Topic by Truncated

Posted: 9/19/2006 9:00 PM
(Edited: 9/19/2006 10:21 PM)

Post subject: Where should I move?

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

I guess you all know by now that the liberal/conservative side won the elections in Sweden! Hooray for that. This also means that I don't have to move from here any more (at least not for the next 4 years), which I was seriously considering doing if the social democrats won AGAIN. So my idea for a thread is effectively ruined... but I will do it anyway. So where should I move? Convince me. Explain a bit about the social structure, politics, economy, weather, nature, girls, language, etc. of your country, and what parts of it you like and dislike. Some limitations so this doesn't turn into a flamefest: * Don't put down others' countries. No, not even the US. :P Put forward the positive sides of your own country instead. * Only argue for/against your own country or a country which you have experience living in. (The grass is always greener somewhere else... which is also why I had thoughts about moving.) ------- EDIT: Less in-/un-/a-sensitive posting style, because people didn't find it very funny.

Posted: 9/19/2006 9:19 PM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Can't you make any decisions for yourself?

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/19/2006 9:25 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Thank your for providing your useful input, Bag of Magic Food. It is as always a pleasure to have you around. In spite of this massive information overload from our most beloved member, perhaps there is some small piece of information that he missed that someone else could fill in?

Posted: 9/19/2006 9:26 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

I stayed in Germany last summer for about a month. Whilst I wasn't exactly living there, I loved every minute of it. The area (Weisbaden) had great weather, the city is always bustling, and no one really bothered me about anything. Also, half of the town speaks English, since there are a few US army bases nearby. I was debating whether or not I would move there a few years after I graduate, since I don't like the area that I live in right now. I should also say the following: Saying that there is a right and wrong in politics is pretty petty. It reminds me of all the people in the US that had planned to move to Canada if Bush was re-elected (and none of them did). Therefore, I would say that you should move to Canada. That is where all the sore losers go, apparently. Note: not all Canadians are sore losers.

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 9/19/2006 9:26 PM

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Fabian

Former player

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711

You're not a fan of high taxes huh? Congrats on the election win! If you were from any other country, I'd tell you to move to Sweden. So no other suggestions from me.

Zoey Ridin' High <Fabian_> I prett much never drunk

Posted: 9/20/2006 12:00 AM

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JXQ

Experienced player (750)

Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132

How about the United States? HAHAHA oh man who am I kidding. Don't move here, this country bites.

<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)

Posted: 9/20/2006 12:40 AM

Post subject: Re: Where should I move?

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xebra

Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203

I'm gonna need a new roommate come January. I could say more, but if the allure of my company isn't enough to make you want move to Dallas (well, Addison, technically), I don't know what is.

Posted: 9/20/2006 1:40 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Texas Instruments? Add is on!

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/20/2006 2:21 AM

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jimsfriend

Former player

Joined: 1/17/2006
Posts: 775
Location: Deign

xebra, Is getting from 287 across 35W (from south to north) really as confusing as it seemed to me? Truncated, it would be easier for us to know where you should move if we know what you like. Besides JUDGING and TAS. I'll give you the specs for Houston and let you decide. Social Structure: Who needs it? Politics: We have an awesome mayor; he gave us SafeClear. We hate the Dixie Chicks. Economy: It's a big city, there's lots of economy stuff. Booming housing market, although I advise against getting one of those tiny starter homes. Weather: Hot. Humid. Rain is nice, but then it becomes humidity. Winter hasn't come for a couple years now. Nature: We're closing a lot of our parks. Government cut the budget and now the parks can't afford to stay open. Rather than raise the budget back, they just close. Girls: Every type. Even a police officer that got their sex changed to female. Language: Three good choices. English, Mexican, Ebonics Etc: Generally low quality public education system. Took a stab at mass transportation with METRORail which recieved a lot of negative publicity, but is still being supported by our mayor (I love that guy). You can also take Park&Ride into town. Otherwise you get to use our freeway system, which is incredibly large (I think they were planning on making I-10 a 16 lane highway, still under construction). We have the med center, that's pretty cool; it even comes with indoor golf carts because it is so big. If you're a doctor this is a really great place. Crime rate has doubled since about a year ago. If this sounds like a place you like, I'm sorry. Otherwise, try Sweden. I hear it's pretty good.

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Posted: 9/20/2006 3:49 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Wow, that's kinda like Florida!

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/20/2006 6:15 AM

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Ouzo

Former player

Joined: 8/15/2004
Posts: 422
Location: Minnesota

I live in a relatively small-sized town (pop. 25,000) about 36 miles northwest of Minneapolis. It's a pretty nice place, lots of woodland, rivers to enjoy. During the summer, I like to go to my cabin up north. Cold during the winter, but I think you're used to that. The common 'Fargo' accent is sparse throughout the state, usually only found way up north. Minnesota is known to be mostly liberal, but it depends where exactly. My county is about 2/3 conservative. Due to our location, Minnesota is pretty untouched by national governmental influence, which makes things much more enjoyable. Our politicians are chumps, but whose aren't? BTW, don't live in Texas, or anywhere in the south for that matter (nothing personal, xebra)

Posted: 9/20/2006 6:41 AM

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Dromiceius

Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332

I recommend Vancouver, BC. Everyone says it's the nicest part of Canada, which most agree is a pretty nice country. The people there (though I haven't been there personally) are supposedly some of the friendliest and most forward-thinking you'll find anywhere. The weather's nice, too. Of course, our elected officials are a joke, but that's probably true of every country on the planet that has elected officials. Except maybe Switzerland. Try Switzerland.

Posted: 9/20/2006 8:39 AM

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Brushy

Former player

Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587

Move to my place.

Posted: 9/20/2006 9:34 AM

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MahaTmA

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 185
Location: Denmark

Hmm... For the sake of argument, here's a basic summary of Denmark (At least the part where I am situated); Social structure: If you have money enough to make your kids rich, it doesn't matter if you live in a dumpster. Autocracy galore. Politics: Borderline Nazi-style government. Not many foreigners allowed. Economy: High tax (40-70%) with little personal freedom. Cars? 3x the price everywhere else. Free healthcare and free crappy school system, though. Weather: Basically sweden-ish, except there are no pretty mountains. Nature: As stated, no mountains, 90% farmland. Girls: Stubborn and snobby for the most part, the other part is too drunk to notice. Language: Take the beauty of swedish "opera", make it monotone, dreary and dull and eat half the syllables. A pinch of Schwarzenegger accent and that's danish for you.

"We observe the behaviour of simple folk, and derive pleasure from their defects." -Aristotle - Book of Humour

Posted: 9/20/2006 2:33 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Jimsfriend> Truncated, it would be easier for us to know where you should move if we know what you like. Well, actually my inital post originally specified what I was looking for in a country... but that turned into a major near-flame politics debate on IRC, so I removed it. My flamboyant style probably had a lot to with it also, though. For reference, I could do the good and bad parts of Sweden as I see it: * Weather/nature: Beautiful and scenic. Big forests and archipelagos. Mild pleasant summers but very cold winters. (-15 to -20 deg C is not uncommon where I live.) * Politics: Obviously my big problem. Out of the latest 70 years, the social democrats have ruled 60. There are few parties which can match that, including dictatorships. (I'm not suggesting Sweden is a dictatorship.) ** Taxes: Generally considered the highest in the world. Income tax starts at about 30% but is strongly progressive from $36,700 a year to 50-60%. Your employer must also pay about 40% of your total salary in payroll tax. If you own more than $200,000 you also pay captial tax. If you own a house you pay 0.75% of its value in property tax. If you want to buy something, assuming you have any money left, the VAT is 25%, unless you're buying gasoline, alcohol, tobacco and some other products, then there are extra purchase taxes. ** Tax spendings: Benefits and allowances consume about 34% of the state budget. In comparison education gets 9%, healthcare 5%, police and courts less than 4%. * Healthcare: Swedish healthcare is an oversized grossly inefficient behemoth. Since I have an incurable disease, I have had to deal with them quite a lot. You will have to wait a long time (months) to actually get healthcare, but at least it's moderately cheap. Private options are for the most part illegal. * Schools: Completely free up to and including university level. Private (but still state-funded) schools are allowed, for now. One of the better parts of Sweden. * Infrastructure: Crappy roads in many parts of the country. Railway and airline connections are okay. Very good cell phone coverage and broadband possibilities for the most part. * Energy: Sweden has decided to phase out all nuclear power, which delivers just shy of 50% of Sweden's total electricity. A few fully working reactors have already been shut down, and prices have soared recently. Up until a year ago research on nuclear power was banned. * Liberties: Freedom of speech, politics, and press. Abortions and gay marriage (sort of) is allowed, very weak religious influence. Only one state-owned company is allowed to sell alcohol, and private healthcare is also illegal in most cases, as stated above. * Language: Basically everyone under 60 speaks and understands English, if you want to move here. Just like everywhere else though you'll be better treated if you learn the local language. German speakers can generally make themselves understood within a year, Danish and Norwegian in a few weeks at most. * Etc: I wrote way too much already. >Besides JUDGING and TAS. Oh, you mean like personal interests? There might be children reading here. Dromiceius> Thanks for the info. I've been considering both Canada and Switzerland. I looked up Vancouver on Wikipedia and my fear of even worse weather than here, seems to be unfounded. +1 point. I actually lived for a month in the German part of Switzerland. (Schwyzerdütsch is like a bad parody of German to me, but that's minor.) One problematic thing is that it's not part of EU and hard to get citizenship. Seems like both Jimsfriend and MahaTmA are going to move first chance they get. :)

Posted: 9/20/2006 2:57 PM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee

Ouzo wrote:

BTW, don't live in Texas, or anywhere in the south for that matter (nothing personal, xebra)

I love living in the south.

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 9/20/2006 3:15 PM

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jimsfriend

Former player

Joined: 1/17/2006
Posts: 775
Location: Deign

adlikat, aren't you in a really long drought in Florida? Truncated, I'll probably stay here for the med center.

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Posted: 9/20/2006 3:29 PM

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Tub

Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 1377

Truncated wrote:

I actually lived for a month in the German part of Switzerland. (Schwyzerdütsch is like a bad parody of German to me, but that's minor.) One problematic thing is that it's not part of EU and hard to get citizenship.

I'm german. No matter how hard I try, I can't understand Schwyzerdütsch. My girlfriend is swiss, and her whole family thinks I'm weird because I rarely talk to them. Oh well.. anyway, Switzerland is expensive and their health-care plain sucks ("hey, we care for your life. but why should we pay for not life-extending medicine? like painkillers?"). It's a nice place though, if you can afford to live there, but you should've noticed that already ;) If you get a job there, you won't have trouble getting in. They just don't want you if they think you're going to cost them money. altogether, I'd gladly move there if it wasn't for the language..

m00

Posted: 9/20/2006 3:32 PM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee

jimsfriend wrote:

adlikat, aren't you in a really long drought in Florida?

You mean lack of rain? O_o *looks outside at heavy rainstorm*

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 9/20/2006 3:36 PM

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jimsfriend

Former player

Joined: 1/17/2006
Posts: 775
Location: Deign

My grandparents said they were having one (all his citrus trees died), but maybe it's over. Sarasota.

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Posted: 9/20/2006 4:04 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User, Experienced player (532)

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

Rap with me bruttha. I'm pretty sure Finland has the highest taxes in the world at about 45% of overall income, while for me its about 35%. This is not solely based on income tax, its based on overall tax payed througout the year which is mainly obtained through goods and sevices, of course we all knew that.

Posted: 9/20/2006 4:06 PM

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Brushy

Former player

Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587

AKA wrote:

I'm pretty sure Finland has the highest taxes in the world at about 45% of overall income, while for me its about 35%.

I thought Denmark had higher taxes than us.

Posted: 9/20/2006 5:00 PM

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Kyrsimys

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland

Looking at this chart over here, it would seem that Denmark, Sweden and Finland have the highest (maximum) income taxes, in that order. That chart of course does not have all countries.

Posted: 9/20/2006 6:09 PM

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MahaTmA

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 185
Location: Denmark

Truncated wrote:

J** Taxes: Generally considered the highest in the world. Income tax starts at about 30% but is strongly progressive from $36,700 a year to 50-60%. Your employer must also pay about 40% of your total salary in payroll tax. If you own more than $200,000 you also pay captial tax. If you own a house you pay 0.75% of its value in property tax. If you want to buy something, assuming you have any money left, the VAT is 25%, unless you're buying gasoline, alcohol, tobacco and some other products, then there are extra purchase taxes. ** Tax spendings: Benefits and allowances consume about 34% of the state budget. In comparison education gets 9%, healthcare 5%, police and courts less than 4%.

*ahem* http://www.libraryspot.com/know/highesttax.htm Denmark has the highest income tax rate, with its top-taxed citizens paying 68% of their hard-earned crowns. The basic tax rate begins at 42%. Source: Guiness World Records According to the old version I have lying around, the total taxation has at times risen over 100%.

"We observe the behaviour of simple folk, and derive pleasure from their defects." -Aristotle - Book of Humour

Posted: 9/20/2006 6:17 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

MahaTmA wrote:

According to the old version I have lying around, the total taxation has at times risen over 100%.

Umm, how's that?

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.