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Original poster

Does everyone want to live in the US?

846 replies

AteRiri · 22/12/2016 19:43

I was talking to an American friend and he made this blanket statement, "Everyone wants to come here!"

Is this true?

OP posts:
MiladyThesaurus · 22/12/2016 23:13

It's not true that there's 'no history' in the USA. That's just silliness. The country didn't just spring into existence from nowhere last week.

SenecaFalls · 22/12/2016 23:15

No one is being nasty!

Have you actually read all the posts? As in "Not a chance. Loathe the very idea of Americans."

LeadPipe · 22/12/2016 23:15

Laurie
But American hegemony began around 1900s - long before any of your presumed pop psychology theories could take hold in any of current generations minds?

Am fine to be told this is recent thing that Brits are just totally jealous albeit subconsciously

PitilessYank · 22/12/2016 23:16

I get 26 days of annual leave and 11 national holidays.

My husband gets 6 weeks, my sister gets 4, etc.

BakeOffBiscuits · 22/12/2016 23:17

Laurie your everyday person in the U.K. does not give a damn about whether or not they are "a super power".

BakeOffBiscuits · 22/12/2016 23:19

Seneca dirty miss d that one, it is nasty. I'll change my post to "the vast majority"

squoosh · 22/12/2016 23:21

'It's the New World. They need time to make history!'

I suspect a lot of history will be made once Trump is sworn in.

PitilessYank · 22/12/2016 23:22

Bakeoff: but I don't think Americans would be as insulting about the U.K. as posters here are about the US.

It seems like folks are taking pleasure in being mean. But like I said, it's your website. I usually try to not read threads like this, because they are very unpleasant, but I just couldn't resist.

LaurieMarlow · 22/12/2016 23:24

Britain/France didn't come to terms with the fact that they were no longer the world's top dogs until the 1950s, early 1960s. Post Suez basically. So I'd say it stems from that period.

These shifts in national perceptions and hierarchies take years to work through.

And it's not linear either, since then there have been periods of more pro American feeling as well as swings the other way.

And insecurity and jealously are not the same emotion at all.

MontePulciana · 22/12/2016 23:24

I can't comment on Trump. He will do what congress allows.

PitilessYank · 22/12/2016 23:24

Trump is gross and crazy, most Americans do realize that (better late than never), but, lemons into lemonade, his election has activated the left-wing in the US like nobody's business!

Sybys · 22/12/2016 23:25

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country

The US has no legal requirement for any paid annual leave. Obviously some people there have good allowances but many, usually poorer people, don't.

squoosh · 22/12/2016 23:25

PitilessYank are you the Yank formerly known as Cheerful?

Elendon · 22/12/2016 23:27

Are you kidding me? No way man.

It must be an experience to visit, personally I prefer to watch the movies. But live there? Gross.

PitilessYank · 22/12/2016 23:27

Squoosh-that's another Yank.

LaurieMarlow · 22/12/2016 23:27

Bakeoff, perhaps not consciously. But our feelings are shaped by many factors we don't understand or experience as conscious thoughts.

squoosh · 22/12/2016 23:30

Ah I see. I thought you'd just had a change of emotion!

MiladyThesaurus · 22/12/2016 23:30

I'm not in the least bit convinced that Britain has gotten over its days of ruling the world yet.

PitilessYank · 22/12/2016 23:30

I think that this thread has well and truly ended my love affair with Mumsnet.

gleam · 22/12/2016 23:31

Nah, wouldn't live there. But then I don't want to live anywhere other than the UK.

LeadPipe · 22/12/2016 23:32

LaurieMarlow I really don't get that sentiment or vibe at all here in the U.K. certainly not insecurity.

If anything Americans are far more insecure internally against their own government and their rights to bear arms, etc.

Elendon · 22/12/2016 23:33

Ah crap, this thread has descended into the twilight zone. I like the USA, but I don't want to live there. It certainly has history and culture. Love and peace.

Muddlingthroughtoo · 22/12/2016 23:33

I would love to visit certain parts of the U.S, would I like to live there? Erm nope.

stopgap · 22/12/2016 23:35

I think by "everyone", this person likely referred to people from developing nations. I lived in NYC for eleven years, and spoke to umpteen immigrants who had made a better life for themselves and their families. Whether that desire to move here will hold true when Trump takes the helm, who knows.

I will say that living in America when well off (and residing in the liberal NY metro area) is delightful, but the average person has a much, much better standard of living in the U.K.

OVienna · 22/12/2016 23:38

I am American and I would never live there permanently again, but I seem to be in a clear minority among my compatriots. I genuinely don't get it. I don't see the appeal. I like real news channels, a gun free environment etc. And because -Trump. Wanna be fascism is not for me.