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Is America losing its allure?

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    #92
    Risingshadoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 82 ✭✭Risingshadoo


    Padre_Pio wrote: »
    You know how Americans say "oh you're from Europe?" and you inwardly laugh at such a vague understanding of Europe's scale and diversity, saying America, like it's one homogeneous mono cultural places is similar.

    It's definitely more homogeneous and mono cultural than Europe, but New Yorkers, Texans, Californians and those from the Mid-West don't have a lot in common.

    I wouldn't laugh - it's realistic. Ireland is in Europe. Irish people are European, by physical location.


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    #93
    BalcombeSt4
    Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    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?

    Why would people be envy of you for living in a kip? Are the people who envied you for living in a kip, are they living in a concentration camp?


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    #94
    Risingshadoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 82 ✭✭Risingshadoo


    Electric Sheep wrote: »
    Yes.

    What's your take on the people here who gathered in Dublin the other day,. supporting the Black Lives Matter protests. Do you think it's odd, or you commend it?


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    #95
    colm_mcm
    Registered Users Posts: 73,382 ✭✭✭✭colm_mcm


    BalcombeSt4 wrote: »
    Why would people be envy of you for living in a kip?

    By my calculations, going on previous stories, the OP would have been around 9 or 10 then.


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    #96
    mr_fegelien
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    Risingshadoo wrote: »
    What's your take on the people here who gathered in Dublin the other day,. supporting the Black Lives Matter protests. Do you think it's odd, or you commend it?

    Not the poster you quoted but I find it weird. It's virtue signalling at its finest to be honest.

    I was just on Instagram and searched up why everything is showing black on Google (thought there was an error with the app) before realizing that people are posting black images in honor of the guy who died.


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    #97
    iamstop
    Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 11,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭iamstop


    mr_fegelien wrote: »
    Not the poster you quoted but I find it weird. It's virtue signalling at its finest to be honest.

    I was just on Instagram and searched up why everything is showing black on Google (thought there was an error with the app) before realizing that people are posting black images in honor of the guy who died.

    With all due respect. I think you don't know what you're talking about. I'm very close to black people in Canada, Ireland, and parts of Europe and the ongoing grief and trauma from the deaths in America ripple far and wide to these places. They might not get the same heavy handed 'life could end at any moment' approach from the police in the city they are in but it still profoundly affects them when an(other) unarmed black person is murdered by a cop who has a (statistically) 99% chance of not getting convicted.
    The litany of names has gotten to the point where people of all races are sick of the injustices and more and more are speaking up. Also the fact that the world has shrunk (figuratively) in the last two decades with cheaper flights, more non-black people have more first hand experience with normal, everyday, decent black people. The old racist vale has been lifted. Get with the times or fall behind.

    https://open.spotify.com/album/69JKwCcZGdLqX4Upj3DwP7



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    #98
    chrissb8
    Registered Users Posts: 1,168 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    A failed society, in too many aspects they are irredeemably damaged. Generations of anti-intellectual bigotry and it's only getting worse. A country built on violence and one that has it sown into the very fabric of its existence. Maybe at one point, they aspired to be something greater than their blooded history, but they self-sabotaged themselves and continues to do so to this day.

    Will a good leader fix this? Probably not. Things ain't looking too good over there and I would think a boiling point is being reached.

    When I think of America's allure I think of the pop-culture element, there is not one part of me that has ever wanted to live in America. Bad food, cutthroat welfare system, ridiculous soul destroying work culture, eye watering college fees and of course, the institutional racism. On top of that aspects of justice have been privatised and politics has been corrupted, long ago, by the wealthy, but at least the latter is not so unique to America, it's just 100 times more prevalent & obvious.


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    #99
    Nigel Fairservice
    Registered Users, Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators Posts: 2,175 Mod ✭✭✭✭Nigel Fairservice


    It's definitely losing its attraction. I spent 3 months travelling across America a few years back. I had a great time. I was in 27 states and took in big cities and small towns. I saw unbelievable inequality there. I saw places so poor I found it hard to believe I was in the US at times. Ireland is more equitable. I would only live in the US if I had a serious amout of money. It's not a place I'd like to be poor in.


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    #100
    Morgans
    Registered Users Posts: 4,345 ✭✭✭Morgans


    Ulysses Gaze wrote: »
    Devil's Advocate here.

    If American's saw how much tax we paid here, but that we were still paying for private healthcare and still having to pay when we go to a GP, they'd ask.

    "So why are you paying all this tax then?"

    Even as a Devils Advocate position, it wouldnt stand up to a whole deal of scrutiny.

    Americans wouldnt be just restricted to emigrating to Ireland. Also, you'd be very unfortunate to go bankrupt due to a medical emergency/chronic disease in Ireland. The trade off of higher taxes for greater security net might be something that they believe in if they were to experience it.


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    #101
    Edgware
    Registered Users Posts: 5,875 ✭✭✭Edgware


    chrissb8 wrote: »
    A failed society, in too many aspects they are irredeemably damaged. Generations of anti-intellectual bigotry and it's only getting worse. A country built on violence and one that has it sown into the very fabric of its existence. Maybe at one point, they aspired to be something greater than their blooded history, but they self-sabotaged themselves and continues to do so to this day.

    Will a good leader fix this? Probably not. Things ain't looking too good over there and I would think a boiling point is being reached.

    When I think of America's allure I think of the pop-culture element, there is not one part of me that has ever wanted to live in America. Bad food, cutthroat welfare system, ridiculous soul destroying work culture, eye watering college fees and of course, the institutional racism. On top of that aspects of justice have been privatised and politics has been corrupted, long ago, by the wealthy, but at least the latter is not so unique to America, it's just 100 times more prevalent & obvious.

    No one is forcing you to go there. Three months ago the Irish opposition parties would have you believe we were living in a third world poverty trap.


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    #102
    Electric Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭Electric Sheep


    Risingshadoo wrote: »
    What's your take on the people here who gathered in Dublin the other day,. supporting the Black Lives Matter protests. Do you think it's odd, or you commend it?

    I commend both the protest and that it remained peaceful. As did many of the protests here in the US, but you don't hear about the peaceful ones.


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    #103
    Electric Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭Electric Sheep


    Nigel Fairservice wrote: »
    It's definitely losing its attraction. I spent 3 months travelling across America a few years back. I had a great time. I was in 27 states and took in big cities and small towns. I saw unbelievable inequality there. I saw places so poor I found it hard to believe I was in the US at times. Ireland is more equitable. I would only live in the US if I had a serious amout of money. It's not a place I'd like to be poor in.

    I can't think of any place I'd want to be poor in, and I was poor (relatively) in Ireland.


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    #104
    Motivator
    Registered Users Posts: 2,741 ✭✭✭Motivator


    Up until about 7 or 8 years ago America was an exceptional place to live and visit. I was lucky enough to experience living there for a total of 6 years and I’ve been to a huge amount of cities dotted around the country. I moved back to Ireland in 2011 after 4 years and had done two twelve month stints and bits and pieces of travel for work. The people were great, infrastructure, facilities, sights and sounds were all first class in my experience but before I moved home I noticed a change a couple of years into Obama’s first term and the country never recovered in my opinion.

    I haven’t been back in the country since Trump has been in office but I have family and friends who tell me the country is a shadow of its former self in lots of ways. At the moment, the country is broken from top to bottom and it’s a time bomb. Something serious is going to happen very soon and it’s scary to think of what it might be. With Trump stirring the pot and his supporters no longer hiding like they used to, things could take a serious turn.

    For those who say America never appealed to them, if you had been lucky enough to have the same experiences that I and countless others had then your views would be different. I know people that went over in the 80s with quite literally nothing to their name and made fortunes through nothing but hard work. America was the country that gave people a chance to prove themselves but sadly that doesn’t seem to the case any longer. Not everyone will think the same as me of course but I don’t like people who visit a tourist hotspot, didn’t like it and formed their opinion of the whole country on that one experience. It’s like tourists coming to Ireland but only visiting the Guinness storehouse or the GPO, not liking it and then going home to tell their friends Ireland is a ****hole.


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    #105
    kenmc
    Registered Users Posts: 7,276 ✭✭✭kenmc


    Been to America plenty of times, both business and pleasure including j1. If I never set foot in the place again I would not be the slightest bit bothered - certainly won't go there for pleasure again. Last time I was there I found it hard to get fresh fruit even. Felt queasy the entire time from so much crappy fried food.

    They do some amazing beers though, loads of microbreweries. That's about the only thing I like about going there for work trips, and even at that I would do anything not to have to go.


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    #106
    chrissb8
    Registered Users Posts: 1,168 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    Edgware wrote: »
    No one is forcing you to go there. Three months ago the Irish opposition parties would have you believe we were living in a third world poverty trap.

    Yes, I'm aware, I am just voicing an opinion in response to the thread topic.


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    #107
    Nigel Fairservice
    Registered Users, Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators Posts: 2,175 Mod ✭✭✭✭Nigel Fairservice


    Electric Sheep wrote: »
    I can't think of any place I'd want to be poor in, and I was poor (relatively) in Ireland.

    Nobody wants to be poor but the point was Ireland takes better care of the less well off than the US does. I lived in the UK for a few years and I think Ireland does a better job than them too.


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    #108
    mr_fegelien
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    Nigel Fairservice wrote: »
    Nobody wants to be poor but the point was Ireland takes better care of the less well off than the US does. I lived in the UK for a few years and I think Ireland does a better job than them too.

    True. I think I read that the poorest regions in the EU (well not now) were/are in the UK.

    1x3plsz626w01.jpg


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    #109
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    Income wealth distribution in terms of inequality in the US as complied by the World Bank has grown, or deviated, by 20% since 1979 to 2016.
    The Gini coefficient is a strong indicator of the 'mood' of, in this case, a nation. It can be applied to smaller cross sections of societies also. It strongly correlates with crime rates with a basis in the disparity between rich and poor.
    In this statistical analysis of countries the US lies in the top 33%.
    https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/indicator/SI.POV.GINI


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    #110
    Larbre34
    Registered Users Posts: 23,797 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    Motivator wrote: »
    Up until about 7 or 8 years ago America was an exceptional place to live and visit. I was lucky enough to experience living there for a total of 6 years and I’ve been to a huge amount of cities dotted around the country. I moved back to Ireland in 2011 after 4 years and had done two twelve month stints and bits and pieces of travel for work. The people were great, infrastructure, facilities, sights and sounds were all first class in my experience but before I moved home I noticed a change a couple of years into Obama’s first term and the country never recovered in my opinion.

    And would you corollate the Obama presidency with this negative turn of events, or were they as a result of the great financial crash of 2008 that Obama was briefed about the second he walked into No. 1600 on 20th Jan, brought about by the George W Bush administration being asleep at the wheel and feathering the nest of its rich investor friends, aka the truth?

    The US was never a great Country. Its a federation of some great States and some backward divided territories. It was never a great place to be underprivileged, never a great place to get seriously ill, never a great place for workers rights, quality of life and so on.

    Establishment Republicans have always characterised the European style of social democracy, high quality public services, welfare and health care as socialism (read Communism) because they are terrified of ordinary put-upon Americans learning the reality of how badly they are cared for and care for each other.

    I have family and friends in many parts of the US. Many are well off, financially, but even so their work/life balance is dreadful, their annual leave allocation pitiful, their stress levels and job security terrible and all of their kids have monthly lockdown drills in cased of gun attacks. At schools FFS!

    The American dream is a bust, or at least was always an emperor with no clothes, now those that have been stepped on to make it a reality for the few are biting back.


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    #111
    Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
    Registered Users Posts: 3,236 ✭✭✭Dr. Kenneth Noisewater


    Hollywood sells a quite an attractive picture of America, you either live in a hipster's paradise in a huge loft in New York or in a large house in a spacious, leafy suburb and your kids all go to relatively prestigious universities. We're probably looking at the top 5% of Americans that can afford that. The reality for most is a damn sight different.

    For all the bitching and whingeing we do about Ireland, we don't know how lucky we are that most of us have a reasonably comfortable standard of living, access to healthcare and third level education, no major civil or social unrest (no, we really don't), freedom of press and relative equality regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.


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    #112
    mr_fegelien
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    The interesting thing though is that Irish people claim to have a higher quality of life, but we have extremely high rates of alcoholism.

    Maybe America's glass of wine/bottle of beer is a joint but it seems that drug use is much less than it is here (though they have a prescription painkilller epidemic).

    My question is if stress is so low, why do we have such high rates of alcohol abuse.


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    #113
    Squeeonline
    Registered Users Posts: 2,551 ✭✭✭Squeeonline


    I was supposed to be coming back from the USA after a 3 week trip today with the SO. Obviously that got cancelled. We were annoyed/frustriated that our plans had been scuppered (with the obvious understanding that it was necessary).

    Now we are quite relieved to not be in the US with many cities under strict curfew and the increased tension. No one needs that drama/hassle. Oh and there were minor earthquakes in Yellowstone where we were going. I'm not religious, but fsck me is that isn't a sign that we were right to stay away!

    Living/working in austria now and it is a workers paradise regarding rights, healthcare etc. I had considered the US as a potential career destination, but since it's practically third world in this regard, yup, nope.


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    #114
    rob316
    Registered Users Posts: 17,956 ✭✭✭✭rob316


    If you hit it big and wanted to live in America it would be great. To live as a normal Joe soap, it would be one of the last places I'd pick.


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    #115
    namloc1980
    Registered Users Posts: 18,064 ✭✭✭✭namloc1980


    Great place to go on holiday or for students to go to learn but wouldn't be interested in living there unless I had more money than I knew what to do with it.


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    #116
    tom_murphy112
    Registered Users Posts: 271 ✭✭tom_murphy112


    Electric Sheep wrote: »
    Yes, most Americans do take plenty of time off. The 10 days vacation thing that Irish like to point to is generally for entry level jobs or really ****ty jobs at ****ty companies.

    I get 28 vacation days plus 2 floating holidays plus 12 regular "bank" holidays.
    Most people I know get around the same. If you stay at the same company your loyalty is rewarded with increasing vacation time. If you move jobs you negotiate vacation time as part of your package.

    My spouse, as a contractor, is paid quite enough more as a contractor to cover unpaid leave.

    I don't get this mentality, "just cause I have a nice job that treats me with respect, I do care how others are treated"

    They need employee legislation to protect against those ****ty companies - cause a vast amount of companies will fall under it. Why would most giving you any paid holidays if there isn't any legislation for it ? The only reason most does it (including mine in the US) is to attract good talent. But this could easily change with market condition. Employees needs to be protected during the good times and the bad times, or you are just going to be a pawn being exploited by big corporations !


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    #117
    Edgware
    Registered Users Posts: 5,875 ✭✭✭Edgware


    Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »
    Hollywood sells a quite an attractive picture of America, you either live in a hipster's paradise in a huge loft in New York or in a large house in a spacious, leafy suburb and your kids all go to relatively prestigious universities. We're probably looking at the top 5% of Americans that can afford that. The reality for most is a damn sight different.

    For all the bitching and whingeing we do about Ireland, we don't know how lucky we are that most of us have a reasonably comfortable standard of living, access to healthcare and third level education, no major civil or social unrest (no, we really don't), freedom of press and relative equality regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

    But but what about the homeless Joe?


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    #118
    partyguinness
    Registered Users Posts: 8,207 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    mr_fegelien wrote: »
    The interesting thing though is that Irish people claim to have a higher quality of life, but we have extremely high rates of alcoholism.

    Maybe America's glass of wine/bottle of beer is a joint but it seems that drug use is much less than it is here (though they have a prescription painkilller epidemic).

    My question is if stress is so low, why do we have such high rates of alcohol abuse.


    Recreational drug use in the US is rife. I lived in the US and the amount of drugs available was frightening and that was 20 years ago. The bars in nightclubs were pretty much empty because the majority of people were of speed, cocaine etc etc.

    I do not believe for one moment that drug use in Ireland is worse than the US. Plus it was far easier to get prescription in the US- nowhere near as regulated as it is in Ireland so there is a staggering amount of drug takers in the US that are not caught up in official figures. The same for alcoholism- in Ireland at least you can if you want go for treatment- in the US you are fcuked if you cannot pay.

    In summary, Ireland may seem like it has high drug and alcohol use but that is in large part because it is reported. In the US you are left to die on the street.


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    #119
    Fuascailteoir
    Registered Users Posts: 584 ✭✭✭Fuascailteoir


    America is a great place to go for hiking and climbing but as for living there ... no thank you. The accent in most parts hurts my sensitivities although I do love it in some regions


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    #120
    The Raging Bile Duct
    Registered Users Posts: 2,083 ✭✭✭The Raging Bile Duct


    Wealth inequality in the States versus Western Europe:

    figure-e3.png

    figure-e3b.png

    That's all the info I need to convince me to stay this side of the pond...


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    #121
    lisasimpson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,824 ✭✭✭lisasimpson


    Ireland isnt too bad compared to americsn and indeed many others when compared to employment rights. Here you have a 30 day consultation period when redunancies are announced. I remember working for previous MN employees in other offices around basicslly turned up one morning ssying job was gone couldnt even collect personal belonging from their desk. Compsny collected items and posted them out.

    Also maternity leave is partically non existent compared to here and they are crippled with university debt got years


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