Most public debt can be written off tomorrow. That is, the X Americans can rip up the debt from Y Americans and everyone will owe maybe $10,000 (to the Chinese). Same in Sri Lanka. You can rip up most of your debt and owe maybe $10 to the U.S. (or other interests in U.S. Dollars).

I'm not saying there isn't a debt problem in the U.S. There is! But it's one of inequality not size. That said, you could move here tomorrow, get a writing job on a TV show and never experience debt.

What you should understand about debt is that it signifies trust and optimism. No one gives credit or takes it if they don't think it will turn out okay. Yes, there is predation where money from the poor ends up profits for the rich. There's everything horrible you talk about in your pieces.

The U.S. is 320 million. Sri Lanka is almost a rounding error at 20 million. We have people living in Florida and the South with your climate. Where I live, we freeze in the winter. The U.S. is only one nation in a federal sense. Otherwise, we might as well be 50 Sri Lankas, all with different economies, cultures, etc. The magic of the U.S. is once here, you can move to any one. Sure, there is racism, and other problems. You may not feel welcome in every State. But generally, everyone is left alone.

The #1 attribute I feel you underappreciate about the U.S. is TOLERANCE. It is imbued into our culture. Everyone gets a say. Live and let live. I mean think about it, why don't the rich in SF have the police throw the homeless in prison? It isn't that they don't want that (believe me, privately, they do). Again, it's tolerance.

Realize the TV looks the same to us as it does to you! People are people. We're all fundamentally the same. We just have more shallow people to make fun of in the U.S. than you have in Sri Lanka.