Americans have the worst quality of life in the developed world

article link:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25166.htm

America: The Grim Truth

By Lance Freeman
April 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.

No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.

While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.

Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.

So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.

In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?

 

note: I do not agree entirely with the article I just posted. For one thing, Thailand and Singapore are more fascist than USA when it comes to "drugs". If you merely are a user or possess infinitesimal amounts of "drugs" they will hang you or put you in front of firing squad in Thailand or Singapore. So I would certainly not move to those places. Also Singapore is very harsh and uses cruel and unusual punishments to mere non violent offenders. Remember when the dude spray painted some cars. He got lashed on his bare ass.

 

Lol... I didn't read the whole thing, but the first half was pretty bullshit.

Pretty sure America is way richer than anything south of us, way safer than the middle east, and more free than anyone in comunist china (or any other communist countries for that matter.) Europe may have it better than us, but French food is discusting (as are the people)

I've been a few places, and honastly am not a big fan of America myself, but this article exagurated almost everything, listed no sorces, and straight up lied several times.

Nice post

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

it was a pleasure and a privilege. i do appreciate your thank you.

 

Its scary but I agree

 

While I'm sure there is some slant to that piece it is very telling nonetheless. Thanks for sharing.

 

interesting...post count

 

we in europe were very irritated that many US americans made connections between obamas health system and nazis.... there are some real strange people in the US.

did you know that no country spends more on the medical sector than the US... and still no general health system for everyone? its fascinating.

 

I think we have a generally pretty good standard of life though. Also calling America the least free country on Earth is melodramatic except for being piss tested and drug laws. Economically we generally for better or worse have more freedom then most European countries and our libel laws are very lax combined with a freedom of speech that the courts often take very literally even in regards to hate speech. The good deal of states also have much more power to initiate referendum then their European counterparts.

Or take higher education, you also forget school systems like Germany basically from our equal of 9th grade lock kids into what kind of career and schooling they will have for life. Going to college is basically expected in the US even for the lowest grade earners. And if you're going to talk about surveillance, guess what, European countries do the same thing the Americans do, it's just the good deal of them had laws in place to do it before 9/11. Even education and investing in it, did you know America along with health care also spends more per capita on primary education through high school then most countries too, it's not a matter of investment vs system failures.

There are many practical reasons to hate America but don't throw out the same old tired cliches of Europe being some fantasy liberal land, why don't you ask them about the ID cards they have that most European countries have had for quite a while.
Or the extreme levels of xenophobia displayed even by their center left parties, mainstream politicians in Europe say things about immigrants that even most teabaggers would hesitate to say when on camera. Look at the rise of the BNP in Britain especially in the last European election, the National Front in France a few years ago, the far right in the Netherlands, Austria and as of last weekend in elections, in Hungary, the knee jerk reaction to ban headscarves across Europe, ect. I'm all for pointing out every single terrible problem America has but don't compare us to some fantasy land that Europe isn't. Try America vs Canada instead, you might get better results.

 

Many of the problems listed by the OP can be traced back to the bad habit of getting too far in debt by buying expensive things that we don't really need. We are constantly bombarded with materialistic advertising from every direction, but we do have the freedom to say no. Americans are largely financially ignorant, and we suffer great consequences from this. Educate yourself!

 

Our own success is doing us in. The dollar's place as the world's main reserve currency along as the de facto international currency especially in the trading of major commodities means from the top down America can borrow money for extremely cheap. The effects are felt in all parts of the economy from consumers in way over their head to the why the federal government can afford to constantly keep running huge deficits.

 

well, depends on who you are... and what you can compare to. are you from a middle class environmen? maybe from an upper class environment? because for those people below that social level things are not good. and there are many such people in the US.

i would really encourage you to read the patriots act (well, reading it is not fun, but let a good lawyer explain its consequences to you). if you are still thinking this statement is wrong after doing so... uh well. ^^

again, economics are a very delicate issue, since normally people just look at statistics, which really dont tell much about the economic situation of its people. as example, statistics show that india is one of the biggest corn exporting countries in the world. however, at the same time about 20 % of its inhabitants starve. same with china - they have THE economy when looking at statistics - however, 90% of the chinese dont see any of this wealth.

the different political system in europe have a number of possible direct democratic options - however, you are comparing apples with cats, because we have many countries with different organised systems. you have to be a bit more concrete here.

since i am from there: this is simply not true.

again you have a point of fiew that makes me wonder what is your own social background. and no, in europe there is nothing even remotely close to what the US gouverment is allowed by law since 9/11.

well, you COULD ask me and i would say... "wtf are you talking about?"

i am deeply concerned about these developements too, however they are far less terrible than it may look from the outside. on the other hand, there is a HUGE facist, racist and nazist movement in the US - however, because of the US political system (especially the majority voting system ) those elements are not on public display - but they are present.

beside that, the US obviously doesnt need right wing politicians to go to war on almost regular basis somewhere in the world.

i suggest you come to europe and take a look for yourself for some time. it is not everything as perfect as some say, but generally it is WAY better than in the US.

 

I think it's helpful in understanding where we are in the U.S. to first understand how we as individuals are regarded... we are simply adjuncts to corporations- which enjoy more rights and political voice than we do. Our role is like that of a piece of machinery... to be used until it breaks then discarded.... health care is basically the corporate maintenance program that props us up long enough to serve our master while the accepted diet/food supply seems calculated to ensure we don't last much past retirement age. We are not people to our government but pack animals or livestock... a herd to be managed.

 

you dumbasses need to visit foreign countries... and only then will you realise how great it is in this country... paris is a shit hole... most of the EU is dirty ive been there.. dont get me started on the middle east or asia... or south america... they dont even have plumbing and running water in most of those countries... fucking idiots seriously piss me off. anyone that thinks our standard of living is shit, take your head out of your vagina and go to a foreign country.. and dont come back.

 

Careful with your colourful language.

All opinions are celebrated here, even if they are opposite of your own.

 

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.



At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.Source 1

More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.Source 2

The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.Source 3

According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”Source 4

Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

If current trends continue, the Millennium Development Goals target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely because of slow progress in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.Source 5

Based on enrolment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls. And these are regarded as optimisitic numbers.Source 6

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.Source 7

Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.Source 8

Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 3 million deaths in 2004. Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.Source 9

Water problems affect half of humanity:

Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.Source 10
Number of children in the world
2.2 billion
Number in poverty
1 billion (every second child)
Shelter, safe water and health
For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
Children out of education worldwide
121 million
Survival for children
Worldwide,

10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
Health of children
Worldwide,

2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)
Source 11

Rural areas account for three in every four people living on less than US$1 a day and a similar share of the world population suffering from malnutrition. However, urbanization is not synonymous with human progress. Urban slum growth is outpacing urban growth by a wide margin.

 

Heh, you've obviously not seen some of the worst of the United Kingdom.

I think somebody is moaning for the sake of moaning, each country has it's awful areas and low incomes- and each country has a controlling Government who waste tax money and spy on their citizen.

The cost of living seems cheaper in America. I have an American friend who moved from his big house with a pool to a shitty semi- detached when he got the the UK. Every country has it's pros and cons.

 

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

like I said, I'm not the biggest fan of the US. I disagree with a lot of the shit that's gong down.

But anyone who lives here and is readily willing to bitch and whine about how bad their lives are and how Europe has it better should be sent to Africa where they won't have running water, electricity, or even clean water. This is one of the things that discusts me about America, we always need more. In Ecuador (and most of south America, a few countries discluded.) kids only get free middleschool, (if that, many don't go at all) and only the very wealthy go to high school or college. Less than 20% of Ecuador is very rich, the other 80+ percent live in poverty. Like, shithole poverty. They don't get presents on Christmas. (I personaly know someone who lived in this poverty, but made his way to America. He walked most of the way. After being here for two years, he was found and sent home)

I'm not standing on street corners screaming at the public, but you guys... Seriously...

 

Africa and some parts South America aren't really developed though. Otherwise you have a good point.

It's a futile, and pretty pompous article.