Hey Americans, socialist Europe dominated Quality of Living global city rankings 2009. Why is that?

That is for several reasons

1. They have awesome health care (better than ours.)

2. The workers aren't overworked

3. People have more time to spend with their families.

4. They have more vacation time.

5. They aren't as materialistic as us.

6. They have a better education system.

7. The gap between the rich and poor isn't as wide.

8. The crime rates there aren't as high.

The countries in Europe with the highest standard of living in the world have socialist democratic systems of government ... think Finland, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark to name just a few. They have excellent public education systems and their students perform well above American students in literacy, science and numeracy, they have efficient universal healthcare and social services for all their citizens and they contribute to the well being of others beyond their borders. It's true that their taxes are higher than those in the US where our citizens have to be dragged kicking and screaming to pay a fraction of what they pay. They have as many personal freedoms as we do but a lot less angst. They are not scared of the word 'socialism' like Americans who fear that it is the next step towards communism, fascism, nazism, terrorism, muslimism, satanism or any other 'ism' they haven't even thought of yet! However I don't think we should put all our blame on the media for our ignorance and the dumbing down of America. The fault lies more on our declining standards of education since the Reagan years when it was decided to spend less tax dollars on educating our children ... so sadly, I'm afraid we're now caught in a real Catch 22 situation! (Oh I can already feel the 'thumbs down' coming from my insensed countrymen who don't see the need to change the staus quo and who are morbidly terrified our new president is leading us all towards eternal damnation in a socialist hell!)

Hi there,

One thing that you have missed is that any statitician can produce any stats that you want. So what was their criteria? How 'happy' are the people that live there with their lives, health care, taxes etc? What were the qualities that they felt counted in their survey?

Look at the stats for unemployment in America - if the gov counted all those that had given up on a FT job and gotten a PT job, all those people that have just given up looking for work as after more than a yr did not find one, all those people that have been unemployed for more than a year the stat would really be about 17-18 percent.

Listen to the 2 videos in the link below - just scroll down to see them and see what you think then?

But they don't count everyone that is unemployed just those that have been unemployed for the past few weeks.

Honestly, the US has become slums. They are everywhere. Sure, we haven't seen anything compared to the third world, but we are getting there. This economic crisis is not going to be fixed by government regulation and spending away the future. It is going to take us all waiting in breadlines as we just can't get paid enough to keep up with the inflation for us to get "get it." It isn't too late for us to not become an all-out socialist country.

San Francisco--a liberal city and my home town. Screw that place! You can't even choose "paper or plastic" at the grocery store and you aren't exempt from a confrontation with a crackhead at random anywhere in the city these days. There is nothing cool about the place. It smells like rotten cereal and used depends. I refuse to believe that it ranks that high on quality of life as it is so expensive to live there. The youngins have no choice but to move to places such as Rohnert Park and East Palo Alto where they are either going to become criminals due to being overpoliced (RP) or get mugged so many times that they finally wake-up and end up moving to the country (EPA).

I really do think that a huge problem is that we are half-way socialist. I wish that they would either give up on this over-regulation and bringing non-issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage into politics to sway voters and change their thinking on the economic systems. Europe is atleast just socialist enough to where business is so reliant on the government that a recession and wave of unemployment isn't going to hit as rapidly.

I am against socialism but we are clearly heading that way and I wish that we could just get it over with so I can get the hell out of this cesspool of a country.

I actually do live in an area that isn't going to ever be hit by the economic crisis in California as it is so reliant on the college and the whole economy is centralized around it.

Where the hell is Chico, California on that list?

That list is obselete. I have lived in San Francisco, Sugarland (TX), Thompson Falls (MT), Seattle (WA), Ft. Benning (GA) and various parts of the bay area. Chico, California owns those places and the voters here refuse to let the government turn the place into the mess that you see in the every other regions of the world.

Whoever made that list needs to be paralyzed and molded into a human totampole.

America lost it's standard of living, the socialists didn't surpass us.

America has been in decline, by design since the 60's. The primary reason is, we are being raped by the federal reserve system, the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex and the ever encroaching and corrupted federal government. Unfettered third world immigration plays a significant roll in the decline of America also.

Too many Americans went to sleep believing the government was operating in the best interest of the people. How foolish that has turned out to be.

Socialism is a step towards communism, nothing more. Socialism isn't utopia.

Honolulu, Boston and San Francisco are 3 of our most liberal and socialist cities. I will not set foot in any of them ever again. The big cities do not have any quality of life I would want. So to say you have the best of the worst case living conditions doesn't impress me in the least.

Our citizens don't answer quality of life polls honestly. We prefer to make people think that our cities are less than desireable so that we won't have a bigger influx of people looking to cash-in on our good living conditions. Conservatives don't respond to polls at all, so your data is skewed. That means "not accurate".

Go Socialism

Europe is also in the deepest recession since WWII and they won't be able to take care of everyone now. When the gravy train runs out, Europeans will start another major war since they want to be taken care of and don't believe in personal responsibility.

They aren't supposed to be happy. By definition they are unhappy, according to American conservatives, therefore they are mistaken. ∠°)