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Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart
by loxs 14y ago
Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things.
How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have separate electronic payment providers (+ most of the American ones). We use Visa and PayPal when we need to pay between countries. Until recently we didn't even have a common banking accounts system. Now we have IBAN and it's a lot better. We also don't have a common postal office. If I send a parcel from one neighbouring town of BG, to a town across Danube, it becomes an international delivery, and 5 years ago used to have to pass through the customs office.
As someone else mentioned, it's much better to sell from Romania (and Bulgaria for that matter) directly to the USA, instead of trying to enter the neighbour market.
And now surprise, we are always considered about the same thing by EU officials. We were accepted to the EU together, we must join the Schengen area together, we must adopt the Euro together... It's crazy :).
So, no, if we cave to compare to CA and LA, nope, they are a lot more similar.
- elebertus 14y agoThey're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different. The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.
- loxs 14y agoThank you for this. I was referring exactly to quantifiable traits.
- walshemj 14y agobut even comparing quite different states in the US they are more similar than the extremes of the EU you get in practice - arguably the expansion was botched and a lot of entrants came in before they had converged.
- sixothree 14y agoThe do all have different legal environments.
- gyardley 14y agoYour ignorance of the respective areas is showing. It's hard to talk about a common culture between California and Louisiana when neither California nor Louisiana has a common internal culture. In Louisiana, spend some time in Houma, and then some time in Shreveport. Louisiana has a Cajun-dominated region and a region that's very much part of the Old South, and they're not much alike. In California, spend some time in Berkeley, and then some time in Redding, and then some time in El Centro. California has a relatively liberal coastal culture, a libertarian culture in its interior, and an almost exclusively Hispanic culture in portions of its south. I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity.
- saraid216 14y agoAnd you can make the exact same comments about any country in Europe.
- nmcfarl 14y agoAnd I think this is where this all leads - at some level all generalizations fail. All the way down to the individual level. Generalizing about my cube-mate fails: he hated Mexican food, till the new waitress started at our Mexican lunch spot. So now he hates all Mexican food minus that 1 restaurant. --- This example is actually 10 years old, it but leapt to mind.
- robotresearcher 14y agoEasy, tiger. European countries have diversity like this too. In many places going one valley over will give you different dialects or languages, ethnic heritage, cultural oddities, etc.
- gyardley 14y agoOf course they do. I wasn't suggesting the contrary.
- 14y ago
- mkr-hn 14y agoSurface similarities are a poor measure of homogeneity.
- DannyBee 14y agoBTW, just to point out a common and incorrect generalization you made in this very comment: "Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level)" No, they don't. At the federal level, there is no official language. At the state level, English is an official language of California, however it is not an official language of Louisiana. See the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement I guess things may be more different than you think, eh?
- loxs 14y agoFrom Wikipedia: "According to the 2000 census, among persons five years old and older,[78] 90.8% of Louisiana residents speak only English (99% total speak English)." Ok, it might not be "official". Only "de facto".
- DannyBee 14y agoIt's less now in 2010, if i'm reading the 2010 census files right. Also, for California, the number is only 58%. "As of 2005, 58% of California residents age five and older spoke English as a first language at home". So they are still very different.