Brian I think you missed my whole point again. I agree that there is no country in the world as diverse as USA. It has many time zones and huge geographical diversity and climates. It also contains a population made up of ethnic groups from every part of the planet. As I said in an earlier thread it is a truly beautiful and great country...if it was not for all those Americans living there. LOL.
My point is simply that although very large and diverse it is quite insular and ignorant to many things happening outside its boundaries. Most Americans have not ventured outside their own back yard.....so they only see the world from the narrow propoganda filled viewpoint produced by pundits and politicians with a biased and ill informed judgement based on ignorant political views. You hear what they want you to hear.
Now you said that unions are the downfall of your society and that left to their own devices people would be more efficient and have a better production level without unions.....nonesense. Having worked in both the private and public sector there is no difference in the lazy person's performance. Lazy people are employed in BOTH. In fact some of the worst wastes and inefficiency I have ever witnessed has been in the private sector.....and some of the worst exploitation I have ever seen has been in non union workplaces. Some of the best and most productive workplaces have been in the public sector with closed shop union practices. Some of the worst health and safety issues are in the private sector and some of the worst cases of lazy people holding onto jobs are in private enterprise. As an example there was a potato crisp factory about a mile from where I live that was about to close because it was running at a loss. The staff were made redundant. They all got together and pulled together, bought out the company and ran it as a cooperative enterprise. It is now very succesful and making more profit than the old company ever did or could.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=687727&songID=5238055