Yes, the handwriting is on the wall, get out now! The sun will soon set on the American empire, King George will topple us. Seriously, man, you do realise, as much as the current admin may displease you, how fortunate you are compared to the rest of the world, right? And what’s all this hubub about the US being the “greatest country in the world,” IRL and on this board I hear way more whining from overprivileged putzes about how much it sucks. Don’t misunderstand me, whine away, its just the whole, “it sucks so much here, they have such and such in Europe, I’m leaving” thing is tired. Listen to some of the people in this thread who actually live in those countries, they are not utopias.
But neither is the US a utopia. Where you think is the best place to live depends on your priorities, and your experience.
When I hear “the US is the greatest country on earth”, I ask the person who said it where in the world they have travelled, and how their experience outside the US leads them to the conclusion that the US is the greatest country on earth. In my experience, about 90% of the people who say this have never been outside the US (or if they have, it’s been Tijuana or Windsor), so they have no basis for comparison. A pretty large chunk haven’t even ventured much beyond state lines (if I had a nickle for every native Clevelander who has only been to Pennsylvania and Indiana…). Of the remaining 10%, about half have thought through their reasons and have a reasonable argument, especially if you qualify the statement with “for me”, i.e. “for me, the US is the greatest country on earth”.
What I’m saying is that, just because you were born in the US doesn’t mean that the US is the best place for you. And for me, just because I was born in Canada doesn’t mean it was the best for me (although it wasn’t horrible). There are some cases where the choices of which places are better are much more clear (for instance, I have known a lot of refugees from war-torn countries).
I would suspect that the US, of all the 1st world countries, has the lowest emigration rate. And I’d put money on that not changing in the near future. The only caveat being that I would not count older retirees who head to 3rd world or developing countries to stretch their retirment money better. I’m talking about people still in the job market who are seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
I’ve tried to find data about this in the past, but have never been succesful. Does anyone have a cite that can give some numbers?
As for US emigration to NZ, I’ll just rephrase an old joke: I think it would be great as it would increase the avg IQ of both countries. Just kidding. I had one of my best vacations ever in NZ a few years back. I think I could retire very contentedly in the Bay of Islands area. 
I’m very tempted to use this as my Sig.
I think you might be a little confused. It is my understanding that because of it’s Defense Department connections, Haliburton employs a lot of ex-military types as civilian contractors and whatnot overseas. Not as some kind of private mercenary army out of On Deadly Ground as you seem to imply. Then again, I don’t know much about them.
Forget the stupid economic indicators. I want to live in the country that measures up to the metrics that are important to me:
-Woman to Men Ratio
-Hot to Ugly Women Ratio
-Cost of Pimp-style Living Indicator
-Length and amount of unemployment benefits
-Number of drinking holidays per year
-Absolute and % coastline as beach/resort
-Number of distinctive beers and alchoholic beverages
-Rich American Worship Index
“But neither is the US a utopia. Where you think is the best place to live depends on your priorities, and your experience.”
I never said it was. I agree with the second sentence. However, most of the population of any country don’t have the luxury to travel around first and see where they would like to set up camp. This dosen’t necessarily make them mindless flagwavers. I was merely stating the OP was fortunate enough to be born somewhere that daily subsistence dosen’t impair his ponderings on how much better life would be in another 1st world nation. The differences would not be terribly exagerated, thats the point. In time he would come to like/dislike things about his adopted home. So, sure maybe, knock yourself out if you have the means.As to the second part of your post 5cents , maybe its just me, but I don’t often get a lot of Americans gushing about how much they love it here. I have run into quite a few foreigners who want to tell me how much better their home country is however, and how stupid I am for my (assumed) unquestioning love for the States. I personally really could care less, but they like to let me know anyway.
My vote: Czech Republic
The only thing missing is coastline (they have none). They have the best beer in the world, and it is cheap! The women are hot, and if you only boss them around they’ll think you’re a sweet, sensitive guy. Here’s how they do the weather in Prague http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/28/clips/3.html.
I’ve heard both types quite a bit (Americans gloating about the US, and foreigners in the US gloating about their country). I guess it depends on where you live and who you meet. Both sentiments often seem to be based on ignorance or at best minimal knowledge (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing…).
I can’t really answer your questions, only give my opinions as a brit.
My impression of the US is its a great place to live if you have money, but dreadful if you are poor. The lack of public health care and the higher crime rate are both problems well-off Americans can avoid with private medical insurance and by choosing carefully where to live. The poor can’t so easily.
On the other hand, many of the OP’s original criticisms could easily be levelled at the UK. I’d be suprised if teenage pregnancy is much higher in the US than the UK, which has the highest rate in Europe. Public transport is dreadful over here, and the roads are a nightmare for a lot of commuters. Violent crime isn’t as common here, in particular the murder rate is a lot lower, but I think some crimes such as burglary are are more common.
I couldn’t find any decent stats with a quick search, does anyone have a link to back this up? I’m repeating things I’ve heard in newspapers at various times.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the U.N.'s Human Development Report, which arrogantly seeks to list the ‘best countries to live in’. They say their rankings are based on life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, educational attainment, and adjusted real income.
Country rank:
- Norway
- Iceland
- Sweden
- Australia
- Netherlands
- Belgium
- United States
- Canada
- Japan
10.Switzerland - Denmark
- Ireland
- United Kingdom
- Finland
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- France
- Germany
- Spain
- New Zealand
- Italy
- Israel
- Portugal
- Greece
- Cyprus
Source: Human Development Report, 2003, United Nations
Now, I’d add a whole bunch more factors, such as personal freedom (owning guns, freedom from regulation and snotty bureaucrats, low taxes, lots of places to live, access to resources, etc). Those factors heavily favor the U.S., and to a lesser extent Canada and Australia. I’d add in one more factor as well, which is, NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE IN FREAKING ICELAND OR NORWAY.
So, given the Sam Stone adjustment to the U.N. ranking, it seems to me that the top of the heap for countries to live in are the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
But, but SAM?!?! What about Belgum???
Personally I wouldn’t mind Iceland. Been there. Problem would be moving there. They are REALLY restrictive (least the were when I was there). On the up side there are a LOT of VERY shapely blonde women of (by our standards) rather loose virtue…again, least there were when I was there. 
-XT
I will agree that the shapely blonde women of loose virtue factor puts Iceland back into contention.
Mind you, if we’re going to grade these countries on a hot-babe curve, Canada and Australia leap past the U.S.
Clearly you’ve never been to Australia. While there may be a fair share of hot babes there, most of them are Swedes on holiday.
Personally, I know lots of people contemplating emigrating from the US because of it’s reactionary politics. Why, I was just chatting the other day with my pal Alec…
Myself, the ‘hot babe’ index is at the top of my own list when chosing a country to live in. I have to admit that, for whatever the reason blonde hair and pale skin is high on my list too…and Iceland was a VERY nice place to work for a year.
Of course, I’m married now (lol, to a woman with blonde hair and pale skin…wonder how THAT happened ;)) so I am no longer tempted by such things. As she was an American I suppose I’m stuck here after all…
-XT
I won’t comment on “healthy population” because I don’t know the figures but what I see in daily life lets me doubt that statement.
As about “per capita income”, well, one rich guy can easily “out-average” lots of poor people. So the per capita income doesn’t tell us really about the wealth of the average people, if the wealth is not equally distributed, which is the case in the US.
Btw, there is a study which takes into account the average height of the people of a nation, since there is a correlation between the wealth of a nation and the height of its people. Advantage: A rich guy cannot “out-grow” several poor ones, as he does in the income statistics. Guess who are the tallest? The Dutch. Guess who is shrinking? The US population
Don’t generalize. I’ve been in Norway and I would prefer living in Norway to living in the US any day. It is “FREAKING” beautiful there, and the people are “FREAKING” nice.
I’m lucky enough to have visited all three places (the US, Iceland & Norway) and I can say that I’d far rather live in Iceland or Norway than the US. YMMV.
For the humor impaired, I was FREAKING joking, which I thought was FREAKING obvious from the tone of the rest of the FREAKING message.
Yes, your humor was obvious, but I’d like to see the net immigration/emigration between the US and those countries. I’d suspect the US would be the winner. Is there anyone who thinks ontherwise???
I agree. Lived there for two years; if it were a little less far north it’d be heaven on Earth.
I know there was an issue a few years ago about some ultra rich in the US giving up their citizenship and moving to various tax free islands around the world, until the gov took steps to stop such evil dastardly crimes by making it harder to give up ones citizenship. Unless some arent aware, the U.S is the only country in the world to tax its overseas citizens, the exeptions being some countries we have tax treaties with and also certain occupations. Partly because of this, it is increasingly difficult to give up your U.S citizenship, and using economic opportunity would be the worst reason you could use to try do do it.
But this whole question is one Ive thought about quite a bit. My in-laws are Swedes, Ive been there a few times; theres a lot of pressure for us to move there, but as much as I love many things about Sweden, it just aint gonna happen. I could live there for a year or two, but only if I was rich and didnt have to worry about making a living.
Im a self-taught programmer, and in Sweden, much like parts of the US (especially back east), in general what you know and how good you are is far less important than how you got to know it. Its not the kind of place you can just expect to get a job and get paid based on your initiative, ability, and willingness to work (opportunity being ~my~ standard for how good a place is to live), though it does appear to be changing for the better.
Also, new immigrints are barred from working for the first year they live in the country, so unless I could support myself for a full year thats one hell of a disincentive. Theres no way in hell Id take the dole. Added to all that is that both my wife and myself would be making roughly half what we make here, as salaries are in general far lower there for the same type of work (as compared to Cal anyway), even if I could get a job programming.
Less important, more superficial but still factors: booze is way too expensive; moonshine is all over the place, but gimme scotch any day. Good pot is non-existant or expensive as hell, plus no one smokes it except heroin addicts, or what look like heroin addicts.
On the other hand, Sweden has some excellent rivers that I would love to kayak; hunting and camping in Norrbotten is like it used to be in Oregon when I was kid; the people are funny as hell, and when you make friends with a Swede, its real and for life, not some temporary conveniance based on superficial BS like it so often is here in the bay area.
To be fair, the reasons I wouldnt move to Sweden if I had to make a living are the same as the reasons I wouldnt move to many US states; there is just far less opportunity than there is where I live now. Its the same with the small town here in Cal that Im from; if you want a chance to compete and have a better life, you have to move away.