I have many friends in Europe and the U.K. They love their health care and that university is free or extremely affordable (which compared to here it still is in the UK.) and a lot of the changes in the UK now are because of who is in power - they’d like nothing better to turn the UK into something more like here.
I like taxes. Ours should be much higher.
Anybody see the video from Cracked on YouTube with a bunch of Canadians (or at least people portraying Canadians) trying to discourage Americans from moving to Canada if they don’t like upcoming election results? Pretty funny, and it also suggests it’s not that easy to emigrate, even to Canada.
Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just pack your bags and go to Canada. They have a pretty strict requirement for those who seek permanent residency. It used to be you could see if you qualify online, but I don’t think you can do that any longer.
I think the rhetoric about long wait times in countries with socialized medicine vs. the US are either dated or exaggerated in many cases. First, there can be long wait times in this country as well. About 5 years ago I was having some health issues and in trying to figure what was going on, I had to see several specialists. This was a serious issue where one of the possibilities could have been a cancer with a very speedy progression. The wait time for one of the specialists I needed to see was over 5 months. My doctor had to pull a lot of strings to get me in just to be seen in 3-4 weeks, time that would have been precious had the diagnosis been cancer. Around where I live wait times for dermatologists can be up to a year. Really, here in the US, we are paying huge costs for what is often mediocre care and this predates ACA. We aren’t where we were 20 years ago.
And neither are other countries like Denmark. Here’s an analysis of wait times across many countries with socialized medicine. Wait times have dropped substantially over the past 10 years or so in many countries and are the lowest in countries like Denmark and Sweden.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851014002267
I think a lot of what we hear are dated or misinformed sound bites.
For skilled workers, there is some eligibility information here:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-factors.asp
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who-express.asp
I think it is a good thing to be accurate. When talking about taxes, the United States is a very low tax country.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/05/05/donald-trump-uses-shaky-stats-when-talking-taxes
@doschicos the dermatologist wait here is 6 months easily. My daughter had a nasty rash and I literally had to grovel to an office manager who took pity on me to get her in. It was awful. The derm said that so many students in med school opt for the cosmetic dermatology track so there are few studying traditional dermatology. So the only derms that may come back to to Midwest are those who were originally from here or in the case of my derm the girl he married is from here.
Yup my dermatologist has huge waits for full body scans which I am supposed to get every six months. Meanwhile I never had to wait for anything when I lived in Germany. No copays back then either. Or arguing with the insurance companies. Or deductibles.
Too bad Canada doesn’t issue retirement visas. I would love to spend part of the year up there when I fully retire.
@NoVADad99 You can stay for 6 months or less per year as a visitor. Depending on your assets, you could also apply for permanent residency as well.
What if you can trace your ancestry back to Canada when it was a French Colony?
OP, thanks for posting this article. It’s chilling to see how so many Americans live so close to the edge. It really makes you think twice about your friends and neighbors and what they might be going through.
Well, considering that Denmark pops more antidepressants than almost anyone in Europe, they certainly may be really happy
Well, it looks like antidepressant consumption in the USA tops them all and we’re not winning any happiness contests.
http://www.techinsider.io/countries-largest-antidepressant-drug-users-2016-2
“Well, it looks like antidepressant consumption in the USA tops them all and we’re not winning any happiness contests.” - and one of the reasons is the thread like this one. The tippie toppie around the real reasons will not make it better. I had been there and know exactly what it takes. If you cannot afford buying cheese, then you do not buy it, period, you can call me any names for that, I had been to the very bottom and ended up paying for my kids college and Grad. school education, righteous or whatever, the truth does not lie and being PC about it has never helped anybody.
I read this thread a little late but see a recent post and thought I would add my 2 cents. We all have to gamble every day on ourselves. Everything from taking on a mortgage to having a child to choosing a spouse to deciding when to retire and of course deciding on a college or how much should I contribute financially to my child’s college tuition. Questions such as if I take this job, can I pay my mortgage for 30 years or if I pay for my child’s college, can I still retire are common for all of us. Many of us aren’t authors and don’t write books. But the article author is also a book author and gets paid differently than most of us. His gamble is that his book is going to sell more copies and therefore give him more royalties than has received. Books can take off decades after they are written. He seems to write a lot of biographies which I assume can take off also after the subject of the biography dies or does something else different (for instance an actor or business man running for president). So if one of his books, takes off, could he make a lot of money and end up out of his bad financial situation? Is that likely? I would imagine that this may be more common in this type of profession. Did he make some bad choices? YES! Some of his gambles in life were excellent. Sounds like he has great children and maybe he believes they will support him someday? His books may be excellent also. I believe he was mostly honest in the article. And I think some years he may really be middle class by definition if you look at the income from that year. I think many people have judged him through their own glasses. This may be the life of an author.
No. I do not find this astounding. I find it disturbing, but not even surprising. Welcome to the 21st century.
I do find this statistic remarkable, but it doesn’t surprise me. Everywhere I look, there is some payday, title, pawnshop, short-term loan outfit opening up. A large group of the country is struggling and they are digging themselves into a bigger hole all the time. I know no one is twisting anyone’s arms to do these things, but it is the poorest people in the country getting the worst loan rates, renting apartments/furniture instead of purchasing… And since this is a college chat site, how do family’s with no savings send a child to college? I think these kids are probably the most susceptible for building up huge college debts and maybe not getting a good major/job that will help pay off their loans. It just feels like a terrible circle of poverty.
Does borrowing money include putting it on a credit card? We put everything on a card and then pay it off every month. If borrowing includes this, the story seems bogus.
Post #1 pretty much sums it up perfectly. I am far more sympathetic about this than I used to be. I know far too many people, on my wife’s side of the family, who are as honest as the day is long, the opposite of lazy, yet simply can’t get ahead in life. On the other hand, I know people who operate under the live fast and die young routine and don’t bother to save or invest. I count my blessings every day. It is incomprehensible for me to imagine living that close to poverty. Like the OP said, $400 isn’t much money.