Shadowing Practice: Things That Are Normal in America But Insane Everywhere Else - Learn English Speaking with Video
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There are things Americans deal with every single day that the rest of the world would find completely insane.
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And the problem is most people don't even realize it.
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Because when you're living inside of a system your entire life, things just feel normal.
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Until you start questioning them.
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Let's start with healthcare because this one issue alone explains why life feels so hard for so many people.
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In America, healthcare isn't just expensive, it's unpredictable.
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The U.S spends more on health care per person than any other country in the world.
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Over $12,000 per person per year.
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That adds up to over $4 trillion.
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So Americans are paying the most and still taking on the most risk.
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Because that spending doesn't always translate to better outcomes.
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People hesitate before they ever go to the doctor.
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And they're constantly weighing whether something is serious enough not just medically, but financially.
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They put things off and they wait a little bit longer and they hope that their issues go away on their own.
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And honestly, sometimes finding out whether something is actually wrong with you seems like a bigger risk
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because not only do you have to then decide if you're going to treat the problem, but you now might have a pre-existing condition.
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Health care is also often tied to your job.
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So your access to health care depends on your employment status.
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Lose your job and keeping your insurance often costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month.
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If you've ever experienced COBRA, you know what I'm talking about.
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Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.
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Around 100 million Americans are dealing with some form of medical debt.
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So this issue isn't rare.
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It is extremely widespread.
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There are people who have insurance, who have stable jobs, who think that they are doing everything right,
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but one emergency and suddenly they are facing bills that they cannot realistically pay.
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You can get sick, be diagnosed with cancer and have to miss work, lose your job, lose your insurance, and then what are you supposed to do?
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There are people who will drive themselves to the hospital during an emergency
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because an ambulance ride costs hundreds to even thousands of dollars.
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People are regularly skipping follow-up appointments.
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They're delaying testing.
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They're avoiding going to the doctor at all, not because they don't care about their health, but because of the cost.
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So what you end up with is a system where getting sick doesn't just affect your health, but it can affect your entire life,
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your finances, your job, your housing, your entire stability.
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So people aren't just managing their illnesses, they're managing financial risk.
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In many other countries the system is not perfect, but the overall experience of getting care is still just not the same.
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And this is just what's considered normal in the United States.
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Everyone has a story.
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Everyone knows someone with an even bigger story.
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And the issue with healthcare doesn't exist on its own.
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It's really part of a much bigger system that shapes how people live
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and what they can afford and even what opportunities they have access to.
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One of the clearest examples of that is what I'm going to talk about next, your credit score.
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In America, access to some of the most basic parts of life comes down to a three-digit number called your credit score.
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And what is so strange about this is that in order to have a good credit score, you often have to go into debt first.
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You have to borrow money, use credits, take out loans, and then prove that you're capable of paying them back.
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And if you don't use that or you try to avoid it completely, you are seen as being even riskier,
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which means you might have to pay higher interest rates, have a harder time getting approved, or being denied altogether.
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And this isn't just for loan.
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This is for basic life necessities like being able to rent an apartment,
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qualifying for a job, or definitely being able to get a mortgage on a home or getting a loan for a vehicle.
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All of this can come down to a single number.
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Your credit score, which will range anywhere from about 350 to 800,
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even a small difference can make a big impact on what type of credit you have available to you
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and what your interest rate is.
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And this is where it gets really important to understand how our system is actually designed to work.
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Because it's not just about proving responsibility, it's about how our money flows.
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Banks and lenders make money from interest.
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The longer you carry a debt, the higher your interest rate, the more money you end up paying, and the more money they end up making.
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So the people with the best credit scores end up paying the least amount of interest
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and the people with the least access end up paying the most.
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Which means that people with the least amount of money are often charged the most amount of money to borrow it.
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And people with the most access end up paying the least.
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So the system doesn't just measure financial wealth, it actually reinforces it.
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So if you start with limited access, you have higher rates, fewer options, less margin for error.
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One mistake can cost a lot more.
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And once you get into that cycle, it can be very hard to get out because interest works both ways.
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For people who own assets, interest helps them to build wealth.
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But for people carrying debt, interest takes away their money.
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So one group is building while the other group is slowly losing ground.
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In other countries, lending is often based on things like your income, your amount of savings, your actual financial behavior,
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instead of relying on one single number that is tied to your debt usage.
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And again, this is considered completely normal in the United States.
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People do not even second guess it.
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But when you step back, it really raises a bigger question.
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Why is access to basic things so dependent on your relationship with debt.
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Because when you start connecting these systems together, you realize it's not really about money.
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It's about who the system works for and who it doesn't.
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And when you zoom out, you can actually see what this looks like over time.
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The top 10% of Americans own nearly 70% of the nation's wealth,
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while the bottom 50% of Americans share less than 2.5% of the nation's wealth.
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And the wealth gap is continuing to grow.
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So while people talk about America's over-consuming problem, yeah, some people are over-consuming.
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But at least half of the country isn't living that reality at all.
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They are not overspending.
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They are just trying to afford the basics.
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And this is the type of environment that people are trying to survive in day to day, because the cost of living keeps going up, while wages are just not keeping up.
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Which means more people are working full-time, even multiple jobs, in order to just keep up with their needs for survival.
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Housing, food, transportation, healthcare.
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These essentials aren't optional, at least they shouldn't be, but they are becoming harder and harder to afford.
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In many areas, rent alone can be 30, 40, even 50% of a person's take-home pay.
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And when that much goes just to staying housed, there's very little left over for anything else.
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So oftentimes people do end up relying on credit to fill in those gaps.
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And that's how these systems start to connect.
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Rising costs, stagnant wages, and pretty easy access to debt creates a cycle that's hard to break.
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People aren't just overspending.
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They're just trying to keep up.
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They're budgeting.
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They're working.
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They're making sacrifices.
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And they're still falling behind.
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And the cost of living is rising globally.
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It is something that a lot of people are struggling with all over the world.
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But in other countries, there are at least access to some of the basic necessities of life, such as healthcare.
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There are more built-in protections.
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There's more stability around work.
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Even in countries that people consider to be less developed or third world countries, they still have access to these basics.
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So while things may be getting more expensive globally, the risk isn't the same.
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And a big part of that difference comes down to work.
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In America, your job isn't just your income.
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It's often tied to other things like your health care, your stability, your safety net.
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And that really changes a lot.
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Most jobs in America are considered at-will jobs, which means you can be let go, fired, laid off at any moment for any reason whatsoever.
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You can't legally be fired for certain things like race or gender, but you can be fired because they just don't need you anymore,
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which basically can just be a workaround.
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There's very little built-in security.
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And at the same time, the average American gets approximately 10 paid days off a year.
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And that includes sick days.
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When you're sick or when your child's sick, you'll be using that same limited time.
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In many European countries, workers get between four and six weeks paid days off each year,
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including holidays, which coming from America, that just completely blew my mind when I first heard about it.
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And it still honestly kind of does.
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In the U.S., there is no federal requirement at all.
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Parental leave is also limited and oftentimes unpaid.
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In the U.S., federal protection like FMLA only applies to certain workers at certain companies
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and they only guarantee job protection for a limited period of time, usually six weeks.
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So generally women, when they give birth to a child,
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have six weeks of unpaid leave in companies that are large enough,
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which means many families often have to make very difficult decisions.
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So this is where something deeper starts to show up.
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Families in the U.S are not structurally supported.
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In other countries, families are able to stay home with their children and still feel financially supported and secure in their jobs.
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But in the US, many parents are expected to return to work very early or risk losing their income, stability, or both.
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And this of course tends to affect women the most.
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Mothers are expected to juggle childcare, job responsibilities, household chores, without the kind of support system that exists elsewhere.
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Childcare itself can cost as much as rent or more.
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So some families are literally working just to be able to afford to keep working.
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And other women are forced to step out of the workforce entirely, not because they want to,
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but because they just can't afford to keep working and have a family.
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And when you step back, it raises a much bigger question.
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What does a system value if it makes it this difficult to care for a family?
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Because when both parents are required to work just to stay afloat
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and child care is so expensive it creates a cycle of more work and more spending just to maintain the same position.
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And even for those who do stay, there's very little margin, very little flexibility, and very little room to recover if something does go wrong.
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So what you end up with is a culture where burnout is normalized, where people feel like they are never able to rest
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or take a break and they just have to keep going and going without any sort of safety net or support.
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And again, this is considered normal in the U.S., but in a lot of the world, there are labor protections.
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There are systems that support families.
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And you start to see how much pressure people are actually carrying and how it is really built into the system itself.
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So it's not just about work and money.
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It also is about how day-to-day life is designed.
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In the U.S., having a car is not a luxury.
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It's a necessity.
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In most places, it's a requirement in order to get to and from work, to go and get groceries, to take your children to school.
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You just wouldn't have access to basic services without one.
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Public transportation is often limited, infrequent, unsafe, or just not available at all in many many places.
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So even for basic life people are expected to own a vehicle and with that comes a lot of cost.
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You have car payments, insurance, maintenance, gas, taxes.
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When you add it all up the average American household spends between
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$800 to $1,000 or more a month just on their transportation cost.
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And this isn't optional spending.
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This is built into the daily cost of living.
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And this starts early.
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Teenagers are expected to get a car before they even become adults.
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So even as a child, you still have that pressure to take on that expense.
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If you can't afford a vehicle, life becomes much harder.
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You have a hard time getting your basic needs met, getting food, getting to and from work.
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Your opportunities become much more limited.
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Time becomes more constrained.
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So it's really not an option.
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Being car dependent also affects your health because living in an environment where you're able to walk, be outside more, move more naturally,
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it just affects your overall health and well-being.
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In many other parts of the world, cities and towns and even rural areas are designed much differently.
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People can walk, ride a bike, or take public transportation and not have to rely on vehicle ownership.
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It makes daily life feel much simpler.
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But in the U.S., the system is built around driving.
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The cost, the time, the responsibility is all placed on the individual.
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And once again, this is something that is considered completely normal, that most Americans don't even think about a life where they wouldn't have to own a vehicle.
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They don't understand the cost burden that that is putting onto them.
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When looking at how things are structured, something often gets overlooked. And that is taxes.
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In America, taxes are everywhere.
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You pay taxes on your income.
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when you buy something on your property, taxes on your car, and at multiple levels too.
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There's federal taxes, state taxes, local taxes.
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And many of these taxes aren't even included in the price that you're quoted for something.
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You can purchase an item and when you go to check out and buy it,
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it can be significantly more than what you're told it was originally.
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And every year millions of Americans file their taxes manually
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or they have to pay somebody to do it for them because the tax system is rather complicated. So
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because of all of these death by a thousand cuts in
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taxes we don't really realize how many taxes we are actually paying compared to other countries.
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And Americans do often pay less overall in taxes than other countries
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but you also have to look at what you have to pay for after your taxes are already paid.
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Because in the US, you also have to factor in the cost
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that you're paying for these additional services
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that other countries might not have to pay nearly as much for things like health care, child care, education, transportation.
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Many of these things are paid out of pocket at a much higher rate.
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Compared to other countries in the U.S., property taxes are extremely high and it is something that you have to continue to pay every year.
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And if you don't pay them, then the government can take your home.
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You never
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actually own the property in which your home is on
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because you have very high taxes that you have to pay every year.
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And it's not like that in other countries.
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I think, again, this is something that most Americans would be shocked to hear.
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But in places like Thailand, for example, they don't have yearly property taxes.
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Generally, you pay for property taxes one time when you purchase the property and then that you've paid your property taxes.
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And in most other countries, property tax rates are much, much lower.
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Americans would feel like it was basically free if they knew the numbers.
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When you take a step back, you notice something interesting.
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No matter where you fall in the political spectrum, we all really basically want the same thing.
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One side worries about taxes being too high and they want less government control,
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while the other side wants stronger systems because they're not getting the support that they need.
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But underneath that, both systems are ultimately responding to the same need.
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They want a system that actually works.
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A system that feels fair, efficient, and is worth the money that they're putting into it.
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And this is where the disconnect starts to show
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because Americans are actually paying a lot of taxes at multiple levels throughout their entire lives.
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But at the same time, they're still paying out of pocket for a lot of essentials.
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So it's really not about how much we are paying in taxes.
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It's about how much out-of-pocket costs we have to cover everything across the board.
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And that's the part that often gets missed
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because people feel like they are being taken advantage of
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and paying a lot of money into a system where they're not benefiting from.
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And that is not a system that's working for anybody.
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It's just obvious that something is off.
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And that's where people from many different perspectives start asking the same question.
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What are we actually getting in return?
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And when all of these systems are stacked together, there's real world outcomes.
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The United States has the highest level of homelessness in all of the developed countries.
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If you've ever been to a U.S city,
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even a small city, the amount of people that are unhoused is absolutely insane.
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Over 60% of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, which means there's very little buffer if anything does go wrong.
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A medical bill, a job loss, a rent increase, and suddenly housing becomes unstable, which means many people are closer to homelessness than they realize.
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And this is where the gap becomes very clear.
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Because in many other countries, even if things do get expensive, there are still strong systems in place that prevent people from falling that far.
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But in the U.S., the margin for error is very small.
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And when there's no margin, small problems can turn into major ones very quickly.
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And when you step back and start to look at this all together, it starts to paint a much clearer picture.
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healthcare, cost of living, taxes, transportation, debt, work.
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None of these exist on their own.
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They all overlap.
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They reinforce each other and they shape how people live day to day.
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So when life feels harder than it should, when it feels like you're doing everything right, but you're still falling further behind, it's not just you.
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You are navigating a system that was designed this way.
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And that realization can feel frustrating, but it can also be really clarifying.
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Because once you see it, you can start to understand your own experience a little differently.
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You can start asking different questions, making different decisions, connecting with different people, and looking at other ways of living.
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Not because anywhere is perfect, but because life really doesn't have to feel this hard.
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And for us, that perspective didn't come from working harder.
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It It came from stepping outside of the system and seeing things from a different angle.
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And once you see it, you really can't unsee it.
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And if this is something you've experienced, especially when it comes to health care and medical debt, just know you're not alone.
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This is actually one of the reasons that we created a guide
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that walks you through how medical debt works and what you can realistically do about it.
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because a lot of people, when they're handed a bill, they are expected to figure it out on their own.
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But the system is more complex than it looks, and a lot of times those bills can be reduced, negotiated, or even completely challenged.
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Inside the guide, we break it down step by step, including how billing works, how collections actually operate, and even scripts and templates you can use to respond.
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Because once you understand how the system works, you have leverage.
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So if you want something more in depth,
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I will leave the link down below because even understanding just one part of it could potentially save you thousands of dollars.
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About This Lesson
You're practicing English with "Things That Are Normal in America But Insane Everywhere Else" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.
Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.