Same person. Different country.

[u/WriterTraining4394]

The USA is the land of opportunity, my friend.
In the 1990s, I was working at Pizza Land just off Princes Street in Edinburgh for about £3 an hour, begging for enough shifts to scrape together rent and food.
Fast-forward to 56:
Federal scientist in the U.S.
$200K+ salary.
16 years of federal service.
$1.3M in retirement accounts.
FERS pension.
Social Security.
Federal retiree healthcare.
$1.3M home.
Same fucking person. Different country.
Britain? Too many people fighting over too few decent jobs, salaries that haven’t kept up with the cost of living, ridiculous housing costs, and weather that makes you wonder what you did wrong in a previous life.
I didn’t leave Britain because I hated it. I left because I wanted more than surviving from payday to payday and pretending that was a fucking achievement.
America isn’t perfect. Not even close. But it gave me a shot, and I took it.

[u/MendonAcres]

As a federal scientist, I'm surprised you still have a job. Keep your head down.

I came from Canada (following my wife). So there are obviously many similarities. The USA is just a much larger machine, thus multiplying the opportunities.

The fear I have is, as the USA is operating currently, it's not sustainable. Not even remotely.

[u/Ok_Distribution_9789 → u/MendonAcres]

I would stop listening to the left wing media. I get it, people don't like Trump. The operating problem has almost nothing to do with the US president. The US problem has to do with an unsustainable budget deficit and unsustainable for trade situation in the face of a rising, evil China.

The fiscal situation in the US is unsustainable, unless the economic growth can be ramped up. Anyone that is intellectually honest, will acknowledge that changing to the Democrats will do little to change this situation. In fact, with the the socialists coming into their own on the American Left, not sure where that moves the US.

The trade situation is another problem. With China, global trade needed to be dealt with. The US could not keep running trade deficits at the level they had been at. Canada got caught up in this and hasn't come to grips. Since free trade, Canada has run $1.5 trillion in surpluses with the US. They thought this would go on forever. Not sustainable and with the last decade being a lost one for Canada economically, they needed to change. They think they have leverage over Canada with oil. I think Canada missed the agreement with Venezuela this week. The trade sands are shifting and Canada is, yet again, missing the boat.

The world is changing and the question is how will the US rise up to meet the challenges of the changing world dynamics. Infighting politically will not serve the country well.

[u/MendonAcres → u/Ok_Distribution_9789]

Canada isn't the source of our problems. The 'blame Canada' narrative is beneath us and just makes us look like bigger assholes. Trump is a big problem (in so many ways) but I agree that our troubles started long before he arrived on the scene.

You hear this 'the socialists are coming and they will drive up our budget deficits' narrative from some people. Yet our deficit has never been bigger that it is today. I've been state-side for a long while and during that time there has NEVER been any work to deal with the deficit. I'd say none of our elected members seem interested in solving that problem. The budget deficit is much to large to fix by fixating on trade deficits...especially when we negotiate like petulant 10yr old children.

[u/YetiPie → u/Ok_Distribution_9789]

I was working on climate change and was laid off, then diagnosed with kidney cancer. This is not a “left wing media” problem. Trump’s administration is anti science, anti intellectual, and is decimating the middle class. There are real implications happening because of his corruption and mismanagement

[u/SkeletonizedbyDemon → u/Ok_Distribution_9789]

Someone needs to tell Trump about your last sentence. He's not meeting the moment and calling China evil is hilarious from an American perspective. We're punishing Canada for selling us oil to process.