To some extent, the argument against calculators is perfectly valid.

The cash register says you owe $16.23, you give the cashier $21.28, and all hell breaks loose.

My experience is more that you give €20.28 and the cashier asks you whether you have €1.

I think Europe is a few years behind the US in many respects, including the dumbing down of the population.

I wish we wouldn't be just behind, but would choose another path, but the fear is that we are really just behind.

On the one hand, yeah, immigration and trade issues push the buttons of the hard right.

On the other hand, our hard right has a trifecta of business, gun culture, and religion.

You're lacking the religion and gun culture, and trying to take away your health care would be the third rail, so in some respects, it would be difficult for you to follow us.

Also, without that trifecta, it seems that it would be somewhat more difficult to push the sort of anti-education agenda that gets pushed here, both at the university level and at lower levels (e.g. giving equal time to science and creationism).

You have to remember that the US was, in large part, founded by dogmatic malcontents who couldn't get along with their neighbors.

Um, no? The cashier punches your $21.28 into the register, and it tells her that she needs to give you $5.05 in change.

At some places this is true.

At other places, they take the $20, look confused, and fart around with the change for awhile.