Having said that it won't be too big of a hurdle for some of the small European countries to overthrow us if we keep spending 2X what we take in for tax "revenues."

I would do it in my student rental if the floors needed it.Do a forum search for "european wood floors"

In that light, we are always going to rank behind socialist and quasi-socialist systems such as Cuba and European government simply due to the bias in the question.That's not to say that our system can't be improved -- it absolutely can.

About half my neighbors in India are actually U.S. and European expats who have been sent there by their U.S. companies to transfer expertise to their India operations.

That road led to self-employment.The work is harder, the pay often low for the hours put in, my retirement is not guaranteed, my silent partner (the government) is greedy and corrupt, and the people I work with (tradesmen, etc.) and for (tenants) range from injuriously stupid to outright evil.If I could go back and become a pipe-smoking, tenured, co-ed chasing, leather-elbow-patched college professor I'd certainly be tempted.But alas, here I am griping on BP while my tenured friends contemplate which European country to tour during their three month summer vacation........

Reminds me of Cancun 30 years ago, except Egypt is for the europeans and the Russian Mob money...

theres a few of us and a few other Europeans that have made it work.

Unlike the US, there is no central European authority to deal with the situation.

Do we follow Europeans and generationally convince women that it's ok for a husband to sleep around because that's what a man does?

Wow, do you mean that all other democratic countries (Western European, Japan, etc.) that ban the private ownership of guns except special circumstances , don't have that freedom of speech?