Australia - Quality of Life

I've been really, truly lazy this past month. I'd apologize, but it's not my fault. I blame Australia. I've said many times in my day that Australia has the best quality of life of any country I've visited. Recently, there was a survey in a NEWSPAPER stating that it has the 3rd highest quality of life in the world. A NEWSPAPER! If that's not enough for you, here's some more information.

If you are not employed in Australia, the "Dole" or unemployment system makes America's system look like the cheap guy who gives penny's to the talented breakdancers in the NYC subway system (support you local bboys, folks).

If you are employed, its even better. My 17 year old pseudo-step sister works at a deli. Nothing special, no government job - just a deli. Minimum wage in Australia is $13.74, according to Wikipedia (!!!). Sundays are considered, for some reason, extra super special, which equates to an increase in wage to $20 an hour. It's a completely unskilled job. I love the girl, but she cuts meat and puts it in a plastic bag. It's not like she's breakdancing in the subways or anything.

It gets worse. My Dad works in a public hospital (I'll use this moment to also mention the free national health care - and I'll throw in for kicks the multi-billion dollar federal surplus). Employees of the government have many perks. For example, they can accumulate sick days. Nurses get 14 sick days a year, and you're not sick that year, the next year you have 14+14 sick days. That's like a 100 sick days! Nurses begin with 4 weeks of PAID LEAVE a year for holidays. That number increases over time. A friend of my Dads just took 9 months off - paid leave - to travel, because he'd been accumulating the days.

Payment at the hospital is based on a 37.5 hour work week, so while working 40 hour weeks they get 1/2 day off a week. You can ALSO accumulate these 1/2 days.

I have more evidence, regarding everyone and their unemployed mothers getting overtime despite your level of experience in the hospital. But I don't understand the exact nature of the positions and their relatable titles to the US hospital system, so I don't think I can explain it clearly. But let me just say that it's awesome for them.

Tell me that's not crazy (don't actually tell me that). I haven't even brought up public holidays, which are many, to put it lightly. I'll leave that statistic to you and google, but you gotta wonder how anyone gets anything done in this country. On the plus side, we Americans can take refuge in the fact that I don't think any system can handle paying unskilled labor this much for that long and get away with it. And when their economy crashes, it gets a whole lot cheaper for us to visit. Anyone want to get in on buying a penthouse apartment with me in Sydney in - let's say - 2012?

In conclusion, vote for Barack Obama.