My reasons for moving to Italy

For 200 years, the world has looked to the United States as a new model for a contract between the govenors and the governed. This model was worth fighting for because the benefits acrued at a proportional rate to almost all sectors of society. The wealthy became wealthier, but there was sufficient social mobility for anyone to enter the wealthy class, with the notable exception of the descendents of African- American slaves.

Today, even that barrier has fallen, and the ony thing preventing someone from entering the wealthy class is understanding the path to get there. If you grow up in an inner city, without exposure to upward mobility, it is far more dificult to see the path to success, but there are no structural barriers preventing some poor, inner city kid from becoming rich. This is the first time in history where an anonymous person, without education, but with a good brain, can sit behind a computer and become fabulously wealthy, quickly.

So, what's the problem?

We have become an ugly country. When you drive along any of the suburban arteries radiating out from our cities, there is an endless succesion of gas stations, car dealerships, Bed Bath and Beyond, Barnes and Nobles, StarBucks, Burlington Coat Factory, McDonalds, etc. Where the hell are you? Is it Paramus, NJ?, West Des Moines, IA, Arlington, TX, West Covina, CA? And the freaken" litter........!

If you were a tourist from London, where would you want to go? Maybe New York, a beach in Florida and San Francisco. We have many natural wonders, but our cities are nameless, faceless places that house our big, flat panel TVs and perform as garages for our cars. Boston and Philly may be worth a day or two. New Orleans used to be a city worth visiting. Chicago has a couple of interesting sites, but, on the whole, American cities are just staging areas for jobs.

By contrast, Europe has a thousand cities and towns that are destinations in themselves. You can spit in any direction and find a town or city that has 5 world class paintings, 5 architectural gems, 3000 years of history and no fast food restaurant.

The irony is that this beauty is created by restrictive development laws and an economic system that challenges wealth creation and mobility. European Socialism actually tends to keep the laboring class from acheiving the sort of profligate wealth we have in the US. The average European does not have the cash flow or the easy ability to capitalize property that American's have. The net result, though, is that they don't work themselves to death or destroy their cultural heritage. Oh, those unpredictable results of economic policy.

Socialism hurts those who it was intended to help, but makes it attractive for us capitalists to spend our ill-gotten gains after we have destroyed our own nest. So, we are going to do that. Let's hope that Europeans don't discover 24 hour customer service, counter marketing and no payments until 2010, in our lifetime.