[kevinali1]

Agreed. It's like: America: "Kid's here have a better chance of becoming super-rich or super-powerful - maybe even President.. Forget about health care and income equality"

Europe: "Whatever, everyone here is middle class, self-fulfilled and happy... Forget about balanced budgets, unemployment and negative interest rates..."

Rest-Of-World: "Dammit, I just want to survive..."

[crdoconnor]

>Forget about balanced budgets

You can forget about balanced budgets. If you print a currency you borrow in, you never have to worry about insolvency. Ever.

Unless you're one of those kooky economists who predicted Japan would experience full on hyperinflation in the 90s. Then again in the 2000s. Then again in the 2010s...

[kevinali]

Most European countries can't print their own currency directly. As such, they certainly have to worry about insolvency (PIGS). Therefore, in the European context, balancing the budget or at least managing it well is definitely something you can't "forget" about.

[sevenless]

I always considered the USA's rule on who can become president is really unfair. Legally, if you weren't born in the USA, you are a second class citizen. Contrary to what's commonly claimed, immigrants can never become 'fully American'.

[dragonwriter]

> I always considered the USA's rule on who can become president is really unfair.

It made sense in the late 1800s, when foreign potentates exporting friends and family members and sponsoring their efforts to become rulers abroad was more of a thing, and the US was a young and not well-established country that might be particularly vulnerable to that.

Its arguably outlived any reasonable need, but at the same time the US has developed enough cultural nativism that, combined with the by-design difficulty of amending the Constitution, its difficult to change.