[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Besides, internet purchases are taxed in Europe, so there is no incentive to buying on the net. If you have to pay shipment charges then you wind up paying more than in a store and you have to wait to get the goods.

Actually everything is taxed, not only the internet purchases. And the amount of people buying online is only increasing here. A long of people here go "window shopping" (only looking, not buying) to finally buy what they want on the internet. Generally cheaper and, in case of larger products, it's generally cheaper to have it delivered than then trying to get it home yourself.

Originally Posted by Sonist

Huh?

The median household income in the US is in fact rather hight (I believe in Europe only Luxembourg and Switzerland are higher.)

Come up with some other reason....

The difference between the "rich" and the "poor" is huge.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.[13]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Isn't Mexico "central America" rather than North? My geography is a little vague .

Is Turkey part of the European Continent or the Asian one? You'll get different responses on this as well

Originally Posted by rgeorg

I had heard that the DVD regions were to prevent US DVDs being used/sold in Europe. The US DVDs are released in the US often a couple of months before the actual feature film makes it to theaters in Europe - and the concern was that people would buy the DVD rather than go to theaters...

Time to get movies at the same time everywhere. We know it can be done...

Originally Posted by kazbates

As a side note, I don't tend to think of people living in the UK as European. I know that the UK is now a part of the European Union, but, for as long as I can remember people have made references to "the United Kingdom and Europe".

Well, we all know that those English are a bit... crazy... So we don't want them as part of our European continent!

But seriously... Here, GB is generally seen in between Europe and the US. Take that introduction of the Kindle for example. A US product, not available in Europe. But what will be its first stepping stone into Europe? Great Britain. It's not because the market is bigger (actually, Germany has the most amount of citizens of the European Union), but because of the language. The biggest "jealousy" here is not targeted to the US, but to GB. That you have to pay extra for products from the US (or won't even be able to get it in a normal way) is taken for granted (large distance, a completely different country, etc). But that you have the same in the GB is more difficult to swallow. They're also part of the EU, so, I should be able to buy there, the same as I can buy in Germany or France. But that often isn't the case.

Originally Posted by kazbates

Lucky you! Frankly, the 4 weeks of vacation my husband gets each year is plenty. Anymore than that and he would start to get on my nerves! Seriously, that's one of the reasons I've encouraged my college age children to be extremely careful when choosing a career path. You spend a lot of time at work, so you better like what you do.

You don't have to use those 4 weeks in one go! I prefer to spread my 5 weeks over the year

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Actually in parts of Europe it is still believed and even taught that there are only 4 continents. Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. There are also a few large islands.

Dale

When I went to school, it was Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australia. Oceania I only heard of much later (and I had no idea where to find it...)

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Oceania has been abducted by Adrian...

Oceania isn't even a large island!

Originally Posted by montsnmags

We're an old, old land, parochial, whose influence slowly and barely perceptibly trickles out to puddle in the low areas of the rest of the world. Thus, we refer to ourselves as the in-continent.

Ah, is that the reason you've so little land? It would cause a lot of soil erosion.

Originally Posted by Ea

For this reason, I tend to try to use 'USA' when I can and be context sensitive about when I use 'Americans' to refer to citizens of USA.

I generally say "American" for a citizen of the US of A, and North American for anybody from the North American continent, South American for anybody from the South American continent and Native American for the native inhabitants of both continents.