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Old 12-06-2010, 08:36 AM
strelnik strelnik is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SE Mich
Posts: 3,285
Quote:
Originally Posted by chilcutt View Post
What do you think? www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2010/November27.html
I thought he brought up some valid points, as well as some points that may make some of you feel very uncomfortable.
Let's take a look at his so-called wonderful countries. I have lived in all but Finland:

Italy taxes everything to 20% and has excise taxes to 60%. You cannot own a home in Italy, only the wealthy do and you can't even own your apartment. Jobs are extremely difficult to get unless you want to be a waiter or a clerk. Professional degrees except medicine and a couple from special universities are considered one cut above South Dakota High. Yes you have free health care, it is abysmal. You get better health care by bribing people. The society is on where you can br, to get out of accidents. so if you report the accident, you end up paying, because the other guy bribed more. It's like Romainia in that regard.

France has excellent health care if you stay there after 90 days. The country requires you to learn enough French to communicate with the police within 5 years or you can be deported. The legal system is: guilty as accused unless proven innocent. You can eke out a living unless you are willing to spend maybe 6 years at university, which is good and also cheap. I went there, I know. Foreigners who don't have a lot of ney or an excellent command of the language get relegated to second-class. The unemployment rate has been 10-11% for six years and the sales tax is 20%, very few imports, and very few DIY. Life is good there if you speak French well, have a profession, and create a network to get around.

Germany is very similar to France in many respects except you can supplement the health care with your own paid stuff. Unemployment is 9%, the cities are very crowded outside the ghettos. Taxes and fines are high, speeding is severely enforced, sales tak is now 18%, unemployment is 9% and the chances of getting swine flu are about 75 times greater there than here, because the immigrant population is not as sanitation conscious as the Germans but they have all the sanitation jobs! There are currently 175,000 serious cases of swine flu in Germany, like the kind that can cause death. Most are in the immigrant neighborhoods in the southern cities. So you have to wonder about the guy who handed you that doner kebap you bought.

I am disappointed in the UK. Nothing runs on time, everything is very costly especially in London, there's almost no manufacturing and the socialist meality of let's all share YOUR wealth is prevalent there. plus they are raising the VAT to 20% as of Jan 1.

Japan is a very orderly country that has a lot of subsistance food. If you want to live on the food in soba bars, you cam but it's not exactly a healthy diet. Taxes are he same as Europe, housing is very crowded, health care is built on, but different from the American system, jobs are impossible for an American to get unless you are a really hot blonde who speaks Japanese or a doctor. Unemployment unknown, because they don't like anyone to know the precise figures, estimated about 7
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