It's OK if some people like different things than you.

French people liking to discuss politics online doesn't make them snobs. It just makes them people who like discussing politics online. And I know some very smart and politically involved Americans who are suckers for a cute dog video. Perhaps they'd be up for more poliltical discussion if every two years they were deluged with sly, dishonest, soul-suckingly stupid political advertisements. In France, with a population oif 63 million, presidential candidate spending is limited to 30 million dollars. My state has 1/10 the population of france, and the two leading candidates inthe last Senatorial election spent 85 billion -- and that's in an off year. So we Americans get exposed to a lot more unsolicited political communication than the French do.

But let's suppose that all things being equal, the French enjoy a good political argument online more than Americans do. So what?

I think resentment -- or even excessive concern -- over people who like different things than you is a sign of insecurity. When someone gets to the point where they insiste everyone join their side or be branded a fool or a snob, that's defeinitely someone who's seeking the safety of the herd.

Alternatively, European TV sucks just as bad, it is just more of a meme to say it is sophisticated. ;)

Also, in 1) you might want to reconsider. What exactly are you measuring; the density of higher education, or its presence? Those are different measures. We know it is wrong because it is not self-consistent. But I don't think any of the things you might have meant are going to prove true. I'm sure many smaller European countries can put out high numbers on education, for mostly historical reasons. But Europe as a whole? That is a bit silly. People come from all over the world to attend US Universities. For real reasons. They are high quality, and there are a lot of them. And the US has a surplus of educated workers in most fields. Even the poorest places in the US have access to quality higher education, including loans and other funding. The best places in Europe have better funding for the poor, but in much of Europe the poor won't have access at all unless they're at the top of their class. In the US, anybody who can graduate high school can get college funding.

As for 2), it is a subjective measure, and I dare you to go around the US asking Americans, "Does it suck to be an American?" You might find out that it doesn't suck at all, Americans are just more willing to shout about whatever things they think could be improved. As for "the need for more distraction" that sounds pretty silly. Is there "more distraction" in the US than in France? Are you sure?

As far as US "TV history" is concerned, you should be advised that the numbers that claim Americans watch [some huge number] of TV are counting all the screens that are turned on in a house. It is true that American households have a lot of background noise, mostly because we have low population density and highly insulated walls in apartments, so people are free to make noise all the time and leave crap on. Just look at the ratings of "successful" US TV shows. Lots of things are considered "successful" and there might even be a European stereotype of Americans all watching something, but then it turns out in the numbers that only 1 in 20 American households had it turned on. Whereas in European ratings, it is much more common for over half a country to be watching the same event. But since Europeans spend less money per square [unit of distance] on housing, they don't leave their TVs on as "background noise."

Ofc eating fat makes you fat ... if it is to much of it and especially in combination with the 'wrong' carbs.
Carbs again only make you fat again jf you eat to much of them.
If you need 2500 kcal per day and eat 2500 as carbs, there is no way ye get fat.
If you add 500 more as more carbs, you get a little fat, like the equivalent of perhaps 250 kcal (estimated), otoh if you add 500 kcal fat nearly all of it will get into your fat reservoirs!

So... US news is "more vapid... than grumpy cat" and your answer is... an internet meme jpg?

Uhm, yeah. About that. "D'oh!"

Yep, here is one now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You can tell it is a French cat because of the silly floppy-hat color pattern, and it tries to stick its tongue in the German's mouth while still on video.

I'm not saying either stereotype is correct, but I think the standard stereotype of Americans is the cowboy that draws out a gun and shoots you as his form of complaint, and the Frenchman whines over his cheese and finishes it off with an impolitic insult.

You interpret it as "stupidity," but you might just be ignorant of his goals and concerns. He might very well care more about how a video or transcript of the event would play in the US than in using accurate terms, or impressing you. It may be that he had light skin, and that dark skinned Americans don't all agree on how they should be referred to. So if part of his talk is to discuss diversity, and he's support to tailor it to who is in the room, and there are dark skinned people in the room, he might be diplomatically constrained; he needs to use a recognizable term, it needs to be an acceptable term, and it needs to be recognizable by an American court as not being discriminatory. He is not supposed to choose his preferred term, or the term he thinks is most accurate. And indeed, in the US there is a history of people using terms known to be offensive, and then trying to hide behind a belief that is the technically accurate term instead of admitting the real reasons.

If that is the most important thing you took from his talk, I have to say, you don't sound like a team player or a valuable employee. And if you think the choice of wording that a foreigner uses in a talk tells you about his intelligence, without even having been a part of the choosing of the word... well, that just shows that stupidity is not reserved for one nation alone .

I'm not, but thanks for your faked concern, I'm sure it makes you feel better about your plight in the world. You can't remove my State's direct democracy by simply believing we don't have it, though you're certainly free to believe whatever you want, and spew it around the internet. That is why we gave you the internet, because we know you're comforted and enriched by your spewing.

Yes, yes, we're known the world over to be blargityblorg by these deep, educated people who have visited us and learned about our culture and history... oh, wait, well, OK so they didn't actually visit... and they don't understand our culture or history... but they're so very educated in their own history, and have deep thoughts about America... well, at least, they have deep feelings about the things that locals say in the local language on the local television about Americans. And those people are all educated, deep-thinking world travelers... oh, they're not?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say anything that is "known... the world over" is probably ignorant and shallow. Just by numbers; most people are not deep thinkers or well educated. So ignorant and shallow people the world over have opinions about places they know nothing about? Got it!

Sorry that life doesn't imitate your nationalist stereotypes.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpb... "French workers are ...only marginally less productive than American workers."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us...

Only part of the U.S. productivity growth, which has outpaced that of many other developed economies, can be explained by the longer hours Americans are putting in, the ILO said.

The U.S., according to the report, also beats all 27 nations in the European Union, Japan and Switzerland in the amount of wealth created per hour of work - a second key measure of productivity.

Norway, which is not an EU member, generates the most output per working hour, $37.99, a figure inflated by the country's billions of dollars in oil exports and high prices for goods at home. The U.S. is second at $35.63, about a half-dollar ahead of third-placed France.

Yep, that is why we have higher productivity per worker, both per hour, and per year. We get more done per hour, and also work more hours. I'm assuming these "Americans" "fucking off" for 6 hrs on the computer... you saw them on the TV, right? Get back to work!!!

It is a funny article for a few reasons. Did you even read it? Does it claim to refute the France works a significantly shorter week than the US? The answer to both is clearly "no." You googled for a story that says what you wanted to link to, but linked without really reading it.

It claims to be refuting the "myth" of France having a 35 hour work week. That is a very different thing than you said, because they could have a longer-than-35-hours work week and still be well behind the US work week. And indeed, looking at the story, they "bust" the myth by pointing out that salaried white collar workers often work 40 or 45 hrs a week, since they aren't paid by the hour. I guess you didn't consider that salaried US workers might work significantly more than that.

The even have a funny chart that lists the annual hours per worker by Nation. They didn't order the chart, not by hours, nor by name. It seems they just randomly ordered them. They did put France physically above the US on that list, but the list shows the French work 1,476 hours and the Americans work 1,704 hours. That is over 4 hrs per week more. So the link proves the "myth" to be true! Americans do work more hours per week than the French.

It is a hilarious and sarcastic story, but I don't think you got the jokes:

Of course, compared to the hours certain professions tally on a weekly basis, the average worker in Europe doesn’t have it so bad. Take lawyers. According to France’s national bar association (CNB), 44% of lawyers in the country logged more than 55 hours on a weekly basis in 2008. In the United States, surveys show that many attorneys work about 55 to 60 hours per week...

LOL, yes, average workers... like lawyers.

Yep, we just mindlessly build technology for you to adopt. We don't know what it does, or why, we just meditate "Ohm, ohm, ohm," and work 80 hrs a week, and somehow there is a pile of networked computers at the end of the quarter.

I guess it is just an unlikely accident of history that a people so stupid invented so much, and continue to dominate the associated services.

I just really hate the part where those durn Americans forced all the bits through those tubes. Forced them! Who asked the bits if they wanted to go through tubes?

And opening up the network to the masses. Who asked the data if it wants the People looking at it all day? What gives them the right?!

this is really really important: anyone wishing to make a difference in the world really REALLY needs to read the book written by Professor Yunus, the joint winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Price, "Creating a World Without Poverty".

in his book, Professor Yunus describes how he naively studied Economics because he believed that he would be able to change his country's financial situation through studying first world economies. after graduation he set out just after one of the worst natural disasters his country had experienced and realised how completely pointless his studies had been. however he did not give up, and set out to work out what the problem actually was.

he learned that the poor are first and foremost incredibly resourceful... mostly because they have to. he also learned that many of them are, because there are no enforceable usury laws, permanently kept in debt to money-lenders. this shocked him so badly that once he freed an entire village from debt just from the small change in his wallet: something like $USD 15 was all it took to pay off a decade of usury.

what he discovered is that the gratitude of these people when freed from their former situation is immeasurable. the Grameen Bank doesn't have lawyers or debt collectors. the people that they lend money to are so GRATEFUL that they work non-stop to turn their lives around and pay off their loan. in fact, the repayment success rate is around NINETY EIGHT percent. it's so high that the *GRAMEEN BANK* considers it to be THEIR FAULT if one of their customers is ever in default. by contrast in the western world the default rate is 88%. i'll repeat that again in case it's not clear: only TWELVE PERCENT of creditors in the western world pay their debts on time, every time, and in full.

but the main reason why anyone wishing to help the emerging markets and the third world should read his book is because he patiently, with all the knowledge from his economics background, outlines why NGOs, Charity and the "Corporate Social Responsibility" clauses of standard profit-maximising Capitalist Corporations are all worse than doomed but are guaranteed to be ineffective at best and invariably seriously damaging and counter-productive.

right at the start of his book he outlines a surprising offer by Danone to work with him (follow his advice) to actually be effective. it was Professor Yunus's first experience of having been "under the microscope" of people with both big resources and heart. in other words the team at Danone were huge fans of what Yunus was trying to achieve: when he explained to them the financial structure that was needed, they listened, and they did it. they did not go in with a charity, or with donations: they set up a "non-loss, non-dividend" business, selling *locally-produced* yoghurt that happened to have the nutritients that the local population happened (by a not-coincidence) to be chronically deficient in.

the yohurt was sold not at a loss but at an affordable financially sustainable price because the focus was on remaining *stable*, not on exploitation through maximisation of profits: the focus was on allowing people to feel proud of what they achieved, and to take responsibility for their own wealth. they were EMPOWERED through the enormous generous resources of Danone's, but it was a successful venture because they LISTENED to what Professor Yunus had to say.

There are lots of reasons, ranging from education requited, ease of rentry/exit, flexibility, working conditions, schedule, and many more.

But when you actually control for choices made by worker, experience, education and specialization, and so forth, something like 99% of the difference is explained.

But that makes for boring press releases . . .

hawk, economics professor