Well the starting premise is very different, so yes the results are also dramatically different.

US, for better or worse, is much more individualistic society, without much emotions for plight of other citizens. Sort of buddhistic/hinduistic approach - if you suffer now, you must have done terrible things in your past life to deserve it, and why should I interfere.

This results in tons of wonderful things in economy but messes up quite a bit too and brings some bad incentives where they shouldn't be. You don't want to be below average/median income (and say have some health issues on top of that), the quality of life is significantly worse than similarly-positioned peers in say Western Europe. But everybody looks at the top 0.1%, which fares, at least financially better.

Strange place and setup for me and not in a good way, but maybe our more egalitarian and friendly/helpful approach is too naive and harsher society is more robust. We shall see.

> But everybody looks at the top 0.1%, which fares, at least financially better.

Let's be fair it's at the very least 10% (maybe up to 30-40% if not more) that are doing better financially than they would in Europe under similar circumstances (education, career etc. wise). In certain sectors like tech it's not even close.

e.g. real estate even in SF, NY, San Jose is significantly cheaper than for instance in Munich, Rome, Paris, Milan, London etc. when compared to median income.

Also it's not that obvious to me that Americans are that much less likely to care about 'the plight' of others on an individual level. For instances Americans donate many times more to charity on average than Europeans do (which makes sense if you expect the government to take care of everyone, but let's not equate that with intervening directly...)

> e.g. real estate even in SF, NY, San Jose is significantly cheaper than for instance in Munich, Rome, Paris, Milan, London etc. when compared to median income.

You are just hiding in complexities of real life and reducing it into few trivial numbers that are easy to compare. Count in good education for say 2 kids (500k-1 million per head?) which is free here, count in healthcare costs if you live long enough to start accumulating health problems that are basically unsolvable by today's medicine. Free here.

I don't know the actual numbers, and they are very individual so what you say may be actually true for you, but it certainly isn't true for me for example. Also, personal freedom is higher in Western Europe (debatable, but for me what I define as personal freedom is severely lacking in US). High criminality. Basically police state. Effectively a caste society based on your wealth/income. Your taxes sometimes pay for killing innocent poor people half around the world (true for few european states too, but definitely not mine). And so on. But its nigh impossible to put some simple numbers on those things we generally call quality of life.

> Count in good education for say 2 kids (500k-1 million per head?)

That seems like a very high number. There are very expensive private schools in Europe too if you chose to send your children there.

> healthcare costs

Yes, it depends on your income and insurance. The fact that it's tied to your job is a huge issue if you develop serious health problems and are unable to work. But that "only" applies to a subset of the population and being able to save an extra $30-100k per year might still provide a form of "insurance" and if not you'll end up being significantly richer than your European counterparts when your retire (assuming you're in the top 20% or so).

> Also, personal freedom is higher in Western Europe > Basically police state

Can you give some examples? I mean the proposed EU wide encryption ban could pretty much turn the EU into East Germany with universal state surveillance (obviously an exaggeration and hopefully it will never pass but the fact that some EU bureaucrats are even considering it and that some states actually support the proposal should be extremely shocking to everyone who cares about "personal freedom" even the tiniest bit).

> Effectively a caste society based on your wealth/income.

Considering how expensive real estate is these days and that a significant proportion (most?) of wealth is inherited I'm not sure that's particularly different in the EU.

> High criminality

Definitely true, although it largely depends on where you live. Some areas are pretty much as safe as anywhere in Europe.

> But its nigh impossible to put some simple numbers on those things we generally call quality of life. > You are just hiding in complexities

Yes, however you can't expect me to provide you with an in-depth analysis here it's just one example. It largely depends on many factors, however Europe is not some fairyland. Some things are better than in the US, some are just as bad or worse; median income, youth unemployment, unaffordable real estate, wealth inequality etc.).

IMHO the biggest issue Europe is facing is widespread economic stagnation over the last 10-15 year that combined with aging population might mean that "free"* healthcare and other social services might soon become unaffordable (in this context I find the slight superiority complex exhibited by some Europeans slightly baffling)

* it's not really free though. You still pay ~10% in taxes for it and many countries have mostly (or entirely) privatized healthcare systems (even if they are much better regulated than those in the US)

Yeah, the parent is nothing beside a long-winded appeal to American exceptionalism, which is tantamount to a defense of corrupt, rent-seeking regime that almost every other wealthy democracy has avoided. I struggle to find why anyone thinks it insightful vs. demonstrative of the tedious lengths one has to go to engage in these apologetics. The US is only a special case in that it is remarkably unrestrained in how much it allows the rich to harm the poor relative to other first world countries.

And all European Union countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland or the United Kingdom offer a European healthcare card when traveling. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559

OK, in Czechia:

- there is a big debate if doctors should serve 24 hours without break (non stop) in hospital.

- doctors may be forced to operate after 24 hours of non stop work. I know for fact anesthesiologist who did so. We have VERY strict regulations for truck drivers to only drive 8 hours per day...

- there are no basic medications in pharmacy, like penicillin or anti fever sirup for kids

- you pay 8% medical income tax (it is called insurance), but there is no chance to find dentist or GP. So you go private an pay it out of pocket

- no chance to sue doctor or hospital for mistreatment. I could tell stories about tampons and tools forgotten inside patient...

- we have highest numbers of doctors per capita in Europe, yet system is very inefficient

- doctors spend about 40% of their time with paperwork

- base salary for doctor (without overtimes) is very low, they would not even qualify for mortgage..

- once I waited 12 hours at emergency room in public hospital (with life threatening condition), at end I gave up, and went to private clinic. I took second job to pay it...

When seeing “pretty much” anywhere in the EU, Czechia certainly wouldn’t seem to come to mind and doesn’t seem like an argument in good faith.

It may be the EU, but why not use a more comparable country?

Czechia is a more average EU country than Germany, which is the actual outlier

> the actual outlier

How so? GDP per capita:

Germany, $52k

EU avg, $40k

Czechia, $30k

Why? I mean Czechia is below average in most economic indicators but not by that much, it's far from being the poorest EU country.

This seems obvious, but choosing a poorer EU country when the commenter already left room for exceptions when the said “pretty much” to compare to the US is not an argument in good faith.

Well it's not exactly Massachusetts but it seems to be on par with Florida, Vermont, Michigan, Maine etc. if you look at GDP per capita (relatively). I don't think Czechia is somehow exceptionally poor (of course on the whole the EU is much poorer on average).

Let’s focus on the argument in good faith part then because it’s not. It seems to squarely fall within the provided exception.

This is pointless. Go tell someone who’s been there with a straight face that Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan. Have a good weekend.

This GDP argument is useless. Before war Russia had GDP comparable to Italy, it should collapse in a few days after sanctions, and we all know how it went!

You can look at median disposable household income, rent/real estate to income ratio and many other indicator which tell a similar story. GDP per capita is just a proxy.

> Before war Russia had GDP

Well.. Russia had 2.3 times higher population than Italy so it's not particularly surprising. Also it wasn't really that poor compared to most other EE countries (about on par with the Baltic states prior to 2014).

> there with a straight face that Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan

Compared to the median EU country Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan (e.g. it's GDP per capita is closer to that of the Netherlands the Michigan's is to Massachusetts etc.).

> Go tell someone who’s been there with a straight face that Czechia

The problem is that the EU is significantly poorer on the whole.

> It seems to squarely fall within the provided exception.

I don't agree.

> This is pointless.

I'm really not quite sure what are you trying to say. Economically only Switzerland, Norway and Ireland(*) really have a higher GDP per capita than the US only one of them is even in the EU. Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden (only 39 mil people in total) are not that far off, so are we supposed to ignore all the other countries in the EU because of that?

Why is there so much overtime and wait time with so many doctors per capita? In Poland wait times can be significant and overtime is rampant but sill lower than what you said but we have one of the lowest number of doctors and nurses per capita in EU.