I have heard that the airliners are generally all equipped with GPS units rated for precision approaches. I'd have to look at some approach plates to see how the mins for GPS approaches stack up to the ILS approaches for the same runways (I don't fly anything rated to use GPS for precision approaches).
Don't forget PAR, which generally has mins comperable to, if not lower than, ILS.
>I think the dumbest thing is having to turn off a Kindle. Is that even possible? Pushing the power button just goes to screensaver which uses exactly as much power as when you're actually using it.
You can turn a kindle off by holding the power switch for a few seconds. I do this every time I fly, for both takeoff and landing (I leave the wireless off for the entire flight). Given how low-power a kindle is, I find it highly unlikely that it could cause interference (unless you leave the wireless on, which could definitely cause interference), but I've seen enough surprising results from Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Safety of Flight Tests (SOFT) to know that you just can't make assumptions about stuff like that.
I have a BS in EE, a masters in Aeronautical Engineering, and fly for a living. I currently work in developmental flight test. Allow me to explain a couple of reasons why you should turn off your cell phone when flying:
1: It is not a "safety charade." See my other posts about EMC in this topic.
2: Even if you don't care about anybody else's safety, or even your own for that matter, it's still in your own best interest to turn off your phone when you go flying: if you leave your phone on, it will spend the whole flight looking for a signal, and you'll land with a dead battery.
1. I have a masters in EE, but more importantly I have common sense that tells me that millions of flights have been conducted in the cell phone era without an issue. Please stop the fear mongering on this.
2. I put it into WiFi only mode about 10 minutes after takeoff when I can't get a signal anymore and just turn it back on when we are a half hour within landing. It allows me at least a half hour of emails and texts to come in at each end of the flight. That's a lot of productivity saved.
>millions of flights have been conducted in the cell phone era without an issue.
First of all, this is not true. I have read aviation safety reports that cite consumer electronics as a contributing factor. Second of all, the fact that no major mishap has been attributed to consumer electronics is probably due in large part to the controls in place. There may be a few individuals who don't care about safety who disregard the rules, but as long as the overwhelming majority of passengers comply, the chances of an incident are dramatically reduced.
Aviators are tought a "swiss cheese" model of mishaps: there are safety precautions in place (equipment, procedures, etc.) to prevent mishaps, which you can visualize as slices of swiss cheese, with holes in them. The holes represent things that prevent a particular precaution from working properly: broken equipment, failure to comply with procedures, etc. A hazard might make it past one precaution by slipping through one of these holes, but then get stopped by some other precaution. A mishap occurs when enough holes line up in a row for a hazard to get all of the way through. In most mishaps, there are three holes that lined up to make the mishap happen. For example, bad weather alone would probably not cause a mishap, nor would a hyrdaulic malfunction alone or a slightly low fuel load alone, but when you get all three together, shit gets out of hand and a mishap can happen. On a flight where nothing else goes wrong, consumer electronics alone are not going to cause a mishap, but on a flight where a couple of other things are going wrong, a single cell phone might be all it takes to tip the scales from "a really bad day for the pilots" to "mishap."
>Please stop the fear mongering on this.
I have personally experienced degradation of safety-critical systems in-flight due to EMI from on-board devices, including devices that are not designed to be transmitters. Nothing you carry onto a plane is going to cause it to explode without warning or go completely out of control (which are a couple of straw-men I have seen in this topic). What can, and does, happen, is that safety-critical avionics don't work right. During critical phases of flight (takeoff, departure, approach, and landing), this could be a contributor to a mishap. If your ILS goes haywire when you're in the middle of shooting an approach in actual IMC, you've got a big problem; likewise, if you can't talk on certain radio frequencies in the terminal area due to noise interference, you've got a problem.
>I put it into WiFi only mode about 10 minutes after takeoff when I can't get a signal anymore and just turn it back on when we are a half hour within landing.
If you have a GSM phone, then allow me to speak for every pilot you have ever been a passenger to: fuck you. No, really: fuck you. Put your GSM phone next to a cheap set of speakers: it will periodically make a noise (especially if you are sending/receiving calls or data, or if your phone is searching for the network). The same thing happens with most ILS receivers and with the ICS on many planes. So first, they'll have to use some other approach rather than ILS, which may not have been their primary plan. Then, imagine trying to run checklists and land a plane with that shit going off in your ears.
Even if you have a CDMA phone, there's a good chance you're interfering with something, making the lives of your pilots that much harder at a time when they can ill afford additional distractions.
I currently work in developmental flight test. Any time we add a new piece of electronics to an aircraft (or replace an existing piece with a new version), be it a radio, a computer, or test instrumentation, we have to conduct an Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Safety of Flight Test (SOFT) to make sure that the new equipment does not interfere in any way with avionics that are critical to safety of flight. Even if it's something that's not being installed per se (e.g. a laptop for collecting test data), it has to be tested. Sometimes there are exceptions, such as very minor upgrades, especially minor software updates.
Generally everything is designed so as to not interfere, but every once in a while something causes unexpected interference. Sometimes it's because the designers screwed up, sometimes it's because a bespoke item wasn't manufactured to the correct spec, and sometimes it's because of something nobody anticipated.
The problem with consumer electronics is that they haven't gone through this process. None of them should cause interference, but we can't be sure because they were never subjected to comprehensive EMC SOFT. Nor would it really make sense to spend that kind of time and money when we can just mitigate the risk of interference by having everyone turn everything off during critical phases of flight.
From a safety standpoint, isn't the right thing to do to test flight equipment against interference from consumer devices? Simply assuming that everyone on the plane will turn off their cell phone seems like a cop-out.
Having flight safety depend on the (unverified) compliance of consumers is ridiculous. There are only two cases here:
1. Consumer electronics represent a real threat to air safety. They should be banned from planes or disabled (i.e. the battery removed and turned over until the flight ends.) There should be real penalties for non-compliance.
2. Consumer electronics are not really a threat to air safety. We should stop wasting everyone's time and adding unnecessary stress to the travel process.
3. Consumer electronics are not a big threat to air safety, but they can (and have, see Wikipedia article / NASA study) interfered with airplane navigation instruments.
Since it's much more likely that 1 out of 100 or 300 active devices will cause interference during takeoffs and landings than 1 out of 4-5 that are turned on by accident or ignorance, it's better to err on the side of safety and tell everyone to turn them off.
I'm not sure that's valid case... the number of devices per person, and therefore per plane, has been rising rapidly over time (I carried at least 5 "electronic devices" (kindle, laptop, 2 phones, camera) onto my flight home last night.) A plane with 200+ people could soon have 400-500 devices versus 50 a decade ago - at one end or the other of that range they're either not a threat (and we needn't turn them off) or they're a real threat and need more than voluntary shutdown.
(BTW, I watched the folks in my row on the plane, and not one person besides me actually shut down their phone or Kindle. They all just either put them in airplane mode or standby by tapping the off key. So I'm guessing that the reality is that most devices are not actually shut off by non-technical users. Even typing this I realize my Kindle wasn't actually shut off, its 3G was still active.)
I find it hard to believe we exist exactly in the statistical sweet spot where voluntary compliance results in a materially safer outcome than broad non-compliance.
I agree that it probably would not make a big difference, but since there _have_ been reports of interference, the FAA errs on the side of safety, IMO for good reason.
My main point was that it's not an either-or thing that so many commenters make it out to be. It's possible to want to mitigate the potential effects of interference even though this interference is not very likely to cause accidents.
As aircraft are being more thoroughly tested (for instance with WiFi networks and picocells) more and more devices will be allowed, and maybe one day we'll be able to use electronic devices during takeoffs and landings as well. But, like all things in the aviation world, it will take time.
but wouldn't it make sense for Apple to pay to do the testing? Being able to say "The iPhone is the only phone you can use during your whole flight" would be worth quite a bit of money to them.
They would have to test every model of iphone against not only every model of commercial airliner in operation in the U.S. (including puddle-jumpers), but against every major variation in avionics suite among each model. This testing is not cheap. Even for Apple, it would be prohibitively expensive.
There's probably only 80 different commercial airplane models. This testing probably costs around $1000/hr - figure 5 days testing @ 8 hours a day = 3200 hours = 3.2 million dollars. Seems to be a reasonable price to pay.
As I said, it's not just the different models, it's the different avionics suites within each model (e.g. two aircraft of the same model might have different radios or different navigation equipment, etc.). For each plane, you would need a few hours of testing, which probably costs more than $1000/hour: you have to pay for the plane, the crew (who have to be qualified to perform this type of testing), the ground support equipment, maintenance support, and any fuel burned during testing (e.g. running the APU to provide power during testing will consume a small but not insignificant quantity of fuel).
EDIT: Almost forgot: After the testing is complete, you have to pay to have a test report written up and published, and then you have to pay for the FAA certification process. Probably not cheap.
The US Treasury has less cash on hand than Apple. Apple makes prepayments of a billion dollars for parts. The numbers you're tossing around are, in context, very cheap.
Apple only pays for things that they expect good ROI for. I doubt very highly if they would recoup the money spent to get their phones FAA-certified, let alone the opportunity costs compared to spending that money on something else.
I would hesitate to use the term "dangerous failure modes." The danger generally stems from interference with key avionics during critical phases of flight. For example, if your ILS starts acting wacky right in the middle of an approach in actual IMC, you've got a problem. Likewise, if your radios become unusable due to noise anywhere in the terminal area, you've got a problem. Generally, this sort of thing is caught during the EMC SOFT, which is conducted on deck so that there is no immediate danger. Once the interference has been discovered it's basically a debugging process to figure out what the hell is going in (where is the interference originating, and how is it causing the observed effect). The plane doesn't fly again until it can pass an EMC SOFT.
Usually dangerous interference comes through hard-wired connections: a device that feeds back frequencies into the power system, which then disrupts other devices; or a device that puts noise on an avionics bus, disrupting communications on that bus.
However, sometimes a device, even a device not designed to transmit, can create significant RF interference. For example, a device that has an internal power supply or transformer of some sort. If that power supply is not working right, it might generate an oscillating signal. Maybe even the device itself is tolerant of a certain amount of oscillation in its power and so is not affected by this. Then, there just happens to be a wire inside the device, connected to the power supply that's just the right length to act as an antenna at that frequency, and now you've got an RF transmitter on your aircraft that you didn't expect or want. There are bazzillions of wires in most medium-to-large modern aircraft, and some of them are bound to be the right length to act as an antenna and receive that signal, passing interference into who-knows-what.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
"Once the interference has been discovered ... the plane doesn't fly again until it can pass an EMC SOFT."
Yet, turning off consumer electronics is enforced by the honor system? Is there something else going on that makes consumer electronics unlikely sources of interference that would justify this lazy approach to safety? Why aren't all of these devices confiscated and locked in Faraday cages?
It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
So highly unlikely that an honor system approach is justified?
First, it's not just an "honor system," as there is generally at least some effort at enforcement on the part of the flight attendants. I have personally had the experience of having a flight attendant ask me to put away my kindle because I wasn't paying attention to the announcements.
As I've explained elsewhere in this topic, aviation mishaps are almost always the result of multiple factors, where if any one factor had been removed the mishap would not have occurred. "Passenger with unauthorized active RF transmitter" could be one source, but it's probably not going to cause a mishap alone.
In aviation we define "risk" as a combination of probability and severity. You can drive down the risk for a particular hazard by either lowering the probability or lowering the severity. The only way to completely eliminate risk is to not fly, so every flight involves accepting some level of risk. It's really a question of residual risk you're willing to accept balanced against the costs (financial and otherwise) incurred by attempts to further reduce the risk. Several people in this topic have discussed the costs of just the current system of having everyone turn off their phones during critical phases of flight, and complaining that the FAA doesn't apparently care about such things. I disagree with them--if the FAA truly didn't care, they would do exactly what you say: confiscate all electronics at the gate and lock them in a shielded box.
>It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
Keep in mind that I'm flying in a developmental test environment. That means that we're dealing with a lot of stuff that has never flown before, or are using it in ways it has never been used before. Because of the nature of what we're doing, we already have a lot of risk baked into our flights that an ordinary flight does not have, so we tend to be a lot more conservative about the risk factors that we can control.
One thing the article didn't mention, which I've been considering in regards to this problem: an RF-based internet alternative would be prone to all sorts of other forms of government interference/monitoring. The U.S. government already has serious resources at its disposal for the purpose of intercepting or jamming RF transmissions. For "intercepting," this includes high-power decryption capabilities, and for "jamming" this includes noise jamming but also spoofing and signal insertion. So even if an RF mesh-network of some sort were to be established, the government would be able to:
1: Know exactly where every transmitter is. This means they can find you in meatspace even more easily than they can on the hard-wired internet.
2: Listen in on your transmissions without all of the legal issues associated with wiretapping. To make sure they can do so, they would probably need to pass a law prohibiting the use of many types of cryptography on unlicensed RF transmissions. Such a law would be much easier to sell to the general public "because the terrorists could be using it to coordinate attacks." If you break this law, expect a knock on your door almost instantly because of #1, above.
When you combine #1 and #2, busting "pirates" becomes trivially easy: somebody sees a "suspicious" file in your transmissions, localizes your transmitter, and a few minutes later you get a knock on your door.
There's other stuff, like injecting false traffic, etc.
Just to clarify: are you saying with your point #2 that the government can break any encryption currently in wide use with 802.11 networks and all popular VPN solutions? Or are you just saying that they can physically listen to encrypted transmissions? I was under the impression that encryption scales in complexity pretty much infinitely, so long as you don't care about encryption/decryption speeds.
I had a relative that once worked in "government security" for the U.S. government. What that meant, we weren't permitted to know. Personally, I think he was full of crap and here's why: in his Professional Opinion, any encryption algorithm implemented in software was doomed to failure because "it could be hacked" - he was completely unaware that any hardware circuit can be emulated in software.
Point: it tends to be these very gov't lackeys that think just because the signal is in the air that it can be intercepted, decoded, decrypted and its plaintext content recorded.
I'm saying that any government (possibly not some of the more representative governments, but certainly many of the more oppressive ones) could outlaw for unlicensed RF transmitters any encryption they are incapable of breaking.
As to what NSA, et al are currently capable of, I honestly have no idea, but I'm willing to bet some of their capabilities would be surprising (in both directions, depending on which specific capability you were to look at).
This isn't what the parent was saying, but you are correct: the NSA can't break properly implemented strong encryption. They can't perform miracles; they used the same technology the rest of us use, just on a different scale.
Fifteen years ago we had proof of this after the government inadvertently showed its cards via clipper chip, the crusade against PGP, etc. We still have export controls on strong encryption, and there's a good reason for that (well, maybe not a good reason).
I'm less worried about this actually -- I think the biggest problem is your own nodes interfering with themselves ("internal interference") rather than with an attacker. Agreed this is an issue though, and using omnidirectional antennas exacerbates it. Using directional antennas actually helps, for the same reason it's hard to see a laser beam from the side.
Does everyone get this free education, or just some people? I grew up in Germany, where only a small percentage of students got into Gymnasium (as opposed to more trade-oriented high schools), and only a small percentage of them got into universities. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, just that it doesn't line up with the idea of a utopian world where everyone gets a free university education.
>Higher education is free...and you get a stipend to pay for food/rent as long as you keep passing courses.
This actually created a huge problem in Berlin when I was living there. Being in the university system was such a good deal that nobody wanted to leave. Students would change majors every few years to avoid graduating for as long as possible, sitting through courses they didn't really care about because it was easier than graduating and working for a living. Classes became terribly over-crowded: when walking around the campus area, you could tell the students apart from people who just happened to be passing through, because the students all carried folding chairs with them because none of the classrooms had enough seats. To compensate, they had to dramatically reduce the quotas for incoming students, so the students who were loitering in the university system were effectively blocking younger students from ever having the opportunity to get a degree.
I don't know if/how they ever fixed this problem, but I'm sure it's very hard to fix short of putting a hard limit (e.g. 4 or 5 years) on receiving the stipend.
> Does everyone get this free education, or just some people?
Yeah, there's room for everyone. Class sizes are limited so acceptance into programs is merit-based (high school grades or a special test), but worst case you just have to settle for a less prestigious school.
There is actually a time limit to the stipend (IIRC 300 weeks of study) to avoid abuse, but it's also dependent on you actually passing courses.
>There is absolutely no incentive to lower costs or improve efficiencies.
This is almost never true with cost-plus contracts. There are normally all sorts of incentives and written into the contract. For example, bonuses might be paid if particular milestones are achieved ahead of schedule, or if certain costs come in below estimates. Also, there are usually limits on reimbursement (typically at the level of components rather than the entire project).
If used properly, these incentives and restrictions make it in the contractor's best interest to control costs. I've never seen them used perfectly, but they're often used reasonably well. I've also seen incentives that were designed so poorly that the contractor just ignored them because they weren't worth the effort to try and earn.
I think the main problem is that cost-plus pricing is often used in circumstances where it is not appropriate. Cost-plus should generally be used only for high-risk projects.
I don't know why this is getting downvoted. This is pretty much exactly why the government (mostly DOD) uses cost-plus in some cases.
The pendulum in government acquisitions tends to swing along multiple axis: sometimes the trend is towards the government do the integration itself, sometimes the trend is towards contracting out the integration to a prime contractor; sometimes the trend is towards cost-plus, sometimes the trend is towards firm-fixed price. Even though one way of doing things might be more popular at any given time, the other options are always considered and often used.
The choice of reimbursement structure (which is not just binary "cost-plus" or "fixed-price," but rather an entire continuum) is based on risk projections. If you insist on fixed price for a very risky project, contractors will bake that risk into their bids, pricing everything for the worst-case scenario. If you don't get the worst-case scenario, you'll still end up paying for it, in which case you would have been better off under a cost-plus contract. Conversely, if you pick the lowest bidder and they didn't bid conservatively enough, and then you do get the worst case scenario, they might very well run out of money, in which case you have a choice of either granting them more money or cancelling the project and eating the sunk costs when the contractor collapses. So, for high-risk projects, cost-plus is generally the best way to go.
I think that the swinging of the pendulum is due in part to a succession of over-corrections: "We used cost-plus too much and contractors wasted money! Lets use fixed-price as much as possible from now on!" Followed by "We used fixed-price too much and ended up paying too much on most contracts! Lets use cost-plus as much as possible from now on!" and then back the other way. However, I think that it's also driven by cycles of technological development: a lot of technology tends to go through phases where one generation of equipment really pushes the edge of what's feasible, and then the next generation mostly just matures and refines the technology used in the previous generation (e.g. Windows Vista and Windows 7). During those "pushing the edge" phases, risk is higher and so cost-plus gets used more; during the "mature and refine" phases, risk is lower and so fixed-price gets used more.
The only way out is to be crazy enough to build it and then sell it to the government. Risk is increased because you can't sell it any foreign one if your local one decides to make their own.
Then hope that the senator for <different state> doesn't block the purchase unless you agree to build it in their state. There is a reason that Nasa has facilities in 50states and it's not just for the airmiles
I use my credit card for almost everything. Before I explain why, it's important to state that I pay my balances in full every month. Anyone who has a hard time doing so should not be using credit cards.
There are three reasons why I use my credit card so much (in order of importance to me):
1: It makes my finances much, much easier to manage. If I were using a debit card, I would have to track every transaction to the penny throughout the month in order to avoid overdrafts. Instead, I just keep a rough mental tally of my expenditures to make sure that I'm not living beyond my means. If my spending happens to get front-loaded on any particular month, no big deal: I've got another paycheck coming before the bill is due at the end of the month. With a debit card, I would have to manage my spending by pay period (twice a month) rather than billing cycle (once a month). Also, if I did happen to spend a little bit too much by accident, I'm looking at a few dollars (possibly even just a few cents) in finance charges, as opposed to a $20+ overdraft fee on every subsequent transaction.
2: I have a rewards credit card, so everything I buy gets me points. If you aren't using a rewards credit card, you're helping to pay for my rewards: the credit card companies generally charge the merchants higher transaction fees for purchases made with rewards cards (otherwise they would lose money on people like me who don't carry a balance). Merchants pass those costs on to customers by raising prices slightly. If you're not using a rewards card, you're paying those higher prices without reaping the benefits. Some merchants charge lower prices for cash, in which case I will usually pay cash because the savings are worth more than the points.
3: Because I pay my balance in full each month, I'm getting an interest-free loan from my bank each month. That money sits in my bank account accruing interest for anywhere from 1 to 30 days (depending on when I make the purchase). With interest rates as low as they currently are, I'm only making a few cents each month this way, but that's still money I wouldn't otherwise have.
How many of these reasons would also apply in Europe? I know that #1 does, but what about #2 and #3? There are plenty of reasons for not using credit cards, which I didn't really get into, but are there reasons that apply in Europe which don't apply in the US?
1: Well in my bankaccount I can overdraft with no problemes (I think there is a system how often and how much you can overdraft but I never hit that limit). I just have more then one account (there nicly bundeld in the ebanking system) on for everyday the other for safings. So keeping track of all this is nice because you always know what you have. With Credit Card I never know how much I will get at the end of the month.
2. I think there is something like that yes but I have the same thing for the normal bankaccount the send you some kind of points and you get cheaper entery to all kinds off stuff but I never really read that stuff, In some shops you can use these points as money and I use the points for that.
3. I don't know about that but good for you if you can get some free money. A Irish guy told me once every cent is a cent closer to the next Guinness.
You've highlighted an important cultural difference between USA and European banking. At least in the UK, I know that it's common to overdraw one's checking account as a form of short-term loan. In the US, overdrawing your checking account is a cardinal sin, and it will win you a fee of $20 to $30 PER TRANSACTION presented for payment while overdrawn.
A few years back, I had plane international tickets booked on Zoom. They went out of business between the buying and the flying. With a credit card, that was Visa's problem. If it had been a debit card, it would have been my $3000 problem, as customers were unsecured creditors.
#1 does not apply. If your balance goes below zero, you start paying interest. It's a pretty high rate (12-18% or so), but nothing that will get you into trouble as long as you top it up within a week or even a month. There are no other overdraft fees.
#2: I don't know, I've never encountered a reward card. They're certainly not common here, probably don't exist at all.
#3: You have a point there, but interest on simple current accounts (as opposed to savings accounts) is often zero percent here, certainly not much higher than 1% or so.
(I live in the Netherlands.)
A little clarification, based on Danish conditions but I assume it’s similar in other countries: You can’t just overdraw indefinitely, you have an authorized overdraft limit. For some people the limit may be zero so they’re not allowed to overdraw.
If you overdraw beyond this limit, you will pay a higher penalty rate and possibly also other fees. People with good credit can often negotiate a much lower rate than 12%.
1. What the hell man, you dont make enough to spend within your means and not have to worry if you run out of cash by the end of the month!? I only use a debit card, because I know that if I even have to consider by the end of the month how much I have on the bank account, I am then doing something seriously wrong, either spending too much or my job is not bringing in the cash. And in Europe, among my friends, it seems this works out very well. Make enough cash so you dont have to worry, not make enough cash AND risk collecting debt (even for a few days) just because what, you want to feel you always can buy everything? I dont understand american mentality.
2. I have a rewards debit card, everything I buy at certain places gives me points and discounts at said places. Never going into debt.
3. interest-free loan? Thats a funny concept, coming from a bank especially. Are you serious?
Simply put, in Europe you make enough cash so at the end of the month you dont ever have to consider you will be in debt unless you want to buy a ferrari on your way back from work. You collect points using your debit card. Debt is only used for fancy house/apartement, brand new car to show off, or starting a business. Never for spending.
Money in the bank is lazy money that's not earning it's keep. In the US many checking accounts don't even earn interest, at all. Extra money at the end of the month should go into a savings account. Once that grows to a certain size, excess money should go into investments.
Exactly. My checking account earns interest, but right now it's paltry because rates are so low. I have automatic transactions in place to move part of each paycheck into various savings and investment vehicles. I have calibrated it so that the only money left in my checking account is money that is budgeted to be spent that month. In my mind, that is what a checking account is for. In order to maximize the amount of money that's working for me instead of just sitting there, I have shaved it pretty close on the amount of money I leave in my checking account.
All of my regular bills (utilities, insurance, internet, cell phone, etc.) go on my credit card, and they are mostly clustered in the first part of the month. By using my credit card, I don't have to take that money out of my bank account until the end of the month, leaving me free to put money into savings and investment earlier in the month. If I were paying those bills directly out of my checking account, I would have to postpone my savings and investment transfers until later in the month to avoid going negative in my checking account.
> * Simply put, in Europe you make enough cash so at the end of the month you dont ever have to consider you will be in debt unless you want to buy a ferrari on your way back from work.*
I am from Europe and this is a completely ludicrous and false statement. If anything I would expect my USA counterparts to get way more salary after tax each month simply for the ridiculous taxes I am paying here (48%) plus we are paying some more taxes on ANYTHING we buy including food and water.
There is, however, a big difference between spending mentality - most Europeans shy away from going deep into debt and will typically only take loans on housing and cars but not to spend on luxury and entertainment; we by and large don't have that culture of ver-spending is ok and then keep shifting the debt from credit card to credit card. Matter of fact, I don't even know if VISA here would let me do that more than once...
Credit cards act as a buffer between steady salary income and patchy spending. Many people both in the US and Europe live within their means across the whole year, but take a big holiday or trip in the summer and spend more in one month than their usual disposable income. Having a credit card makes it easier to accommodate lumpy spending like that.
Food and water is cheaper in all the European countries I've been to -- all staple foods like milk, eggs, butter, vegetables, most meat, and most groceries, including bottled water (local!) which is $1.20 for a liter. Good bottled mineral water in the US costs $3-5 per liter, for example. I lived in Austria, spent lots of time in Germany, and have gone grocery shopping also in Italy and Portugal. (The UK is not "really" Europe in its laws, so I don't count it.)
I am Austrian (born and raised) and am working in Germany now and have been around Europe and the world - what are those subsidies for food you are talking about? You probably mean the Austrian government and the EU are subsidizing local farmers?
Buying local farmer products will vary in cost and when you go to the supermarkets (Lidl, Aldi and Hofer EXcluded, their "food" is absolutely horrible) and buy organic food it definitely is expensive; a bit less in Austria than in Germany though really good and very delicious food is scarce in Germany in comparison. I found the food you can buy in the US cheaper when you go by price per unit since packages are way bigger there and you have a ton more to choose from.
Don't forget PAR, which generally has mins comperable to, if not lower than, ILS.