The Americanisation of UK culture

[FlyerTon]

On 24/11/2023 at 10:19, hk blues said:

While I'm at it - how the f**k did mirror get to meer?  
 

 

[Todd_is_God]

4 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

 

 

“*The confusion over the aluminum/aluminium spelling arose because of some uncharacteristic indecisiveness on Humphrey Davy’s part. When he first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he thought better of that and changed it to aluminum four years later. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked aluminum, pointing out that it disrupted the -ium pattern established by sodium, calcium, and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable.”

― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Best part about that is Davy was British

DavidMitchellAreWeTheBaddies.jpg

[TxRover]

7 hours ago, Trackdaybob said:

Oh and America is in reality a dreadful place. Spend any time there. And I mean time, not a two week holiday, then you'll realise that despite some great things there and some great people, it's generally no that great and certainly not the land of the free. 

Why a vast load of population here have a hard on for it is absolutely beyond me. 

Because, “Free-dumb!”

The simplest explaination is lack of broader world experience versus residents of other countries. Even with 56% of American’s owning a passport, that figure skews the reality of the urban residents being the only groups at or above that number, with the suburban/rural residents often falling into the 30’s and 40’s. Only between 60% and 70% of Americans have EVER left the U.S. at least once in their life, and for the vast majority of those, the trip would be to Mexico or Canada.

While the U.S. education system mandates classes on Geography and World History, they are much more of a side show than the main event. The average politician trumpets the low income tax rate of the U.S. like a mystic talisman that makes the U.S. better than everyone, without addressing the costs of that low rate.

Here’s the tax brackets for a single filer in 2023:

$0-$11,000 = 10%

$11,001-$44,725 = 12%

$44,726-$95,375 = 22%

$95,376-$182,100 = 24%

$182,101-$231,250 = 32%

$231,251-$578,125 = 35%

$578,126+ = 37%

Now, remember to take the first $13,800 in income out…that’s the standard deduction that you pay no income tax on…so you have to make $24,800 to max the 10% bracket and pay $1,100 in income tax. Married couples, double those figures…head of household (one adult with dependents) get a slight break through the 22% bracket.

The trade off is you have to pay for everything somehow, so the money that isn’t taken in by the Government in income taxes has to come from fees and such. Add to that no Universal Healthcare, with a system that absolutely is designed to screw every last penny out of those least able to pay, and you get the dystopian hellscape that is ‘Murica. The “value” of my health coverage is calculated at about $21,000 per year ($7,200 I have to pay and $13,800 that my ex-employer pays in my retirement), which luckily ISN’T taxable.

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by TxRover