No more of this on HN, please, ever. You can make your substantive points about corporate practices and whatnot without talking about how an entire nation of people shouldn't be trusted.
This is really basic stuff and applies regardless of which country anyone has a problem with.
Most people would treat it as a shameful thing from a bygone era if they had a grandparent tell them "never trust a <whatever>", it's quite unfortunate that you seem to agree with this sort of nationalistic bias and bigotry.
Also, the US spends over a trillion dollars per year on the safety net. The federal budget for giving food to low-income people is $60 Billion per year, medicaid (free health insurance for non-working people) is $670 Billion per year, $51 Billion on housing assistance. There is also unemployment benefits if you're laid off, and you can keep the health insurance from your former employer or switch to a plan from healthcare.gov (which will be subsidized by tax payers if you can't afford to pay the premium). It's not a perfect system, but it's ridiculous to pretend there is "no safety net" when there is in fact an incomprehensibly large safety net.
This varies, perhaps regionally but definitely from individual to individual. I can assure you that some of us in America grew up learning to be more like how you characterize Australians, and totally bought into that, only to be rudely awakened by the actual reality in much of this country. The shock took me about a decade of adulthood to really start to get over.
"I think I'm finally starting to understand this country. You say one thing, yet do the complete opposite".
It's a bulls-eye for me. Americans are fake, not genuine, dramatic/hysterical and hypocritical like no other culture I've ever seen.
They also have quite a few positive traits. And any other culture you pick, including mine, too has negatives and positives. It's not a contest but we should be able to reason about it. It's fair game.
“The place i like is good and the other place is bad and untrustworthy”
Oh come on. We have to be and _can_ better than this type of emotional appeal and generalization.