cdemundo

Thanks for playing.

You make my point, the poorest state in the US has a poverty rate comparable to the UK. Also note the other poster's graph, US 81,695 GDP and UK 48867.. I am not bragging on the USA I am just responding to the bashing by another poster. Point is the US is a pretty good place to live.

"Feel better now? Got you a jealous little anti-American rant out? Why don't you start a topic about who's got more freedom in the West and I'm happy to participate and educate you. Just try not to cut and paste sound bites like you just did, and ignore irrelevant things like visa-free access, which have nothing to do with anything I said or even this topic." "Wow, look at that fragile ego go. 🤩 😂 " He seems to be a nasty little fellow, at least in his assumed persona on this forum. Maybe IRL he is as meek as a lamb.

"BTW if you measure your success in life by your kids, I beat you all." Doubt that.

"You might be surprised to learn that Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S., is now wealthier than Britain. Mississippi's GDP per capita last year was $47,190, slightly above the UK's approximately $45,000, though still well below the overall American average of $70,000." Written by a Brit expat living in MS by the way. https://www.leader-call.com/opinion/britain-could-learn-from-mississippi-expat-writes/article_ef886bac-36e4-11ee-968c-7f8f7f4aea66.html#:~:text=You might be surprised to,overall American average of %2470%2C000. Nitpick away. I know this will be unacceptable to the preconceptions of many.

ASSumptions based strictly on emotions are another all too common human trait

OH please.

Musk had absolutely accomplished an amazing number of things with his companies. The fact remains that he has a possible conflict of interest in when looking into Federal waste of money when his companies receive large amounts of money from the feds. "Who needs Musk when your $zillion space program has to rely on the soviets to bring your astronauts home?" No doubt you were trying to make a point with this. Is it that you don't like NASA?

"That superiority was only ever imagined" You just asserted it with your quip about the US and Culture. "don't try and claim the higher ground when it comes to comedy" Not at all, just saying that British culture isn't superior to the US, lot of low brow in the UK. You seem a bit defensive, does this feel like an attack? Nothing from me is an attack in this particular case.

I also have to admit that I often make posts that are the equivalent of teasing dumb animals. It's wrong but sometimes I can't help myself.

Is there a technical, linguistic term to describe "bragging in the form of a question"? Seems to occur a lot on this forum. In general bragging is elicited by almost any topic, even those where you would think it was not possible. If you doubt that to be true just look at a topic about breakfast for example, posters find ways to brag no matter the topic.

I think it's fairly common preference. I saw Sean Penn describe the reason why he is often lat for appointments: "I like to stay where I am." Laziness, familiarity, lack of strong incentive to relocate.

This ought to trigger a few members (pun intended).

LOL, ok UK definitely wins when it comes to pretension, condescension, affectation and snobbery. That superior UK culture that gave the world Benny Hill, Russel Brand, and Frankie Boyle, oh yes. Years ago you could have fooled me with the idea of British superiority, but since meeting a lot of Brits in my travels in Asia I can say that British yobs are a match (in a bad way) for American hicks.

As far as UK interest in the US, watch the Graham Norton show, or HIGNFY. Without American guests or American stories they would be at a loss. Obsession, probably not, but a high level of interest. Also witness the large number of Brits who are fascinated by the US presidential election and participate in discussion here. Americans generally don't take an interest in how you elect your king. (JK for the irony deficient).

I think this is a pretty reasonable assessment of the state of knowledge of a lot of Americans. Do you imagine that the average Brit understands the British government any better?

This is very true. The UK is now a cultural colony of the US.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 50/100 My Time 150 seconds  

Not clear what you are saying. The Denver municipal budget? Don't see how that has any bearing on Federal spending programs.

Social security is funded by worker payroll tax contributions to ... Social Security. Those funds are not part of the general federal budget to ba allocated elsewhere. The elephant in the room is the "defense" budget. Cue the sheeple to stand up and put their hands over their hearts and shed a tear for our fighting men. Wrong. The defense budget fattens the wallets of stockholders in General Dynamics, Lockheed, Honeywell and a thousand other defense contractors, the money isn't going to soldiers, sailors and airmen.

The terminology is the Social Security Trust Fund. That money is held in trust for the workers that paid into the trust fund. Unfortunately the person who is gonna look into waste and fraud, Elon Musk, is a beneficiary of the biggest area of waste and fraud in the Federal budget, the "defense" budget.

It seems like there is no downside for Biden in pardoning his son. What are Biden's detractors going to do, stop being nice?

I would guess it's a yawner for most of the US electorate. Even died in the wool Dem haters will forget since Biden is out of the picture anyway.

Is there a Senior Olympics event in missing the point?

The OP made the point that within large government agencies there can be responsibilities for the protection of the public that are not obvious from a superficial examination. He gives an example or the plutonium waste at Hanford that is the responsibility of the DOE. Trump and Musk have talked about eliminating entire Federal agencies and Trump has stated he will change many government positions to be filled by appointment. Trump tends to favor action over examination and so the risk exists that eliminating agencies without thorough examination could subject the public to dangers such ignoring the Hanford waste problem. Similarly making positions in government agencies patronage posts with unqualified people filling them could lead to neglect of important responsibilities in other agencies. His example is telling. Most people, if they are aware of DOE at all, think its responsibilities are limited to banning incandescent light bulbs and promoting wind and geothermal power. How many readers here were aware of the stored plutonium waste at Hanford? So there is one point. Can you respond?