My mother was born in Bath, my first wife was born in Hook Norton…I lived and worked there for about a decade. I do get the cultural and social differences. In fact I recall some American chain sending their Russian staff off to be trained in how to smile and be nice.
And what you noted about ‘education for sale’ is a problem here in the US. We have many trade schools that take your money (backed up by the taxpayer BTW) and promise you an education and a good paying job…Lots of those have now gone belly up.
We also have many companies who whine about the lack of skilled workers and take advantage of hiring foreign workers at a lower wage than they’d pay American workers through the H1-B visa program… My thinking is, well… gee! If there aren’t enough qualified workers here…Then damned well train them yourself, as I was trained in my Insurance job. (BTW… As a laugh, Donald Trump employs foreign workers for his hotels and casinos under that same visa program, because apparently he can’t find any waitresses, cooks or maids in Florida for his Mar-A-Lago Resort…Hah!).
IMO the biggest stumbling block we 'Muricans have is our bullheaded determination to do things in such a way that is not in our best interest. We’re a pretty stupid people and easily led. When we’re told that we can’t do something, or it is wrong, we pretty much just swallow it. That’s why we spend twice as much on health care for example as we would if we had anything like a European National Health. It would save our nation 1/2 the $3.2 Trillion we spend each year. Instead, you can see the 535 Congressfolk playing tug of war over finding ‘a health care system’ that will work… Something that affects 320 million of us. Go figure.
So I’m back to my original opinion,
