Dan Goodman wrote:
> George Shirley wrote:
>
>> Pete C. wrote:
>>> Cindi - HappyMamatoThree wrote:
>>>> "Goomba38" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> PeterLucas wrote:
>>>>>> "kilikini" > wrote in
>>>>>> :
>>>>>>> My hubby makes about $14K a year and supports the both of
>>>>>>> us as best he can. It can be done!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Excuse the French but.......... ***** me*!!!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Even with the exchange rate (it comes out to AUD$15,140.00)
>>>>>> that is pathetic for the "supposed" #1 country in the world!!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Our 23yo daughter is working for the State electricity Board.
>>>>>> Just doing office work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> She earns AUD$52,000.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My advice.......... give the 'greatest country in the world'
>>>>>> the flick and come to the "Lucky Country".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (Although they pay their ex-soldiers jack-shit........ it's
>>>>>> just on 4 times what TFM is making)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No wonder so many people in the US turn to crime.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I think you're getting a distorted or inaccurate impression of
>>>>> the US society on the whole based on this family's unusual
>>>>> situation?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I would have to agree. Each situation is so different in the US.
>>>> The cost of living can differ from county to county, state to
>>>> state, region to region. What we make in Northern California
>>>> would be a fortune in Mississippi where we moved from. A cookie
>>>> cutter house on a zero lot is still about the same price as a
>>>> larger house on several acres in the area we transferred here
>>>> from. It's so hard to make a judgement on a single person's
>>>> experience. Though I have to agree, there is a huge gap in pay
>>>> from job to job here in the U.S. Some fields pay an exorbitant
>>>> amount for the job done, while those who are toiling every day in
>>>> physical jobs make pennies.
>>>>
>>>> We learn to live with what we have though. Even if we do need a
>>>> little help from outside sometimes. Being a single mom with a
>>>> deadbeat ex was vary hard because I had to either work a job that
>>>> my schedule met that of my children, or pay for childcare which
>>>> saps a paycheck. Just saying, every situation is so different,
>>>> it's like comparing apples and turnips.
>>> Exactly. This is the problem when folks outside the US,
>>> particularly those in Europe look at any sort of blanket statistics
>>> for the US. They really don't grasp how large and diverse the US is
>>> and how any given statistic presents a very distorted appearance
>>> when you try to apply it to the whole US. Some of their countries
>>> would fit into our larger states. If they were to compare the US
>>> statistics to the same statistic applied to the whole of Europe,
>>> including their problem areas, they would get a better comparison.
>>> It just isn't really possible to get the true picture of the US by
>>> looking at a statistic for the whole US. Looking state by state
>>> gives a more accurate picture. Even then, for the larger US states
>>> you have to go by city since a large state may have one really bad
>>> city that distorts the statistics, while the rest of the state is
>>> great.
>>>
>>> Things like murder stats get really distorted since the stats may
>>> make a state look dangerous when the reality is a 4 block area in
>>> one city in that state accounts for most of the murders and the
>>> rest of the state has virtually none.
>>>
>>> Recently one person from France was in Dallas, TX visiting and
>>> wanted to visit Carlsbad Caverns just over the border into New
>>> Mexico... until he was told that it was a 10 hour drive (and that's
>>> on 70-80 Mph highways).
>> LOL! Reminds me of the New Yorker who stopped at a service station I
>> worked at in Orange, Texas. After I filled up his car he asked if he
>> could get to El Paso by lunch. You should have seen his jaw drop when
>> I told him it was 830 miles to El Paso and he had better pack a
>> lunch. This was in pre-interstate highway days and the route was old
>> US Highway 90.
>>
>> It's not just people from outside the US, lots of folks in the
>> eastern states have no idea how large some western states are.
>
> When the second Woodstock festival took place, one member of a
> newsgroup devoted to Upstate New York was a toll collector in the
> extreme northwest corner of New York State. (Any farther north is in
> Lake Erie; any farther west, Pennsylvania.) She kept being asked by
> drivers of cars with Ohio license plates if they could get to Woodstock
> in an hour.
>
> In a flying car, maybe.
>
> That newsgroup also had people dropping in to ask how to get tickets to
> the David Letterman Show. (Why always that particular show? No idea.)
> I can understand someone from, say, Michigan not being aware that
> there's more to NYState than NYCity. But from Quebec?
>
Most southerners think NYC is New York. I was that way when I was a kid,
only because that's where the Yankee's and the Dodgers played. Was in
the service with a guy from just a little south of Albany and went home
with him on a long weekend. Geez Louise, busted my bubble, it was a very
rural area in 1959 and we actually went deer hunting.