The US housing cheerleaders said exactly the same back during their bubble. They correctly pointed out that many bears had been bearish and wrong for years. They correctly pointed out that many bears claimed it was about to pop at any moment, and that the bulls were still waiting. They even pointed out that a broken clock will be right eventually. And yet despite all this, the US housing bubble was indeed a bubble, and it did indeed crash.
Well they are still around and often exhibiting the same delicate behaviour. My point was only that the arab hooligans in France are largely north african. There are few middle eastern arabs in this country and they don't seem to cause much troubles - I used to live in their favourite neighbourough in Paris (around place de l'Alma) where you will find many arab dictators' family members and it felt very safe. Just got jalous sometimes at their 600sqm appartemnts, Bentley with diplomatic plates etc...
How could you put London, Bangkok, Rio and Mumbai in a list of the cities offering the best quality of life ? Possibly if cheap and abundant blow jobs are a top condition Bangkok and Rio could win, but those places never appear in top of those lists for a few good reasons - lack of greenery, space, safety, schools among other reasons. I spent a few years in Bangkok and it is much of an ugly mess. Singapore and Paris would be my top choice fwiw in your list - and HK is great for the ease to do business there.
I am a New Yorker. I am obviously not enthralled by low density environs so maybe my world view is suspect. But any imbecile that can rank Pittsburgh as the best city in the US has either never been there or has simply no sense of what makes a city interesting. I'm sure it is a fine place for those who have friends and family there that they want to be close to ... but to pick it to move to?
i live in a suburb of chicago and have been to: vancouver, toronto, montreal, buenos aires, london, edinburgh, manchester, monte carlo, budapest, vienna, istanbul, johannesburg, mumbai, singapore, kuala lampur, hong kong, and most major u.s. cities. and the drum roll please.................just visit a few places and observe in which cities the natives are smiling the most. i loved monte carlo and istanbul.
I have been to Monte Carlo as well. Don't you think that's a bit skewed as you have to be a multi millionaire to live there? Of course you are more likely to be smiling. That would be like saying Thailand, land of smiles, is the happiest, when I know some Thai folks and that is a sales pitch.
ahhh!! thats where some experience with human psychology is necessary......you have to learn to discern between the smile of indulgence and the smile of being content.
Beltway boy, that's one of the big problems with the good old USA--they could care less about the rest of the world, and most of them don't know much about the rest of the world either. They just assume they are better even when they're clearly not. I live in Calgary, and the quality of life is greatly superior to the vast majority of the cities in the USA, even after you factor in a few negative points for the cold. Why? 1) Crime is very low. Murder rates in Canada typically are half of the USA. I don't really have to lock my doors, either. 2) The place is clean and not very crowded. Almost every American city is filthy by comparison. The others are merely dirty. 3) Most people are prospering. There are very few poor people living a third rate trailer park existence. People have good paying jobs (higher than almost any American city), and the city is growing nicely. The real unemployment rate is about 6-7%. 4) Canadians are quiet, well behaved people who get along well, and don't earn bad reputations in foreign countries for being arrogant and thoughtless. We even enjoy the winter and invented a few games like basketball that help pass winter along. Hockey is a great sport! 5) The Canadian system is fairly efficient and really works. Our banks don't need bailing out and never have. We do pay our fair share of taxes, but our government doesn't run obscene and stupid deficits (although we do have a modest deficit currently) and our per capita national debt is much less. In fact, we have had surpluses in a number of years during the 90's and the 2000's. Our politicians are generally honest and try to serve the people. 6) Our education system is clearly superior to the American system. Far too many Americans are semi-literate, barely numerate, and almost every American is geographically ignorant--even those in elite universities. Our scores are better on international tests in almost every category. So, Beltway boy, just stay down in Washington, and enjoy the shootings, the deteriorating buildings and highways, and your incompetent government. I've visited Washington, and it's better up here, even when it is freezing.
This is total bullshit and I'll tell you why. At risk of sounding like a raging racist, I'm going to say this anyway. How many poor blacks live in Calgary? How many poor latinos? How many illegals of any kind? OK, thank you. Look, Canada has the same demographics as most of Scandinavia. Same white people. Same stats. The US is a cultural meting pot. At least that is what we like to call it. Far more diverse and I guess you could say, far more interesting then Canada. If you look at our upper middle class suburbs and nice urban areas, they blow Canada out of the water. Just as clean, low crime, good schools, nice people, doors unlocked at night, all that jazz. Oh and one more thing, there are far more Canadians coming down here then Americans going up there. Things that make you go hmm...