re: A great article about why America blows...

There is some truth in the op-ed. Some is undeniable like vacation days.

But at the same time a very thought provoking article in the Economist essentially argued, persuasively, the exact opposite point.

Let me give you an example, I live in Europe and was watching a TV show about a couple having some health problems (there was a happy ending, and it would be too boring to get into the details of the issue at hand, my point is different)...and during the show they kept showing the family house. Large living room. Two cars (five years old, but still two cars). Kids had a lot of toys. Each kid with their own computer plus a family computer in a home office. Guess where these people worked? The guy was a mid level executive at some office supply company and the woman of the household worked part time for some county agency (The assesors office if memory serves) as a secretary. The reason I say this is that I know few people who live like that in Europe.

This takes me back to the Economist article which says that most Europeans who have not been to America (and most have not) if they were to visit NOT one of the Tourist towns like New York or Orlando (Disney) or LA but for some reason spent a week in, say, a suburb of Kansas City, they would be amazed at how good we have it.

I am paraphrasing the Economist but they said something like "The average USA Post Office employee living in a middle American town lives in a bigger house, has more choice in all of his shopping trips, drives a bigger car (possibly with On-Star in it, something Europeans cannot even imagine), has 200 TV channels to watch on a large screen, has more public parks he can visit and takes hotter showers with more water pressure and has more air conditioning than many European Cabinet Ministers, Lawyers, Doctors, etc."

So, there is that view as well.