these threads fascinate me. People cry about how corrupt and how bloddy awful America is, but nobody ever lives someplace else? How many US expats do you know who have renounced their citizenship? Why is it that EVERYONE wants to come to the US?

Folks, living off the grid is very simple: Take a lesson from the Amish.
However, you can't have a new BMW GS and a Flat-scrreen to watch the game. No designer . No Sidi boots...yada, yada.

I'm obviously an American, and I love it here. This place has been good to me.

Then I want your road bike in addition to my MTB!!!!
It's being said before, there is just one cake to share and we've been just lucky to be born in these countries and have the AT. It doesn't mean that you don't care about the guys not so fortunate that ride bicycles or just walk.

But the guy with the Bentley seems to want to seize over all the ATs and bicycles so that he may have a whole collection of Bentleys and in addition make us all pay a toll on our way walking to his mine... if he could.

Who blamed "America" (not the USA, nor the whole continent, pls)? Whether I missed that part or misunderstood the suceptibility... Only saw "West" as a whole package (USA, EU, etc), not as California, Oregon and Washington.

Of course he wants to, it's human nature. These guys have always been there and done that and become tribal chiefs, Kings, CEO's of banks, whatever. I've worked for plenty. It starts when they decide a 16 hour day is fine until they get to University and then until they get a job and then until their company is up and running and then until the recession is over and then until the house is finished and the boat built and then until.....Oh dear heart attack at 61. They waste resources along the way for sure. This urge to have a car with a TV in the back (they watch work stuff) and the urge to ruin a good walk by hitting a little white ball while talking work on their mobiles is indeed pointless but its what convinces them that not having a life is worth it. The mess though is only half the story, they deal with their fellow overpaid idiots by having meetings at four in the morning rather than telling the customer where to shove his project. It would be nice if we all played nicely and didn't need these fools but it ain't going to happen.

I was fortunate enough to travel in Eastern Europe before the Berlin wall came down. The fools working 70 hour weeks to advance a grade in the party or in the cardiac ward were just the same as our Vice-deputy-under-sub-president of pumping systems trying to become a Deputy-Vice-Sub-President for Fluid Transfer, they simply got there using a different set of code words. By having a reward system for them based on power as well as big cars and houses the majority trying to strike the right balance just got less. (Engineers the world over BTW are just the same, we want to do the job then go home and you better let us or you'll find yourself ankle deep in Glow-in-the-dark water regardless of what car you drive and the paperwork will show you signed it off ).

Andy

Agree with estebangc's comment. Where does the "America(n)" comment come from? One person in post number 10 mentions it by saying they are travelling from Europe to there (maybe doing a m/c trip?), otherwise no mention. Definitely an odd comment.

My opinion on the topic: The people get the government they deserve. Being British I'm proud to say I didn't vote Thatcher (start of the Greed is Good Britain era) in 79 pp (too young) and not Blair (son of Thatcher) in 97 pp. So I can sleep with a clear conscience.

What have I done to stop the rot? Nothing. So I should really stop complaining about the situation. Hang on, I did once boycott an event where the (now disgraced) CEO of HBOS bank was the guest speaker. Probably too little too late.

cheers
C

__________________

TBS.com

Chris, it was never my intent to piss anyone off. I get easily fired up when politics gets whipped out. There is another thread tittled "the world according to America" or some such that is so far left I couldn't read it with my right eye open.

It seems to me that a solution should be presented, not just a problem

IMO, nobody is p!ssed off by anyone else on his forum.

A solution to the problem: Repatriate all the w(b)ankers' money, line them and their crooked politician friends (after first stealing all their stolen money back from them) on the edge of a cliff and... (Fill in your own ending).

With ref to the World according to... map thread: If you were able to have both eyes open when you read the words written, you'd see clearly what was meant by the thread.

Off to ride a bike.

__________________

TBS.com

Couldn't agree more, I have always said governments are just a reflect of the population, we get what we deserve (quite often for any regime, not only democracies). However... I start to change that view, since those powerful guys seem to be narrowing my options more and more. It's like: what do you prefer for lunch, shit or excrements? That's all? Yeah, that's all (two adequate candidates chosen by others). Add manipulating the public opinion so I think I am actually deciding (a shit): is it still valid "the candidate supported by The Sun wins the elections" after the News of the World Scandal? Is there really a decision left to us?

Very interesting your visit to the Eastern block before the fall. I would have loved to see it by myself... (I was 13 when the wall).

Anyway, I may be undeniably stupid in many fields, but I hope I didn't not come from planet Utopia in a space shuttle. Of course there are ambitious and greedy people (did I say that I wanted your bicycle?), as there are serial killers, nobody tried to deny that. The point I clumsily tried to raise was:

is the system being redesigned so that those bastards take (de facto) over all in here? Is it just because of that that the richer get muuuuch richer, the middle class dissappears in many countries (and gets progressively reduced in ours) and the poorers get much poorer and miserable?

Since there is no more counterbalance (call it Communists), is the capitalist race going just way too far and we live a fake democracy too much controlled by those guys? I can't see any leader who deserves that title, they all look to me more and more like a marionette. I see people loosing jobs and more "dancing with the stars" on TV to keep us busy. Was it called alienation?

If I am in a dictatorship and they rob all the richness and there is censorship, well, that's it, a dictatorship. But if I am (supposedly) in the most advanced democracies, WTF a democracy is that????

Well, if you really want to know who runs the world, a group of Swiss researchers have worked it out -

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world - physics-math - 19 October 2011 - New Scientist

The link will probably only work for a few days so if you're into this sort of stuff you probably need to get over there quickly.

My (very jaded) view of all politicians: Same shit, different arse. I distrust the moral fibre of all politicians.

I read somewhere that "Politics is like Hollywood for ugly people". (No anti-American sentiment intended. Please substitute other movie making areas of the world if this reference offends ). This is certainly true for the late Robin Cook or the slightly less late John Prescott, who even managed to find women to have affairs with.

It's lunchtiime and I'm here at a McD francise using their free wifi. I feel the need to go buy a Big Mac to eat, or I could just throw it straight down the bog, without letting it pass through my body first.

__________________

TBS.com