I've been ignoring this article as it makes its way around cyberspace on the basis that it parrots the "x number of blank about blank" trope that's become the latest sad result of our pathetic collective attention span ... ... but I'm only one person in and I've already seen some incredible insight. So. Wrong was I. EDIT:
President doesn’t automatically become the richest person in the country.
Infantile and convenient food (and I’m not talking about the fast food). No bones, no spines, hardly ever find an entire fish, it’s mostly filets, very little diversity (little lamb, or duck, hardly ever rabbit, and for fish it’s almost always tuna, salmon, haddock and bass), seedless everything. A lot of things (not desserts) are sweetened, like honey smoked, glazed, etc. Even desserts sometimes look like 5-y.o. were left alone in the kitchen: cookie dough ice cream, oreo cheese cake…
Well . . . 1. Credit card companies had to do a lot of advertising in the beginning and they still do, though not nearly as much. Most credit cards offer incentives to use them. There were a lot of events that have led to where we are now and though it seems incomprehensible, the situation as is did not develop irrationally. Unfortunately, I am only passingly familiar with how things happened, but I do know that doing things like being able to borrow against one's property allows people to buy bigger things and allows banks to function the way they do now. Perhaps someone more directly involved with finance can better answer this one. @_refugee_ @ might know. 2. Again, this did not come about without cause. Remember, that the U.S. was not always the way it is now and from what I recall, leaving at 18 was initially because it was difficult for families to support children. The U.S. for a long time, was primarily composed of farmers who tended to have large families and 18 was seen as the age when one would start to really earn money. Later, 18 was about the age when people went to university and then jobs. Also, remember that most Americans do not maintain strong relationships with their extended families and that many people were (and still are) immigrants, so large extended families may not have existed for those people.
This is probably just me being very "American centric" but I love reading stuff like this. I like how almost everyone mentioned the portions of food and cars. I particularly liked this line: What a great image!It really is a diverse place, much more so than many foreigners really understand. A country that can produce both Snoop Dogg and Westboro Baptist Church is like no other place (seriously!).
This is an awesome piece. Reading it makes me realize how grateful I can be for what I do have and how I can more easily appreciate all of it. The Russians that were surprised by how we took hot showers all of the time hit me. Yeah, I'll enjoy tomorrow's hot shower just a bit more. Why is it a person has difficulty realizing how great things are until we can imagine life without the things that make it great?