Warning. Here goes, the below may annoy.

The more time I spend on this site, where the majority are from the USA, the more I start to think that the USA is becoming in many ways, socially broken, and its democracy failing.

The other day someone posted here, about there being no cheap hotels in the USA like there are overseas. Well yes, because it seems to me that, in the USA, most people, especially the poor and middle income people, are not encouraged to travel, so of course there are no hotels for them. That no doubt, helps to keep people from widening their horizons and broadening their minds. Which is great if you want a nation of mindless drudges, who work, get their pay, go back, spend it where they earned it, and never question anything.

But, in Europe many companies, and institutions actively encourage travel. So that taking your vacation, especially abroad, is almost, compulsory, and you would be seen as strange, with poor promotional prospects, if you did not show an appetite for widening your horizons.

Generally speaking, has nobody ever noticed, that trying to restrict and discourage travel, is what countries like North Korea and the old Soviet Union did ? Presumably in case anyone finds out that it is possible to improve on the workers paradise, and woe betide, by changing the system and by how very much.