Emigration From England?

60% of Americans are clinically obese. Ergo far to fat to get up and go anywhere except to the nearest junk food outlet where they stuff their fat faces while one third of the planet starves to death.

They produce 80% of the worlds porno. One third of the world's pollution. They have the highest levels of illiteracy in the first world. Despite their bragging about having the best hospitals they have a high infant mortality rate. Many babies are born addicted to crack cocaine. They have the highest levels of prostitution, gun crime, murder, rape and sex offences against children in the first world. Inded as far as the rest of the world is concerned they are second only to South Africa in these respects. 1 in 36 Americans is behind bars in prison.

In many schools children are searched for knives guns and drugs by security teams. They have high rates of teenage prgnancies and under age sex. Many inner city areas are no go areas. Alcoholism, drug addiction and drug related psychosis are the highest in the world with the exception of Russia.

They have the most ignorant elecorate of any first world country and increasingly the country is becoming not only more right wing but more christian fundamentalist too.

They have wonderful art museums full of the world's greatest art but little of it painted by Americans. Their most famous artists are little more than gimmick monkeys. They have some great opera houses and concert halls but little of the music is composed by Americans. Hollywood is a cultural desert. American tv is largely so moronic as to be unwatchable. Stuff your McDonalds, stuff your KFC, stuff your canned laughter and Terminators. You have nothing to offer the civilised world but Will & Grace and George fuckwit Bush.

The only thing they do well is propaganda. Their armed forces for example. Whereas there is a quality to quanity, pound for pound, kilo for kilo they are mediocre at best. They are poorly trained, badly led, gung-ho, trigger happy and ill-disciplined. Many US soldiers and marines genuinely believe they are there as pay back for 9/11. They have the best kit but the human element is as I say mediocre. The British Army in Iraq has to work doubly hard to compensate for all the carnage and damage caused by the Americans.

They have a corrupt electoral system and a moron for a president. Would I go and live there? Not bloody likely. I've been there. Had a nice enough time and made some good friends. There is good and bad wherever one goes in the world but I would not want to live there unless I could afford to be financially indpendent in a nice corner of New Hampshire but never because I thought it a better place than the UK. As for the UK - it is so dumbed down and irredeemably chav/yob that it is not a fit place for the old or for bringing up children.

A good friend of mine has to earn £60,000 per year before tax just to send his three children to a second rate public school where the pupils all talk like chavs (but with plums in their mouths), have nervous breakdowns, take drugs and shag each others brains out, but it is, at least better than a state school where they dish out GCSEs just for turning up.

If I had the money I would buy an island in the Philippines ($500K) build a hut on the beach and post a big sign pointing out to sea saying 'FUCK OFF' and shoot anyone coming near.

Erik,

Correction £60,000 after tax to send his children to school.

It must be a real cheapskate public school if he can afford 3 there on that salary!

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
It must be a real cheapskate public school if he can afford 3 there on that salary!

Depends if it's boarding or day. Winchester College is £23,000 a year for boarders, as a guideline figure.

quote:

If I had the money I would buy an island in the Philippines ($500K) build a hut on the beach and post a big sign pointing out to sea saying 'FUCK OFF' and shoot anyone coming near.

Naim dealers in the Philippines beware!

Winchester College charge over £22000 a year for day pupils!
Manchester Grammar School charges £7200 a year for day pupils.

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
Winchester College charge over £22000 a year for day pupils!

Ah, right. I must have misunderstood my informant. (She has two daughters so won't be sending her children there!)

Vassil's comments describe the world over, live below your means and have freedom, live above or beyond your means and you are a slave to some "tyrant" or equivalent.

Re Eric's comment about made in the US art or made by US art. Do not agree, I suggest you take a look at the population size of the various countries at the time the works of art were created and at the state of maturity that the various societies had at the time. Then take a trip to New Mexico and look at the work of the art produced in the South West.

Dear Derek,

Whilst I totally agree with what you say, where does that leave an economy (such as the UK for example) where it is not possible to pay the rent, council tax, and water rates (all fixed) on the most modest dwelling on an unskilled wage, and have either prospect of saving a small amount to gain the freedoms mentioned? There is no fat left to cut, and so in the circumstances the impoverished individual is not able to make the choice in connection with becoming a groveling slave to the system.

Such inequality is growing both here and in the US, but though common in developed and undeveloped economies, it is not Universal. There are countries where things are much better if no case where things are perfect, perhaps...

Fredrik

Anyone who is intent on knocking American art would also have done well to go the wonderful exhibition of Hopper's work at Tate Modern a few years back.

regards, Tam

While working for a while in a small city just outside of Dallas, TX I encountered a lot Cowboy Art. Now before you laugh their was nothing in the least cowboy about this depiction of this period of Western history although some of the more modern boot and belt art may look a bit tacky it does grow on you after a while. The USA is big and the art created by those in Alaska looks nothing like that produced in the South West yet it is still American art. I think that you can pick and mix what you like and hate about any country and that applies to the US just as much as it does to the UK.

JoeH
You're were correct. It is 22K for day pupils and 23K for boarders at Winchester.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
I have never been interested in relativity in this sense, but have you tried leaving your car unattended and with ignition key it it on a high street these days. This was possible and normal thirty years ago. The moral breakdown is clear to me.

Fredrik

You obviously didn't live in Liverpool or Manchester 30 years ago.....


Stephen

Dear Stephen,

No I obviously did not, but your point does nothing to detract from mine. That we are levelling down to the lowest common plain, does seem to indicate my very point actually. Things are getting worse in UK...

There are places that significantly better. One such I hope to go and live in. I shall not restate all my previous words as to why!

Fredrik

The reasons for choosing the USA are pretty straightforward really:
House in Brighton £227,500
House in Middleton, New Hampshire USA (on the lake) equiv £207,000
That would put me installed with no mortgage and enough money in the bank never to have to worry about working again. I'd even have enough over to buy houses for my children out there too.
Can anyone please explain where the other arguments figure in this comparison?

Blimey, wood framed

That's what the rest of the world do. We're so far behind here but we're catching up slowly, now the building regulations are tightening up on sustainable development.

I don't care - I want bricks!

Tell you what Fisbey - Have this for £148,00 (that's a one bedroom flat where I live) and I'll come over and build a brick wall for you. I can just see us sitting on that porch with some cold beers.

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
The reasons for choosing the USA are pretty straightforward really:
House in Brighton £227,500
House in Middleton, New Hampshire USA (on the lake) equiv £207,000
That would put me installed with no mortgage and enough money in the bank never to have to worry about working again. I'd even have enough over to buy houses for my children out there too.
Can anyone please explain where the other arguments figure in this comparison?

Rasher,

why not give Dublin a try



SJB

Nice thought Rasher

Half an acre - blimey - make a nice garden....

Last time I was in Ireland Sloop, I was amazed at the cost of things. Everything seemed to so hideously expensive. Maybe things have changed?

I hope the wood framed houses aren't built like Barratts allegedly were, as famously exposed by Granada TV in the 80s.

With modern construction processes buildings can be built to meet Prescott's dream of having construction costs less that 60K but once you factor in the builders profit, the cost of land then a sale cost 60k is alas still a dream. When it comes to zero impact building and running of homes then a local development constructed by BedZed is in my view one of the good guys.

From to TFA

quote:

Research carried out by BioRegional suggests that BedZed residents emit 40% less carbon than the average UK household, with the largest savings coming from CHP (16%) and the car club (11%). The architecture itself accounted for only 3% of carbon savings, it says.

It still looks like curbing the car and CHP will deliver big savings that together dwarf the savings made during construction, both of which can be applied to old and new housing.

I have a feeling that the price of land and the sometimes restrictive planning laws are holding back creation of affordable housing for all and that some changes to the laws in this area are needed.

The whole energy debate in the UK has been nudged towards nuclear by planning bureaucracy, as nuclear power stations are established and wind farms alien to traditionalists. What hope could we possibly have for ecological and affordable housing!! Thee Olde English way is only to look backwards. Hard to believe that we were once the pioneers of the world.