13 European nations are “ahead” of the USA. Can you guess why?

Photo above - Switzerland was just ranked one of the world's nicest places to live. And the single most expensive. Don't get fooled by the goats. Most people live in Zurich or Geneva where housing prices make the US look affordable.

Wow. After I read the link below, I DEFINITELY wanted to join the hundreds of thousands of people who (allegedly) are going to renounce their US citizenship and leave after the election. Most of these loudmouths also threatened to leave in past elections, but who knows? Maybe the 3rd time's the charm.

Most of the world’s “nicest” places in the link are in Europe. Believe it or not, Ireland is pretty high on the list. This would be same the Ireland that had 25% of its population flee to America during the potato famine. Evidently Monsanto developed a cure for infected potatoes. Iceland is way up there on the "best" list, too. All 380,000 of Iceland's men women and children. Their entire nation is smaller than Wichita, Kansas. Iceland an average year-round temperature of 35F. Winter and summer. So yes, maybe a great place to live if you like being indoors. And pundits do say bad weather keeps the criminal element off the streets.

I wouldn’t mind going to Switzerland . . . if I could afford it. It is THE SINGLE most expensive place to live on planet earth. Evidently they make huge profits from secret numbered bank accounts used as tax dodges. Germany is on the "nicest" list? Germany??? WTH, they lost World War 2 and we spent billions renovating them through the Marshall Plan.

There’s a common thread here, of course. On average, the EU nations spend only 1.3% of their GDP on defense. America spends TEN TIMES as much. 13% of GDP. And we have 800+ military bases around the world - everywhere you can imagine.

Europe gets to live under the defense umbrella provided by NATO and US nuclear weapons. We keep nukes everywhere on the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction. Even places like Turkey, which is still a NATO member despite buying up all sorts of Russian stuff, and probably giving Putin a peek at US/NATO gear in return.

So yes, there are some nice places to live in Europe. Except Ukraine, which Russia fantasizes about reconstituting into the Soviet Union. And Europe spends almost zero on national defense and has politically handcuffed NATO from protecting Ukrainians from invasion and wartime atrocities.

No . . . I am not agreeing with Trump's bizarre threats to exit NATO and leave Europe to fend for itself.

But the present arrangement just isn’t working out so well. We spend billions prop up NATO while watching Ukraine get bombed back to the stone age by Putin.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

The World's Top 20 Wealthy Nations Ahead of the USA