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Is America losing its allure?

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Comments

  • #32
    partyguinness
    Registered Users Posts: 8,207 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    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?".


    What **** hole part of Ireland did you move to and are you sure it was 2009 and not 1979?


  • #33
    TheBoyConor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭TheBoyConor


    Augeo wrote: »
    Never saw the appeal of America tbh ......... it's grand if you are very wealthy but most folk aren't that. There's a sad amount of wannabe Americans in Ireland ....... greet each other and others ( :eek: ) with "dude" etc etc ... and dress themselves in crap bought over in the great USofA on some sh1tty trip of a lifetime they can't stop talking about back in '97..... clowns.

    I agree. I cannot stand those people, the ones with the Hollister clothes and talking with an accent. I hear this kinda thing and I feel like reminding them that they are from Dunmanway….not San Francisco.

    I think that the ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit - a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose fire sides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live.


  • #34
    mr_fegelien
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    partyguinness wrote: »
    What **** hole part of Ireland did you move to and are you sure it was 2009 and not 1979?

    Ranelagh, then Dundrum, then Blackrock.


  • #35
    Trekker09
    Registered Users Posts: 1,576 ✭✭✭Trekker09


    Just go to Canada!


  • #36
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    mr_fegelien wrote: »
    Ranelagh, then Dundrum, then Blackrock.

    But of course!

    The kids in those areas think they are in the Irish equivalent of the OC.
    Just without the weather.

    So America would appeal to them.


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  • #37
    Bobblehats
    Registered Users Posts: 4,707 ✭✭✭Bobblehats


    It wouldn’t be a model society to style ourselves on.


  • #38
    Rodney Bathgate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,445 ✭✭✭Rodney Bathgate


    Trekker09 wrote: »
    Just go to Canada!

    Where the PM will do his best blackface impression for you if you do a tour of his offices.


  • #39
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 2,078 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    TheBoyConor wrote: »
    I agree. I cannot stand those people, the ones with the Hollister clothes and talking with an accent. I hear this kinda thing and I feel like reminding them that they are from Dunmanway….not San Francisco.

    I think that the ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit - a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose fire sides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live.

    I know the source but it sounds like something Hitler would have written.


  • #40
    Gretas Gonna Get Ya!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,245 ✭✭✭Gretas Gonna Get Ya!


    The amount of sneering that goes on in this country these days... the way many of our citizens look down their nose at other people/nations, you'd swear we inhabited some sort of perfect utopia here in the emerald isle...

    And then whenever there is the slightest little crisis over here... 100's of 1,000's jump on planes and boats to flee the place. No loyalty to their beautiful perfect utopia... :rolleyes:

    At least you have to respect many other nations, whos people stick around and rebuild when the sh!t hits the fan... they believe in their nation even if it's not perfect. Our lot go running for the nearest exit, and then talk about how proud they are to be Irish! And everyone loves the Irish bla bla bla! (The hypocrisy makes me want to throw up tbh!) :P


  • #41
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    Deleted User wrote: »
    I know the source but it sounds like something Hitler would have written.

    More like De Valera and his dancing at the crossroads schtick.


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  • #42
    TheBoyConor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭TheBoyConor


    When you read it in the voice of Devalera's bedside manner voice, it sounds quite benign. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church seem to have taken the "romping of sturdy children" part a bit too literally.��


  • #43
    Alf Veedersane
    Registered Users Posts: 24,550 ✭✭✭✭Alf Veedersane


    Ulysses Gaze wrote: »
    More like De Valera and his dancing at the crossroads schtick.

    Don't be flippant, Michael.


  • #44
    bocaman
    Registered Users Posts: 229 ✭✭bocaman


    Certainly is. The City Upon a Hill is starting to look less attractive. Only the utterly desperate would want to live there now.


  • #45
    NIMAN
    Registered Users Posts: 32,951 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    Never been, would always liked to have taken a break there for a week but never would have had the inclination to live there.

    I know too many people who told me it was a sh1thole and rough, and that was way back.


  • #46
    Madeleine Birchfield
    Registered Users Posts: 271 ✭✭Madeleine Birchfield


    Rodney Bathgate wrote: »
    Which is why so many people from south and central america want to go there - to a third world country.

    Because compared to failed states like Venezuela and warzone countries like Mexico and Colombia, the United States looks like paradise. But that may change if the US itself falls into civil war from the recent riots.


  • #47
    tom_murphy112
    Registered Users Posts: 271 ✭✭tom_murphy112


    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.


  • #48
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,746 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    Madeleine Birchfield wrote: »
    Because compared to failed states like Venezuela and warzone countries like Mexico and Colombia, the United States looks like paradise. But that may change if the US itself falls into civil war from the recent riots.

    Also don't forget that it's a lot cheaper to travel by land from México to the U.S than fork out a plain ticket to Europe. Also a lot of Mexicans would have families there from generations back. On Venezuelans, I think the majority move to Spain as they are guaranteed Spanish citizenship after 3 years (this rule also applies for colombians and ecuadorians)and a lot also have grandparents that were from Italy, Portugal, Spain so they apply for citizenship when they come.


  • #49
    partyguinness
    Registered Users Posts: 8,207 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

    At least you have to respect many other nations, whos people stick around and rebuild when the sh!t hits the fan... they believe in their nation even if it's not perfect. Our lot go running for the nearest exit, and then talk about how proud they are to be Irish! And everyone loves the Irish bla bla bla! (The hypocrisy makes me want to throw up tbh!) :P


    I have wondered that point while living in the England (moved for personal and not economic reasons) and I came to the conclusion that say the reason the average white English guy does not emigrate is because they are very very insular and home birds. The idea of moving even 5 miles down the road fills them with horror- may as well be outer Mongolia. After 10 years here I have encountered this attitude quite a bit.

    This insular attitude is why large white areas are being left behind and voted for Brexit...they are stale and decaying and lack the vibrancy of emigrants.

    "Sure that's all the way over in Coventry"........it's a 15 mins drive.:confused:

    Even last week my wife's buddy asked would I ever move from my current workplace closer to home and how much of a drag the communte must be being so far away and all.....it is pleasant a 9 mile 15-20 minute commute in the car each morning but you would swear I was 3 hours away.


  • #50
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    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 we just thinking in a different way to most Americans.

    It's called the American Dream. You need to be asleep to believe it.

    George Carlin.


  • #51
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,356 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    It has to exist psychological its the Shangri la, or el dorado of the collective unconscious.


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  • #52
    Church on Tuesday
    Registered Users Posts: 3,858 ✭✭✭Church on Tuesday


    What allure?

    I never understood the allure of the USA tbh.


  • #53
    jimgoose
    Registered Users Posts: 20,174 ✭✭✭✭jimgoose


    There was a time when the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave could credibly claim to be just that, but that time is long past. The problem in the United States is that a relatively small cohort of business and political Poobahs have figured out that they can build and operate this entire massive wealth-churning flea-circus predicated on having millions of relatively uneducated plebs willing to do unspeakably shit jobs for worse money. The way they do that is they persuade them that this is the way "freedom" works, that this is "'Murica!!".

    In no other country in the World, they'll tell them authoritatively, and in most p'tickler not in the God-damn heathen raghead countries like The Eye-raq, do ordinary people have the freedom to work three jobs in order to pay rent, groceries and the Cawr Payment Maaan, while having effectively no access to healthcare, no unemployment insurance to speak of, a next-to-useless and, in the case of third-level trouser-soilingly expensive education system, and an excellent chance of being abused or even brutalized by police, especially for the crime of Walking Around While Black.

    It's probably not a coincidence either that most police forces over there these days are armed like Marines and appear to be trained to view and treat the ordinary private citizenry like enemy combatants.

    No, I won't be in a rush over there.


  • #54
    RobertKK
    Registered Users Posts: 33,722 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    San Francisco has the sights and the ****es to see on the street.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-pooping-in-san-francisco-than-ever-all-time-high-vgtrn


  • #55
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,728 ✭✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    tom_murphy112 wrote: »
    ....... I work for gives US folks about 10 days a year and if you are a contractor, you get no paid holidays.........

    Yeah.... True..... But any Americans I've worked with have always taken plenty time off..... Unpaid or paid I don't know but they aren't slow to chill from my experience.


  • #56
    tom_murphy112
    Registered Users Posts: 271 ✭✭tom_murphy112


    Augeo wrote: »
    Yeah.... True..... But any Americans I've worked with have always taken plenty time off..... Unpaid or paid I don't know but they aren't slow to chill from my experience.

    Oh no doubts about that, we have flexible hours and even have folks in the US team who will run errand during work hours and the manager will be fine with that. But this is all specific to the company and their choice to treat employees with some flexibility and respect. However this could easily change with new management or if it no longer an employee's market.

    But if you have nothing in law that protects employee rights, 99% of the companies won't give a rat's arse, thats my point.

    Example, just imagine being a single parent working in McDonalds with minimum pay and as a contractor.
    If you are in that person's shoe, the person won't be able to take unpaid leave cause they need money to survive and at the same time neglecting their child cause they need to work to put food on the table for the same child.


  • #57
    mitchelsontour
    Registered Users Posts: 178 ✭✭mitchelsontour


    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?"

    Living in the states, I am paying taxes then paying health care through work about 700 a month with a $6000 deductible before it really kicks in. So thats $12000+ I have to pay before my insurance actually works.

    Looking at coming home at the first decent opportunity now that we have kids. It is no place to be raising kids with the treat of gun violence in schools and all the other sh1t that is going on.


  • #58
    Rodney Bathgate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,445 ✭✭✭Rodney Bathgate


    Madeleine Birchfield wrote: »
    Because compared to failed states like Venezuela and warzone countries like Mexico and Colombia, the United States looks like paradise. But that may change if the US itself falls into civil war from the recent riots.

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


  • #59
    FFVII
    Registered Users Posts: 1,382 ✭✭✭FFVII


    https://www.propublica.org/article/this-treasury-official-is-running-the-bailout-its-been-great-for-his-family

    This Treasury Official Is Running the Bailout. It’s Been Great for His Family.


  • #60
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,356 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    tom_murphy112 wrote: »
    Oh no doubts about that, we have flexible hours and even have folks in the US team who will run errand during work hours and the manager will be fine with that. But this is all specific to the company and their choice to treat employees with some flexibility and respect. However this could easily change with new management or if it no longer an employee's market.

    But if you have nothing in law that protects employee rights, 99% of the companies won't give a rat's arse, thats my point.

    Example, just imagine being a single parent working in McDonalds with minimum pay and as a contractor.
    If you are in that person's shoe, the person won't be able to take unpaid leave cause they need money to survive and at the same time neglecting their child cause they need to work to put food on the table for the same child.

    Yet on the other hand they have an extremely PC work culture, dignity at work taken extremely seriously, a very legaley enforced rights based culture, etc so in employment they have every legaley backed right anyone can think of, but little legal right to maternity pay or paid holidays.


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  • #61
    Electric Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭Electric Sheep


    Augeo wrote: »
    Yeah.... True..... But any Americans I've worked with have always taken plenty time off..... Unpaid or paid I don't know but they aren't slow to chill from my experience.
    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.


This discussion has been closed.
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