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Europeans have it much better than Americans these days.


monsoon

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I bet most Europeans pay much less in transportation costs as well. The ability to own zero or only 1 car per household (due to extensive mass transit, bicycle lanes/paths, etc.) must save thousands per year in insurance, gas and repairs.

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It also seems Canadians and the Japanese has it better than us also. Something is going to have to give in the country when it comes to the warped way of thinking in this country. We have our priorities in all the wrong places while killing ourselves without allowing folks to have the appropriate downtime to recooperate. It's just pathetic.

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More paid leave days from work, yes, but most European nations rate lower than the United States in per capita Gross National Income. So while they have more days for vacation, on average they may have less money to spend for vacation. To compound this, the cost of living in many major European cities is very high.

No thanks, I think I'll stay here.

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More paid leave days from work, yes, but most European nations rate lower than the United States in per capita Gross National Income. So while they have more days for vacation, on average they may have less money to spend for vacation. To compound this, the cost of living in many major European cities is very high.

No thanks, I think I'll stay here.

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income means nothing, especially when compared to cost of living. i'm sure most europeans have a lower cost of living than most americans as well, especially, when you take into account, as recchia mentioned, that they don't need more than 1 car (if any) per household. the families live closer together (in the same house in many cases) making travel costs a lot less for the mundane stuff. they vacation in beautiful parts of their own countries (southern italy is packed with italians during the vacation months, july and august i believe).

it's really a difference in culture.

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More paid leave days from work, yes, but most European nations rate lower than the United States in per capita Gross National Income. So while they have more days for vacation, on average they may have less money to spend for vacation. To compound this, the cost of living in many major European cities is very high.

No thanks, I think I'll stay here.

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Income, Cost of Living and Standard of Living all go into the mix. There are many places in Europe where the cost of living makes New York City look cheap. I agree that there definitely is a difference in culture. Americans can and do spend more money on things Europeans would consider luxury items - air conditioning, a second car, large homes.

One thing is for sure, Americans would be more hard pressed traveling to those southern Italian vacation spots these days with the weak dollar compared to the Euro and Pound. Ugh!!

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i consider air conditioning a luxury item, as well as the second car and large homes. the culture difference that i speak of is that of a wasteful culture. most americans don't need their huge homes, more than 1 vehicle per household (or at the most per parent), and central air.
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^Running your AC pretty much nonstop from April through September is certainly a luxury. The number of days where indoor heat becomes a genuine health risk for most people is very small, even in warm climates. People got along just fine without AC for centuries.

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When I first started in industry one of the senior engineers took me aside and gave this advice. "Son... Success isn't in how much money you make, but in how much free time you have." I agree with this position and the Europeans seemed to have figured out how to create a society which provides for this.

  • Americans don't understand the dollars they are making are becoming fairly worthless on the global scale and with globalization that is not a good thing. They get lost in the illusion the are making more money by working more hours an not realizing they are still losing groud agains the Yen, Euro and Pound.

  • Americans have built an infrastructure that is enormously expensive (at the macro level) to maintain from a resource perspective and again resources are traded on the global stage, not local. One aspect of this are that Americans work many many hours just to pay for transportation.

  • Finally Americans have given their corporations enormous control over society. Civic decisions are often decided in the board room by unknown people whose objectives are personal wealth generation over what's good for their employees, customers and anyone else that might get away. Corporations are the only entity in the USA that have gained governmental rights over the last few decades. The younger generations have become so indoctrinated they happily even allow tax payer civil buildings to be named after the corps now. In this kind of attitude people work more, get less each year and operate under the whip that their job will be exported to India, Mexico or China.

I think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they saw how much better the average person has it in Western Europe and Japan compared to the USA.

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The CIA fact book is not considered to be a valid source of information on this and other matters given the agenda in which they have. You also have to look at median PPP not average. There are some extremely wealthy people in the USA which is part of the problem and why you can't use an "average".
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I think that one of the biggest differences between Americans and the rest of the world is our acceptance (and repentance of debt)... Americans are not only greedy, but immature in a "I WANT IT NOW" culture. We take debt out on everything and most of the companies make more off of interest payments from store issued credit than they do the sale of merchandise.

This results in a culture where we have to work 10 times more to make enough to pay off our debt... so we can go back into debt and buy more stuff.

Most Americans are completely naive when it comes to fiscal responsibility (and the federal government is the worst) and it causes our quality of live to go down, even though we have more stuff. Most Europeans and Asians save up and pay cash for most of their stuff and buy less, which results in them having almost 3 times more expendable income.

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