Agreed entirely, but its because our government has the collective brainpower of a bowl of complimentary peanuts. Also, a small country such as ours (<4m people), who are really tourism based, has a hard time staying above ground in that respect. Look at any small country thats isolated and 1st world (not that theres many of them) and you'll see a similar trend, to an extent. Unless a country this small has a particular commodity or service above another country, its almost certainly going to be in dept. But yes, our govt are morons, who are paid off easily - ie 'broadband' by telecom here (telecom was sold by the govt in the late 80's early 90's I think - 90% is overseas owned, no small part american) is bundled loop - the copper is purely theres, and its 90% overseas owned... 'broadband' here is 256k/128k up. Second example - govt sold a large proportion of our timber, to pay off some random dept; the list goes on.
That being said, you cant deny that America has problems of its own; sure, theres diversity, but theres much wider crime, pollution, corruption etc... every govt is as bad as each other. I think priority needs to be taken more than anything in regards to health care; if you're seriously sick, you should be seen very quickly. If not, longer is fine. The main problem with NZ is, we have EXCELLENT training, universities etc, but very few decent jobs to actually support them. Most graduates will travel overseas for jobs, because they're simply not available here. And overseas, they'll earn top dollar, because they're worth it.
As far as taking care of yourself goes, I agree with whats being said. However, society is great at making people feel bad about themselves - do you really think that the 250lb guy will go jogging to lose his weight? probably not, if hes got pride... Its all inter-related really, and as you say, we're all as bad as each other (before you jump to conclusions, im 5'8" and about 135lbs). What I want to know, is if your country took 20% of its military budget, and sunk it into healthcare and general society (homeless people anyone?), how much better would you country be because of it?
But yes, I guess they could legalise it, add another thing to tax... but really, how much would it help? honestly? Its a general management flaw causing these sorts of issues, not one greenleafed plant. Wow, nice OT there, sorry about that
