Never A Change

      You should understand something about New York City.  Throughout nearly all of its history, NYC did not care about anything other than making money (for itself).  Starting in the 1810s, NYC's miserly figure of Mr. Astor--and his money-grubbing son--were the skinflint personifications of Ebenezer Scrooge.  

     There have been global wars, pandemics, international bankruptcies, and financial depressions (with worldwide impact but begun in NYC), yet nothing stops NYC from hoarding money and not caring about anything else.  Repeatedly, the city falls into disrepair and depravity, until unwitting benefactors pay extra (in addition to their exorbitant taxes) to improve things... temporarily.  

     During the COVID pandemic, the rulers of the city "sat on their money" and did the least to help.  NYC performed the worst in the entire world.  Regarding preparations, precautions, containment, cleanliness, readiness, responsiveness, and results, NYC was worse than any city on the globe.  Yet, it is the wealthiest city in the United States of America.  

     NYC did not care about the pandemic until people stopped vacationing in the city... and tenants started vacating it.  

     Then, the city reverted to its old, unchanged methods of pretending to fix things--by adding some new paint over the crumbling mess--and making "empty promises" to lure people.  (In his 1906 exposé novel, Upton Sinclair, describes those misleading paint-jobs).  It's been a long time since NYC had a reputation as an intellectual center of civilized society.  Typically, the city relies on gullible visitors and uneducated immigrants from third-world countries.  Therefore, when their lies didn't achieve results, the city offered incentives for people to come back and live amidst its filth and crumbling infrastructure.  However, one thing NYC will never try is making itself more affordable to live in.  Greed prevents that.  

     NYC remains the most expensive city to live in--more than any city in the world.  It is also the crappiest and lousiest to waste your time in.  Here is a quote from The Atlantic Monthly in 1902: "Through filthy streets crowded with noisy dirty urchins, it loomed up as a dark blot upon the blue sky.  Rows of tumble-down homes, disused carts, piles of rubbish, rags, and litter--among which the children played..."  Look at modern-day photos and tell me if the scene improved?

Due to a lack of improvements, rusty fire-escapes cover the fronts and backs of most buildings... like a prison facade. 

More unsightly--and also due to poor infrastructure--the city's buildings are capped with water tanks.  

So you see those things in Paris, Amsterdam, London, or Madrid?  Yet, NYC costs more to live in.

This is what spineless politicians lie about and claim...

Watch these short videos for a gist of how things are...

The video above mentions NYC's notoriously corrupt Voting Board... which partly explains why improvements don't happen. This video illustrates how that system existed since the 1869 era of NYC's infamous Boss Tweed (who overran the city via Tammany Hall).

     Coming from NYC (and infected with its mentality of greedy landlords), the President and his wife personified a typical uncaring when they dealt with national crisises.

Hence, people with good ideas (and ideals) fail in NYC.

     Please watch these short videos...

     Since 1852, NYC hated to spend money to improve itself, and its greedy/cheap landlords built things and let them deteriorate thereafter.  Employers illegally mistreated employees.  Everyone's arrogant attitude was "If you don't like it, you can leave, and plenty of people will replace you."  So, NYC was never truly upgraded, yet its prices surged regularly.  

     Now, people don't have to live there for their careers, and social media (especially during the pandemic) proved how loathsome and disgusting the entire city is.  With brainless repetition of old strategies, NYC will prop-up another season of geriatric Sex And The City as And Just Like That... 

....but it won't coerce and mesmerize people as it did before.  (The second season lost 59% of viewers).  

*Learn more about the media's "funneling scheme" here:

https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-funnel-to-nyc.html

     Even Mexicans don't want to immigrate to New York anymore.  NYC will probably try to lure gullible refugees.  That has always been its attitude: uncaring about people...

...but relying on gullible people to toil through their lives to support outrageous overpricing for third-world standards.

     100 years ago, the American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrote in New York City, and his words can easily be redone to describe the city.  "It was uncaring.  It smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into its money and vast carelessness, and let other people clean up the mess it made."

Smart people will avoid that type of place as if it had a plague.

American Way of Life Seems Unhealthy

     In my prior blog post, I celebrated our joyful news for relocation.  Alas, not everyone was thrilled about us leaving America, and they villainized us for it.  People I knew from high school and university criticized my decision to emigrate.  They rebuked it, saying that it was a knee-jerk reaction to America's ongoing problems.  It is not; Lewis and I deliberated intently for a long time, and we proudly made life-changing (live-saving) decisions.  During the past several years, we were openminded about relocating.  Please use this link to read my 2013 New Year Revelation, where I was already disgusted:

https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2013/01/0-false-18-pt-18-pt-0-0-false-false.html

     Those "friends" insisted that the USA is the best place on earth.  I looked closely at them and realized that they are brainwashed.  America notoriously and historically uses people to feed itself and take money.  Waving a flag of the "American Dream", it lures immigrants into money-traps, and it funnels gullible citizens into debt.  

     Immediately after graduation, Americans are pushed into credit card debt and college loan debt (often exceeding $100,000), and they are pressured into early marriages, mortgages, car loans, and having children.  There is no focus on Money Management, Debt Avoidance, or Life-Work Balance.  Each newborn child starts a "ticking clock" because children in America will need (overpriced) baby accessories, (price-gouging) baby food, and (expensive) medical expenses.  Growing up, they'll expect computers, cellphones, cars, and car insurance, which cost triple in America what the price is abroad.  They'll need college tuition, that is usually more than $100,000, and that is vastly overpriced from foreign universities.  The large majority of my former classmates are ensnared in America's exorbitantly-expensive "traps".  

     America breeds consumerism, overeating, pharmaceuticals, medical expenses, higher dosages, higher costs of living, materialism, overspending, interest rate increases, and loads of debt.  Americans are destined for uphill stressful journeys within the American System, and America's industries, corporations, and government agencies don't care.  Most things don't improve, and infrastructure is designed stupidly as if cavemen did it (yet costing 10-times more than in another nation).

     Growing up in a quintessential American suburb (and living in a NYC borough that was under siege of overdevelopment), I can relate to these illustrations.

     In contrast to the people who criticized me, I considered the people whom I currently know.  I realized a distinctive pattern.  My jubilant and healthy (mentally and physically) friends were all born overseas and--after being in America--preferred living in other first-world countries, where "quality of life" is easier to attain... with much less cost and hassle.  Seen below, I will show you people who are my age (early 40s), living in Europe, Canada, Chile, Singapore, China, and Japan.  

     Our friend from London lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan for 12 years, then returned home when NYC became too stressful and expensive.  He is thrilled to be back in a society with unpolluted waterways, fast trains, clean public transportation, courteous customer service, and nutritious food that's affordable.  He is able to have a garden again, go for walks along a litter-free river, and safely use a bicycle to get around the biggest cities. 

    

     Meanwhile, my friends in America claimed that they had the best lives.  However, they must pay exorbitantly for it--practically hemorrhaging money.  Normal taxes and fees do not provide it.  If you only pay a normal amount, you get crap that belongs in a third-world nation.  To achieve decency, they must pay 3-times the amount than the people above.

     Next, look at my friends living in America.  We are the same age, yet they look older: weary, overworked, overstressed, overweight, gray-haired, and premature baldness.  Consider the toxic environment that they are trying to live in.

Seen below, would you guess that Tim is in his early-40s?  Perhaps his money-making career took a toll on his life.

Look at Russell, below.  Does he look like he's in his early-40s?

As results of America's society, those people do not show signs of "living life fully" with health and joy.  We will escape that.

For the short time that humans are on the planet, it is a gift to experience life, Mother Nature, abundance, and other people.  In America's overworked and overpriced culture, those value are treated as "luxuries".  But they are basics!

Below are comments from a man who returned to his homeland after 8 years in America.









Being back in a balanced society, he felt different.



We know that feeling, too.

After being raised in America, Lewis and I know that it's possible/feasible to ignore American "programming" and make a better life for yourself elsewhere... where life is as it should be.  Despite American propaganda, your purpose in society is not to make greedy conglomerates richer, work until you get sick, sink into debt, and suffer from the nation's bad infrastructure and increasing violence.  

     As a perfect example, 45 days ago, Lewis was notified that Ticketmaster (America's richest ticket-seller) did not invest in Data Protection, so it suffered a data breach.  Hackers stole millions of people's names, addresses, credit card numbers, and passwords!  For the tenth consecutive year, America has the worst and most data breaches and credit card fraud in the world, yet its corporations don't want to spend money to protect data, and the government never penalizes them.  Ticketmaster was not penalized, and it merely apologized.  (Fake apologies are infamous in the USA).  It did not offer any compensation.

That is typical uncaring that occurs at America's wealthiest organizations, and it depicts the nation's dilapidated cities.  What sensible person wants to overpay for decades for that?

*To see why we want to leave this place, please use this link:

https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2020/09/what-we-are-glad-to-be-rid-of.html

People should contribute to a society that nurtures them... just like the words in this brief video...

     Those haters can stay stuck in their mediocrity, but Lewis and I will be grateful to evade America's captivity.  Despite living in its squalor for decades, our inner resilience upheld standards that fit better in a truly first-world nation like Czechia.  We didn't experience a first-world life in the USA, but we know how to contribute to one.

     We will apply that advice to how we treat our future neighbors, friends, and coworkers.

     People normalize the abnormal and get accustomed to living in madness and messes.  They don't seek better alternatives, and they don't strive for integrity.  They settle.  They succumb and join the hordes who make it worse.  They lack resilience to resist craziness and abnormal behavior.  Americans boast that their ways of living are the best... and they refuse to discover the truth.

     We will always be thankful to finally live in a civilized society.


*See more corroborative input here:

 https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2017/06/closed-circle.html

https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2015/05/shifting-world-power.html