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As I said: living standards are better in Europe.

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Who gives a flying fuck, really? None of those companies are terribly unique nor essential for that matter.

Siemens, BASF, etc are much more essential. As in, if they went tango uniform, we’d be freezing in the dark and probably starving as well. As opposed to losing our social media fix or being unable to order more crap from China quickly.

The IT sector is glamorous right now. It’s NOT the be-all and end-all of an economy, despite what the weenies would like you to think.

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In Europe, it would be harder to build a rental portfolio. But maybe you wouldn’t need to because you’d have more security.

Personally, I don’t care for average European homes. Old kitchen and baths with exposed pipes, no laundry rooms, all translate to lower standard of living.

Exactly. I’d much rather have a welfare state that takes care of me cradle to grave than having to build my own. I’m not a go-getter nor particularly creative.

How do exposed pipes actually bother me? As far as a laundry room, I’d rather have a Euro-type kitchen washer-dryer where you put the clothes in and it keeps running till the clothes are clean and dry.

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The French won’t miss another US company that wants to subject workers there to conditions unfit for a dog.

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AN, really? Europe has many companies that actually DESIGN, PRODUCE, and BUILD useful things. I.T. firms aren’t the be-all and end-all of innovation.

If Amazon, Fecesbook, the Twat, LinkedIn, or even Google went nipples-up tomorrow, the world would move on and their services would be replaced quickly. If Siemens or BASF went under, industry and power grids would come to a screeching halt.

It’s amazing how much industrial and power plant equipment Siemens provides and maintains. And BASF is the largest chemical company in the world.

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Well – SCREW what most people think. The average underbred, mouth-breathing American doesn’t bear listening to. If someone didn’t like my apartment and told me so, I’d take them to the door and kick them down the steps. If they were lucky.

I don’t want a vibrant, commercial society. I want a slow leisure society where people have more time to drink, think, and fuck than to work for some asshole who deserves nothing better than a punch in the nose.

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The climate of most of France and Germany is actually warmer than many parts of Dumberica.

Ever hear of Siemens, Airbus, Alcatel, or Alstom? Plenty of world-class companies outside of the US.

It’s funny, that even with their individual cars, American kids are less independent than European kids. It’s quite normal for kids in Europe to travel with friends at age 15 or 16 (and walk to school at age 8 without parents). The thought of kids here doing that would give most helicopter parents a coronary.

Personally, I’m not a go-getter. I’m a seeker of comfort and security. My interest in rental property only extends to wanting a steady income without working under the FUCKING MISERABLE hours and vaca time that most Americans have to deal with. (Which would likely have me in jail for doing serious mayhem to my boss one morning. I don’t take authority well.)

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A nation is just an extended family unit, which in turn is an extension of an individual.

Talk to most Germans or French, and ask them if they’d want to work 50+ hours per week on average if salaried, have no time off guaranteed by law, or tell them that health insurance isn’t guaranteed, and they’d think twice about the US. Remember that there are street protests whenever some politico yakks about introducing reforms that even slightly approach US-style capitalism.

True, the wealthier ones visit the US to shop, but I don’t see hoardes of them clamoring to immigrate here.

The US might offer more of an opportunity to be super wealthy, but that’s an 0.0002% chance vs an 0.0001% chance. For the average working person, having hours limited by law, vacation guarantees, and health insurance covered by the welfare state is a great thing.

And really, how many iPads or TVs can one view at once? How many cars can one drive simultaneously?

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If Europe doesn’t accelerate growth, soon we could have 3 baubles to 2 for them. Then, no matter how much more free time they have, they will feel poorer (possible less happy) in the aggregate.

Stupid people want to keep up with the Joneses. Smart people laugh at the Joneses, then buy their house at the sheriff’s fuck-loser auction after they mortgage it twice over to buy more 60″ teevees and three SUVs.

Maybe I’m an unnatural human, because I really don’t give a flying fuck about having more “stuff” unless said “stuff” actually makes me money.

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Agreed. A deflationary recession caused by a global commodity crash would be a great investment opportunity.

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I listed this as OT. I’m also from NY. I’m actually about two miles from the aforementioned evergreen right now.

Feel free to ignore the thread or ignore-list me if you feel that I’m trolling.

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I’m not trolling. Cop should have been indicted.

Hope he’s quietly fired, ostracized by everyone whom he knows as a killer, and dies lonely and broke.

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Are countries that didn’t catch up actually worse off? Just because we have two Chinese-made baubles for every 1.5 Chinese baubles owned by the average European doesn’t make us any happier.

Growth is another word for cancer. A fatal disease.

As far as efficiency, are you really calling a system that has got little done other than a mediocre, convoluted healthcare bill and has had multiple shutdowns over the past few years efficient?

Germany and many northern European countries are plenty efficient, BTW. Europe’s problem as a whole is different from what you think — imagine the US and Canada having a common currency with Mexico and Argentina.

Northern Europe is plenty rich, BTW. The average person there is richer in the one commodity that everyone has a finite supply of: free time. Yet average life span is a bit longer, and people still have the time to travel and enjoy life.

Is having a fucking 3000 sf McMansion and a teevee in every room a sign of wealth? Or just terminal stupidity?

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Want to see a real green party? Go to Europe, where they actually hold seats in multiple parliaments. Same goes for things like information privacy. Germany and Scandinavia actually have pirate and hacker parties that hold seats.

The darker side of this are crypto-fascist parties, of course.

Compared to what exists abroad, the two US parties might as well be the same organization.

We’ve been giving a lot of lip service to clean tech.

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