Yes. when I lived in Sweden, I noticed that Swedes in general have less stuff. Smaller housing, fewer cars, less ability to buy stuff, and even go out. The average engineer salary was almost half (about 60%) of those in NYC and SF, while prices coffee/going out in Stockholm were almost the same as in NYC. Rent prices were lower though.

But, their quality of life seemed higher overall. Less stressful in general, more vacations and time off, more thoughtful planing of their cities, etc.

So, it seems like a tradeoff. If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better, while you'd struggle in the US. But if you are a skilled worker (even blue collar, like plumber or electrician), you'd do better in the US.

I'd rather be a barista in Sweden than in the US, but I'd rather be an engineer in the US than in Sweden.

> If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better,

The problem here is that for the Swedes to enjoy their social benefits, they cannot afford to have too many low skilled workers. The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants. So while sure, you are better off being a low skilled worker in Sweden just as you are better off being a high skilled worker in the U.S., but that's because these two economies are structured very differently.

> The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants.

How is that not backwards?

If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?

If you have 'a high-skilled economy' then surely you are 'having enormous problems' filling your low-skilled jobs, and welcome migrants?

Indeed, isn't Sweden famously highly accepting of migrants and in particular refugees? Presumably skewed low-skilled if at all?

(Neither Swedish nor American, so not pushing an agenda, just commenting. :))

> If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?

Why? The world doesn't work by laws of semantic symmetry. The Swedish economy is structured on automation, on lack of personal service roles, and on skilled industry. Swedish furniture manufacturers use robots and those on the shop floor that remain are required to have skills to operate those robots. Neither will you will find a huge pool of labor cutting people's lawns or being nannies or replacing roofs because there aren't many lawns to cut, roofs are made to last longer and be less labor intensive, and personal service is stygmatized. It's like Holland, which is the breadbasket of Europe but is a pioneer in agricultural automation and does not rely on large amounts of cheap migrant labor, whereas the US agricultural sector does. Even for something like restaurants, Swedish culture makes much less use of them -- e.g. San Francisco has 500 restaurants per 100K, But once you transition to a high skilled economy it becomes much harder to absorb low skilled workers.

Here, things like labor policies play a role. A high minimum wage, generous benefits and travel may pencil out for a high skilled worker that is willing to be paid 1/2 what they could get in the U.S., but they don't pencil out for a low skilled worker unless the low skilled worker's wages are high enough so that the various costs pencil out, which means there can't be too many of them as the services they provide will be more expensive means and thus have smaller utilization. That is why people complain about things like taxis, restaurant meals, bus trips, etc., costing a lot in Sweden, which is why Stockholm has 1/10 as many restaurants per 100K compared to Tokyo and 1/5 as many compared to San Francisco. Those high wages basically require a more capital intensive production processes and don't leave a lot of room for low skilled jobs.

Btw, that is one of the arguments for high minimum wages and generous benefits. The idea is that it will force firms to invest in more capital so that labor becomes more productive. That's the phenomena of McDonald's creating robot tellers and getting rid of workers. That's the process by which the revenue generated per worker is high enough to justify generous benefits. And the question with that approach is always can the economy transition to a high skilled economy or will there be a permanent underclass of unemployable low skilled workers. And Sweden has done a decent job of making this transition, although there is always a problem with high unemployment, it hasn't been the fiasco predicted, as most of the labor force has transitioned to high skilled work. But then that creates a problem when you dump a lot of low skilled workers on the economy -- they find themselves in the permanent unemployed class.

The U.S., on the other hand, has lower costs of employing labor and thus is able to absorb low skilled labor but the flip side is you do not have the same pressures towards automation and capital investment, so the US economy overall is much more mixed. It's not a high tech economy, it has a lot of low skilled jobs as well, and those low skilled jobs don't enjoy the same level of benefits.

It's a tough call which approach is "better". Culturally, the US will never become Sweden, but there are pros and cons of each approach.

dutch farming (especially kasbouw/greenhouses) are absolutely crazy. in 2019, they exported roughly 95 billion euro's. And they are the second exporter globally. Mind you the country is absolutely tiny in comparison to the number one exporter (the USA).

[0] https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2020/01/17/dutch-agric...

Thanks! That lead me down the rabbit hole.

Here is an interesting article with some pictures, demonstrating what Dutch high-tech farming looks like: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...

Yes, it's really a miracle of what you can accomplish with intelligence and capital investment. Very high wages even for agricultural workers, a small labor pool, and massive yields.

The other catch I see is how ‘life changing’ your job as an engineer can be in us vs rest of the world. US definitely is the better bet for the young and risk taking.

You can always go back and settled wherever you want after making a ton of cash in the US (assuming it works out), reverse isn’t true as much.

It is easy to confuse a large splashy salary with what a real "life changing" job is for the majority of people. A salary that pays for a good life, real health care that actually covers you when you get sick, a real safety net that gets you back on your feet if something goes wrong, an environment run by the rule of law, an environment that isn't polluted, and a country that is building a real future for ALL the people and not just engineers.

Would you want your kids to grow up in the USA?

That is usually a good question to ask, as it shows if we are succeeding as a country. I think the USA is great if you are in the ~10% of the population who want to make loads of money, work 80 hours, and are in tech/lawyer/doctor. Everyone else is stuck in the same cultural mentality IMO, it's like living in a persistent guerilla war that you don't want to be fighting in.

I think there are two major factors to life quality that many American cities somehow missed or never really cared about enough, being able to stroll through cities by foot and decent work conditions (mostly reasonable work and commute times & holidays).

A friend of mine moved to L.A. in the early 2000s, he's still there, married to an American, but he burned out in his job there very quickly. No wonder, they were living in a small apartment with a baby in downtown L.A. and he had to commute for 3 hours daily. He got back at 10 to 11 PM and got up at 6 AM to get to work again - every workday, with almost no holiday. That's insane by European standards.

Also, social control is quite a bit stricter in a lot of (especially northern) european countries compared to the US.

Showing one's wealth is in bad taste, and bragging about status is considering being an outlier. This is slowly changing (since about the 80's) but prior to that, showing off your middle class wealth as a status indicator was frowned upon in certain circles. especially considering the hardship most people endured during and after ww2.

That gets down to culture.

I was raised in the USA and I was raised that showing one's wealth is in bad taste. In fact I think most of the midwest feels similar. I still do. The point of money isn't to show it off, it is to put it to good use.

Ardit,

You need to measure purchasing power using PPP rate, but even still NY and SF known to be expensive areas with high tax rates.

SF engineer could earn 200k year but this money could be much low as 80k in another state if you compare purchasing power.

It's complex. The Americans can always buy a car but never foods. This become a meme in my home country.

There are always trade offs.

But are the trade offs equivalent?

There is a reason folks flock more to SF rather than to nowhere state. If you save 10%, it is still 20k saved compared to 8k. If you lose your job, there are 10 choices compared to one (or none), access to cutting edge of tech rather than reading about it on hacker news and so on.

> access to cutting edge of tech

Any examples?

I have not seen any cutting edge tech for while.

The swing from most to least expensive state is about 25%, not 75%. There’s a disparity between say California and Arkansas but it’s not that high.

There are perhaps other metrics to go for, other than 'just' monetary:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2020_re...

Some other countries may have chosen to trade some personal income/wealth for other things.

Further, while there may be more money in general in the US, using averages skews things a bit due to inequality; social mobility is lower in the US than many other countries:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve

If you're not already at/near the top in the US, good luck getting there.

Yeah, but that's because USA basically swims in cash because since world uses dollar as core currency for the global economy USA has to print more dollars to match the growth of global economy to avoid deflation. And once it prints dollars it does with them what it pleases. Mainly buys ton of stuff from the world, but still keeps enough to maintain status of wealthy country.

It's no wonder people can get more cash it the country that basically prints it for the whole world.

Once the global economy start shrinking or the world moves to yuan or euro USA will descend to level of Eastern European country in a generation or two tops.

If there is a global switch to the euro or the yuan, American imports could become more competitive, leading to increased economic activity in the US. Dollar or not, the United States still has substantial industrial capability.

Didn't US economy mostly switch to services?

Services account for more than three quarters of the US economy, but its manufacturing sector, which still accounts for more than a tenth of its economy, is second only to that of China.

https://www.statista.com/chart/20858/top-10-countries-by-sha...

"Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states. "

This is utter nonsense, how are you getting that?

Imagine that I offered you two deals:

1. You make $45k a year, but all your costs are 50% of the base rate. Plus health care is included that covers everything with no expenses, childcare is included, and college education is included.

2. You make $60k a year, but all your costs are 200% of the base rate. Health care isn't covered and covers nothing when you really get sick, childcare is $1500 a month per kid, and college is going to cost you half a million dollars.

Holistically Western Europe as a whole is doing way better for it's people.

"Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the United States than has long been presumed. The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity"

https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

Why is quality of life measured on consumption crap so heavily? Personally idgaf about useless doodads that waste resources and space in my home (or mind).

GDP per capita is lower, but household wealth is higher and when you add in all the benefits received (e.g. healthcare, pensions) you would get a pretty big difference between median household wealth in most of Western Europe and median HH wealth in the U.S., with western europe holding the advantage.

Comparing Europe and the U.S. is a complex business, and I find myself offending cheerleaders on both sides.