That much of the world is offended by U.S. attitudes and ideas

Sorry to All for delays - my system has been locking up using Firefox; seems OK so far in IE. My 'examples' were admitted as being a bit 'silly' but I was making the point that USA is unique in this terminology; I have not encountered any other country that feels the need to annotate 'Paris, France" nor 'London, England' nor 'Sydney, Australia' since to thinking people these names are unique and need no explanation... this creates (IMO) the impression that Americans really are insular and the World ends at their country's borders. Well, that's overstating the case, I admit; yet it is said that a small proportion of Americans own a passport relative to other countries... I have seen values from 10-20% but don't have authenticated figures. Da Vinci code... the book, not the movie! (see the word "read"?). Thanks for the generous offer of a cookie but I would prefer a biscuit. I agree wholeheartedly about Hollywood; that wonderful institution regularly re-writes history whilst claiming 'based on real events'... (remember the film about a U.S. vessel capturing a German U-Boat with the Enigma Code machine?) Damn, I thought that was a British vessel... Actually I'm NOT in USA yet I do see Pres. Obama speaking exactly as I have indicated - the best president since JFK, by the way! America has hope with him in charge; at last an intellectual Chief, after the morons of recent years. Here is where I got REALLY CONTENTIOUS; I admit, I was trying to provoke a response- and was I successful! It is not just America that needs to look at its consumption; so do all the First World countries, including mine. However, USA consumes 25% of World energy for only 3.5% of its population... THAT I am not unjustified in terming greedy & selfish. Since you don't understand the concept of fairness I assume you feel it OK to grab as much as you can devour, then? Free market economics is indeed the best way to generate wealth but NOT the best way to distribute it... your recent prime mortgage fiasco demonstrated that very well, did it not? Unbridled, uncontrolled greed by bankers and mortgage brokers intent on filling their pockets at everyone else's expense! Ask the unfortunate folks who lost their homes & savings how they feel about the Free Market and I think they won't be quite as positive as you... Human nature tends to greed, naturally and its not entirely a negative; BUT.. it needs checks & balances to prevent just what happened recently. There seems to be more attention paid to Keynesian economics as a result, with its more 'humanitarian' version of economic theory; well & good to talk of "rightfully earned" but that makes no allowance for those who cannot aspire to high earnings, the disabled or other disadvantaged groups in American society. You rightly point out that 'charity begins at home' and Obama is trying to re-balance society so everybody has access to good health care; this must entail redistribution of wealth. To my mind Americans have long paid too little for motor fuel ('gas') to you and were it taxed at an average World rate, then (1) consumption would decrease and (2) taxes collected would pay for the best healthcare system for all Americans rather than the super rich favoured few. Otherwise your poverty levels will not (magically) go down. As to your comment re 'the common person' being rewarded for hard work- what's wrong with taxing the Paris (not France!) Hilton types heavily as they certainly have done nothing to earn their rewards? As for me giving up various material benefits, well, know this- I don't drive a 6 litre gas guzzler; (don't drive at all, in fact); don't own a boat, live in a 35 sq m apartment, have modest living requirements and don't miss much of the trappings of life so valued in many rich countries. Nor do I feel the need to "get used to it" which, to me indicates you have the very attitude I am criticising in your country. Nothing personal, just pointing this out to you... PS There is a spell checker below....