Re: The American Dream is Dead
Maybe it was just hotter there.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Umm, just a correction, Medicaid is for the poor and Medicare is for the elderly, not the other way around.
And American dream is doing great. You just need to get stuck in a mine or be a white female rescued by a bunch of soldiers in Iraq or ahem .. be on the jury bench of a Michael Jackson trial.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
I guess this has ultimately boiled down to the capitalism versus socialism debate, as myvoice pointed out.
Is it better to give people the potential to achive great wealth, but also to sink to deep poverty? Or is it better to make it more difficult to achieve great wealth, but also make it almost impossible to sink to deep poverty.
I used to be very much on the capitalist side. Until 2003, I was in favour of reducing the welfare state and switching countries to the US economic model, based on seeing how prosperous my many relatives in the USA all were. Compared to my family in the UK in similar jobs, my family in the USA lived in bigger houses and drove more expensive cars and had more and shinier gadgets.
Then I went to Cincinnati and Chicago in Feb 2003. What I saw there was the other side of the coin. The kind of poverty, the kind of poor people that I saw there was something that I had never witnessed in all my years of living in the UK. The rough parts of London were paradise compared to what I saw. Within 2 weeks I turned into a socialist.
I view it in the following paradigm.
In the USA, if you are poor, you have a chance of making it to be really stinking rich, though it is a very slim chance, hardly any people make it, and lots and lots stay poor.
But in Europe, you will never ever make that kind of money unless you're born into it. On the other hand, you will probably never ever be that poor to begin with.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Even infamous US slave colonies like Bermuda have higher median household incomes than France and most European countries.
http://www.paho.org/english/sha/prflber.htm
If the American Dream is dead and Europe is so good, why aren’t more poor, tired, huddled masses immigrating to France to participate in the French Dream? Why do we keep getting 1.3 million of them each year? Europe is one heck of a lot closer to Asia than we are and yet we are getting so freaking many Asians over here. If one more Thai restaurant opens in my neighborhood, I’m just going to scream. And the foreign born Muslims…what about them? Are we just getting the second rate ones who couldn’t cut the mustard to get into the UK and Holland?
It amazes me that 1.3 million foreigners can be so stupid every year to want to come to America to live in poverty. We better get the message out a little better. “Stay home in Mexico in your cardboard box homes near the sewage creeks. All the cardboard boxes are already taken here.” “Stay where you’re at and toil in your rice paddies because there aint nothing for you here. Better yet, go to France where you can get free health services and be a street walker servicing the other huddled masses yearning to breath free.”
Get real people. You can’t be that big a group of morons.
Maddy: I agree with you. The debate is not really whether the American dream is alive or dead. The debate is whether socialism or capitalism is a better system.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
^ A lovely summation Maddy, now let's go to sleep everyone.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
MV - what's the difference between earning minimum wages as a chef in LA and living on welfare in Europe?
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Alabama’s unemployment rate has dropped to a full percentage point below the national average, dipping to 4 percent in one the state’s biggest monthly declines in years, according to figures released Thursday.
An expert said the numbers both reflect the continued growth of the state’s automotive industry and cast doubt on the idea that illegal immigrants are taking valuable jobs from Americans.
http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050818/APN/508180978&cachetime=5
Tennessee’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.5% in July, down from 6.0% in June, according to statistics released Thursday by the state’s Department of Labor & Workforce Development.
http://memphis.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2005/08/15/daily38.html
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin’s unemployment rate rose slightly in July, state officials said Thursday.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate last month was 4.7 percent, up from 4.6 percent in June, according to the state Department of Workforce Development
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/12417395.htm
TRENTON | New Jersey’s unemployment rate continued to inch up in July, to 4.1 percent, as 3,600 jobs in trade, transportation and utilities were lost since the prior month, according to figures released Tuesday by the state.
The rate was 4 percent in June, which also was one-tenth of a percentage point higher than the month before.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b9_3nj-joblessaug17,0,251966.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed
Job seekers flooded the market faster than the economy added jobs, pushing the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in New York City to 5.7% in July from 5.5% a month earlier, according to the state Labor Department.
While July usually sees a spike in both employment and unemployment because of graduates entering the workforce, last month’s increase was larger than normal because more people were encouraged by the strengthening economy to hunt for jobs, said James Brown, an economist with the Labor Department.
http://newyorkbusiness.com/news.cms?id=11476
Florida’s labor market is sizzling this summer, with unemployment falling to its lowest level since December 2000 last month and South Florida roaring ahead on the strength of construction, tourism and temporary workers.
The statewide jobless rate dipped to 3.9 percent, from 4.1 percent in May, a level it hadn’t seen since the zenith of the Internet bubble in late 2000.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12198766.htm
The state’s jobless rate declined 0.9 points to 5.4 percent in June from 6.3 percent in June of last year. The U.S. unemployment rate was 5 percent this June, down 0.6 points from June of 2004.
California also reported the second-highest growth in nonfarm payroll employment among the 50 states in June with an additional 15,600 jobs filled. http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/07/18/daily34.html
Basically, anybody who wants a job can get a job. Ultimately that is a system which rewards workers, entrepreurial spirit, and ingenuity. This is not trickledown. Home ownership is at all time highs.
In the end, it’s the economy stupid…
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Bermuda is part of a European country. As an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Bermuda is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Bermudans are legally considered Europeans and have all the the rights of any other EU citizen.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
If it’s a joke, I don’t know the punch line.
The guy in LA is earning his money in the private sector by being productive and providing a service that other people are willing to pay for. Rather than getting money from the government that is taken from productive people, he is actually contributing money to the government in the form of his taxes.
The guy in Europe is doing nothing and is being given money that the government has taken from people that have earned it by doing something productive. Further, someone in France is still going to have to be a chef and provide the service that is needed. Chances are, the people who will be paying him will have to pay him more than they should because they need to compete with the minimum wage offered by the government to people for doing nothing. So the productive people have money taken from them to pay the guy on welfare and get double whacked by also paying the chef and then get triple whacked because they need to pay the chef more than they would in a free market.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Please explain that to CM. 
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Make him a diplomat…
Re: The American Dream is Dead
lol never been to Europe? watching to much CNN:D come on man, in France poor weight an average 10 kg more than rich!!
where is the 3rd world? in US or in countries with highest life expectancy in the world?? and here in France even illegal immigrants can be treated by doctors and get medicines…jobless can get very expensive surgery too, is that 3rd world? illegal immigrants can go to school, poor people can go to university for free, is that 3rd world? wake up you live in la la land…there other countries than us who are developped in the world…europe, japan, australia…
Re: The American Dream is Dead
please go to europe for living few years before saying nonsense…10000 deaths??? ok people over 80 are so numerous in France due to very good healthcare that we have a lot of dying people, so when the heat break those dying people dyied a few months earlier meaning that during the next months after the summer, the death numbers were exceptionally low, so overall this year was not that mortal, had they had AC they would have died within one year anyway, so why increasing global warming more?? to get more heatwaves, hurricanes and wood fires? that surely would affect death toll down:D
so maddy, straight to the point!! very well as usual…
but i’d like to say that “dream” means not reality…so those guys living in the american dream can’t be in reality that’s why it’s so hard to argue here with facts…how to argue for a dream with real facts??
nevertheless i think the american dream will live on as long as day dreaming people will exist…so forever:D see how they dreamt about mass destruction weapons to justify killing innocent people…basically i think it is a big difference btw Us and Europe, there are some people dreaming with big ideals and lots of $$$$ in their eyes, while in europe we tend to be are more down to earth…we tend to think of ourself as if we were that poor in the street so we imagine ways to relieve poverty from the streets, like you when you went to Chicago…while they dream about big money and do whatever to get it…at least the ruling minority, cause I don’t think all americans are living in that dream, or should i say illusion, i met lots of them who totally deny it…
Europe is not really a dream, thought people risking their lives to get there, are probably dreaming of a better life too…
Re: The American Dream is Dead
Europe has nothing to do with the American Dream - you can come here, work smart and establish yourself, without fear or favor. That's the American dream
Why is it some Pakistans will argue for anything if they think they're arguing against the US, whether they have facts or not? I am referring to the tinkerbell that tried to misrepresent ppp (CM? what's a CM?)
Re: The American Dream is Dead
The latest socialist welfare state success! It seems that poverty is growing at an alarming rate in The Netherlands.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
And the reason for that is clear in the article.
American-styled policies by their nature drive up poverty because they weaken the welfare state.
Re: The American Dream is Dead
capitalism doesnt work. never has never will. despite all the displays of wealth and progress and the 'bread and meat for all' culture, this system has failed the majority of the worlds people who lack even the basic necessities. bring back controlled communism! wealth, equility and freedom for everyone. socialism for everyone.