Ah interesting, thanks for the info. In valleys and other areas where temperature inversions are common this may help a bit. Though I live at a relatively high and exposed location, so air quality is rarely a concern around here.

True ... iiNet has swallowed quite a few in the past few years (I know because I used to be on Internode, back in Oz). Still, the situation is much better than here in the US (in terms of competition and price, if not speed).

Yeah, that's what I thought too at first. A bit of Googling suggests that cold results in increased oil viscosity and a need for a higher fuel/air ratio (dictated by the engine computer) in cold weather. Compounding this, tyre rolling resistance is increased in the cold.

On top of that, apparently the fuel companies change their formula/blend in winter in cold-weather markets. The winter blend works more reliably in the cold but is not as efficiently burned.

As someone that moved to the US Midwest recently I can attest that firm suspensions are not the norm and seem not to be as popular here. Like you, I prefer them - better handling and better road feel.

However, after driving here for the better part of a year I can see why. I'm actually kinda cursing buying a sedan with stiff sports suspension here ... the roads are freaking AWFUL. They're mostly concrete (loud, with bumpy expansion joints) and have many cracks, ridges, potholes etc ... driving along many highways is like ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump constantly. Feels like my poor car will shake itself to bits.

At first I thought it was just shoddy construction, but then I took a work trip to some west coast states (Washington, Oregon) and the quality of the roads was better. Generally smooth, asphalt surfaces on the main highways, without cracks/joints. It was then I realised - it's a climate thing. In the Midwest the roads have to deal with temperature swings ranging from -40 C to +40 C in a given year, which is hell on the roads. I saw it with my own eyes this winter ... a previously good road near my house is now a terrible mess with ruptures and ridges and buckling all over it (we have had a harsh winter this year). Literally within the space of a week it went from "great" to "undriveable at more than 30 mph".

So yeah - I like firm cars too, but I wouldn't be surprised if they opt for squishier suspensions on average here in the States.

I was in the market for a new car last year and was kinda considering the Tesla ... but unless you live on the coasts of the US (west or east) there simply ain't enough charging stations. I'm in the Midwest. There IS actually a Supercharger station in my town (Madison WI), but that's exactly where I don't need one, as I can charge at home. Anywhere else I would drive TO around here, doesn't have one. Yet.

Give it another 5 years and hopefully a successful release of a mid-level (say, $40k-ish) car by Tesla though, and I suspect you'll start seeing stations pop up everywhere.

Yeah - even here in Australia (same physical size as the lower 48 US states and similar low density suburban sprawl everywhere), that would be considered quite a long commute. The only significant group of people I know with that kind of distance commute might be people in the Blue Mountains who work in downtown Sydney, but even so, a lot of them take the train rather than drive...

Very true.

Mind you, even gasoline powered vehicles suffer from cold weather mileage decreases. In my decidedly-not-electric Honda Accord V6 I get 6.5 L/100 km during summer, but ~ 8.5 L/100 km in the winter (note, winter where I am is cold, often minus 20s C, i.e. 'sub-zero' Fahreinheit).

Those figures in US MPG, roughly speaking, are "mid 30s" summer, "high 20s" winter.

Yeah agreed. I think the rollout will continue in many areas as originally planned. Scope of fibre might be cut back a bit, and it might take longer than Labor's (probably overambitious) schedule, but I don't think the NBN is completely a lost cause.

At least that's what I hope. Maybe I'm just clutching at straws hoping to get some sweet sweet fibre. My parents are lucky enough to be on the NBN already, before it got halted ... they opted for the 50/20 speed tier (rather than 100/40), but even that is very, very nice. The upload speeds in particular are fantastic.

Agreed - more competition is needed.

I moved here to the US from Australia last year. While speeds in Australia are nothing spectacular, we did have a LOT of choice when it came to ISPs. In Australia, in a mid-sized city (~350,000 people), there was a choice of 20-30 ISPs (ADSL2+, VDSL2 or in some areas, fibre). Here in the US, in a similarly-sized city, I have a choice of precisely one provider (the local cable monopoly).

Ok that's not entirely true - I also have AT&T DSL as a choice, at a whopping maximum speed of 6 Mbps down / 512 kbps up. But really, that's a non-option - it costs roughly the same and is 10 times slower than cable. (That upstream speed in particular is ridiculous in the year 2014 ... no idea why they don't use ADSL2+ with Annex M or similar tech to boost that up to 1-2 Mbps at least ... but I digress)

Having at least just a couple more options for ISPs would help, you'd think. With the vast majority of people in the US having only one or two choices of provider, what incentive do those providers have to improve their product? They have a captive customer base who literally have nowhere else to turn.

Wrong. Moved to the US purely for family reasons. My wife's American and her parents are getting old ... we hadn't seen much of them for a while. So fair is fair - we lived near my parents for many years, now it's time to return the favor.

I was able to transfer with my current employer to a US - kept the same job, level, title and everything. My salary went down slightly due to cost of living adjustment (US cost of living is cheaper than where I came from), and I lost 4 days/year of vacation, but that's about it. The health insurance stuff was the only really confusing/difficult thing to adjust to.

The US is no more 'free market' than where I came from! And it's certainly less prosperous, after the 2008 financial crisis here. I moved from Australia, but have lived in Singapore, Japan and NZ in the past too. Never stepped foot in Europe. So yeah, it's not like I moved here from a third world (or even second world) location. In fact the nation I came from consistently ranks higher than the US in economic freedom, quality of life and human development metrics.

So please don't make assumptions. Neither of us wanted to move here - almost every aspect of life was better in Australia (even my American wife admits this). But family ties are important and outweigh economics. There are some positive aspects to living here too - real winters (yay snow!) and the cost of living is a lot cheaper (yay cheap clothes/shoes/cars/etc).

Also - my time is worth money. Moving to the US and having to go through 100+ page documents comparing available health plans, filling all the damn paperwork out etc. took hours and hours of my time. I'll gladly paid a bit more tax (even if it's going to treat people other than myself) if it means I don't have to worry about all that. In universal health care countries, you never have to THINK about this kind of thing at all. You are covered. Automatically. From the moment you are born to the moment you die. Much less stressful and confusing ... that's gotta be worth something.

In most single payer systems, yes, there are limits on what the payer (i.e. the government or other universal insurer) will pay, for precisely the reasons you state. However, the prices that are considered 'normal' for particular procedures and treatments are agreed upon and updated regularly by a board of generally independent medical professionals. These are people concerned mostly with the efficacy of the treatments and what the rules are for deciding whether they are medically necessary, rather than the financial aspects of the system per se. The government then uses these guidelines to make budgetary forecasts. So unless doctors are charging way-beyond-typical prices for things, it's fine. (And if they do, they'll be investigated and may be forced to eat the cost themselves, it can't legally be passed on to the patients).

However it's crucial to point out that if a procedure is medically necessary, it will be covered, regardless of how expensive it is. The government does not have unlimited funds, but the law of large numbers means that the costs over a whole population are quite predictable. Costs will increase over time as the population ages of course, which may require some tax increases or higher co-payments in future, sure, but this is still much more efficient than a non-single-payer system. The point of single payer is that a large customer (like a government) has bargaining power with providers and drug companies. They can negotiate cheaper prices for things than you or I could.

Everyone needs medical care at some point in their life. So it's not like insurance for things that may or may not occur (like car insurance or home insurance). Amortizing the costs across a huge population that uses their collective power as consumers to negotiate better prices with medical providers makes sense.

Yes technically this means you may be paying a few dollars more in tax to cover the tree-hitting motorcyclist or the drug addict or the VD dude. But that's a small price to pay for knowing that you will not have to worry at all about money if you yourself run into a tree the following day, or when you're old and are afflicted with cancer etc. Besides, the costs saved purely by the increased EFFICIENCY of having a single payer (i.e. much simpler, less paperwork, less billing, simpler IT systems etc.) I'd say more than makes up for that extra few bucks in tax.

Variously, I've lived in Australia, NZ, Singapore and Japan. Australia is a hybrid public-private system that works much as I described in the OP, though Singapore and Japan also have similarities.

My post was highlighting that not all 'universal' systems are necessarily government-run (ala the UK NHS or Canada's system). There is a spectrum between completely private and completely public.

Technically nothing really stops them - but the government will not pay an unlimited amount. There are schedules that dictate what a certain service should cost, and when such a service is deemed to be necessary. So a doctor that's ordering expensive, pointless tests will find that the government refuses to pay them. And if the patient themselves is also not liable (e.g. they didn't specifically ask for the tests etc.), then they just have to eat the cost. Which is a good way to discourage doctors doing useless tests.

Er, taxes?

The point of single-payer is that a LARGE customer (like a government) can negotiate better prices from medical providers, because of their sheer size. There's also savings due to the gains in efficiency (paperwork, IT systems etc.) when there's only single entity responsible for payment.