Our BetterMost Community > The Holiday Forum
Celebrating the Winter Solstice
CellarDweller:
LOL......we just have the groundhog.
Sason:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 31, 2015, 10:51:10 am ---That second sentence stopped me for a moment. For a second I thought, well how nice, she feels so deeply at home where she lives now that she wouldn't consider moving.
Then I realized -- duh! takes me a while sometimes -- that it wouldn't be that easy for you to move to a completely different climate. I'm constantly daydreaming about moving to some warmer state, and really the only thing that stops me is that I don't have work anywhere warm and most of my friends and family are here. But I have some f & f in Colorado, which is warmER, and Louisiana, which is actually too warm, so those places are possibilities. And even if I wanted to move to, say, Arizona, where I know no one, it wouldn't be a huge deal. I could eventually find work, I speak the language, etc. -- I could just move there and hope to adjust. So it's a lot easier than moving from, say, Sweden to Spain.
I guess that's a little compensation for not having national health care and paid parental leave and all of the other advantages that you Eurobrokies have.
I have a friend who lived here in MInnesota then sold everything she owned and moved to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. She sounds like she has a lot of fun and the idea is tempting, but I probably wouldn't do it because, like you, I feel this country is my home.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. Since I live as far south as you can get in Sweden, I would have to move to a different country if I want a change of climate.
And even though I could legally move to any country in the EU without any permits, it would mean tons of implications and problems like language, finding work, finding out how everything works, getting my licence conveyed and finding out how the health care system works etc, etc.
I get exhausted just from thinking about it!
In that respect, we are more stuck here (and I think language is the major problem), but as you say, we have huge advantages over you when it comes to health care and other social insurances.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 31, 2015, 10:51:10 am ---That second sentence stopped me for a moment. For a second I thought, well how nice, she feels so deeply at home where she lives now that she wouldn't consider moving.
Then I realized -- duh! takes me a while sometimes -- that it wouldn't be that easy for you to move to a completely different climate. I'm constantly daydreaming about moving to some warmer state, and really the only thing that stops me is that I don't have work anywhere warm and most of my friends and family are here. But I have some f & f in Colorado, which is warmER, and Louisiana, which is actually too warm, so those places are possibilities. And even if I wanted to move to, say, Arizona, where I know no one, it wouldn't be a huge deal. I could eventually find work, I speak the language, etc. -- I could just move there and hope to adjust. So it's a lot easier than moving from, say, Sweden to Spain.
I guess that's a little compensation for not having national health care and paid parental leave and all of the other advantages that you Eurobrokies have.
I have a friend who lived here in MInnesota then sold everything she owned and moved to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. She sounds like she has a lot of fun and the idea is tempting, but I probably wouldn't do it because, like you, I feel this country is my home.
--- End quote ---
Yes, it's easier for you Americans to move to a different climate. But I also am baffled at your willingness to take up and leave everything behind. Over here you're famous for your ease regarding moving across the country.
We Germans might even be more unwilling to move than our European neighbors, not sure. But here you build a house once in a lifetime (if you can afford it) and then you live in it for the rest of your life. Even people who pay rent rarely move to across the country. Most people stay put after they finished their education.
CellarDweller:
Interesting conversations about moving vs. staying put.
as for celebrating the winter solstice, have we celebrated too hard? :laugh:
March 4th, just when you'd think it would start to warm up, the temp is dropping, and later today our rain is supposed to turn to snow, and we could end up with as much as 8 inches by tomorrow.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on March 04, 2015, 02:31:46 am ---
Yes, it's easier for you Americans to move to a different climate. But I also am baffled at your willingness to take up and leave everything behind. Over here you're famous for your ease regarding moving across the country.
We Germans might even be more unwilling to move than our European neighbors, not sure. But here you build a house once in a lifetime (if you can afford it) and then you live in it for the rest of your life. Even people who pay rent rarely move to across the country. Most people stay put after they finished their education.
--- End quote ---
Quite a bit of this has to do with the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the previous century, about 70% of people in the US lived in rural areas and about 30% in cities. Fifty years later, that percentage was reversed. People moved to the cities for work. After corporations got all the people where they wanted them in the cities, they start working on getting people more mobile to be able to move from city to city to suit changing preferences of employers. States began offering generous incentives to have employers move to their cities, such as paying no state taxes, getting free real estate, etc. These incentives could total millions of dollars and were paid for by taxpayers (who were also employees). Many states have passed laws more attractive to employers such as the "at will" states (including Colorado where I live) in which all employees are working "at will" and can be terminated at any time for any reason or for no reason at all.
In addition, if you were an employee of a global company and wanted to remain with that company or move up you had to be ready to move anywhere on short notice.
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