Can you please go on with this point and provide some 1-1 examples you've personally seen? I keep dreaming and have, for the last 5 years, about leaving the US and living in Europe but I feel like I'm throwing away an enormous economic opportunity by moving now.

I have accumulated and will continue accumulating wealth that would be impossible to accumulate in any European country in my lifetime. I keep saying, one more year, just one more year and it seems to be a hamster wheel that never stops spinning.

I'm afraid I'll wake up one day, after saying one more year, that I'm 50 years old with 2 kids and a life in the US that I'll have a harder time leaving behind.

This means that there is a strong social safety net, and we take care of the vulnerable. I do not have to worry about the cost of my medical care or other social needs. I pay my taxes, do my part as a citizen, and I know I will be taken care of.

Essentially, because of this I do not have to live in fear.

I basically chose my field of work due to the need for health insurance, as an American. When I was at university, some semesters I was basically going to university just to keep and maintain health insurance, when I was sick beyond belief. It was unbelievably stressful. I never would have needed to do this if I was a Croatian citizen at that time.

I also do not have to accumulate huge amounts of wealth to ensure I am cared for, like I would in America. I do not have to be on a hamster wheel that never stops spinning, due to the principle of solidarity.

I simply get to be free. I do not have to work a job just for benefits or for pay. I do not have to work long grueling hours.

Anyways, the best country to get EU citizenship in, usually for people on here is Republic of Ireland, which permits dual citizenship. You can get citizenship there in 5 years. Besides getting Freedom of Movement rights to live/work/retire in the EU/EFTA (minus Lichtenstein), you also get rights to live/work/retire in the UK, due to treaties and historical ties.

Also, most people here are skilled workers in tech. In Ireland, for many people here on this site, you can get a job visa to Ireland relatively easily, without a skilled worker test (which means that the Irish employer has to demonstrate that they are not taking a job from an EU citizen by hiring you--the documentation required can be harsh for the employer), as there is an exemption: https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/What-We-Do/Workplace-and-Skills...

I know the safety nets you're referring to, they're there for health care, unemployment and worker rights. Things that don't really exist for most people in the US if they're unemployed or in a regular job.

I'm lucky to be in a well paid, high lucrative job even if I have to pay the highest taxes in the US (Which let's be real, are little compared to the EU).

I have a Romanian passport so it's easy to jump over the pond but I'd love my US residency and all the years I put in to be able to start switching jobs more easily. I don't want a ridiculous amount of wealth but I'd love to have a head start and secure financial freedom for my family.

One of my friends just left Munich for Colorado, he said houses are still too expensive in major German cities and salaries too low. He was working remote for a SV company and making big bucks for EU standards. I keep hearing how I'll just have to swallow a tiny salary compared to SV wages if I move to any EU country, Switzerland included.

I guess I have to get to the point where I'm ready to leave the consumerism behind, be happy with extra vacation / free time and "unprogram" every bad habit I learned while living in the US.

That is 100% totally understandable, and is basically the American dream, as you know.

No matter what, as soon as you can: After you hold your green card long enough, make sure to naturalize as a United States citizen. A lot of green card holders never bother to become US citizens. I always encourage people I know to do so. But, generally speaking, once you are a citizen, you are a citizen: it can never be taken away from you. We need people like you and your family as US citizens.

I would get a lawyer, but many lawyers can be sketchy. My best advice would be to go to the Embassies of Switzerland/France/Germany/Canada/UK/etc. to the US websites' and go to their "legal advice" page. There usually is a PDF list of American lawyers. On there, it will specify their area of practice. Obviously, you want an immigration lawyer.

Lawyers can be sketchy, so you need to vet them out for any possible red flags, such as "positive counter-reviews", "any bad reviews", or "painting an overly perfect picture of oneself". If they are involved in commerce associations or any sort of business association (especially if it involves complicated laws or situations), this can be a good sign, as they have to get along with others and just get stuff done in general. From there you make a list of prospective lawyers, email them, and go from there. I would also ask for references, both on a professional level and from actual clients, too.

I value the point of citizenship and passports but getting the US one seems to be shooting yourself in the foot if you don't ever see yourself moving back to the US. I know for sure if I leave, I'm not planning to retire anywhere in the US so it would be a tough sell to go for citizenship.

Sorry, but this is not true at all.

I was being dead serious about suggesting that you might as well naturalize as a United States citizen.

You are already liable for US taxes for at least the next 10 years abroad, from the date you have been judicially determined to have abandoned your green card. You do not acquire this status by not fulfilling the requirements of your green card, either: you need to fill out an I-407 form or a Letter of Intent to Abandon Residence Status. Then, at some point, you receive a judicial determination and have to pay taxes for the next 10 years to the US, from that date, while abroad.

See: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/visa-green-card-hold...

The worst part is that due to FATCA, they can literally seize your bank accounts that you hold abroad.

Anyways, this is a good overview for "playing your cards", with respect to pensions and taxes, while abroad, as a green card holder or an American: https://www.goldinglawyers.com/green-card-holder-foreign-inc...

So I can't find this mentioned anywhere in your link or online. That's the first I hear of it, do you have a source?

There is an expatriation tax if you've been a GC holder for 8 out of 15 years, which I haven't been so I'm fine to leave without any hassles of worrying about taxes.

I don't see the point in US citizenship, I have 2 other strong citizenships that cover all of my needs, unless I decide to stay in the US.

It looks like I don't want to stay in the US long enough to make citizenship worth it, right now.

See: https://americansoverseas.org/en/knowledge-centre/when-are-y...

These are the most important headers to look at:

* US Income Tax: How to Relinquish the Green Card

* Form I-407 or Letter of Intent to Abandon Resident Status

Both of my parents were American accountants, and my father was a CPA. So, I guess I have a different outlook on taxes. I do not see them as a big deal except for the fact that I take paying my taxes very seriously, and obviously I do my best when giving information. I always pay them on time. But, I just look at it like "paying my dues to society", whether or not I actually agree with it--which in this case really does not matter--as it is due, legally.

I am just stating this from purely a personal perspective, so please do not be offended. I know we all have different feelings about being taxed, double-taxed, etc.

By the way: I am not afraid of renouncing my US citizenship, even though I am culturally American and it would be harder to access my family.

The only reason why I do not: I have 2 rare immune-mediated neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system. One of them I nearly died from, and is considered to be very rare, with case reports and small cohorts, at best, in the literature. The disease I have was discovered via National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funds, given to the Mayo Clinic, in the early 2000s. Ultimately, as problematic as the US is, they saved my life, along with the few thousand people diagnosed with this illness worldwide.

The only thing that pops up time and time again is the expatriation tax which only applies if you had your GC for 8 years.

I'm really sorry about your neurological diseases, it's such a shame US healthcare is in shambles for the general populace.

Naturalized citizens can lose citizenship if it is determined they lied on their application. This is unlike those who inherited citizenship via birth.

Thanks for pointing this out as it is very important information to have vs. everything we hear about Germany being "the best place in the world" and "you don't need to buy property as everyone here rents".

If you can't buy now, with "significant disposable income", will you be able to buy later? That is, if you care for home ownership at all.

FAANG/SV engineers could buy a home pretty much in any major city after some years in the industry. I have heard that is not the case in Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich, etc...

But, as said by others, comparing raw numbers is pointless. Even if we spent the 2/3k that are left each month, we'd still have health insurance and pension paid for by our taxes. We aren't forced to build so much wealth to weather bad times because proper insurance is built in the system.

What domain are you in if you don't mind me asking?

So there is much more focus on soft skills, such as leaving a good impression, properly selling your work so that the client is happy, securing future collaborations with them, and so on. And, on the flip side, hard technical skills are not that important: as long as you can produce something that works in a reasonable time and sell it well you will be fine.

Did you check e.g. levels.fyi?

Unfortunately not true. Just because some FAANG in the area will be able to pay you €150k+ TC, doesn't mean all local companies will automatically try to match that. You might be surprised how wide the TC gap is between FAANG & Co. and local players who might laugh in your face if you ask for more than €80k. Simply put, most EU companies can't match such levels of pay but will have no shortage of talent.

It also gets hairy once you compare pre-tax (US Salaries) with post-tax (EU salaries) and different costs of living.

I use a combination of levels.fyi, Payscale/Glassdoor plus Numbeo / Nomadlist to keep running the numbers around how much I could save by moving elsewhere.

Are you sure you're in the same Croatia as the rest of us?

I’m eligible to work anywhere in the EU but the pay in continental Europe seems much worse than what I could earn working remotely for a US company.

You've got recognisable names like Microsoft, Amazon, Stripe etc, but also a large amount of tech jobs in staid banks and insurance companies, as well as a fairly healthy amount of startups and other small and medium sized enterprises.

Pay is good. Assuming your housing situation is ok, you can have a decent career and a stereotypical comfortable middle class existence - mortgage, car, a foreign holiday every year (with 20-something days of annual leave per year) and the possibility of putting your kids through college without either loans or maintenance grants.

Beyond pay, and not getting too far into social safety nets and GINI coefficients etc, it appears to be common to get fired with no notice in the USA. That level of insecurity is rare in Ireland, and pretty much unheard of in any office job.

Yes, salaries are low all across the EU (Switzerland is not in the EU) and taxes are high, so ideally I recommend working remotely and bouncing between Portugal and Spain or finding a post retirement hobby (easier said than done).

(By the way I did consider Croatia too as it is similarly inexpensive, but Romanian is an easier language and I already knew people here from previous travels).

Portugal seems a great in between if you can swing a remote job, a lot of tech workers prefer it for the low cost of living and climate, like you said.

It seems working remotely is the best option but I'm not sure how feasible that is long term and with timezone differences.

Overall, for most of the population, yes. However, if you're a tech worker, no, as that puts you in the top %10 of earners.

In many ways, Romania is like the US, high inequality, low taxes, and poor quality social services, unless you have a corporate job, then you can live like a King as the huge pay(relative speaking) and job perks give you an edge over everyone else.

This made me chuckle, I often compare California to Romania (since I know both places well) and can contrast the corruption, money waste, terrible infrastructure and inequality in a way that friends / family that moved from Romania can't agree with.

They always paint Romania as a third world *hole that's incomparable to the US/Canada or other "civilized" countries.

I follow the news, political developments and have friends there so I'm aware how far it's gotten in the last 2 decades, I'm pretty proud of the direction they're heading in.

The only caveat I have for you with living in RO vs the US is the healthcare system. Even if you opt for private care, the really good doctors, the emergency procedures that need to be done in public hospitals are a disgrace. At least in the US if you "live like a king", you can pay for a king's level of healthcare.

In RO, you literally have to fly to Germany/Switzerland or elsewhere to get quality healthcare and if you have a really bad accident, you may not make it to the hospital to get the care you need.

That's the one thing keeping me from moving to RO today, even with its extremely low cost of living. I can't risk my family's health on the disastrous healthcare system there.

> That's the one thing keeping me from moving to RO today, even with its extremely low cost of living. I can't risk my family's health on the disastrous healthcare system there.

I have the same issue here in Croatia, and I spend a lot of time on the islands. There is no such thing as medivac (air rescue) here.

The solution to this is to get an International SOS plan, which covers pre-existing conditions. I know all about this because my sister was an expat living in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, Equatorial Guinea (Africa). If one became gravely ill there, you would be medevac-ed to Munich, Germany. Hers was an employer sponsored plan though.

You only have to declare one of your nationalities (as in citizenships) when filling out the forms, and I confirmed that this was proper procedure (you can also reside in the country of your nationality under the terms and conditions of the expat plan). I declared myself as a United States citizen. You also state where you plan on living the majority of the year (Croatia). The expat plan is something like $750/year, which may seem expensive. However, if the incident is severe they will also repatriate you back to your home country of citizenship. In my case, this would be the United States. I want to be repatriated where my family is, if I get gravely ill.

If you get very sick in Croatia and need to be medevac-ed out, they fly you to Vienna, Austria.

Here are where the "expatriate plans" are: https://buymembership.internationalsos.com/expatriate/

For healthcare I'd just plan to go to Poland for serious care. As for consumerism, you can't beat the US for Amazon Prime, craigslist, or ebay (my personal favorite).

The only thing that's cheaper here in Cluj is housing. Food is slightly cheaper depending on category, but many things are more expensive. Including gym memberships.

Hard to plan to go to Poland for serious care if you have a life threatening emergency. If Romania figures out its healthcare problem, it could be a serious contender for me to live in, in the future.

Check out Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein. These places pay incredibly well and once you factor in the cost of healthcare and general quality of life, the US looks like a bad joke. These three countries’ job market is accessible with a Schengen visa.

Is that true? I'd have assumed that EU citizens have access, but non-EU would need to apply specifically for FL/CH work permits.

(and I'm not sure, is there actually a EU-wide work permit for non-EU? I had the impression that each country is still handling non-EU permit separately)

(tourist visa are different of course)

Same goes for CH nationals who want to work in the EU.

My comment was really about non EU+ nationals. If you get a working permit as a 3rd party national with no treaty with EU, in eg Germany, can you just move to Spain and work?

Bear in mind that wealth is relative. The differences in cost of living are dramatic between countries so a much smaller wealth in one country can be much larger in another.

Insurance for the future. Maybe I get bored of software, maybe I want to take a few years off and not have to work. Maybe I won't be able to "unprogram" the consumerist habits I picked up in the US and will fall back into buying things I don't really need (like Hi-Fi, photography equipment, gaming rigs, TVs, etc...) and will need funds to continue doing that.

I don't know, I guess I spent too much time in the US and deeply concluded that it's better to have wealth than to not have it. I have a lot of reflection to do.

Even adjusting for cost of living, if I bring $1M over to the EU, I couldn't stop working for the next 50 years, I would need a few for $xMs for that.

If I move to the EU now and take a hit in income, that will become impossible.

If that is true, it's more than I thought it would be and I think if you found a good job you enjoyed, making 80k EUR/yr on top of having $1M saved could give you a secure financial future.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Germany/

$30-40k/yr, pre-tax, would still be ok for one person in Portugal / Spain or other lower cost of living places, right NOW. Once you add in a spouse, children, things start to get hairy.

Once you consider that these places are currently undervalued and their cost of living could increase dramatically in the future, that $30-40k/yr no longer seems as safe.

I would personally aim for $2M+ to feel safe that I won't have to be forced to work a job I hate for the next 30 years.

"Some people are so poor that all they have is money."

(I'm not advocating curtailed wants or frugality. My life is pretty comfy and I like it that way.)

Real estate is much more expensive in major European cities compared to US major cities (income-adjusted), and is taxed a lot on top of income taxes. And rural real estate is much cheaper in the US both absolutely and income-adjusted.

Vehicles and fuel are more expensive here too + again major taxes. Traveling by public transport is reality only in major German and French metropolitan areas, you need a car everywhere else as soon as you need to cross the city border at least semi-regularly.

And yet not even coronavirus tests are free here, as opposed to many places in the US.

You must have a bank account in Croatia, for example, to get various things done with Croatian government bureaucracy. Generally speaking, some German and Austrian banks will do business with American citizens. It is important to be gracious and patient, as FATCA is a huge pain.

There is a Foreign Earned Income Exclusion on US income tax returns. For 2020 it is $107,600, and for 2021 it is $108,700. Obviously investments are another story. But, many Americans abroad do not have to pay US income taxes, but they do have to file them.

In the US, with good health insurance benefits through a large employer, my out-of-pocket costs were around $25,000-$30,000/year. Even if I paid US taxes on top of the European taxes, it is not the worst thing in the world: I never have to worry about being cared for here, and the doctors have a lot more time for me here, and can follow my case better.

I also require an orphan drug to stay alive, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in the US, typically covered by insurance, but not guaranteed. So, I could always end up with an obscene bill in the mail. (It has happened before and I have been lucky to get off the hook.)

I work outside of tech for a Fortune 500 and my premiums are $1200 per year with a max OOP of $2500.

Unless a plan is grandfathered in, the ACA limits OOP to ~$9k per year.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

Yearly premium liability: ($950/month)*(12 months/year)= $11,400/year

Out-of-Pocket liability: $9,000/year

So, the minimum healthcare liability that I theoretically have in the US (which is never the case for me), every year, is:

Yearly Premium Liability + Out-of-Pocket Liability = $20,400/year

However, I also have other uncovered medical expenses, encountered thanks to insurance issues. I literally generated well over 100 claims per year on medical insurance alone, so it was not like I never had uncovered expenses. Obviously you fight it, and you never give up, because that is what the providers expect you to do. However, there are a lot of situations that are just unwinnable.

In reality, my yearly healthcare liability in the US was closer to $30,000/year.

I had the opposite experience. I found US health insurance reasonable and it covered more than in my original country (which didn’t cover the latest cancer treatments and had long waiting lines). If I got seriously ill and had good insurance I’d return to the US for care than stay where I am today in a developed country.

A lot of banks just straight out refuse it. Especially the ones with the lowest fees.

I think it is for any income above 100k/year (the amount could have changed), if you are in that bracket is a nice problem to have

> Also many international banks cringe at opening accounts with “us persons”

I live in a country with many American expats, none of them have had any problem whatsoever to access to banking services, including opening accounts

It depends on the bank. Any bank doing business internationally is usually fine because they probably already have a robust compliance mechanism in place, but a lot of local banks will just straight-up say no because they don't want to be subjected to FBAR / FATCA.

If you’re a one-off for them they may just say “no”.

You can also do that 100% legally as a non US citizen (I did), with the added advantage of not paying US taxes.

You have to pay taxes and social security in the country where you reside, not where you are a citizen and/or work (mostly).

Croatia at the moment is a black sheep in the European Union, though, as it has an easy to get digital nomad visa: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/news/digital-nomads-in-cr...

For the digital nomad visa in Estonia, for example, you need connections there to essentially get it.

Czech Republic has a self-employment visa that allows you to work without formal business connections within the country, which is pretty unique among the European Union.

Only US & Eriteria taxes its residents/citizens' income, no matter where it generated. So a US born baby (us citizen by birth), moved to Europe back with parents, or even an adult us citizen working outside US has to file the IRS Return. Every year.

Can you expand on this point? Fellow US-EU dual citizen and cultural American here, looking to do the same thing, for similar health reasons.

I don’t know what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us how great it is to have 1/3 less PPP and higher taxes, but I sure as hell don’t want my taxes any higher.

A grand total of none of my international friends have anywhere near the wealth, nor earning potential I do, and they never will. It’s an exceedingly large, compounding edge.

American policy makers can’t even use our existing tax revenues in fiscally responsible ways as it is. Why would I vote for more taxation?

Everyone knows our healthcare system is asinine. It doesn’t require more money to fix.

That's because most of us are not obsessed with wealth. We tend to be satisfied with some level of comfort and security and focus on other things in life. I guess that's a cultural thing.

> Everyone knows our healthcare system is asinine. It doesn’t require more money to fix.

It's not only about health care, but other aspects such as how the society is structured, poverty, incarceration rates, access to education, homelessness, etc. Again, probably a cultural thing but Europeans seem to care more about these matters than Americans and so we structure and drive our politics and legislature towards addressing these issues.

You might have more earning potential in the US, but I’d much rather make a bit less money and live in a country with a functioning healthcare system, a welfare system, a (mostly) functioning legislative branch, much less police violence and racial tension and less political polarisation. I just don’t feel anxious living here. No matter what happens I’ll be ok. In Australia you don’t need to be super rich in order to feel safe.

My guess is it will be years before we correctly understand exactly what worked or didn't and why.

Apparently the #1 predictive factor for a country to have good health outcomes is trust between the citizens and their government. Small countries have done better than big countries, but that may be a side effect of public trust generally being better in smaller countries.

Source: this podcast (based on a study) https://overcast.fm/+YQ31Gx6tw

Please do not take offense to this. This will be infuriating, but I want you to understand the American mindset that causes this behavior.

Please know that I am found of Australians: In primary school, 2 of my neighbors were Australian, and I played with them every day. They were wonderful, very kind, loyal friends, and their family was amazing. In high school, one of my best friends at the high school was Australian, along with her sister. They were always kind to me and talked to me about thoughtful things. I have serious health problems, and one time I had a medical emergency (severe low blood glucose reaction) at school after hours, and her older sister took care of me for a what really was a long time, before adults could take over. I will be forever thankful to her and her family.

Everybody knows that Australia can be very cliquish, which really sets Americans off. While Australia does quite a phenomenal job of taking care of and looking after its citizens, if you are not a citizen then there is outright hypocrisy on that standard. This is awful to say, but it is true.

Just an example: you must be very healthy to become either a permanent resident or an Australia citizen (naturalizing via work--not marriage or descent), as there are medical inadmissability clauses in the immigration laws. Basically, if you cost more than $8,000 AUD/year total for both health care and other related social services, then you are medically inadmissable to Australia. If one of your immediate non-citizen family members in Australia exceeds this cutoff, then all of you cannot live permanently in Australia. It is brutal.

You also pay a lot for housing in Australia, and things are just not as well built or insulated there. It is an engineering problem, and Americans find it appalling. I posted this link in an r/IWantOut post, and prior to doing so, I said, "Australia truly is a great country, and its people take care of its own citizens, but there is going to be a serious housing crisis that is going to occur in the future. You need to be aware of this issue." Anyways, I got a TON of flak for it, by Australians, and rightfully so, as Australia is a great country:

Expert warns Australia could turn into slums in 20 years | 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRSdiq3sOTc

Americans tend to find the "happy-go-lucky attitude" of some Australians to be appalling. In that sense, many Americans find Australians to be jarring and they get under Americans' skin.

As for American hypocrisy: Americans think that they are the center of the world. Many Americans think that we are the best country in the world, which is laughable at best. Those people are in for a rude awakening in the future. But, my point is, that in the past 4 years of Trump, American Empire has declined in reality about 40 years, due to Trump's "work".

Also, Americans are big on their BS "freedoms", in totally hypocritical ways. One could write books about it. It would actually be great satire.

We always had the strategic capacity, at least in theory, with our institutions and infrastructure (if Trump was not our president) to at least attempt the elimination strategy, although places like Australia and New Zealand have natural geographical advantages.

The problem is that very few Americans are willing to take pain in solidarity with others, for a short period of time, to potentially eliminate such a terrible infectious illness that will cause everyone even more pain long term.

In America, there is always a baseline level of fear and anxiety too, present all the time even pre-pandemic, which a president like Trump knows how to appropriate in "hits" of pain onto the right groups of people. Americans expect a lot of pain, just in general.

So, when Americans see failure (which is a very mild failure) in Australia from coronavirus leaks into the community, the Americans are doling out a "hit" of pain to you (Australians), in an "in your face way".

They are trying to say, "see social democracy and social solidarity don't work: you failed" and "see, look, we are better than you and for so many reasons" and "The pain you had to go through for those lockdowns never worked and never will work: you might as well give up--we have it better than you no matter what!"

Mostly, Americans are projecting this onto Australians: We (Americans) are better than you, because we never had to give up ANY of our freedoms: we can choose to live life on our own terms. Do not (you: Australians) tell us what to do with our country, which is the "best in the world".

And that anxiety you mentioned that’s strangely ever present in the US disappeared when I came home. I was on a bus and had the revelation that nobody was going to try to talk to me. It was bliss.

The lockdowns we had in Melbourne to keep covid down were utterly harrowing and I think a lot of us are still processing that experience. We gave up some freedoms temporarily to save lives. It was a temporary sacrifice of personal freedoms, because not making that sacrifice would have been worse. Letting covid out would have risked the lives of my parents, and I would have risked long covid - and who knows how many complications down the road. And it’s proof we as a nation can take collective action when we need to. I worry that the US might not have been able to do what we did to contain the virus, even if the fatality rate was 20x higher than it is. And that’s a tragedy from the country that invented the internet and landed people on the moon.

I definitely agree with all of this.

Yeah, sorry my fellow peers in America are being pricks, and are being so mean that they are not just inflicting pain—-but are retraumatizing Australians (usually strangers) on the internet.

In the US, sadly, if somebody dies of coronavirus, then they are really nothing more than a statistic. It is sad but true. A lot of this existed before big tech, but big tech brought it to a totally different level.

I agree that America probably would not come together in solidarity to stop a virus 20 times more fatal. I have been so worried about where America has been going for the past 6 years especially.

Even if we do somehow get our act together, we will need profound structural change. We will need to flood our politics with ambitious positive plans in general in the future to stop this kind of stuff.

Also, the first 5 years of life determines many outcomes in life. It can set up a child to have an authoritarian personality for life, for example. To stop this, our government needs to put extreme emphasis on young children’s development so this kind of stuff can never happen again. I mean like hardcore investments, projects, and human rights towards the best development of young children.

The depths of how far low it can go are profoundly deep.

Funny, talking to my friends in Asia (to which I consider Australia/NZ to be a part of) it feels the exact same way!

I can tell them how I go anywhere without wearing a mask, some people make snide remarks but that's it - while they have to declare their address in restaurants, and face all kind of restrictions like not being able to return to their country without a quarantine.

> I’d much rather make a bit less money and live in a country with a functioning healthcare system

With money, in the US you'll get the best healthcare money can buy (or you can travel to Asia to get it cheaper)

For the rest (welfare etc), I really prefer the US way - it feels better to me to have people strongly incentivized to behave, yet free. I guess we are different.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been tough sometimes. Masks are no big deal. It’s the occasional city wide lockdowns have been the worst. But the USA has just shy of 500 000 deaths. (There are 440k men/430k women in SF, if that gives you a sense of the scale of the tragedy). We only had 909 deaths in Australia.

Maybe to you those deaths were worth it so you didn’t have to wear masks? That’s horrific, and I don’t know how to respond to that. I suppose we are different.

Yes, we are different, because they are fully acceptable to me. Even 2x, 3x or 10x more. Even if I was at risk myself. Freedom is not negotiable.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/535344-biden-req...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

I don't mean to be rude but please look at that above link and understand how poor you as a citizen of USA are. It's frustrating to come from a country thats ~3X as wealthy as the USA in terms of median wealth (i'm Australian) and see the idea that higher taxes are an issue. The higher taxes are on the very wealthy. Median wealth captures this. The USA fucked up somewhere along the way and taxed the poor (those <1million a year) and this is why you are posting what you are posting. More taxes are ok if they are on the rich.

> what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us...

There's this strong sentiment among Americans that I see on social media so often these days that the Internet is somehow an American thing and we need to watch our mouths or get off their lawn.

Sorry dude, but my country’s vast stores of natural resources don’t exactly help me afford my mortgage payment next month.

That list certainly doesn’t reflect the average person’s disposable wealth. I’ve lived in two of the countries that rank “higher” than the US and in no way is the average person more wealthy. Not even close. In fact I’d say the average person in one of those countries has about half the disposable wealth of the average American.

What I meant was my country’s vast wealth in the form of natural resources hardly helps me pay for my day to day expenses. What matters is my income and my personal, disposable wealth. Which your ranking is not measuring.

That’s why you have bizarre numbers like the average Australian having 3x the wealth of Americans.

You basically referenced a link you didn’t read.

And like I said, when you look at the ranking it doesn’t make sense unless they did include things beyond personal wealth. You really think the average Spaniard is wealthier than the average Norweagean?

Sorry for the "downvotes are the disagree button" that you are experiencing for raising good and interesting discussion points, and frankly calling out misleading numbers that were posted. I didn't know that the average German was worse off and poorer than the average person from Greece (I guess finally the wealth transfer from Germany to Greece is being reflected in the numbers! - kidding, kind of).

First it was Australia was 3x wealthier than the US. Now it’s that the US is poorer on a median level, yet I see no data.

What am I reading? No wonder the OP is frustrated. Rightfully so.

Just because the median citizen is “only” in the top 25 countries in the world, doesn’t mean that what the OP said is incorrect.

It’s also difficult to do proper comparisons. Notice anything out of the ordinary in that list? Check out the population of the countries. Of course Australians are wealthy, they live on a continent nearly the size of the US with the population of L.A. county. That’s a lot of resources to go around for a small number of people.

I echo the OP in the constant anti-American sentiment I find on the internet being frustrating. “Your healthcare sucks, your taxes suck, look at how poor you are because of this chart”.

A lot of that doesn’t even reflect reality for many people. Let’s talk about healthcare. My experience in healthcare is I schedule an appointment at the university medical center, get extremely high quality care, and that’s that. I pay $0 for co-pays, or for medicine. Other people with health insurance can do that too. Obviously we have a healthcare problem in the U.S., which is why even to my own personal detriment I support UHC, but the experience people have in the U.S. varies widely. The U.S. government is responsible for like 70% of U.S. healthcare expenditures.

Ask yourself, why does the U.S. make citizens file taxes if they live abroad? I wonder if it has anything to do with people becoming massively wealthy and then conveniently living in another nearby country so they don’t have to pay taxes? Or maybe someone works at a company and that company can just relocate them somewhere cheap so they can avoid taxes? I’m not sure, but I hear a lot of “people in America need to pay taxes” but then they also get mad when the government makes people living in other countries pay income taxes. Why should it matter if you live in Japan as an American? You’re still a citizen. If you don’t want to pay taxes then give up your citizenship. How are we supposed to pay for healthcare for example if we allow lots of people to exempt themselves? And the U.S. exempts the first $108,000 of that income. What’s the big deal? That you have to report it? How can we fight corruption if we don’t even make people report their income?

USA's tax burden is 27.1% of GDP

Not an enormous difference.

US median wage USD49,764, Fed + CA tax is $9,611.02 - 19%

Median wage in Australia is far higher than in America seems more important than the tax rate at the 50th percentile

Speak for yourself! I prefer not to be taxed, so I'd rather have the poor taxed than the rich.

What American websites?