Haha. That's the funniest sentence you've ever written to me. Haha. Australians and Americans are the same-same with different nasally accents (theirs is worse).

Aside from the accents, the big difference is no one cares about Australians - not even Australians. They aren't the center of the world like Americans, and this changes perspectives. While Americans only hear about the US and Americans, Australians only hear about the US and Americans because Australia isn't the world's super power. It's just a giant island continent with more kangaroos than people.

For example, Australians can't believe we don't have universal healthcare, strict gun regulations, and federally mandated paid maternity, sick, vacation, and long-service leave (after 10 years with the same company you get at least 13 paid weeks vacation). However, we don't think much of it but not because we don't get sick and need time off or gun violence doesn't scare us. We accept these norms because high-profit businesses fund politicians to buy policies and launch fear campaigns to scare us into voting against ourselves, and Australian corporations aren't as powerful as Americans.

You mentioned you had a small business, and if you had to provide health insurance to employees that's a god damn injustice. The economy, society, and our government benefit from a healthy population, yet private health providers' financial and lobby power influence politicians. Small businesses and the public endure the cost because we don't have that kind of represenation.

Anyway, I'm not any more informed than the next person. I couldn't tell you anything intelligent about woodworking or guitars or most of the things you know because no two people have the same life experiences (duh). Curiosity motivated me to search the internet and the information is public, so I'm as informed as the next keyboard moron.