I'm glad to see you have a good sense of humor!
As far as serious reasons why the Euros are jealous of the US, we could start with the idea that the US has shown incredible strength in the face of our very unfavorable circumstances in the last several years. Lets get real, what state do you think France would be in if it had a 9/11 type attack, a recession, and a fierce political election like we just had, within a 3 year span? The answer to that question is why they're jealous of the US.
"I'm glad to see you have a good sense of humor!"
You may rest assured that it often takes a real
good sense of humor to read articles & comments
on FR, when beeing a German... ;-)
"As far as serious reasons why the Euros are jealous of the US, we could start with the idea that the US has shown incredible strength in the face of our very unfavorable circumstances in the last several years."
These circumstances and events ARE the reasons why
Euros don`t envy the US... beside other, additional
reasons.
"Lets get real, what state do you think France would be in if it had a 9/11 type attack, a recession, and a fierce political election like we just had, within a 3 year span?"
France suffered from a 4-year visit by my Grandfathers,
causing a complete breakdown, a divided nation (Vichy)
and war & destruction in 1940 and 44/45.
In 45, they said "Voila" and occupated their part
of Germany.
I guess "your" problem is that you see 0911 as a
kind of singular, extraordinary event.
In Europe during WWII, nearly every village had it`s own
kind of 0911, aka total destruction.
That`s still in our common memory... and that`s
why most Euros have deeply understood your shock and
grief, but are now saying: "Come on, get over it"
In our view, having constant terror alerts and loosing
your sons and daughers in wars... isn`t a real reason
to envy the US these days.
Not to speak of political reasons...
My regards,
Hun