Is America losing its allure?

TheBoyConor

Of course here in Ireland we have the me feiners no doubt about it, but most people look down on that kind of attitutde. But over there in the US it is almost encouraged that that is the way one ought to be. It is an aspiration rather than an aberration.

ILoveYourVibes

Honestly I would have been one of the ones referring to ireland as a 'kip' etc now i have no urge to even go on a holiday to the states.

Motivator

Motivator wrote: »

And this is different to Ireland how? You’re telling me this culture hasn’t been rife in Ireland with the top earners and brass necked “power players” in this country for decades?

If what happened here at the end of the Celtic Tiger happened in the US then the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick and all those other cûnts would have been locked up in a heartbeat. We get the piss taken out of us in Ireland but it wouldn’t happen in any other country.

Don't be too sure. The US justice system is pretty broken too, especially when one considers the range of laws added to the books, the interpretation of those laws, and the protections that businesses often receive. On top of that, white collar crimes get dealt with differently, and the actual punishment can often be very different to what we would consider punishment to be... especially when you factor in private run prisons, with their own aims in processing prisoners. There's a lot that goes on that we aren't aware of because it's on a State level rather than receiving national coverage.

ILoveYourVibes

Motivator wrote: »

And this is different to Ireland how? You’re telling me this culture hasn’t been rife in Ireland with the top earners and brass necked “power players” in this country for decades?

If what happened here at the end of the Celtic Tiger happened in the US then the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick and all those other cûnts would have been locked up in a heartbeat. We get the piss taken out of us in Ireland but it wouldn’t happen in any other country.

It is here. But we don't worship this attitude.

We are hypocrites in saying we don't admire it when it clearly happens. But Americans think this is a good value.

The way they treat service people etc. Their society is in no way egalitarian. Americans consider most people losers and you are only worth talking to if you are rich and successful. Their goal is to get rich and not have to deal with the rest of us. They end up lonely and crazy and having relationships with things like cars etc.

Then they go on 'spiritual journeys' because they realize something is lacking or start reading conspiracy theories in isolation and get even more crazy.


You would be naive to think Fitzpatrick would be locked up in the states. He would president!

GT89

The gas guzzling vehicles they drive there. Why does one need a family car with a 5 litre engine and yet all sorts of enviromental taxes are placed in various different European countries.

Electric Sheep

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Americans consider most people losers and you are only worth talking to if you are rich and successful. Their goal is to get rich and not have to deal with the rest of us. They end up lonely and crazy and having relationships with things like cars etc. !

You must have lived in a different America than I do.

ILoveYourVibes

Electric Sheep wrote: »

You must have lived in a different America than I do.

Everyone says that. No....I just see it for what it is.

The ceo is not going to talk to the cleaning lady ...or know her name.

NSAman

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Everyone says that. No....I just see it for what it is.

The ceo is not going to talk to the cleaning lady ...or know her name.

So Margaret Heffernan knows the cleaning ladies name?

Celelia

Ye it's obviously not viewed in the positive light it was duh

Brussels Sprout

topper75 wrote: »

Why look for a safety net when you can instead have a leg up? Why not take opportunities?

If there is dysfunction in the U.S., not much of it is policy-driven. You hear various figures on % absent fathers in the African-American community. I'll let you google them and pick out your own. None of them are low. Engagement with education is low. And as for poor whites in regions like Appalachia etc. why are they not using that infamous white privilege? Why after so much federal input are they still on meth and so forth.

The problem isn't how the land is run. It is how the people engage with it.

America is the land of opportunity but if you are looking for handouts then yeah it wouldn't have much 'allure'. Lots of Irish and other Europeans have a state-dependent mindset built up over decades so well might they turn their noses up at America.

If I was young and the opportunity arose I'd go live in the U.S. in a flash. But I like working and earning.

I think you'd fit in great with that kind of attitude in USA.

Not everyone has the same opportunities or potential for earning. That isn't just down to "laziness", "ignorance" or "lack of ambition". I think most European countries acknowledge this and engage in more redistributive taxation for the good of society as a whole.

The greatest trick that rich Americans ever pulled was to make the poor think that they themselves were "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and thus never punished parties whose policies clearly favour the very wealthy. This has had a detrimental affect on their own society.

Jim Bob Scratcher

Great country to live in if you're comfortable financially, if not forget it..

Electric Sheep

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Everyone says that. No....I just see it for what it is.

The ceo is not going to talk to the cleaning lady ...or know her name.

If everyone says that to you, there's a reason.

I Am Nobody

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Everyone says that. No....I just see it for what it is.

The ceo is not going to talk to the cleaning lady ...or know her name.

You obviously haven't seen or experienced much of the US if that is your outlook.The US has much to offer in scenery,history,etc,.But most go to NY,Vegas,and LA where it's all about money,fashion,and bullsh#t.
Most places I've stayed in everyone was always friendly,if not a bit too chatty.

Places like San Antonio with the Alamo,or seeing the sculpture on the mountain at Stone Mountain,GA.Or the Salt Flats in NM.It's places like those that will always have an allure,IMO.

topper75

Electric Sheep wrote: »

You must have lived in a different America than I do.

To be fair there are many different Americas. Many young Irish see a TV/movie America (doesn't exist) without ever going there. They see it through a filter of socialist-orientated media such as RTÉ. Soviet TV used to love showing queues outside soup kitchens and telling their audience that this was 'America'. Some more Irish may make a trip to an East Coast city or California and go home again thinking they have seen 'America'.

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

The greatest trick that rich Americans ever pulled was to make the poor think that they themselves were "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"...

You refer to the poor and the rich as though they were permanent castes. How Euro welfare mentality is that! The Americans know a little better.

Ireland has brilliant educational opportunities thankfully. However, huge swathes opt not to use them. They know about the 'safety net' waiting for them. Folks who use the educational opportunity to get on then find their ambition clipped by heavy tax disincentive. This is of course in order to pay for the safety net. Egalitarian they call it.

Wanderer78

topper75 wrote:

Ireland has brilliant educational opportunities thankfully. However, huge swathes opt not to use them. They know about the 'safety net' waiting for them. Folks who use the educational opportunity to get on then find their ambition clipped by heavy tax disincentive. This is of course in order to pay for the safety net. Egalitarian they call it.

Jesus you really have bought into all this conservative nonsense, it's clearly obvious that the neoliberal ideology of America is failing dramatically, this really is 'clearly obvious'!

topper75

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Jesus you really have bought into all this conservative nonsense, it's clearly obvious that the neoliberal ideology of America is failing dramatically, this really is 'clearly obvious'!

I can point to countries and economies that have collapsed in the last few decades but America isn't one. Excuse me I haven't looked at this morning's news!

You talk about conservative nonsense. You only find that here. America doesn't want or need to know about you or your family's economic history when doing business. You provide the service or goods at the right price and you get to shake hands. It tends more to the egalitarian.

In my wanderings through the U.S. I met a lot of poor people. Nice folks and all but there was always some blatant reason for their poverty that they just failed to address as individuals. More often that not that was addiction. Sometimes people had hopeless discipline with the law. I also saw a lot of people do really well. They and their families would have been nothing on this side historically. Welfare kills ambition and just brings more people into welfare.

If there was one thing I would change about America it would be the overreach of the military and unnecessary wars. But in terms of economic fairness - they are streets ahead.

TheBoyConor

Why don't you go and live there so if it is such a great place?

Wanderer78

topper75 wrote:

If there was one thing I would change about America it would be the overreach of the military and unnecessary wars. But in terms of economic fairness - they are streets ahead.

Fcuking hell, what nonsense, the wealthiest country on the planet with the largest disparity between rich and poor, come on now, open your eyes, this is failing badly and dangerously, and not just for the people of America. Fairness, fcuking hell!

topper75

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Why don't you go and live there so if it is such a great place?

I'm in my middle years here, married with a mortgage. The Mrs. wouldn't go even though her old man is there. Even if I was young, I still couldn't waltz in there. Some friends did it when younger and did shockingly well. I was delighted for one of those guys in particular because he was going absolutely nowhere here. America brought out the entrepreneur in him. I would love to see a lot of our clever young who are treading water here take the same route.

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Fcuking hell, what nonsense, the wealthiest country on the planet with the largest disparity between rich and poor, come on now, open your eyes, this is failing badly and dangerously, and not just for the people of America. Fairness, fcuking hell!

This disparity didn't come about through unfairness though did it? If Ireland has not got the disparity of the U.S. it is because for every lad/lass who set up a business and sought to get on, there are many more ready to put the hand out for welfare that revenue has taken away from the trier. To socialists, this is supposedly fair. They equate poverty with misfortune, determined by no more than the roll of a dice. Individual effort and nous is dismissed as a kind of cheating. If we are looking at a state failing - Ireland will go first. It is all about that Mulitnational taxation jenga block.

cloudatlas

Since the recession a lot of young people have travelled and made lives in Australia, Canada, Dubai etc., People see those lives on social media and are encouraged to go to those place.

I think America probably has more allure now to people in countries that are emerging like India etc., as it is seen as a place of opportunity.

Drumpot

Anger after police in Buffalo, New York, shove man (75) to ground
via The Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/anger-after-police-in-buffalo-new-york-shove-man-75-to-ground-1.4271496

Seriously, what in the name of god is going on over there? If you watch the video the old mans head bleeds and police tried to report it that he tripped and fell.

I wonder if that country is heading for a massive revolution. For way too long the inequalities and corruption that’s relatively rampant all the way up to politics has been left unchecked. Maybe it needs a proper purge of so many things that are just wrong.

CrankyHaus

Drumpot wrote: »

Anger after police in Buffalo, New York, shove man (75) to ground
via The Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/anger-after-police-in-buffalo-new-york-shove-man-75-to-ground-1.4271496

Seriously, what in the name of god is going on over there? If you watch the video the old mans head bleeds and police tried to report it that he tripped and fell.

I wonder if that country is heading for a massive revolution. For way too long the inequalities and corruption that’s relatively rampant all the way up to politics has been left unchecked. Maybe it needs a proper purge of so many things that are just wrong.

The London Met did exactly the same thing to Ian Tomlinson in 2011 and he died afterwards. That was in the context of far less violent riots too.
In contrast to the US, where the officers have been suspended without pay, the killing was effectively whitewashed through muddled post-mortems and inconsistent official action.
Yet nobody uses that as evidence that the UK's structure is entirely rotten.

US Policing is far too based on force over consent, and has a legacy of racism. But the policing environment is far more challenging also. A cop gets killed there every week on average. If any country faced those challenges it's policing would not look remotely like what we have in Western Europe.

NSAman

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Why don't you go and live there so if it is such a great place?

The usual response of someone who has not tried.

No place is ideal. Every country has issues and any country I have lived in (Europe Africa and the USA) has issues.

The reason I live here is because Ireland has also got issues, much and all as I love home, it has issues.

Anyone who has travelled and lived abroad can tell you that each person finds their niche in life at different times. It is about the willingness to accept what is wrong and try to make the best of what life throws your way. America for me has thrown me many chances that would never have been thrown my way in Ireland.

You asked me what I built in a previous post! BusinessES. Why could I not have done this in Ireland? The inability and closed shop mentality for new ideas.

That is my experience and all that I can go on. Other people may have different experience and I applaud them for that. That is why we discuss things.

I found my niche here to earn a living for me and mine. To develop and enjoy something I am passionate about and love doing. I was not able to do that in Ireland. Therefore, I am going to say that the USA is not all bad. Yes it has problems, but if you think Ireland does not have problems, you need to take off the colour enhancing glasses.

Is the USA going to be my home forever? I dont know. I miss my family and friends and while I have my own family here, the homesickness still rattles from time to time.

The one thing I do know, I never knock a country completely before experiencing it. I make my mind up having experiencing a place first hand and not from media reports.

ShatterAlan

tom_murphy112 wrote: »

Work with a lot of Americans myself and it is amazing to see how they are being duped day in and day out by large corporation, who in return do a lot of political lobbying to keep employees right to a minimum.

Some examples,

- They always complain about the number of Public Holidays we get, I always tell them who's fault is that ??

- If you are a full time employee, you are not guaranteed a fixed number of holidays by law. The company I work for gives US folks about 10 days a year and if you are a contractor, you get no paid holidays. I know few folks in my team, who never take time off because of this (It is one of the large multinational companies with billions of profits every year)

- They always complain about high health insurance cost, yet most are hard core republicans who insist there shouldn't be free health care. Always implying why should I pay for someone else's health care cost.

- Folks can be let go with a week notice and very little severance pay (1 months at max) even if you are with the company for over 10 years!

- How one could pay a waiter or waitress below minimum wage and expect them to make it up via tips, this is one I never understood. But talking to my US team mates, they don't get what is wrong with that.

I honestly think the folks in America, need to fight for more rights to be treated like a human, rather than worrying too much about the government taking their guns away or chlorine in the water turning their frogs gay. But I think our way of thinking is a lot different to most Americans.

The reason they take thisstance is because they can't admit that they are wrong. It's far easier to fool a man than to get him to admit he was fooled. They see changing course even if it's change for the better as a sign of weakness whereas staying the course, all the way to hell, is a sign of "strength and steadfastness". They're idiots.

Lewis_Benson

Doesn't look like a nice country to live in....

mr_fegelien

I've also heard that prisons in the States are horrendous places to be in unless you are very wealthy. Here and in Europe, they are generally better with much less violence.

ShatterAlan

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

Surprised they aren’t going to the socialist paradise of Cuba.

One could have a fantastic life in Cuba if the US in their galactic pettiness and bitchiness and sore loserness lifted the sanctions because Cuba had the audacity to kick out the American corporations who were robbing the country blind.

lawred2

mr_fegelien wrote: »

When I first came to Ireland in 2009, many teachers, classmates, and adults always talked about moving to the States in the future for a better life. People even envied me for living there and asked "Why the **** did you come to this kip called Ireland?".

Fast forward 11 years now, it seems the tone has completely changed. Sure, people still go there, but the numbers are fewer. After the mass shootings like Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Isla Vista, the spying revelations by Snowden, the police brutality etc... has America became a first world nation relegated to third world status?

I worked there for a while and met many many good people... did think heavily about staying there

wouldn't dream of it now

the guns, the anger, the greed and the "culture wars" just turn me right off

It's a big country though - the regional variations are crazy. Massachusetts where I was had a very European feel to the place...

topper75

ShatterAlan wrote: »

One could have a fantastic life in Cuba if the US in their galactic pettiness and bitchiness and sore loserness lifted the sanctions because Cuba had the audacity to kick out the American corporations who were robbing the country blind.

And given that those nasty Americans are gone for many decades... they are rich again, right?

Those people who try to make it to Florida across shark-infested waters on rubber tubes, they are merely adrenelin junkies?

The flows of people over the years is somewhat telling I'm afraid and is repeated where ever the hollow credo of marxism holds sway.

ShatterAlan

TuringBot47 wrote: »

Has After Hours become a forum relegated to uneducated minds regurgitating media fed opinions but no real world experience ?

Any opinions you might have would be inadmissible in court as hearsay.
You hear all these things from the TV and internet only.

America is the leading example of unregulated capitalism.
Winners will succeed.
Losers will live in poverty, resent and lash out at the rest of society for their own failures.

Middle class American is just fine, people have jobs, nice houses and all the economies of scale that a larger country brings. Apart from being ripped off by mobile, cable and internet providers.

This is utter bullsh1t. Your post is just one big uniformed cliche. I lived in New York for 7 years back in the 90's. Worked in IT and at the age of 28 I was doing ok, salary of $70k a year. I have first hand experience of how it was and I was doing relatively well in the "great Clinton years".


Unregulated capitalism is a disaster that doesn't reward the "winners" and punish the "losers". It rewards the corrupt and exploits the weak. If that's an economic model that you admire then you really ought to take a long hard look at yourself and the direction of your moral compass.



This trope about working hard you will get ahead is a crock. 45% of Americans can't come up with $400 in the event of an emergency. And the middle class is just fine? Really? Most of them are one or two paychecks away from disaster and up to their eyeballs in credit card debt working to pay the interest or minimum stipulation each month.