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PerniciousKnid posted:I'm curious what the travel statistics for European Union citizens looks like if you don't count intra-Europe travel as international. Why would you do that though?
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Mar 26, 2011 21:49
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Orange Devil posted:Why would you do that though? I'm interested as well. It would tell you how much EU citizens take advantage of that whole no-travel restrictions thing. I'm curious if it's just a perk that's nice for businessmen, or if it's something Jonas Q. Europe takes advantage of, taking his little Europeans on a weekender to different countries. Choadmaster posted:When I worked for FedEx we got 1... but we got to choose which one! Working for a restaurant, I got to choose between Christmas Eve and Christmas. That's it. No sick time and a week of vacation a year. It's legal because competition between businesses is supposed to result in them offering better and better benefits to get the best workers to come work for them. Really. XyloJW fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Mar 26, 2011 |
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Mar 26, 2011 21:55
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Orange Devil posted:Why would you do that though?
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Mar 26, 2011 21:57
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Orange Devil posted:Why would you do that though? http://goeurope.about.com/od/europeanmaps/l/bl-country-size-comparison-map.htm One drive across America is comparable to the entirety of (non-Russian) Europe.
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Mar 26, 2011 22:35
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Phenwah fucked around with this message at 22:38 on May 5, 2023 |
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Mar 26, 2011 22:46
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Orange Devil posted:Why would you do that though?
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Mar 27, 2011 01:27
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PerniciousKnid posted:Well, it's not totally fair to say Europeans travel more than Americans, when the expense and effort of going from London to Paris is like traveling from New York to Philadelphia. Americans travel all the time, but most of it is interstate. It's an apples and oranges comparison if you consider inter-Europe travel and not inter-state in "amount of travel". Yeah that makes sense. Europeans experience more different cultures though, which was the main point behind the sentiment, I suspect. I mean, you can say one drive across the US is comparable to a drive across Europe, but it's only comparable in terms of distance.
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Mar 27, 2011 02:32
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Orange Devil posted:Yeah that makes sense. Europeans experience more different cultures though, which was the main point behind the sentiment, I suspect. I mean, you can say one drive across the US is comparable to a drive across Europe, but it's only comparable in terms of distance. It's true but for Americans to witness a different national culture they have to pay out the rear end for plane tickets, or go to Canada or Mexico. If they go to Mexico it's often tourist-y trap places that aren't really Mexican culture.
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Mar 27, 2011 06:00
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Orange Devil posted:Yeah that makes sense. Europeans experience more different cultures though, which was the main point behind the sentiment, I suspect. I mean, you can say one drive across the US is comparable to a drive across Europe, but it's only comparable in terms of distance. That's the whole point. It's not fair to say Americans are uncultured and boorish because they don't have the exposure to foreign cultures that Europeans do. The simple fact is that Europeans can experience foreign culture much more easily than Americans. It's a permanent geographic difference that cuts both ways -- 100 years ago Americans were sneering at the Europeans for being warmongers who never stopped killing each other.
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Mar 27, 2011 06:52
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If you live in New York there's absolutely no reason. I know the 1000 dollar figure gets cited a lot, but I've had friends fly round trip to berlin for 300 dollars for 5 days. There's also a ton of Europeans visiting the states yearly, it's gotten to the point where if I meet another German I'm actually shocked that they've never been to the states since I would estimate 95% of the people I've met have either lived there or visited for a few days at least. Even traveling through China, Japan, India, SE Asia, comparing the expat communities of Europeans to Americans, I would estimate 2/4 of the foreigners came from Europe, 1/4 came from somewhere else, 1/4 came from the states
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Mar 27, 2011 08:39
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http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_int_tou_num_of_dep-economy-international-tourism-number-departures interesting, even with the fact that you can fly from paris to spain for peanuts, the U.S. is still third when it comes to pure numbers (not percentages) of international departures
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Mar 27, 2011 08:47
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Guilty posted:If you live in New York there's absolutely no reason. 287 million Americans don't live in the New York metropolitan area  My wife and I live in Kansas City and were just pricing airline flights to Thailand (Chiang Mai) the other day...$1600pp round trip, and we could save whopping $300pp if we were to fly to Bangkok and take some other mode of transportation eleven hours north. On the other hand we can fly to Seattle, rent a car, and drive to Vancouver for about $425pp. Yes it's international travel but goddrat does it suck to pay for intercontinental travel from the middle of the US.
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Mar 27, 2011 17:37
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Orange Devil posted:Yeah that makes sense. Europeans experience more different cultures though, which was the main point behind the sentiment, I suspect. I mean, you can say one drive across the US is comparable to a drive across Europe, but it's only comparable in terms of distance. Likewise, if Canadians rank higher than the U.S., I would suspect that it's because the majority of the country lives near the U.S. border. Just because we regularly hop south to hit the outlet malls or spend a few days in Las Vegas or at Disneyworld doesn't mean we're a whole lot more informed about other cultures than someone in the U.S. who's never left the country. I grew up near Toronto, and I never fully appreciated at the time how relatively cheap and easy it is to fly to a variety of North/Central/South American and European destinations from there. Then I moved west, and just getting home to Ontario is a round trip of at least 13 hours and $800-$3000 dollars depending on the season, never mind using that as a launchpad to go elsewhere. And I currently live in a city with an airport; if I lived anywhere else in my region, I could be adding up to a six-hour drive each way to that.
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Mar 27, 2011 18:19
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Guilty posted:There's also a ton of Europeans visiting the states yearly, it's gotten to the point where if I meet another German I'm actually shocked that they've never been to the states since I would estimate 95% of the people I've met have either lived there or visited for a few days at least. You don't think the people you meet are self-selected in any way? I wouldn't find it surprising that an expat primarily meets countrymen who travel a lot. The European middle class is also subsidized heavily by their governments and enjoys several times more vacation time than the average American. In short, middle-class Europeans have fewer fixed costs than their American counterparts, and more time to spend that disposable income. Now this is something that Americans tend to either envy or despise, but its not something that you can blame individual people for when they make choices about what to do. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Mar 27, 2011 |
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Mar 27, 2011 19:37
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It's also the case that buying a lot of the sort of stuff the American middle class does costs more in Europe. Filling your house with 'stuff' in Europe costs more, we've definitely got an increasingly similar consumer culture but it isn't as easy for Europeans to spend their money on electronics, etc. and so relatively cheaper travel becomes a more alluring choice. I guess I'm arguing that going on holiday to Italy is more alluring when you haven't got the option of just getting boxes of DVDs and enjoying the gently caress out of your new home entertainment system (because you can't afford it and so have that disposable income left). Having the holidays to enjoy it might be a bigger reason though, especially when coupled with the greater ease and lesser cost of holidaying in another state (versus the Japanese with similar holidays but fewer options).
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Mar 27, 2011 22:27
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csammis posted:287 million Americans don't live in the New York metropolitan area Brilliant deduction. The point is, if you really wanted to travel you could as an American. I personally thought this was shown by that 2005 estimate of international departures. Out of all the total number of international departures, the U.S. still holds an extremely high percentage, even though out of the total population it's probably the lowest. Of course I probably read it wrong or forgot other factors I think the problem is that if you're willing to save up and blow, say 1k on a flat screen t.v. it seems like it'll last longer than a ticket to Thailand. Even if you look at your dvd collection, books, video game systems, or hobbies, or whatever, if anything totals up to 1k or over, you already know what your priorities are. Did you get an iPhone on contract? On a barebones contract that's 800 dollars per year. How many people have iPads? When I went back to the states this year to visit some friends, we discussed the latest video games and stuff. They keep buying video games and new systems and stuff, easily spending 1k per year in total on systems or games. They asked me why I haven't spent any money at all (since I used to love to play also) and I told them if I ever save up even 60 euros, a ticket to zagreb looks a lot more attractive than starcraft 2 (this was a really hard decision, thank god they gifted me sc2) Arglebargle III posted:You don't think the people you meet are self-selected in any way? I wouldn't find it surprising that an expat primarily meets countrymen who travel a lot. I'm actually an American Expat living in Berlin. I phrased that badly, I meant to say whenever I meet another German
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Mar 28, 2011 00:46
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Just got sent this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTwgPKB-xbE hahhahaha
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Mar 28, 2011 08:58
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pillsburysoldier posted:Just got sent this: Why don't I just tell you where my vague segue was supposed to go!
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Mar 28, 2011 13:06
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pillsburysoldier posted:Just got sent this: You could've warned me what was in that link, I was eating. Now I feel sick. Flood victims: the biggest free-loaders of all. It's amazing they can say "The RICH are taking advantage of YOU!" in every hysterical report and then turn around and defend everything the rich do. I know the unspoken "Lazy rich"/"Hardworking rich" is why, but it's seriously disturbing.
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Mar 28, 2011 13:52
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pillsburysoldier posted:Just got sent this: "Rich people should be buying private flood insurance! Except for me." "End tax subsidies to farmers! Wait, did I say that, I mean end them for fake liberal farmers, not real American Conservative farmers!"
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Mar 28, 2011 13:52
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Got another hand written letter today from a guy who said he's running for president: The English pirated Spanish shippers and stole areas for the early 13 colonies from Spain. Jackson stole Florida from Spain. Texas and the Southwest U.S. states were taken from Mexico. Now the W.A.S.P. that created the fantastic infrastructure there are going extinct due to birth controls since about 1900! In the Spanish American War we should have realized God wants a United State of Earth! Hawaii is not part of America! But we should have annexed Cuba and the Philippines! Now we should offer annexation to Mexico and build infrastructure there while their people provide the population with the mothers willing to have big families that eventually populate the Universe! We should offer annexation to Iraq and the World's areas that need policing for democracy, capitalism, and respect for God! (and people).
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Mar 28, 2011 14:47
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crime fighting hog posted:Got another hand written letter today from a guy who said he's running for president: I don't know what to say. That's a special kind of crazy there.
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Mar 28, 2011 17:45
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crime fighting hog posted:Got another hand written letter today from a guy who said he's running for president: Was he with the Zeitgeist movement? Their rhetoric tends to portray a schizophrenic, religious left-wing utopia. That said, long live internationalism!
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Mar 28, 2011 18:27
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crime fighting hog posted:Got another hand written letter today from a guy who said he's running for president: What's with the Hawaii quote? Birtherism?
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Mar 28, 2011 18:34
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Sock on a Fish posted:What's with the Hawaii quote? Birtherism? Birtherism usually is a more right wing thing. I don't think this is right wing, mostly due to the one world government this would set up. That's one of those apocalyptic things that they are forever against. Global citizen = harbinger of the end of the world, at least in their eyes.
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Mar 28, 2011 19:21
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For that guy who had the sister in trouble and her mom thought all people on welfare were freeloaders, have her try the following game: http://playspent.org/ (linked in LF a while ago, but I don't think it's made the rounds in D&D before). I made it to like day 8 before losing.
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Mar 29, 2011 01:59
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crime fighting hog posted:Now we should offer annexation to Mexico and build infrastructure there while their people provide the population with the mothers willing to have big families that eventually populate the Universe! We should offer annexation to Iraq and the World's areas that need policing for democracy, capitalism, and respect for God! (and people). Funny enough, there actually was a movement to annex all of Mexico shortly after victory in the Mexican-American war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement#All_Mexico It was stopped mostly by racism in Congress, refusing to suddenly create millions of new American citizens who were likely (gasp) brown people. Slavery politics played a role too. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Mar 29, 2011 |
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Mar 29, 2011 02:05
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pillsburysoldier posted:Just got sent this: Fox News makes a good point. We should tax rich people at a higher rate and more efficiently. Thanks, John Stossel!
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Mar 29, 2011 02:28
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I think we should write one of these. I propose something about the government no longer picking up the tab of people who die with unpaid federal student loans. They should have planned better.
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Mar 29, 2011 03:41
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Why should people be allowed to steal money off hard working businessmen by declaring themselves bankrupt? They should be sold into debt bondage until they've worked it off!
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Mar 29, 2011 03:51
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Enjoy posted:Why should people be allowed to steal money off hard working businessmen by declaring themselves bankrupt? They should be sold into debt bondage until they've worked it off! We are already passing those laws. This is easier to twist because the liberal academic elite are stealing our tax dollars to pay for an education they aren't using.
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Mar 29, 2011 04:05
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:For that guy who had the sister in trouble and her mom thought all people on welfare were freeloaders, have her try the following game: http://playspent.org/ (linked in LF a while ago, but I don't think it's made the rounds in D&D before). I made it to like day 8 before losing. I made it through the month with $5 to spare. Goddamn that's horribly depressing.
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Mar 29, 2011 04:13
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Made it with $550 dollars to spare after I lost my job with the rent due. Clicking on an internet thing saying "no" and "pass" is much easier than real life.
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Mar 29, 2011 05:33
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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Aeka 2.0 posted:Made it with $550 dollars to spare after I lost my job with the rent due. Clicking on an internet thing saying "no" and "pass" is much easier than real life. I'm reminded how in Ontario in the 90s, the welfare rates were slashed by 50% (!) by the Conservative government. In response to criticism they released a shopping list that fit within the new monthly allowance. It was essentially a month's worth of bread, rice, and pasta without any kind of condiments or sauce. Yeah, it's really easy on paper isn't it.
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Mar 29, 2011 05:39
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I got halfway through the month then asked myself why I'm running a simulation of my day to day life.
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Mar 29, 2011 06:04
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Sock on a Fish posted:What's with the Hawaii quote? Birtherism? Probably referring to the annexation of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the US. There are actually a lot of groups in Hawaii who believe that the annexation was illegal and that Hawaii should revert to being an independent country. However, these groups tend to fight with each other a lot and never really accomplish anything.
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Mar 29, 2011 08:24
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quote:Thought all you patriotic Americans would like to know something Foreigners? Why those are the people that we kill! Macy's THIS IS ARE COUNTRY. In actuality, the discount is a limited time promotion, soldiers and seniors get a 15% discount the first tuesday of every month.
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Mar 29, 2011 17:15
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All foreigners want is to kill honest, decent, hard-working Americans. And we do it by getting 11% off sweatervests at Macy's.
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Mar 29, 2011 18:22
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Do you think the author was confusing something like getting your VAT refunded at the airport?
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Mar 29, 2011 18:46
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RagnarokAngel posted:Foreigners? Why those are the people that we kill! Macy's THIS IS ARE COUNTRY. If you show macy's your jihad card, you get an additional 20% off your next purchase.
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Mar 29, 2011 19:07
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