MekongMouse wrote: If you total the last ten years, you get 139,093,150 Americans with passports. The population at the end of 2014 was 320,087,963. Divide these and you'll see that about 43% of us have passport or passport cards. I'm going to guess this number is probably a few percentage points lower, but don't know how to find a more accurate figure. And 38% to 48% doesn't really change much to me; the point is that it isn't super low, but it is low for a developed country with as much wealth as ours..

I don't know what math and statistics they teach in the north, but your using the "total" number of passports issued isn't correct. The generally accepted figure is 20 percent, which I thought was a high estimate. A better number is as you alluded to, how many different citizens actually travel outside the USA. I'd not count Canada when deriving that figure. If we then bring in "Asia" and specifically SouthEast Asia you will get to a very low number I'm sure.

FYI, not that it's shocking news, but each and every American who enters Cambodia has his/her information forwarded to the American Embassy. I think this is daily. I'm also told that the fairly new fingerprint scanners were supplied by the USA, not only supplied, but there use insisted upon by the Americans as part of an aid package.

phuketrichard wrote:when i backpacked i always said i was from Greenland,
no one knew anything about u so no prejudice.

I always told people I lived in the North Pole, and Santa Clause lived in the same street as me.

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote: The websites linked also indicates where most Americans with passports come from. Thankfully, it is not the south.

People from the "north" always have an issue with southerners. It's beyond unfounded. Look at our airports, highways, and military bases. Obviously we know how to bring home the bacon. Nothing worse than a zealot type of Democrat who wants to pretend she's smarter than all southerners as they triple lock their apartments and hear gunfire all through the night in their ghettos housing projects.

Several things. I'm a man, not a woman. I don't live in the ghetto. I'm not a Democrat, not have I ever been registered with any political party. I do not consider myself to be from the "north" though I did live in Massachusetts for five years. The longest I've ever lived in one region - and I grew up here too - is the Pacific Northwest. We are not Northerners (the same way Texas is not "the south" but "the southwest"), though I have nothing against them.

Actually, you're right. Southern politicians are great at "bringing home the bacon" - I'm just surprised a purported conservative would be proud of mooching off the rest of us with all your federally funded projects snuck into unrelated laws.

Unless you mean that the south is wealthier, in which case pardon my laughter, but this is so far from true:

Ten poorest states:
Mississippi
West Virginia
Alabama
South Carolina
New Mexico
Kentucky
Idaho
Arkansas
Montana
Maine

Ten richest states/districts:
D.C.
New Jersey
Connecticut
Maryland
Massachusetts
Alaska
Minnesota
Delaware
California
Virginia

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill ... s-in-2014/

So 6 of the 10 poorest states are in Dixie, and not a single of the 10 wealthiest states are.

Maybe if you spent a little time developing industries and less time mooching dollars from the federal government, you wouldn't be in this situation. Then again, the generally intolerant, uneducated, and bigoted attitudes of many southerners makes attracting talent to these wastelands difficult. As a Northwest Native, I rarely meet people living here who are from here. Why? Because it is a great place to live and people want to and do move here. The same can't be said about the south. Nobody wants to move to Alabama or Arkansas. It sucks and the only people who don't seem to get it are southerners.

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote: If you total the last ten years, you get 139,093,150 Americans with passports. The population at the end of 2014 was 320,087,963. Divide these and you'll see that about 43% of us have passport or passport cards. I'm going to guess this number is probably a few percentage points lower, but don't know how to find a more accurate figure. And 38% to 48% doesn't really change much to me; the point is that it isn't super low, but it is low for a developed country with as much wealth as ours..

I don't know what math and statistics they teach in the north, but your using the "total" number of passports issued isn't correct. The generally accepted figure is 20 percent, which I thought was a high estimate. A better number is as you alluded to, how many different citizens actually travel outside the USA. I'd not count Canada when deriving that figure. If we then bring in "Asia" and specifically SouthEast Asia you will get to a very low number I'm sure.

FYI, not that it's shocking news, but each and every American who enters Cambodia has his/her information forwarded to the American Embassy. I think this is daily. I'm also told that the fairly new fingerprint scanners were supplied by the USA, not only supplied, but there use insisted upon by the Americans as part of an aid package.

Uhh... why is the math not correct? Please explain. I've always been quite good at math and you don't seem to be good at anything, so if you're going to try to correct me, you should actually do it instead of just pulling a number out of your ass.

MekongMouse wrote:

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote: If you total the last ten years, you get 139,093,150 Americans with passports. The population at the end of 2014 was 320,087,963. Divide these and you'll see that about 43% of us have passport or passport cards. I'm going to guess this number is probably a few percentage points lower, but don't know how to find a more accurate figure.


Uhh... why is the math not correct? Please explain. I've always been quite good at math and you don't seem to be good at anything, so if you're going to try to correct me, you should actually do it instead of just pulling a number out of your ass.

I don't seem to be good at anything? What is it with you people and your personal attacks? Don't you have anything better to do with your time and money?

As for your figure.....you would not "total" the last ten years to get an estimate. That is not logical statistically. I have gone to the trouble, for you of all people, to get the figure itself and post it herewith:

Times have changed. “More Americans have passports now than ever before,” says Ken Chavez, spokesperson for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the US State Department. Over one-third of the population to be exact, or nearly 110 million out of 313 million Americans. That’s more than double the number of US passports in circulation in 2000 (48 million) and around 15 times 1989’s 7 million. At that last number (under 3 percent of Americans), you can sort of understand why my European traveling buddies were scandalized.

MekongMouse wrote: Why? Because it is a great place to live and people want to and do move here. The same can't be said about the south. Nobody wants to move to Alabama or Arkansas. It sucks and the only people who don't seem to get it are southerners.

Taxes are lower in the south, food is better, the weather is better, and last but not least, the football teams are better. You keep eating your bush meat and we'll see how the next generation turns out.

ps: Arkansas is a great state. I've never lived there but have visited. There is a real misconception about Arkansas. Alabama is Alabama, and not Georgia or Florida or the Carolina's or Virginia whom I was referring to with regard to airports, highways, military bases, and the rest including educational institutions.

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote: Why? Because it is a great place to live and people want to and do move here. The same can't be said about the south. Nobody wants to move to Alabama or Arkansas. It sucks and the only people who don't seem to get it are southerners.

Taxes are lower in the south, food is better, the weather is better, and last but not least, the football teams are better. You keep eating your bush meat and we'll see how the next generation turns out.

ps: Arkansas is a great state. I've never lived there but have visited. There is a real misconception about Arkansas. Alabama is Alabama, and not Georgia or Florida or the Carolina's or Virginia whom I was referring to with regard to airports, highways, military bases, and the rest including educational institutions.

Lol @ the south. Fuck the south. Like MinnieMouse said, the only one's who seem to think the south is good are people who live there. The south is shit and greasy soul food doesn't even begin to make things "ok" for the south.

You started talking shit first, Nok, scroll up. You are the American stereotype that I tried very hard to leave back in the states. Why are you here, Nok?

Back on topic- I can easily hear an American/Canadian accent although I usually cannot tell the difference between the two. I usually just ask the person ( if I care) if they are American or Canadian...... most of the time the answer is Canadian.

I get lost with the English vs. Australian vs New Zealand accents.

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote:

NokTang wrote:

MekongMouse wrote: If you total the last ten years, you get 139,093,150 Americans with passports. The population at the end of 2014 was 320,087,963. Divide these and you'll see that about 43% of us have passport or passport cards. I'm going to guess this number is probably a few percentage points lower, but don't know how to find a more accurate figure.

Uhh... why is the math not correct? Please explain. I've always been quite good at math and you don't seem to be good at anything, so if you're going to try to correct me, you should actually do it instead of just pulling a number out of your ass.

I don't seem to be good at anything? What is it with you people and your personal attacks? Don't you have anything better to do with your time and money?

It doesn't cost me any money to state a fact. Don't bullshit if you don't want to be called out on it. Don't sling mud if you don't want it slung right back.

I would like to point out that you have continued to refuse to explain what was wrong with my math (calling something illogical and not clarifying means nothing). Point out the correct math; if you understand why I'm wrong, you should be able to explain WHY.

NokTang wrote:As for your figure.....you would not "total" the last ten years to get an estimate. That is not logical statistically. I have gone to the trouble, for you of all people, to get the figure itself and post it herewith:

Times have changed. “More Americans have passports now than ever before,” says Ken Chavez, spokesperson for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the US State Department. Over one-third of the population to be exact, or nearly 110 million out of 313 million Americans. That’s more than double the number of US passports in circulation in 2000 (48 million) and around 15 times 1989’s 7 million. At that last number (under 3 percent of Americans), you can sort of understand why my European traveling buddies were scandalized.

First, I didn't leave it at totaling. I fully acknowledged that there would be variance due to lost passports, people who travel frequently enough to go through more than 1 in 10 years, and other factors. I just said that this was the best way I know how to calculate and you haven't provided a better one, so until you do, kindly fuck off.

Second:

NokTang wrote:I don't know what math and statistics they teach in the north, but your using the "total" number of passports issued isn't correct. The generally accepted figure is 20 percent, which I thought was a high estimate. A better number is as you alluded to, how many different citizens actually travel outside the USA. I'd not count Canada when deriving that figure. If we then bring in "Asia" and specifically SouthEast Asia you will get to a very low number I'm sure.

Don't act like you didn't say 20% was your high estimate. I'd think me saying 43% +/- 5% is way closer. 33% is 5 percentage points outside my margin of error and 13 percentage points above your "high estimate." So your own quote proves how way off you were. You didn't even need to read the whole article.

Third:

You provided a quote with no source, so I've done some googling and it is from a Forbes article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbende ... passports/

The Forbes article is three years out of date, but they got their information from the State Department. The State Department has since removed the page, so I used the Way Back When Machine to dig up this copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20140113112 ... s_890.html

The article says “nearly 110 million” which correlates to the year 2011. So if you total the ten years leading up to 2011, you get 121,477,782 passports issued. If you look at their total for circulation, it is 109.780,364. They did the same exact math as me, except they had access to numbers I didn't (lost and full passports, etc.) The difference was 10%. So my estimate of a 5% margin of error was a little conservative (considering I had no data to base it on), but the mathematical formula was correct. This should surprise no one except you because addition and subtraction are some of the first things we're taught as children.

Here's an article from the same time period, which estimates 42%: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-d ... 20287.html

This one estimates 46%: http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/ ... assport-2/

Both of these articles use the same math; total the years, adjust for variances. Since nobody but the State Department has the numbers that will cause variance, we're going to get different estimates.

I still can't find anything after 2012 on the State Department website. Perhaps they have stopped publishing that information or I just can't find it. Not really sure, but anyway, hope you learned something today. Next week, we'll work on reading comprehension, but I should warn you that I'll have to start charging for my time because you're a particularly special needs case.

Edit: This is too good! I found the 2014 stats (http://travel.state.gov/content/passpor ... stics.html). Total passports in circulation for 2014 were 121,512,341 and with a population of 320,087,963, you get 38% of Americans with passports. This was 5% less than my calculation and I even wrote that my estimation would likely be a few points over the reality due to variances. This means I was completely correct from the beginning.

So next time you call bullshit on me, back it up or you'll get egg on your face.

Edit 2: I fixed some grammatical / spelling errors and added a source. The first edit was made ony my phone, so it was written kind of sloppily. I need to get Tapatalk again.

You can always pick Canadians, most end each sentence with eh....

wasabi wrote:You can always pick Canadians, most end each sentence with eh....

Thanks Wasabi. i once talked to Quebecer then i couldn't find out where he is from. His accent is a lot more like French.