Quote Originally Posted by Mal
Because of this there are more Americans that own property and houses than any other nation in the world.
Please don't get carried away. I guess you meant in total number of people (because the US is by far the most populous developed country). However if you look at the home ownership rate in developed countries, you'll see that the US may have a higher rate than Japan, France or Germany, but lower than Canada, the UK, Australia, and especially Italy and Ireland.

Our return on investment in real-estate in this country is phenominal, its quite frankly the best investment any American can make (and the government makes it easy to get into it as well).
What's the typical return rate (in %) for a real estate investment in the US ?

Well, now you're just being silly Of course every society has what they would consider a "perfect" representation of their ideal citizen. (Btw, that poster was funny).
Well, I have lived in 5 EU countries and still can't think of any, as it depends too much on individual values. Sometimes I think that individualism also has a quite different meaning in Europe and America. While in the USA it means being able to succeed owing to your own efforts and possess things (mostly economical perspective), in Northern Europe it means not caring about what other people think of you, believe your own judgement (which involves a developed critical sense), or even mot minding travelling by oneself around the world. When I hear about American patriotism, the "American dream", the model of the "perfect American", the "American lifestyle" or the "American way", etc. I sometimes wonder if these values are as homogenous as they would be in a collectivist society like Japan. I think it is closer to Japan than to Europe anyway. In many European countries, people still associated more with their little region that with their whole country, and care more about their personal beliefs than some national values. That is partly why it is difficult to create a sense of European nationality based on common values (except very general ones).