well we all pay for medicare actually. I paid about $900 last year in medicare tax, which every employer has to match 1:1, so thats $1800 just for medicare, not counting social security which is much more, or federal tax which is almost 10x more.

Some of us Americans know about the hidden "tax" of Federal debt and deliberate inflation. Every time the Fed lowers the interest rate, it puts more dollars into circulation and makes every dollar worth less. Every time the US borrows money to finance "off buget" activities, the dollar is devalued some more. Then there are the direct fuel taxes. The price of oil relative to the price of gold is the same as it was years ago. If I say anymore, I be banished. God forbid that anyone post anything important on this forum.

IN 2001 IT WAS STILL A DOLLAR A GALLON IN UTAH. IT IS NOW 3.25 A GALLON.

Personally I don't blame people a bit for not knowing that stuff ,it is depressing as hell.Also all the baby boomers are going to retire at pretty much the same time and take their money out of the stock market all at once. I think we should have stayed with the gold standard for money. The way it is now is based on how confident people feel in the countries economy. This is great when things go well but a little bit of infectious panic ,like the current mortgage crisis and things can collapse very very fast to the point you need wheelbarrows full of cash for a loaf of bread. When no one would deal with South Africa they went to a gold standard and even issued gold coins. Suddenly they had no problem whatsover getting people to deal with them. Having all those gold mines was quite helpful.

Canada's dollar is doing so good we have been trying to keep it down in value so our exports don't suffer. The main reason for that is we have a lot of oil. People in the know have started calling currencies supported by oil as petrodollars.

I will agree though. Americans, as a whole, are by far the most ignorant of international issues in the civilized world. That's why I think international travel is the best education you can get. It shows you that people as individuals all want basically the same thing almost everywhere. They love to laugh and want the best for their family. You see that they don't necessarily agree with the actions of their own govts, and you see how they often assume that you as a foreigner agree with the actions of your own which helps you see the flaw in yourself. You see the huge gap between govts and the thoughts and feelings of the people.

I was in Geneva on a bus when we were bombing Serbia and I asked a guy what stop was closest to the airport. He said he'd show me. We talked for a few minutes and I asked where he was from. He said Serbia. That made me feel a little uneasy. Then when he told me the right place to get off the bus I was a little embarassed at myself.

I was in Moscow and saw the US embassy on 9/14, a year and 3 days after 9/11 and it was surounded with flowers people had left there. I was speachless and just looked at it for a few minutes then I figured I had to get a pic to show everybody back home. I pulled out my camera and a soldier immediately shouldered his weapon and pointed it through my chest. STRESS! hehe He didn't speak english and seemed really agitated. I pulled out my US passport really slowly and showed it to him, and Alina talked to him for a minute and explained my side to him and then his side to me. She said they don't allow pictures because people use them to plan attacks. He let me keep my digital camera and the photo. I couldn't believe they showed so much sympathy in such a supposedly anti-american place, and at the same time I respected that they are serious about enforcement. They have much more frequent attacks(though admittedly on a smaller scale) but they are much more aggressive inside their borders about doing something about it.

I'm pretty sure this is my longest post to date but its something I feel very strongly about and I think especially the younger people on the forum can learn from. Get out and see the world before you make assumptions about how you think it is. You might even learn some things about America that you didn't know. Hats off to our allies around the globe! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Any canadians remember the exchange ratio from about 2000? I think it was 1.5 canadian to a US dollar, or 1 canadian is .67 US dollars. If I remember correctly then american goods must be awefully cheap up there now hehe It seems like the canadian dollar, Australian dollar, and swiss franc were all about the same at that time. I like a lot of stuff out of canada but my favorite is definitely Arc'Teryx.

I personally think we are looking at the problem all wrong. The real question is "Why do we drive so much?" If the answer is "to get to work" go back and REALLY think about the question some more.

My wife used to have one of these fiat cinquecento's back when we lived in the UK, I used to poke fun at it but it would run all week on a cup full of gas, it's engine was around 900cc......then we move to Canada and nobody drives a car unless it has an engine at least 4 times that size !!!!

I'm not sure exactly what you mean but I'm going to guess maybe it is because we all have cars and don't have useful public transportation? I live about a mile from work but I go 15-20 miles each way for shopping once a week and maybe 150 miles a week to go hiking, on dates, or to entertainment like shows or concerts. One day last year my battery was dead so I just walked to work and I was still only 10 minutes late. It sure is convenient.

I guess pitman got me on that one. if you use too much gas just getting to work, your car isn't efficient enough. We do have a guy that rides a scooter to work(no he's not a drunk) and somebody said he gets 90+ mpg. I think it would be great as long as you didn't have to go a really long ways and the weather was reasonable, which here it probably is 80% of the time. They tease him about his "liqourcycle" but I think its smart.

My motorbike has a bigger engine than that car.

I personally don't believe that Americans are less educated or smart than other countries. That is fairly typical euro snobbery. The US's media is a lot less intellectual but that is because it is based a heck of a lot more on the free market than other countries. In Canada we have the CBC and canadian content laws.

I hate public transport. I would much rather see more efficient cars and bikes.
ATV's and UTV's are street legal in Europe but here in North America we have the major car companies that have lobbied the government to make them illegal. There is even a very high quality electric car called the Zen that was made in BC but had to move production overseas because of no local market. This is insane with oil at 100$+ a barrel. Also a huge amount of the oil we have in Canada is in the alberta oil sands (we have them here in sask as well) but it is very expensive to produce and is one of the worst things in the world for the environment ,up there with open pit mines and giant clearcuts. Even if we wanted to stop the oilsands we could not because the US wants them to much as one of the few nonmiddleeastern sources of oil. Heck we could not even stop them from making new ones. The damage is so bad you can easily see it from space with the naked eye.

Gas Prize in Switzerland is about 1.70 US$ per liter...one year before we paid "just" 1.30US$ !!!! Amazing!

Thank god, that $ is so low in change with Swiss Franks, so I get more knives for the same price....soory
When I was in Alaska 2001, I paid 1.80 Swiss Franks for 1 US$, now it is 1:1

Grizzly