about first $80K earned outside the US being tax free as my numbers($70K) were from the 1980's.
It is clear to me that you probably lived in Eastern Europe under the communist regime. All the goods that are available in the US are also available in Europe, except for weapons. If you think the americans stay in the US you should come to Antwerp and Bruges where year in and year out they drop thousands and thousands of US citizens to visit and admire something that the US doesn't have: culture and history. They come to visit historical buildings. But probably you don't come to these places as your education or intellect is "different" from all those americans. Even in Europe we have people for whom the most important thing is to have enough beer, women and sports. But are these people the reference to decide where it is good or bad to live? About the opinions, comments and surveys that are found on the internet, I must admit that you are right, there are a few americans who think they are God, and only they have access to the real truth; everyone else is an idiot. BTW: my Esignal subscription for the last 10 years never interrupted and never lagged, in the US that seems to be a completely different story. So in this case US services are clearly inferior to European.
omfg, las vegas; prolly da most orrible city u got over there...and what's to visit there degenerate gamblers history? take away da lights and it's a plain nightmare ror and ya i like da part of electricity'n'water interruption..ror again, no need to comment here.
well, stevieboy, you sure have stirred up a ruckus here. lotsa europeans on this site. with regard to las vegas, i have one word: eeyuck!!! it's strictly for aging moral degenerates with no life and no values. with regard to europe, i would say not my cup of tea, but i have friends who live there and they love it. can't really speak to the standard of living since i've never lived there, but some non-u.s. citizens i know think the healthcare is actually better there (more cutting edge technologies available). canada is nice. higher taxes but better values. not warmongering, take care of the citizens (healthcare, safety nets for poor, etc.) - a kinder gentler place in my estimation. folks are friendlier b/c they're not all trying to beat each other. we in u.s. pay high taxes and for very bad causes: wars, corporate welfare, etc. our values are kinda screwed up. our gov't is for the corporation, by the corporation, of the corporation. and i don't mean your itsy bitsy corp either. it's big business that rules our country all the way. i obviously don't like our dog eat dog, every man for himself, kill the poor and let them eat cake, mentality. having said that, however, every place has its ills. and one good by product of all that corporate governance is that folks like you and i can invest in these companies and make money! it is also easier to make high income in the u.s. (not trading, but in a regular job) than in canada or europe. people hire tax professionals to help them keep the money they make - not a perfect solution, but oh well.
Agree. As long as Wall Street is happy and the foreigners keep buying our debt instruments, who cares about the little people. Like they said in film The Godfather: " they're animals anyway, let them loose their souls"... Looks like history repeats, the Romans used the little people(conquered and exploited) to fight their foreign wars for THE GLORY OF ROME! and now the USA is is doing exactly the same for GLORY OF watever.
with regard to paying taxes, i think both steve and spike have a point (even though they are in disagreement). agree that one should be willing to pay a fair tax for social services and the other services a government is providing. however, in almost every case, one can disagree with how the money is spent and state that it is unfair. with regard to the post about military expenditures not being that big of a component of u.s. spending, i would say get real. military spending is the single largest component of our budget, so one could realisitically say that our taxes are going to support war efforts which are of questionable moral integrity and necessity. we are at record high deficits for this reason. there are other less expensive and more moral ways of solving certain problems. what i don't understand is, why were most americans in favor of the war when it started and those same folks are against it now? just gullible, i guess. should have strength of your convictions and stick to your guns, so to speak. if it was necessary then, it's necessary now, and visa versa. to me, war should be a last resort (ridding the world of a hitler, for example. and no, saddam doesn't count.) could see no valid reason for going into iraq. now that folks are turning against the war, i simply say what took you so long?