Dear Scumbria:
Re: China Spy Plane Incident
Well here I get to say I told you so! I told you to be patient, it will be resolved. We did not need to "apologize". We still have the demand for "a Chinese apology" available for use in the future. We are not stopping recon flights.
You said that we should apologize. That they will be held for a long time. China will be intransigent. Etc, and so forth. Well, do you admit you were in error? No! You just complain more.
Re: Travel
Most of this talk is of the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" variety. You see all of the advantages and few of the disadvantages. Up on a more detailed review, you would decide "its a nice place to visit, but I would not want to live there."
I have talked to people of many different countries and really talked about the advantages and the disadvantages of living in their home countries. It is very eye opening at how many places that are frequently touted as being "better" are not what they are cracked up to be. Many of the disadvantages would be considered of the "show stopper" variety.
For example, one guy at work touted that Britian was cheaper to live there than here. He heard from a co-worker, that is a British Citizen, that yes a large 4 bedroom house in Britain was cheaper. However the property taxes were annually a larger percentage of the house's worth and there were many more restrictions on the use of the house and land on which it sits (smaller lot than here). The costs of maintaining a car and a license to drive it are quite a bit higher as well. And when you figure the disposable income from being there (the typical salaries of both places for the same skills), it is far more advantageous to be here (in the US).
In comparisons to Europe, you should take in the higher population density and the changes to society that are required due to that fact. For example, Germany has about 55 million people living in an area roughly equal to Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan (which together have about 6.5 million). That means that the equivalent of a house in Wisconsin or Colorado, would take up 60 to 70% of the lot it sits on. The average street would be just over one lane wide. So you would have to use mass transit and must wait at the stop some 10 to 15 minutes for the next bus to arrive, and another 10 minutes at each transfer required to get to work. Your children would have to walk to school and be there much longer (each day and number of days a year). They must take a test to determine their track and you would not be able to change that (it is very hard to change the track without spending a lot of money, time, and effort). You probably would be able to own just one car and the fuel would be about 3 times as expensive (industry does not pay fuel taxes). If the water is hard or not to your liking, you will have to go to bottled water (read expensive). You must learn to stay in all the queues in life there (they are in traffic, at the store, at work, all over and they are longer). And I could go on, but I think you begin to see that living there would not be so nice.
Before jumping at "greener" grass look underneath for signs it is made of plastic.
Pete |
