----- Original Message -----
From: "Bjarne og Leif Drews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 4:39 AM
Subject: [h-cost] coastal news
> I am shocked down into my privacy and dont know how i can say this.
> I thoaght America was such a rich comunity, you know big houses, dogs at
> least two cars and overweight people.
> Now i see in the television that poor people lives in USA two.
> Well Well what can a poor soul in Denmark do except say to you all:
> Never, never again ellect such a poor president as
Bushes..................
> Hail Freedom of America and all its poor inhabitants.
> And may God be with you alllll..........................
>
Bjarne,
Please don't make this about politics right now, it's too late to complain
about what should have been done, right now it's important to concentrate on
helping those who have been caught by this disaster and leave the blame game
of who should have done what until later.
WARNING, the following contains comments which could be interpreted as
criticism of the USA, I hope people will not be offended by it I am trying
to keep my personal opinions out and give facts to help people understand a
bit more. If it is inaccurate please correct me. If you are offended by
these comments let me know why.
I agree that this has been mis-handled, having spoken with an ex New Orleans
resident (she moved to Australia about 5 years ago and still has family
there {thankfully all accounted for}) and watched the news it's clear that
many locals knew a storm of this magnitude would break the levees and given
the high poverty rate in the city it should have been clear that simply
telling people to evacuate was not enough, they needed to provide transport
to get people out. The 'rich' people (or those who could afford a car) have
mostly got out and it's the poor who are stranded in these evacuation
centres (like the superdome).
>From my studies of different countries' social welfare systems (admittedly
it was only a couple of weeks as part of a larger course) it's not really
accurate to compare wealth between the USA and Denmark (or most other
European countries) in Denmark there is a strong social security system and
very little gap between rich and poor, the USA has very little social
security or welfare (I can't recall which term is used over there) And the
minimum wage is very low (many people working full time on the minimum wage
find it very difficult to get by without assistance from charity). Therefore
there is a big gulf between the rich and the poor, the rich are very rich
and the poor are very poor.
And finally, don't judge wealth by house size the land prices in countries
like Australia and America are far lower than they are in Europe (as the
population is far less concentrated), therefore somebody on the same wage is
going to be able to afford a much larger house in America than they could in
Europe.
Elizabeth
--------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Walpole
Canberra Australia
ewalpole[at]tpg.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/e_walpole/
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