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I want to live in America

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    #152
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #153
    Donald Trump
    Registered Users Posts: 19,115 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.


    As I am sure that you are aware, mature students (those over 23) can have access to education on the basis of their life experience etc. rather than leaving cert points. Like that wan from Trinity who is now a senator and had dropped out of education as a teenager dues to drugs and kids.

    Having a subjective admissions process is an invitation to abuse of the system. Handy though for the wealthy who can afford to donate a couple of million quid for their parents though.

    Was your wife's education self funded? Did she have influence/support (not necessarily only financial) when she returned? I'm not saying anything bad about her. She might have had some extra things going for her that allowed her to navigate the financial barrier


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    #154
    con___manx1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,474 ✭✭✭con___manx1


    Kivaro wrote: »
    That comment is rubbish. It ain't true.

    Some of the other generalizations on here are bewildering in their inaccuracies.

    It is true. canada is the very same aswell. I should know i lived there and was told loads of times its the same in the Us.


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    #155
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #156
    mikemac2
    Registered Users Posts: 2,927 ✭✭✭mikemac2


    con___manx1 wrote: »
    I dislike america at the moment so much.

    there the fattest country in the world.

    Ireland ain’t far behind


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    #157
    handlemaster
    Registered Users Posts: 6,003 ✭✭✭handlemaster


    Kivaro wrote: »
    handlemaster wrote: »
    Holidays are rubbish 10 days a year.

    That comment is rubbish. It ain't true.

    Some of the other generalizations on here are bewildering in their inaccuracies.

    A simple google would suffice before you put your foot in it.


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    #158
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    And others get more. I got 39 paid days off last year, only 9 of which were federal bank holidays. I'm trying to remember how many I got when I worked in Ireland, but I don't think it was that much. (I didn't use them all, but I earned them. The rest are sitting in my PTO balance)

    Permabear is quite right. You don't come to America because you're looking to be in the bottom 23%. You come to the US because you believe you can better your situation. If you're only worried about how bad it can be, you'll never take any risk at all. Spend all your time looking down, how will you ever get up?

    Nice anecdote. Not a statistic. To reiterate the US average days off is 10. I think you are a government employee.


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    #159
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    10 days is the average according to my link. Earning more than ten depends on years of service. However moving jobs will reset that.


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    #160
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,880 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Yester wrote: »
    Thanks for that. I actually did win the lotto a while back. Not the jackpot but 350k so how bad.

    Do you expect us to believe that?

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #161
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,880 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    And others get more. I got 39 paid days off last year, only 9 of which were federal bank holidays. I'm trying to remember how many I got when I worked in Ireland, but I don't think it was that much. (I didn't use them all, but I earned them. The rest are sitting in my PTO balance)

    Permabear is quite right. You don't come to America because you're looking to be in the bottom 23%. You come to the US because you believe you can better your situation. If you're only worried about how bad it can be, you'll never take any risk at all. Spend all your time looking down, how will you ever get up?

    Your previous post said 25 (including sick leave), now you are upping it to 30. Your posts are not consistent.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #162
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Joey, go read my post again, and do the maths.

    Franz, my primary employer is the private sector. I’m also a military reservist which is where you may be confusing things. And annecdotal though it may be, the fact remains that I moved to the US and I improved my position, which is the topic of the thread, not the US sociological situation in general.


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    #163
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    Joey, go read my post again, and do the maths.

    Franz, my primary employer is the private sector. I’m also a military reservist which is where you may be confusing things. And annecdotal though it may be, the fact remains that I moved to the US and I improved my position, which is the topic of the thread, not the US sociological situation in general.

    If you have 39 days in the private sector its extremely rare. Would be rare here too.


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    #164
    IvyTheTerrible
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,949 ✭✭✭✭IvyTheTerrible


    Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »
    If you have 39 days in the private sector its extremely rare. Would be rare here too.
    Sshhhh you're not drinking the "America is great and if you have any ambition you'll abandon average Ireland" Kool-Aid... :pac:


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    #165
    Hector Bellend
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,667 ✭✭✭Hector Bellend




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    #166
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #167
    BorneTobyWilde
    Registered Users Posts: 35,728 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    If you work for yourself you can have all the days holidays you want. You need to be successful though, to be self employed and a success in US would be far better than the same here.


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    #168
    BorneTobyWilde
    Registered Users Posts: 35,728 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    Can you reside in USA if you open a small business?


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    #169
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Jesus Christ. Everything with you is personalised. Your anecdotes, as tiresome as they are, are also irrelevant in general to whether the op can do better there. Maybe he can, maybe he can’t. We don’t know his skill set. And he has abandoned the thread.

    Plenty of people earn good money in Ireland. We even have millionaires.


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    #170
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,117 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    BorneTobyWilde wrote: »
    Can you reside in USA if you open a small business?

    If you have a million dollars to invest upfront and hire at least 10 workers in the first 2 years


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    #171
    Sandor Clegane
    Registered Users Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭Sandor Clegane


    America is like a one night stand, you go there use what it has to offer and then leave, no strings attached.

    It's an amazing place to visit with great things to see and do and experience, but in reality unless you have boat loads of money its a pretty ****ty place to live. They brand themselves as the land of the free and home of the brave while it has 25 per cent of the worlds prison population and the cops regularly shoot and kill unarmed people for extraordinarily minor altercations. Scary stuff.


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    #172
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »
    If you have 39 days in the private sector its extremely rare. Would be rare here too.

    I agree, it is rare. I am fairly well compensated in time and dollars to have turned my hobby into my livelihood. (I'm not sure I could even do this job in Ireland: A search for "military historian" on jobs.ie returns not one result).That doesn't stop me from enjoying the fruits of my move and labour, and I don't exactly feel guilty about it. If the average holiday allocation in each country was the only important thing in my life, I'd have never relocated. Better yet, I beat the average anyway. Go, ambition!
    They brand themselves as the land of the free and home of the brave while it has 25 per cent of the worlds prison population and the cops regularly shoot and kill unarmed people for extraordinarily minor altercations. Scary stuff.

    Tell you what. If I get shot by a cop or put into jail, I'll have someone post on here so you can say "I told you so". In the meantime, I'm going to continue to enjoy living my life here as I am doing. There's good to counter the bad, and oftentimes, the bad can be mitigated.

    In general, if someone you know is considering a move to the US, make sure she/he knows all the potential as well as the risks. If he/she still wishes to continue to do so after making an informed assessment, I'd think about wishing them good luck and dropping them off at the airport. Recommending against trying to reach potential for fear of failure is going to all but guaranteeing that potential won't be reached.


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    #173
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,422 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    I agree, it is rare. I am fairly well compensated in time and dollars to have turned my hobby into my livelihood. (I'm not sure I could even do this job in Ireland: A search for "military historian" on jobs.ie returns not one result).That doesn't stop me from enjoying the fruits of my move and labour, and I don't exactly feel guilty about it. If the average holiday allocation in each country was the only important thing in my life, I'd have never relocated. Better yet, I beat the average anyway. Go, ambition!

    I didn't think private sector historians existed to be honest.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #174
    BattleCorp
    Registered Users Posts: 11,758 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I'm not doubting the quality of life you have in the US but why couldn't you achieve all that if you stayed here?


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    #175
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    BattleCorp wrote: »
    I'm not doubting the quality of life you have in the US but why couldn't you achieve all that if you stayed here?

    Not to go at this question specifically, but isn't the general line of discussion on this thread sortof missing the point? Education, healthcare, PTO earnings... They are all means to an end, not ends in themselves.

    What makes you happy in life? What do you enjoy doing? I'm sortof mechanically oriented. I like driving cars. I like flying airplanes. I like shooting firearms. Here, petrol is cheap, the weather is good, and my pastimes are better supported. If you don't get much enjoyment out of driving a V8 convertible in February through the back roads with an enthusiasts club, or don't care about not being beholden to cloud cover if you want to rent an airplane for a couple of hours, or have no interest in just spending an hour after work burning money at the range with your buddies, then the appeal I see to living in California may not seem worth it to you.

    Then again, maybe you like winter sports, or mountaineering. Colorado may well be the place for you, just hop in the car for an hour or two. Of course, that can be met living in parts of Canada, so look at other factors. Either way, such forms of enjoyment are much harder to come by in Ireland. So even if the materialistic aspects of life, such as the house, access to doctors, a good college degree, can be obtained in Ireland as well as the US, the two countries still have distinguishing features which may make an individual subjective quality of life different.


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    #176
    TOss Sweep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,905 ✭✭✭TOss Sweep


    mojesius wrote: »
    They do routine check ups on you to ensure you're actually married - regular home visits, correspondence address being used , evidence that you are not scamming the system. I know an american man who married a Chilean woman friend to get her card and he said the entire thing was an almighty pain in the bollocks for years.

    No they don't. I married an American and not one person came near us to prove the marriage. If this actually happened they must have been suspicious of it in the first place. But never have I heard this to be a thing. The process is a pain in the ass in general.


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    #177
    TOss Sweep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,905 ✭✭✭TOss Sweep


    I moved to the US 4 years ago and it is not as rosey as some will have you believe but it is also not as bad as some here would have you believe. If you are the type of person who is willing to work your arse off you can make it and go from a low paying salary to a salary that will you will live comfortably on. My first job here I earned $14 per hour now I earn a hell of lot more than that.

    Not going to compare both countries as they have their own qualities. Things about Ireland I do miss but it is what it is.


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    #178
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #179
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #180
    jmayo
    Registered Users Posts: 13,110 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    Not to go at this question specifically, but isn't the general line of discussion on this thread sortof missing the point? Education, healthcare, PTO earnings... They are all means to an end, not ends in themselves.

    What makes you happy in life? What do you enjoy doing? I'm sortof mechanically oriented. I like driving cars. I like flying airplanes. I like shooting firearms. Here, petrol is cheap, the weather is good, and my pastimes are better supported. If you don't get much enjoyment out of driving a V8 convertible in February through the back roads with an enthusiasts club, or don't care about not being beholden to cloud cover if you want to rent an airplane for a couple of hours, or have no interest in just spending an hour after work burning money at the range with your buddies, then the appeal I see to living in California may not seem worth it to you.

    I always found the US to be more civil aviation friendly than little old Ireland or even UK, and that is despite it's huge military aviation complex with huge bases and no fly zones and it's huge volume of commercial aviation.

    But saying all of the above is fine if you have the money and time.
    One can probably have a good life almost anywhere if one has the money and time.
    Granted you can't fire almost any weapon in most parts of the world.

    BTW you do know you are living near to a major fault line that someday will have a megaquake. ;)

    And as the man said ...

    live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft


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    #181
    markodaly
    Registered Users Posts: 13,954 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    I suppose Manic Moran hits the nail on the head. What makes you happy?

    For many people they are happy out tipping away at work and happy to stay that way once they get to a reasonable position in terms of responsibilities and salary. Once they have money to pay off a mortgage, put food on the table and have a few pints, they are happy with their lot.

    It is interesting the overwhelming negativity people have about living in the US, especially when pretty much all of these comments come from people who never lived there but just take the headlines as fact in a way to make a judgement about the entire country of 340 million people.

    Would these same people make the same judgement about Africa for example. If you looked at the media you would think that its a poverty and war stricken place where even going there you will end up getting ebola, aids, eaten by a lion, or starve to death.

    As someone who has been there half a dozen times, this is not the truth, it is a media perception born out of ignorance and stupidity. So, I will use the same logic to say that people who have the overwhelming views on the USA are born out of the same ignorance and stupidity.

    To my mind some people will do better in the USA than Ireland. If you are not a risk taker and prefer to stay here and collect what ever benifits the state gives you then sure, a place like the USA will not be for you. People like this draw comfort from the fact that there is a nanny state there what will look after you. Other people want to take risks, work hard and see how far they can go in their chosen profession.

    People who are skilled and educated in things like finance, IT, engineering, medicine, law can do really well for themselves. Even those with a good trade (visa depending of course) can do very well for themselves.

    So, essentially its all about attitude. If you are a go getter then yes a place like the USA is a place where you can thrive. If you are more concerned about collecting child benefits then no, the USA is not a place for you.


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