Anonymous wrote:The US is a bunch of smaller nations standing on each others shoulders wearing a trench coat pretending to be a single nation.

You can't have a national policy for what are essentially dozens of nations. No one ends up happy and every election is eschatological.

It will go on this way until everything breaks up into more coherent and smaller nations.

The good news is that it should only take another decade.

What I have noticed is that this is an incredibly tribal country. It stands out against other multiethnic countries in the Americas that had enslaved people. The Columbians, Brazilians, and most of the Carribean countries all merged culturally and racially, and often times everyone has the same religion. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems in these places, but we are incredibly weird about it here. These problems are going to continue so long as every “tribe” here continues to only support and fight for people in their groups and not for everyone as Americans.

Anonymous wrote:Everybody I know is so much happier than the Biden misery

sure....wink wink

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Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

All these people who are trying to exit to Europe are going to miss out on the biggest wealth gain in American history, based on an illusion of what Europe is like. Americans are so propagandized that they don't realize that Europeans are dramatically poorer. And when they get a serious illness, they are more likely to die because their healthcare is worse.

Only if you have health insurance in the US. Millions are going to be losing their insurance very soon and the level of care available to the uninsured is far below European standards.

Free insurance is available to our poor, so this is a much smaller problem in reality than as a talking point. In reality, we provide medical care to everyone. And we have much better medical care for many reasons, but a huge one is that we have more imaging than they do. If you're French and find a lump in your breast, you'll wait twice as long for an MRI vs a US person in the same predicament.

If getting maximum vacation is fine for you and you're willing to scale down your possessions and spend half of your income, you can just work less and live in the US. It's intellectually dishonest to compare the US and Europe on these issues without pointing out that they have incomes like people in Arkansas and Healthcare wait times that would shock Americans. Or that they are 10% more likely to die when diagnosed with cancer. These are very relevant facts when comparing quality of life. I would be able to move to Europe and get citizenship very easily and choose not to for quality of life reasons.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

NYC, LA, and Miami seem to have as many possible as ever.

I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

America First is the greatest time I've been alive.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

All these people who are trying to exit to Europe are going to miss out on the biggest wealth gain in American history, based on an illusion of what Europe is like. Americans are so propagandized that they don't realize that Europeans are dramatically poorer. And when they get a serious illness, they are more likely to die because their healthcare is worse.

Only if you have health insurance in the US. Millions are going to be losing their insurance very soon and the level of care available to the uninsured is far below European standards.

What makes you say that millions will be losing their insurance very soon?

Please let us in on your secret.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

I’m extremely over worked and underpaid, yet I’m not sad. I find value in all that I have— my demanding job, my family, the occasional opportunities I have to relax.

Not everyone subscribes to the ignorance is bliss philosophy.

I don’t subscribe to “the sky is falling.”

I do notice that some people are voluntarily choosing misery.

Anonymous wrote:The US is a bunch of smaller nations standing on each others shoulders wearing a trench coat pretending to be a single nation.

You can't have a national policy for what are essentially dozens of nations. No one ends up happy and every election is eschatological.

It will go on this way until everything breaks up into more coherent and smaller nations.

The good news is that it should only take another decade.

This is the the Republican agenda. One nation, small government. Democrats created the bloated federal agencies and power structure we have now. Trump is actually trying to give power back to them by eliminating these bureaucracies and send it back to the states so they can make their own decisions. But they want to be histrionic instead of seeing this as a logistical opportunity. Dispelling none of the rumors that they're real agenda is indoctrination rather than democracy.

Anonymous wrote:Everybody I know is so much happier than the Biden misery

Same.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

All these people who are trying to exit to Europe are going to miss out on the biggest wealth gain in American history, based on an illusion of what Europe is like. Americans are so propagandized that they don't realize that Europeans are dramatically poorer. And when they get a serious illness, they are more likely to die because their healthcare is worse.

Only if you have health insurance in the US. Millions are going to be losing their insurance very soon and the level of care available to the uninsured is far below European standards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

All these people who are trying to exit to Europe are going to miss out on the biggest wealth gain in American history, based on an illusion of what Europe is like. Americans are so propagandized that they don't realize that Europeans are dramatically poorer. And when they get a serious illness, they are more likely to die because their healthcare is worse.

The Trump crowd is the most negative at least in my lifetime. The administration causes nothing but chaos and it wears us down. The government releases disappointing job numbers so he fires the Bureau head. A DOGE kid gets mugged in Washington and he sends in the National Guard and the FBI and tries to take over the police force. Trump takes over the Kennedy Center and now wants to host the awards ceremony and name part of it after Melania. He's turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago North. The chaos and autocracy list goes on and on.

Sadly, the Democrats aren't offering any solutions but you have to recognize that they are the minority in both the House and Senate and the Supreme Court is aligned with Trump on most issues. I wasn't a fan of either Obama or Biden but I did vote for them because the alternative was no better. I would have voted for McCain if he hadn't picked Sarah Palin as his VP.

Anonymous wrote:Everybody I know is so much happier than the Biden misery

You know shitty people.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

This will only last for 3.5 years. We will be back to subsidizing europes defense indefinitely soon.