Posted on 05/04/2002 3:41:42 PM PDT by l33t
I thought the study should have compared Swedish-Americans to Swedish-Europeans. Then instead of a few percentage points the difference would have been like 50-70%.
It is true that the US has little pockets of abject poverty, but the nice thing about the US is that there really is a very high degree of class mobility; nobody has to stay poor and it is pretty easy to bootstrap yourself out of it if you aren't a moron. One of the things I noticed in Europe is the systematic structuring of wage with age, essentially forcing young people to start at the bottom of the ladder and stay there, slowly working their way up. It doesn't give a young ambitious European much to look forward to (and hence why so many of them are interested in working in the US). I was one of the "unlucky" folk in the US born into deep poverty; I've lived most of my life well below the poverty line. Nonetheless, I busted my ass for many years and managed to bootstrap myself to real wealth before the age of 30, something that would have been nigh impossible in Europe but not uncommon here. In the US you can climb the ladder as fast as you want. And never mind how horrendously short the ladders are that you are climbing in Europe; it blew me away when I found out that the senior executives from some of the largest companies in the world were getting paid about what a store manager would get paid here. (It was embarrassing to have them all begging a job and a visa from me in private, though I helped the ones that I could. That is a sad state of affairs for executives at companies that have revenue in the tens of billions.)
No, Europe has sucked the life out of its people. This much is obvious. WWII marked the last spasms of greatness in Europe and rigor mortis has long since set in.
Right on target. I have a young Swedish relative who is attending college in the US. This summer, instead of returning to Sweden to work, she is staying in the US where she is not subject to a MAXIMUM wage, and can make more money to buy more American College time. (Working in an upscale US resteraunt as a waitress (+ tips) pays more than ANY job she can obtain back in Sweden.)
Don't have to get run off by them either. Are you frustrated that you can't control this media with your nonesense? Can't your ideas stand examination in the fresh air and sunlight of an open forum? Maybe the closed media of a Socialist State would be more to your liking?
Especially when you can steal money from someone else instead of working for it yourself.
Violation of the Tenth Commandment "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods" is a fundamental Socialist Sacrament. Daily life for a Socialist consists of seeing how much he can steal from his neighbor so he may "give" it to others. In this stealing he gets to play God, and feels holier than his neighbors.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Some day you can actually explain how that view is bigoted of Europe and Europeans. I was stating fact and making critical observations, and there is nothing wrong with either. You never actually support your position or even dispute the facts. Instead, you just disparage people that rain on your parade and spoil your fantasy. Ironically, this reflects my original point perfectly and gives the Freepers a real live specimen to point to.
This is just laughable, and shows remarkably limited vision. I don't give a flying f**k about my bank account. What money gives me is the freedom to do what I want in life instead of toiling at a miserable job (but only 35 hours a week!) for the rest of my life. What a sad existence. I fail to see what is so glorious and happy about your pathetic outlook on life. Unless, of course, your dream in life is to work a sorry 35-hour a week job for the rest of forever. I accumulated wealth so that I could move on to better activities with more meaning and value to me. I still work very hard, but I get to do what *I* want to do, which is the whole point of not being a wage slave to begin with. I'll bet there are damn few people in Europe who wouldn't happily trade their jobs for the ability to do what they want in life and actually accomplish something meaningful.
Suing large and prosperous WI employers is a helluva way to make friends and influence people. Won't take much for two of the three named above to simply move HQ out of WI, after the dust settles and the current officers retire.
Long story short: NV knows how to play the game.
First of all, Swedish conservatives and leftie-scum alike have been laughing their butts off over this study. Torie mentioned that, in some ways, it was an apples and oranges study. And so it is, unfortunately. We conservatives - a truely rare breed in Sweden - would however love to use figures like these for arguments. If they had done a study of price-adjusted disposable income (after tax, insurance, etc), the figures could at least have been interesting.
Someone mentioned productivity. It is true that Americans have a higher productivity per capita, and it's also true that Swedes have a higher productivity per capita per working hour. That's not because we want to get poorer (as this study would suggest ;), but because of a chosen trade-off made possible by a good standard of living. I have to admit that in this issue I'm, too, very Swedish. As long as I can afford my cars, computers and other need-to-have-junk, I'm happily trading off extra income for free time.
Crime rates have been discussed on this thread, and some very strange figures have been floating around. Tapping official statistics (from the FBI, and BRÅ [Swedish authority responsible for collecting crime stats]) I've found these numbers for the USA and Sweden (2000):
If someone wants to know about Sweden, I might just be the one to ask. Judgning by some posts on this thread, there seems to be a lot of blanks anyway.
/ a FR donating, royalist, atheist, conservative Swede.
That seems to be the extent of your "contribution" to this thread. Get a life.
Been there, done that. The reactions are not predictable. Some welcome you, some act like you are looking for money from some lost Will. Europeans in general are FAR more reserved than we are, and not inclined to talk to strangers. Best to write ahead if you can and gauge the temperature of the water. Once you have met some of your local relatives, and they tell others, meeting the others may be easier.
What is it about some Scandinavians that they must "share" their atheisim with strangers? It's like queers who must "share" their affliction with the world. Who cares? Do you want special handicapped status?
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