Funny you mention that. Mexico used to call the USA the "giant of the north." When I visited Central America a few years ago, THEY called MEXICO the "giant of the north."
Mexico is prosperous because WE employ Mexicans to do our labor. THEY don't demand $20/hour for cleaning toilets or picking strawberries. AMERICAN workers seem to think that they deserve wages FAR outstripping their meager qualifications.
We reap what we sow.
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North Dakota is a wholesome, largely agricultural and still largely rural state with a harsh climate. It never has had a large population. It’s booming now due to fairly recent development of natural resources. Their unemployment is practically nonexistent, average pay is quite high and they’re doing very well.
Yes, all you say is true. What they pay for HEATING in the winter amounts to what those in Arizona and other hot climates pay for COOLING in the summer.
California, for all its problems, has 38 million people. North Dakota, for all its wonderfulness has a meager 699,628 as of 2012. San Francisco has more people that the ENTIRE state of North Dakota. WHY aren't people flocking there, willing to put up with a sucky winter for the chance to have their children grow up in a PERFECT place?
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That is the reason for the ranking. California, for all it’s charms, the natural beauty and the climate, is in serious decline. You seem to be something of a California fan. Maybe you can work to begin turning this around, rather than disparaging a state that was fairly poor and depopulating up until recent years? That would be a positive.
All I said that was that North Dakota is TOO cold in the winter for most folks. Does the truth hurt?
You sound SO like my North Dakota friends who FLED that lovely state for nasty ole California. They sound like YOU waxing poetic about their lovely state--so lovely but not to actually LIVE there.
Their mother is still in North Dakota. She's in her 90's and can't live alone anymore. She's in a home for the aged.
She sold her home and lake home but didn't get much for either of them. Who can't figure that one out?
She still needs $$help$$ from her children to stay in her "home" there in Fargo. They send her money.
She USED to come out here for a visit because her wunnerful children DON'T return to their LOVELY state for summers or Christmas any more.
Now, it's too hard for her to travel. Do they now VISIT her in Fargo? No, but they do come up with the most IMAGINATIVE excuses...all culled from the Land of 10,001 excuses.
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My Fargo friend once told me this story. She was coming home from classes where she went to college. She had only a block and a half left to walk. She was wearing a woolen scarf around her head and ears.
All of a sudden a gust of wind blew the scarf off of her LEFT ear. She had to think:
a. Stop. Put down my books and adjust my scarf to cover my ear.
b. Just keep going so I can get HOME that much sooner into the warm.
She chose "b" and to this day still has a hearing problem in THAT ear from the cold.
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She moved out here to California as soon as she could get a job out here. She hasn't moved back there and now she has stopped her summer and Christmas visits there.
YET, she continues to extol the wonderfulness of Fargo...from the comfort of California.
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I always thought that if people REALLY hated all that cold but wanted to stay living in wonderful North Dakota they COULD have worked their fingers to the bone and bought a "winter" home in Florida or the southwest USA.
Many folks from The Frigid Places do that. THEY are the smart ones who have the best of both worlds by working a little more to get what they really wanted.
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I'm fine here in expensive, crowded California. I simply make sure that I don't get into the traffic in either the morning or late afternoon CRUSH of cars.
Thankew!
I explained the situation clearly and succinctly, and yet you launched into another attack. I’m not from North Dakota, in fact it’s one of the few states to which I’ve never been. I say, good for them, to be having economic boom times, and to have an influx of hardworking new residents.
You’re so defensive, I suspect there’s something more to this for you personally than you’re letting on. It’s verging upon weird, whatever the reason may be.