"Gee, it doesn't take a genius to realize that there comes a point where people begin to realize that free time is worth more than what they get to keep from working more hours, particularly when so many of the necessaries and unnecessaries of life are gifted to them by the government." - ResNullius
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What is amazing is that in this country you can work just a year or two and have all the things you need to have a good life, like a Television, phone, CD player, kitchen supplies, clothes, washing machine, etc. It really is different than a lot of countries where you might have to work ten years to afford a washing machine or a television.

I had a friend, Claudio Bandea, who escaped from Romania back when it was a communist country (while it was still under Ceaucescu) and walked through Yugoslavia, through the Alps, into Italy where he was put in a relocation camp. At first he lived in Atlanta, Georgia with a Romanian man who owned a car repair business in Atlanta, Georgia and then he came to the University of Georgia and got a job working in a lab in the horticulture department as a lab technician. He got his own apartment and bought an old used Fiat (that he used to work on all the time) and bought a television, phone, stereo, etc. Claudio was amazed and said, "in one year you can have 'all things' in this country." He met a girl there and got married and now I think he lives and works in northeast Atlanta, Georgia doing something with plant genetics.

My wife and her brother go out "yard saling" every weekend and she drags home all kinds of expensive stuff that she just pays a few dollars for. I got all kinds of expensive knives and stainless steel cookware that my wife only paid a couple of dollars a piece for. A few Saturdays ago she brought home 4 pocket knives that she paid $1.00/each for that I figured up the total retail value new would have been over $70.00. A Smith & Wesson knife, a Gerber knife, a really nice lockblade knife with 440 stainless steel, and a multi tool (real) Swiss Army Knife. The Swiss Army knife alone was like a $37.00 knife if you bought it new.

Art