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UK Standard of Living beats the US!!!
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| 50. |
22 Jan 2008 Tue 11:02 pm |
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Quoting teaschip1:
Well, if you think Bush is bad...Hillary is just plain evil.  |
Please, do tell what "evil" has Hillary perpetrated on the good people of the world.
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| 51. |
22 Jan 2008 Tue 11:03 pm |
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Quoting AEnigma III: Quoting teaschip1: So you could work one week, quit your job and have health insurance? Also, I'm curious what does a single employee pay on monthly basis into national insurance in UK? Is it the same for everyone or based on your salary and family size? |
Teas - you must get the word "insurance" out of your head. EVERYBODY is entitled to the same heathcare - from birth. You do not have to take ANY documents, certificates or evidence to the hospital with you and you don't have to claim anything back - there is NOTHING TO PAY.
National Insurance is a type of tax. It also covers other things like dental care and a state pension (most people have a private pension as well - you can have both).
Benefits that depend on NIC contributions
Your entitlement to the following benefits and/or the amount you can get will depend on your (or in some cases your spouse or civil partner's)
NIC contributions also cover:-
Contribution based Jobseeker's Allowance
Incapacity Benefit (if you can't work for long periods due to illness or injury)
State Pension
Widowed Parents' Allowance
Bereavement Allowance
Bereavement Payment
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/BeginnersGuideToTax/DG_4015904
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So who is paying this tax then?
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| 52. |
22 Jan 2008 Tue 11:03 pm |
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This is my biggest criticism of the US, even more than the war in irak.
Why is socialized medicine such a frightening idea? All major entities in the US are socialized and always have been. Electricity, water and sewage, airline travel, interstate highway, public schools. Many many more. There is nothing more important than health. If we can trust the government to run all these other functions, why is it so absurd that healthcare cannot alos be run effectively?
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| 53. |
22 Jan 2008 Tue 11:06 pm |
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Quoting Elisabeth: Maybe that is the big difference, AEnigma. When you are an American and people say the word entitled...it makes us cringe. Most Americans feel that you must work for what you get because everyone supposedly has the same opportunities. Americans subscribe to a Social Darwinism that doesn't exsist in most of Europe or the UK. It is a mindset that will take years to change if the American people are willing to change it. |
Exactly!
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| 54. |
22 Jan 2008 Tue 11:31 pm |
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Quoting catwoman: Quoting Elisabeth: Maybe that is the big difference, AEnigma. When you are an American and people say the word entitled...it makes us cringe. Most Americans feel that you must work for what you get because everyone supposedly has the same opportunities. Americans subscribe to a Social Darwinism that doesn't exsist in most of Europe or the UK. It is a mindset that will take years to change if the American people are willing to change it. |
Exactly! |
This is a very smug view. Are you telling me that a blue colour manual worker works any less hard than an Executive in a large multi-national company? Does he deserve a lesser quality of health service simply because he cannot afford the insurance?
Some people are born into lesser circumstances, and even if they have equal IQs and as strong a work ethic, they will never be wealthy. Your system is all about the "haves" and the "have nots" - with all the rewards going to the "haves".
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| 55. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 12:18 am |
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all of american culture, the borders, human rights and benefits are based on one horrible criteria...
"where did your sperm originate??"
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| 56. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 12:29 am |
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Quoting AEnigma III: .......Some people are born into lesser circumstances, and even if they have equal IQs and as strong a work ethic, they will never be wealthy. Your system is all about the "haves" and the "have nots" - with all the rewards going to the "haves". |
+1,001 and "haves" compounded by inherited untaxed (or hardly taxed)wealth..... 
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| 57. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 12:48 am |
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Quoting KeithL: all of american culture, the borders, human rights and benefits are based on one horrible criteria...
"where did your sperm originate??" |
That is true, but the sperm in european terms is even more important, as it's even harder to overcome the barriers of being born in a certain social class in Europe.
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| 58. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 12:51 am |
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Quoting catwoman: Quoting KeithL: all of american culture, the borders, human rights and benefits are based on one horrible criteria...
"where did your sperm originate??" |
That is true, but the sperm in european terms is even more important, as it even harder to overcome the barriers of being born in a certain social class in Europe. |
This is a very outdated view. I can only speak of the UK, but we have never been closer to having a "classless" society as we are now.
Humans will always create "classes" for themselves, but whereas in the past "upper class" in the UK was not about money, but of breeding, these days it there is little worth in having a title, and more worth in having money.
Unfortunately, fame and celebrity have filled it's place 
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| 59. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 01:14 am |
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You were saying that in the US it's most important what kind of family you're born into - whether they are rich or not. My point was that it's much easier to make a fortune in the US then it is in Europe - as it's much harder to overcome the economic obstacles of being poor in Europe then it is in the US!
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| 60. |
23 Jan 2008 Wed 01:49 am |
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Quoting catwoman: You were saying that in the US it's most important what kind of family you're born into - whether they are rich or not. My point was that it's much easier to make a fortune in the US then it is in Europe - as it's much harder to overcome the economic obstacles of being poor in Europe then it is in the US! |
Actually that is not true catwoman....if you are from a poor family, in this current days; it's very unlikely you will make a fortune now. Your nutritional needs will probably not be filled. That will lead to developmental problems. You will probably live in substandard housing, possibly being exposed to environmental hazards, such as lead, that can limit your intellectual development. You will probably also be exposed to toxics in the air, which may give you asthma.
" My first task is to find a place to live. I figure that if I can earn $7 an hour—which, from the want ads, seems doable—I can afford to spend $500 on rent or maybe, with severe economies, $600 and still have $400 or $500 left over for food and gas. In the Key West area, this pretty much confines me to flophouses and trailer homes—like the one, a pleasing fifteen-minute drive from town, that has no air-conditioning, no screens, no fans, no television, and, by way of diversion, only the challenge of evading the landlord's Doberman pinscher. The big problem with this place, though, is the rent, which at $675 a month is well beyond my reach. All right, Key West is expensive. But so is New York City, or the Bay Area, or Jackson, Wyoming, or Telluride, or Boston, or any other place where tourists and the wealthy compete for living space with the people who clean their toilets and fry their hash browns. Still, it is a shock to realize that "trailer trash" has become, for me, a demographic category to aspire to. " Nickel and Dimed
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