Why would you get flamed?
Just wanted to make sure I didn't come of as the high-horsed European who thinks he's better off than all the stupid Americans. Some people take offense when an "outsider" says something negative as opposed to a member of that group saying the same thing. So I was just being careful, really.
Sadly, I know Europe (as a whole) is in just as bad a state as the US. There's a few countries in Europe doing well (Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries) but those do not weigh up against the debt-ridden countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. And because of the EU and the Euro we can't just say "screw those guys" because the Euro has more or less become a "too big to fail" behemoth.