I checked out The Big Lebowski's IMDB page and came across this amusing bit. You would think such a classic masterpiece would win many awards and nominations, but that was hardly the case. I suppose it has a cult following of its own, but its appeal in the mainstream may not be that great. May be it had tough competition that year. Fortunately, it did win the Best Foreign Film award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics. That got me thinking if the numerous mentions of The Dude's favorite drink, the white Russian had any bearing on the film winning the Russian award.
I have always wondered if the taxes people pay correlate with the availability of social and economic programs and safety nets, not to mention the military programs that protect them. This idea comes in light of the notion that Europeans are highly taxed compared to their American counterparts, but they seem to have access to free (or almost free) education and health care while the US provides neither. The Europeans live and work at a more leisurely pace than Americans and they have the comfort of knowing that their government has put safety nets in case a disaster. The Europeans do a lot to ensure that all their citizens have comparable opportunities, and thus you are less likely to see a huge gap between the poor and the rich. Perhaps the lack of incentive to excel has stifled entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe to some extent. In fact, Europe has historically high unemployment rates than the US and the size of government there is significantly larger than that of the US....
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