Maggie's Farm

We spend it because we make it. We spend more on medical care because we can. It's why 75 year-old American men expect to play tennis and ski and climb mountains and chase girls while Euro men that age are hobbling around on canes - if they are still alive.

It's not just medical care than we spend more on. We spend more on charity, churches, furniture, research, houses and vacation houses, food, gyms, bass boats, trips, lawn care, gardening, psychotherapy, marriage counseling, cars and F-150s, recreation, clothes, tools, guns, lawyers, starting new businesses, electric guitars, magic crystals, massage, booze, laser-vision, hair transplants, new knees, hips, shoulders and heart valves, sports, education - everything, including rockets to the moon.

We are a prosperous nation, but it is not because of good luck. It's because of a culture of work ethic, freedom, the value of free choice, and personal independence. Each person pursuing his own vision of what this brief life ought to be, while constantly contending with hard realities and tough choices.

Via Shrinkwrapped, if Italy, France or Germany joined the US, they would be the poorest states in the country.

(I always remind myself that, in Europe, it's the mega-wealthy and the fishermen who own boats. In the US, it seems like every cop and fireman has a more expensive one than I do. Well, actually, I managed to sell all of our darn boats last year. What a relief.)

Barrister addendum: If we just spent as much on health care as Mexico, think how happy we would be.

Dylanologist addendum: The average, middle class person in Europe lives at about the material level of an American on welfare, if not slightly below. I know: I have lived over there.