But at some point, I don't know if it is the narrator or someone in the story, but they say something to the effect of: "Everyone wants to be king of the hill, but there aren't enough hills to go around. The US is particularly great at creating more hills."
"Everyone wants to be the king of the hill. That's international. But the number of aspiring kings always dwarfs the number of available hills. So in this country, we build more hills. We're geniuses, in fact, at building more hills."
If you want to live in a world subjected by a king or some fool on a hill, go ahead. I don’t pretend like you’re anything other than a peasant.
This is impossible, because in this scenario, someone will get weapons and will forcefully take over and rule everyone else. This is just how human nature works
I don’t see people getting weapons and taking over people in the streets, do you?
In this context, good luck showing how they are anything but particularly well armed and organized gangs.
That's because we've built some very large hills to prevent this - notably powerful governments with militaries and police forces. Lack of hills is essentially anarchy, where all of a sudden the strongest now become the ruler
The only way a person can absolutely reject authority is to live alone in wild territory (since managed territory is ruled by governing authorities). This scheme works until another person decides they want to live in the wilderness and happen to choose the exact same spot of woods as you, which is statistically probable since some geographic locations are more desirous than others. At that point, you will either find a way to coexist with this person or attempt to push them out. If you try to push them out, you're saying you're the ruler of the territory, so that option contradicts the objective of rejecting authority, for how can you say you reject authority and then become authority without being a hypocrite?
So, the only viable option is to coexist. Over time, more people who reject authority arrive, and you must coexist with them or pack your bags for somewhere else, which you really don't want to do. Presumably, you'll work the land in some way to provide for your own sustenance. One day, your neighbor accuses you of killing their livestock overnight. You obviously didn't, and you tell them that, but they just don't believe you because they know they saw you on their land the previous night. At this point, you're frustrated because you're innocent but can't demonstrate it, and the other people who reject authority like yourself are unable to decide who to listen to because neither one of you has more authority than the other. Someone comes up with the idea of writing down a common set of life principles and rules for dispute arbitration, so both legal and judicial systems are born. Down the line, someone decides to ignore the arbitration outcome, and the community decides that arbitration outcomes must be respected, so enforcement systems are created. At that point, everyone living in that spot of wild territory have created a government under the rule of law.
The point of all this is, at some level, we are all ruled by something, be it a single human or a government. Are you primarily taking issue with monarchy? If so, absolute monarchy exists in only a handful of places in the world, with most monarchies being constitutional monarchies which delegate much political authority to democratically-elected individuals. And yes, some people like trusting that the rulers will do a good job. If that makes them peasants, so be it, but consider that even the people in the wilderness community must hope that their government under the rule of law will be successful. If they aren't rooting for its success and actively work against it, the rule of law will eventually collapse.
You talk about absolute marquee like you don’t sell yourself to it every day when you walk into work.
Yes, this is what America is built on. American culture is winner take all, and we generally want to be the winner.
We don't deride his success, we deride the fact that he acts like a child on social media
I am not the person you are replying to, but I assure you that “I” never wanted to be a on top of anything. I don’t want celebrity or wealth. I want to be left alone most of all, and having just enough to achieve it.
Just telling you this so that your horizons of what people want open up a tad and you don’t assume that everyone around you is a different looking copy of you.
Cause that’s how you get Florida (and saltwater intrusion)
https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
Because the US government has a money printer and an insatiable appetite for debt. The day will come for us, our kids, or our grandkids where it catches up to us.
I guess it is possible that maybe in a generation or two Europe, Russia, China can fix their problems, get a solid working class and challenge the US.
But it really feels like the entire planet is sinking right now and the US is the best of the worst.
Maybe we need some aliens or something.
I don't think your non-sequitur bears even a passing resemblance to the subject.
I think the whole point of the thread you're replying on is mentioning the individualism and personal freedom that's the US's cultural basis, and that has a profound impact on the well-being of those who feel the need to be the best of what they do, regardless if what that might be.
A while ago I stumbled upon an Instagram account of a middle-age man who had a bunch of videos of him juggling random stuff in his back yard, and he made it his point to stress that he was the best at what he did and he made a whole career out of it. Such a random thing, and I'm sure there weren't that many competitors for the title of best pillow juggler, but that fit definitely the description of someone making his own hill to be its king.
Still though particularly in places like Appalachia or rougher cities, its terrifying. America is realky liberty or death with few in-betweens
If I sort this table by rate (and exclude a small territory), the US is 5th: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
The natural born citizens dissatisfied with the US are generally not comparing the US to a developing country or a country with an ongoing war on their soil, which is where most immigrants come from.
Instead, they are comparing it to other developed countries and focused on specific conditions that matter to them, like housing, transportation, environment, violence, etc.
> Yes there are problems in America, but how many of those problems are the result of an apathetic, nihilistic American population and not the foundational systems America is built on?
The criticism of these problems is far from apathetic, and it's an important part of how we remedy them.
The biggest current threat to America is the attack on its democratic foundations happening now, but even that is not coming from apathy, though it's very nihilistic.
To the contrary, plenty do care about it in the sense of being opposed to further immigration from developing countries. "Demographic anxiety" is a term often used to describe this.
Also, both natural born citizens of recent immigrant ancestry and those natural born for many generations care because anti-immigrant sentiment is a canary for a broader xenophobic trends.
Wherever one's opinions fall on immigration policy, when pressed, almost everyone has an opinion.
When I hear people complain online about the US, it is very common for them to have a deep understanding of problems in the US, but very superficial understanding of problems in other developed nations. European countries also have lots of problems with housing, healthcare, the environment, racism, the rise of the far right, etc. There are some problems that are uniquely american, like mass shootings.
Being an informed citizen isn't just understanding the problems in your country. If you wan't to be a part of positive change, you need to understand what's working and what's not working in other comparable countries as well.
Being specific in your comparison matters.
It is indeed facile to make the statement that "things are so much better in Europe". Blanket statements are usually stupid.
It's reasonable, however, to compare the efficacy of public transit of San Francisco to that of Copenhagen, or to compare the a population-wide health indicators of the US to Germany.
I definitely agree that the US healthcare system sucks and should not be emulated. But I think many of its critics think healthcare is a solved problem in countries like Germany and it really isn't. Germans are not completely happy with their healthcare system and there is an effort underway to reform it currently. I think it's a better system than the US system, but it's got plenty of problems:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/14/a-ticking-ti...
> In Germany, which spends more on healthcare than almost any other country in the world, hospitals are a greater concern, with this winter’s wave of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in young children triggering alarm across the country.
> Amid reports of overcrowded casualty departments and parents forced to sleep in hospital corridors or travel hundreds of kilometres for a child’s treatment, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said the country was witnessing “what it means when a system implodes … in scenes which for a long time might have seemed unimaginable”.
> In a petition to parliament titled: “Alert level red – hospitals in danger”, the German Hospital Society (DKG) again highlighted a chronic lack of staff as the main problem, noting that many hospitals had had to temporarily close casualty departments due to a lack of doctors and nurses.
> More than 23,000 posts remain unfilled in Germany’s hospitals after several years of low recruitment and recent mass resignations, particularly in intensive care and operating theatres, by staff citing a workload so extreme that some were unable to take even a short break or go to the toilet.
Additionally, the poor health outcomes in the United States are not necessarily the result of the US health care system. Many of the most important drivers of health care outcomes (exercise, nutrition, obesity, drug abuse, etc) are worse in the US.
My point isn't that the US health system is great, because it isn't great. My point is that people in the US are well informed about their own problems but generally ignorant about the problems outside the country.
The nicest European countries are fragile and can't handle immigration well at all. Just ask Sweden how their next 30 or so years are starting to look. France has entirely failed for decades at integrating their immigration populations, despite their vaunted welfare state. They're very mediocre at functional integration, whereas the US is the greatest by-design melting pot in world history.
Try immigrating into affluent nations like Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway, Finland, etc. They make it far more difficult than it is to come to the US (unless you're a top tier immigrant in terms of skill/wealth). The nicest countries love to use points systems or the equivalent to keep poorer, lower skilled people out.
Canada for example is 2% black and 3% Latin American. Anyone think that's an accident? There are roughly 3/4 of a billion Latin Americans in the Americas and somehow Canada is merely 3% Latin American. The huge Latin American immigration wave the US has seen over the past 40-50 years has been nearly entirely blocked by Canada. It's by design, they're xenophobic like the Europeans are, and they do everything they can to keep poor people out.
People will say: just look how amazing Norway or Germany are. It's a nice fantasy, because good luck becoming a citizen (maybe for the privileged HN crowd there's a chance).
Japan is amazing? Yeah ok, go try becoming a citizen there. Try integrating, try becoming Japanese (you can't).
So what the hell is the point of saying: xyz is so wonderful - if they're excluding by design and won't let you join?
Gee, Stanford, MIT and Harvard are amazing, every college should be like that.
The US remains moderately accessible, most of its peers are the exact opposite.
The US is 12% black, 18% latin american, 6% Asian. And let me tell you, that 12% black number isn't the product of a liberal immigration policy.
The numbers aren't actually too different, and if you were to switch the two countries' geographies, I'd expect the US latin american numbers to significantly drop, and Canada's to significantly rise.
The Canadian immigration system is actually pretty reasonable. Points for being young, for having useful skills, points for demonstrating mastery of the language, points for having relatives. And a clear process for international students studying in Canada to naturalize.
The US is the one that yanks you around by your britches, with decades-long waiting lists and visa lotteries for people who are already living and working in the country.
[1] Country-of-origin breakdown for recent immigrants to Canada[2] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171597/new-immigrants-c... - 32% India, 8% China, 4.3% Philipines, 3.8% Nigeria. The first European country to make the list is France, at 3.2%, followed by the US, Brazil, Iran, Korea, Pakistan, all at 2-3%.
[2] Similar breakdown for the US - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested.... - 14% Mexico[3], 13% India, 7% China, 4% Phillipines, 3% Dominican Republic.
[3] Given these numbers, I think its reasonable to hypothesize that if Canada had border proximity, and strong cultural ties to Mexico, I'm sure that it's lat-am immigration numbers might look similar to what the US has.
I agree completely. But that's good and practically necessary for the US, since it is highly reliant on immigrants at all levels of skill for their labor.
Immigration even underpins the basic functioning of the healthcare system, and not just for doctors and nurses. Cleaning hospitals is a critical job for the healthcare system, and janitorial workers are 20% Latino.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't plenty that can be learned from the administration of healthcare systems elsewhere.
Germany, like the US, has a market based health insurance system organized through employers, but unlike the US, carrying insurance is required by law [1].
Furthermore, Germany has universal public coverage for medically necessary care, and controls the price of prescription drugs [2].
That doesn't make Germany's system perfect by a long shot, but it manages to achieve a much lower healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP while maintaining universal coverage for basic healthcare and even offering patients longer average hospital stays than the US does.
1. https://sites.gsu.edu/gsuglobalhealth/2021/02/15/competition...
2. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
> Just ask Sweden how their next 30 or so years are starting to look. France has entirely failed for decades at integrating their immigration populations, despite their vaunted welfare state.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. The way you put it, European countries are simultaneously closed to immigration and irrationally racist for being this way, and at the same time they're on doomed trajectories due to immigration. If the latter is true, that would be a non-racist justification for anti-immigration policies, but if they were as anti-immigration as you claim those faltering social conditions due to immigration wouldn't exist in the first place.
Compare immigration to France and Japan. It's clear which of these countries is actually hostile to immigrants.
I don't agree with the characterization that the policies are due to racism though.
Right, it's a clear contradiction. If European countries were "hyper xenophobic and or extremely racist" they would be turning away and deporting those refugees. They're not doing that though, so the characterization of European countries as xenophobic and racist doesn't fit the facts.
I say this all as someone who does not live in the USA and is not an American citizen.
The USA is not perfect and has its own share of social problems (like all countries do) but people decide that the tradeoff is worth it for all the good things the USA offers.
It's not limited to economic opportunity. The US also offers people the opportunity to make the US better through our democratic process.
Countries with extensive social programs for the poor typically aren't the easiest places to immigrate.
That's kind of what "can't afford" means.
Even as a Canadian who immigrated to the U.S. (who unfortunately lives in Canada again now), I didn't realize how good I had it until I had given up my U.S. residence
Also, they're white, and that plays a role--even today there's a surprising number of undocumented Irish immigrants to the United States but nobody's out there asking for reactionary measures to that.
It's not always racism...but it is mostly ladder-pulling, and economically unrealistic ladder-pulling at that. (Ask a farmer.)
Or is it that they feel those immigrants are unfairly taking something from them? And if so, is that really true or just FUD?
How much of the sentiment boils down to "those illegals are taking our jobs!"? How many people who hold that sentiment would actually want & take the job being filled by one of those immigrants? If their argument is instead that the illegal immigrant labor depresses wages for that set of jobs, how many of those people are willing to pay the extra cost for the products once the company paid fair market wages?
https://www.nytimes.com/article/nyc-migrant-crisis-explained...
What resource and logistical problem? The US isn't a command economy, and it's not a social welfare state that extends its largess to anyone within its borders that has a pulse.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise, have to earn their keep, same as everyone else. And there are no natural shortages of... Anything in the US.
Despite the castigation of Latin American immigrants as un American, Hispanics are quite patriotic and successful, even the ones who's families came here without documents
Trends matter. I think the US is today the best place in the world to be born in.
I have far less certainty for my grandchildren
Will that still be true for people born here fifty years from now? I have my doubts.
The number of opportunities in tech and the speed with which new ones arise can't be compared.
Look at the latest trend - AI. Not only did the initial boost come from openAI (US) its adoption by the biggest tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple etc - all American and all investing Billions.
But that's not even the most 'special' aspect of the US ( I'm sure SAP will jump in big into AI ) It's the hundreds of startups that are either starting or pivoting into the trend.
Now, this doesn't mean that this latest iteration of AI will be world-changing, it could turn out to be a complete bust. But it's this constant churn, the striving to be on the cutting edge, the rise and fall of dreams that makes the US 'special'.
I would never make the claim that the US is excellent in all. :)
Whether the same holds true for China is an interesting question. I've never worked with or visited China but I think there are differences. China certainly seems more 'innovative' when it comes to hardware, both physical infrastructure as well as manufacturing in general. Not so sure about software.
What you describe it is SV tech culture or start up culture in the US, which is focused on few spots. And not even all people there (e. g. Homeless people). This culture might be special but this isn't defitenly US because it is obviously not across this country.
Also I can tell you that in other countries and field of economics there is a certain sense of perfectionism or excellence e. G. In Germany or Japan or even Italy.
I guess why the Americans emphasise they are special because of economic growth is very clear: besides military there aren't many important areas where the US is good. This helps to feel "to be the best Country in the world", which is obviously wrong.
Also food: While other countries can compete on one of their native cuisines or many a few more, the US is pumping out top tier chefs in multiple areas.
Also universities: The massive amount of investment and R&D that comes out of these schools allows them to remain top of the pack.
Nope. You don't get the reason why these songs are played. It's more jazz in a lift, not good music. Let me introduce into techno culture.
"Also food: While other countries can compete on one of their native cuisines or many a few more, the US is pumping out top tier chefs in multiple areas." yThats sad about your lack of knowledge. May I introduce to this https://nerdyfoodies.com/countries-with-the-most-michelin-st... Germany alone has more stars than the whole US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany
The US is one of the most attractive places for capital in the world, which encourages a great deal of immigration to the US.
"Apathetic" is not really a word I'd use to describe most Americans I know, especially the working class. "Informed but powerless" is more like it. Nihilism is the likely result of this sort of learned helplessness from a lifetime growing up in an unresponsive democracy. From the get-go, our foundational systems emphasized wealth over democracy. It was a system designed to empower a certain type and class of people, to liberate them from the English Crown's influence, but not really a democracy for all. Through our history, we've consistently encouraged wealth creation and resource exploitation/monopolization over democratic participation, and where democratic advances were made, they happened against strong headwinds and strong oppression from the wealthy. Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners... this has never been a society friendly to the common person.
Nope, and in fact the American Dream is exactly this - it's saying that if you work hard / are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources (the more you have the higher chances you have), you too can rise above the common person and join the ruling class of
> Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners
Of course this is out of reach for most people, and for the vast majority of people, as soon as they climb out of the common class, they immediately look down upon the common people, since they are now above the peasants. This is human nature. Everyone who complains about the rich will do the same thing as the rich as soon as they become rich
> are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources
The more of these you have, the higher your odds of success. Just hard work on its own, like you see, is not necessarily enough
— Thomas Jefferson
"It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy."
Not that it should come at the expense of exploitation, and Smith would likely agree. He was critical of rent seekers and slavery and was very much interested in the well being of common people.
His observation, I believe, it also applicable at a smaller scale when looking at companies. Growing companies are great to work for with lots of excitement, perks, and new opportunities, even for average or mediocre employees. Stagnant companies are difficult and melancholy, not much advancement, raises are small or non existent. Declining ones are miserable as everyone is fighting for survival.
America was not founded for the common people. It was founded by the exceptional people who risked everything to come to this hostile continent in search of freedom from oppression. Freedom from serfdom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from religious persecution. Freedom to live how they wanted to!
America's population has forgotten its morals and what it means to be American. We are like the fat people in wall-e floating in our bubble, complaining at our minor inconveniences, and not knowing where we're going. We are fucked unless we turn this ship around.
I don't really see this though replace nihilistic with narcissistic and you may be on to something. It's not a belief in nothing, it's a belief in "I."
We are losing the ability to disagree and still keep it civil for one because of identities being so tied to the -ism of the day and no one accepting that they may be wrong about something every once in a while.
The same drive to be independent and "self-made" is becoming a weakness. It's going to an extreme where every man is an island.
We live in a world where a large subset of people have fooled themselves into believing that there's some other place without problems. If where you live has any problems, then it must be an awful place to live - so their thinking goes.
This group, for whatever reason, don't seem to weigh the pros and cons of every other place and see that most places are either hardly any better or MUCH worse.
Italy, Spain, France, and England were great for hundreds of years before the US, and they're still pretty damn good - all things considered. The odds that the US goes from the global leader for two hundred years and turns to a sh*t-hole in our lifetimes is pretty unlikely.
But somehow ~40% of the country convinces themselves this is true based on who the current president is - and, honestly, it seems like not much else.
This reads like a straw man. Just because some place arguably has issues that does not mean that it it just as bad as the one you're living on, or that your life won't improve your life by adopting or emulating the good examples.
Healthcare is a great example. I'm convinced that the average US citizen has absolutely no idea of the critical positive impact on quality of life and well-being that socialized healthcare has on all citizens, directly and indirectly. It goes way deeper than not risking going bankrupt for being in a car accident, or being able to treat your nagging minor health issue without having to tap a credit line. It affects things like being confident that your loved ones will have all the care they need if something bad and unfortunate happens to them, regardless of who you are ir where your career is at the moment.
Just because you adopt a change doesn't mean you'll adopt an outcome.
Proposing sweeping changes is easy - making them work is hard and prone to making things even worse instead.
The US has the worse outcomes for the amount of money its Healthcare industry funnels in.
You don't adopt changes. You adopt or emulate good examples. This means processes, and the goal of processes is to deliver an outcome. It's not change for the sake of change.
Also, when a nation lags behind so much in a fundamental area, just taking a step in the right direction has a major positive impact on the quality of life of those affected by it. As a good example, see Obamacare.
Excepting refugees, AFAICT U.S. immigration policy purposely selects for people who have the ability, aspiration, and often wealth to be able to be able to successfully pass through the process.
So for any other given country, you could just as easily rephrase your question to ask whether that given country's problems are the result of apathy/nihilism/etc. of the majority of people who don't end up emigrating to the U.S.
To me that seems like a fatuous question. If you think the same, then realize it's no less fatuous than the one you asked.
Edit: Hm... maybe "fatuous" is the wrong word. To me it just seems like a very general question about human civilization masquerading as a question about a specific country's population. I think there's a name for this when it comes up in say, a debate, but I can't remember what it is.
I look at Spain's labor market and I see a country that is massively failing: Triple the unemployment rate. People out of college there, with good majors, that end up making far less than what they'd to at McDonalds in the US. Young adults can't afford housing either, but not because they have massive student debt, or high healthcare costs, or extreme housing prices, but because salaries are pretty sad. My brother does bioinformatics and has a Ph.D, and he'd make 4x what he does, today, doing the same job in the massive, booming metropolis that is... St Louis, Missouri. He lives with our retired mother, and they can barely make ends meet.
Ultimately the higher growth advantage for the US is long lasting too: If your GDP growth is 0.5% higher than your neighbor, every single year, compound interest makes the difference very stark after a few decades... and a place like Spain already starts 30% poorer.
So yes, I'd still argue that the US is ahead in many areas. The riskiest issue is the difficulty of reforms: Good luck reforming higher education or healthcare, even though other countries have working systems that are better. But even though all it takes to see the advantages of change is to look a little bit, progress seems very difficult, as there's just so much money and power on the line in keeping the status quo. But that might be the theme of the last couple of decades in all democracies: Unwillingness to reform in the face of dysfunction.
I'd also add that the US is a fabulous place to live if you make a solid income (say, 10-20% above median), but a pretty shitty place to live if you do not.
I left states several years ago and regretted that decision ever since.
The US is great if you want to "get ahead" (and manage to do so), but if you just want a peaceful, boring life, this is not the place to be. We treat our society like a zero-sum game. Between our terrible healthcare, education, school safety, infrastructure, public transportation, politics, insane housing costs, corrupt judges, stances on drugs and abortion, it really feels like a hellhole where either you're rich or you're worthless. I'd much rather prefer somewhere in Europe, especially Scandinavia, or maybe Canada or East Asia. But it's not easy to emigrate.
Even this framing is itself pretty terrible: Our GDP outpaced expectations, so that must be good, right? Hardly. That just means the rich get richer, leaving everyone else even further behind.
Life actually seemed way better for millions of working class folks during COVID, when the economy was tanking and government simply propped it up, and suddenly workers everywhere had a lot more respect and negotiation power, and unions grew for the first time in decades. It was the first time in my life I saw our society come together to work together, instead of trying to massively exploit the poor. Then a couple years after COVID and that all goes away, whether it's WFH or mass layoffs.
I would say the US only makes sense IF you are strongly competitive/entrepreneurial and libertarian, not if you are community-minded and just want to live a normal life under a functioning democratic society. "Pro-business" usually means "anti-democratic" in our society, by disproportionately empowering capital ownership rather than democratic participation and process.
Why does it necessarily mean that?
Data from 2020, but it's probably not changed much: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
2023 graph: https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/202... (from https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/202...)
With the massive increases in inflation and housing costs, the middle class and below can't really keep up. A 5% increase in earning power for them is like a few thousand dollars a year (that they have to immediately spend on housing and services), vs millions or billions for capitalists that can then reinvest in growth sectors (AI and whatnot).
What's stopping you?
Also, my partner is American and has family here. I keep trying to convince her to give foreign living a try, and she's traveled with me a bunch now, but it's still a lot to ask of someone who's only ever lived in their home country. Me, I've spent a lot of time traveling to different countries and have a pretty broad perspective to draw from. It's harder for someone who's never really done that. Still, I hope to coax her into it over time!
The Netherlands has DAFT, which take ~$5k and a business bank account (I think you also need to run a business, but freelancing web dev would count from what I've read) to get a visa, and after 5 years in country you can apply for citizenship
If you move to any Mediterranean country, you will feel wonderful at first because our culture is so different, but for some people it gets tiresome and unbearable after some years.
Here you will find some more commentary about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiVV5udK_NM
They even have a specific page on that site for software engineers. It seems like as long as you get a job offer over a certain salary threshold and meet background check requirements, you can live there. I've heard a lot of jobs there operate in English, also.
For example, Brexit made it harder for EU citizens to move to the UK, but it made it significantly easier for everyone else. To get a "skilled worker visa" you need 70 "points" in the new system, which you can achieve by speaking English (10 points) and getting an offer from a visa-sponsoring company (20 points) for a "skilled" job (20 points) that pays £25600 (~$31k) or more a year (20 points):
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-points-based-i...
£25k/year isn't high; pretty much any tech or tech-adjacent job in the UK will pay more than that. And if you know how to do web dev then you're probably considered "high skilled", e.g. I see "Internet developer" and "Web designer" on the official list of eligible occupations:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi...
(Incidentally, this is why it's completely deranged and insane that the current British government is constantly accused of being "anti-immigration". Has no-one looked at the actual data? Immigration to the UK has never been easier, nor have rates of immigration ever been higher than under the current government. But that's another topic entirely.)
And the UK's not the only option. My wife and I looked into this a few years ago; iirc we could meet the points requirements to move to Canada or Australia pretty easily, and we're not exceptionally "high-skilled" (we're comfortably middle class but have very normal tech/corporate jobs.)
Moving countries doesn't have to be a permanent decision either. I lived abroad for many years, then I came home, and I don't regret either move.
Anyway, I don't know you and I'm not going to tell you to up-end your life and start again in a completely new country. Obviously it's a huge decision and everyone's personal circumstances are different. All I'm saying is that it might be easier than you realise.
I don't know that I'd want to live in the UK, but this makes me more hopeful about the possibility of moving elsewhere. Thank you.
Depending on where you go to (and what type of institution) a bachelor's alone is sufficient. The more exclusive places might require a teaching certificate, but those are easy to get and, in any case, such requirements tend to be quickly relaxed when talking about harder to fill positions, like calculus teachers. You might find you enjoy this. If you don't, it can give you the foundation to find something else you might enjoy. Many companies are also constantly looking for skilled native workers. I've friends working in everything from web design to rehab counciling.
I'm not very happy with the current state of the US to say the least, but being born American and simply natively speaking this language is just an unbelievably valuable gift that one should never take for granted. It's really a gateway to the world, even if it's one hell of a scary gateway to step through the first time.
(Edit: Wait, is there an actual pathway to permanent residency/citizenship this way, or is it only a temporary work visa?)
Until that point you'll usually have to do something like check in with immigration once a year, dependent upon what visa (work, education, tourist, etc) that you end up on. But like another poster said, you don't really need to worry about most of this to begin with, as at most places you'll be granted a visa on arrival that'll be good for more than enough time to find a job. The most you might want to do is drop by the embassy of wherever you plant to go to. They can give you more information, and also set you up with a visa that will generally last much longer than the visa-on-arrival if desired.
But the main thing I'd say to anyone considering moving countries is that most countries aren't highly desired immigration destinations like the US or Western Europe, and thus most countries don't have strict and tightly-controlled immigration systems like Western countries do. If you want to go spend a few years in Thailand as a Westerner, it's laughably easy - just buy a flight and you'll probably figure it out once you're there, as your Western dollars/pounds/euros will go a looooong way.
(I apologize to any Thai people reading this; I know that digital nomads and other wealthy foreigners aren't universally appreciated in the countries they park up in. Am just sharing my own experience.)
I wouldn't want to live in that part of the world for the rest of my life, but the time I did spend travelling was the best thing I ever did and I have no regrets. I wrote about it here if anyone's interested:
The TN visa works in both directions - you can go work/live in Canada or Mexico. A BS is plenty; I'm not sure that "web dev" is a valid category, but you can probably find a job in either country that does qualify. And if it doesn't work out, you're just a quick plane ride home.
Unless you get married, how exactly would you propose an average American emigrate to Germany or Japan, for example?
There's a ton stopping someone. It's not impossible, but it can take years of work, require a change of careers, and you have to say goodbye to a lot of family and friends.
> We treat our society like a zero-sum game.
In my experience, Americans are some of the least zero-sum thinking people, perhaps driven by the natural geographic advantages of the country. In other parts of the world, a zero-sum attitude is the norm, not the exception. It's suffocating if you live in it. I regard this as one of America's greatest strengths.
As for some of the things you find dissatisfactory with the US:
> politics
I'm sure many people everywhere think their country has uniquely dysfunctional politics, just like how people in every city claim that their city has the worst drivers. Belgium went without a government for years. The Taiwanese parliament breaks out in fistfights every now and then.
> insane housing costs
I don't know how things are in Scandinavia, but Canada or any part of East Asia are absolutely much worse by this metric. Look up median multiples in different countries; you'll find that the US is very favorable, especially among developed countries.
A middle-class family being able to afford to own a house happens more in the US than virtually any other place.
> corrupt judges
I'm not really sure what you mean. Do you find the US judiciary to be more corrupt than in other countries?
> stances on drugs and abortion
What do you find terrible about these? Drug laws are relatively lax in general in the US, and especially in certain states. Many Asian countries punish drug users and traffickers very harshly.
On abortion, you might be surprised to find that most Western European countries are much more restrictive than the liberal American states.
> the rich get richer, leaving everyone else even further behind
The real median personal income[0] has been on a broadly upward trend. The great majority of Americans make more money than their parents; more than half of people born to parents in the bottom quintile of incomes end up in a higher quintile; and conversely, more than half of people born to parents in the top quintile end up in a lower quintile[1].
In Europe, some of the very richest have remained the very richest for literal centuries[2]. In the US, you'd be hard-pressed to find people on the Forbes 400 list whose grandparents were also on the same list.
> Life actually seemed way better for millions of working class folks during COVID, when the economy was tanking and government simply propped it up
Your argument is that life seems better when the government prints money and hands it out to people? Surely you understand that there's a very sharp limit to how far that can go.
> if you just want a peaceful, boring life, this is not the place to be
I don't know where in the US you are, but it's a huge country with very diverse lifestyles to be found. Where I live, in a midsize Southern city, my barber, who has no college education or inheritance, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife and children. Their house is very modest, but they are saving up to build a bigger one. This seems the definition of a "peaceful, boring life".
If you want this kind of life on a median or below income in some of the most desirable cities in the country, I grant you that's going to be very tough. But that is the case anywhere in the world. People constantly tread water just to get by in big, competitive cities.
> I also spent several weeks in a few other countries -- enough to get a very basic feel for their society and services
Being on vacation in a country is very different than living there.
Ultimately, different people value things differently, and you may very well find yourself happier in another country. I'm just pointing out that it's very easy to view other countries with rosy glasses, and that the view of the US as "a hellhole where either you're rich or you're worthless" is by many objective metrics untrue.
[0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
[1]: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_a...
[2]: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11691818/barone-mocetti-floren...
I read an interesting point recently: Austria's 100 wealthiest families have two thirds of the country's wealth, and zero have earned their money from technology; they've all inherited it.
How different would the same list be for Germany? One, perhaps two families earned their fortunes from tech?
Um... The most liberal European places are more restrictive than conservative states. Florida tried a fifteen week ban and that was controversial.
Meanwhile abortion is illegal, unconstitutional in fact, in Germany and only decriminalized before fifteen weeks. After that, it's only decriminalized for certain cases.
Sigh. You're painting with a huge black and white brush.
This and being a community is not exclusive. Asian countries are some of the worst zero-sum countries, simply by virtue of resource/person, yet simultaneously being very community focused.
People behave in zero-sum way for one thing and in a community way for another.
This is delusional. Aside from government enforced job loss, firings of people with differing views, and forcing low status occupations to continue working crazy hours and burn out, I guess labor won? Maybe? Needing unions to fight for higher wages caused by stupid economic policy is hardly a win
However, my only regret was that I did not leave sooner, it did not work out for well for me on the balance, IE I did make money, but my quality of life was less than middle class people have where I live now.
Sources:
* Growing up very poor in the USA, immigrating somewhere else. * The change over time https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-decline-of-upward-mobil... * Comparisons globally https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/social-mo...
And anecdotally, pretty much anyone I know who isn't the child of a doctor or lawyer is doing better than their parents.
[1]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/millennials-just-wealthy-pare...
I don't think your rebuttal addresses the data I linked at all or supports the parent point at all
Upward mobility is definitely down and the USA is no longer the world leader by some measurements. I get that won't persuade everyone but I'm happy to debate on that data instead of an unrelated discussion point even if it is interesting.
The median income of the lowest quintile has done slightly better than inflation since 1967, but the 5th quintile has as we all know gone up precipitously. The 4th quintile has beaten inflation by something like 30k. So rising from the 1st to the 4th quintile is still quite a lot of mobility.
As far as the comparisons globally, they're ranking countries based on "education, access to technology, healthcare, social protection and employment opportunities" which has the implicit assumption baked in that those 5 metrics are proxies for social mobility. They might be, but why not actually measure the thing you care about? Social mobility to me means changing social classes based on income. Something like moving from a 25k/yr household to a 75k/yr household, or moving from a 75k/yr household to a 200k/yr household, maybe another jump up to 500k or a million/yr.
It seems to me that there is a much more equal distribution of incomes and outcomes in the countries you linked. That makes me think it would be much harder to go from being middle class to upper class in those countries than in the US, simply because almost everybody is part of the middle class. Thus, I think if you measured what most immigrants (and what I) actually care about when we hear about "social mobility," then the countries you mentioned would have great social mobility into the middle class, and basically no other social mobility.
Actually the data I've seen states one is way more likely to go from the bottom 20% to the top 20% in many other countries than if you were doing it in the USA.
I'm open to any counter data, but I've read these same numbers in several sources and you can tease it out of my first link.
To put it another way, it is much easier to increase your income in the US but harder to increase your income ranking. I think most people would prefer to have more money than a higher ranking given a choice between the two.
Edit: I'm rate-limited so to answer the apparent question everyone has: I live in Texas; it's not exactly friendly regarding Medicaid, but I don't know what it takes to qualify.
https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2023-08-16/medicaid...
One got a full CAT Scan and a full neurological consult, and a EEG due to a history of seizures, all for free and within a week.
https://millerestateandelderlaw.com/medicaid-out-of-pocket-c...
Seems can vary by state too
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/cost-sharing/out-pocket-co...
It's not hard to imagine these same states make the bureaucracy of obtaining low income healthcare benefits arbitrary, difficult to navigate, and counter-productive as way to 'prove' government healthcare doesn't work.
People have this fantasy that the social safety net takes care of people that can't take care of themselves, but that's really not the case. It is extremely easy to lose benefits and hard to get them in the first place for various services, with very long waiting lists for some things.
I suppose I'm actually rather fortunate to some degree; a lot of my issues could likely be resolved with a hip replacement, and I'm told the latest ones are very robust and can lead to nearly full natural function, but I haven't quite built up the courage to replace part of my skeleton with metal and plastic. As I say, I'm rather happily employed these days, but I've also been throught the odd layoff, so I know how precarious things can be.
I don't know if Single payer is a good solution in a country of our size but I am willing to try anything compared to what we have today.
Abuse is possible! It’s just not common, not in the sense of “servitude” being slavery or some other kind of abominable condition. Maybe you get the shit work, maybe you work more hours, but let’s not pretend these are the salt mines.
When people cannot easily change jobs they deal with worse working conditions and worse pay. I have seen people work for the same employer for over a decade because they would have to restart their greencard process otherwise.
As long as you didn't leave the country, nobody cared.
Don't take my word for it, check with your immigration lawyer.
That would be great if it were the case. But it seems like a good portion venerates corporations and wage slavery.
> Many of them view working for a wage with revulsion.
Couldn't agree more with working for a wage being repulsive. I think the US needs to get back closer to the founding myth you mentioned, and farther from the cancer of corporations turning everyone into wage slaves. There really is no freedom in that. My stomach turns inside out thinking that I was in favour of that. What a terrible mistake. Nothing against those forced to work as such often limited by the precarity of their situation.
And you can always change jobs (albeit at the risk of restarting the green card process).
Sweden is kind of the opposite, and it really decimates the opportunities available here. Perhaps not so much in quantity, but in quality.
If I was to be reincarnated as a random person in a given country, I wouldn't pick the US though. Even as a skilled worker who can decide where to work, I prefer some European countries for healthcare, vacations and culture. That being said, I feel Europe is declining and it feels the US could become a better choice in the near future.
Healthcare and vacations in the US are often reasonable for the developed world if you are, e.g., a highly-paid tech worker or other elite worker or, in some jurisdictions, a public sector worker (especially one with many years in, for vacations)
For the other, oh, 80% of the US working population, though, that's not true.
To put it into perspective, in Germany you might make 4k/month as a highly educated, highly skilled worker with years of experience. Even if you work remote (most don't) you won't be able to find a decent small house even in the middle of nowhere below 500k.
I recently visited the US and haven't been happier to be a EU citizen in a long time, tbh.
Going by levels FYI, this would put you in the 95th percentile, the equivalent in NYC would be $400,000.
He said he made 80k Euros ($84.5k) and save 60k euros from that. Where do you get 140k+?
I budget for ⅓ off the top, living in NYC (this is an overestimate, but common practice) for a post-tax income of $100k. High income geographies are correlated with high tax rates in the U.S., too.
Anyways, all this to say that U.S. post-tax-post-benefits income is not wildly different from the E.U. Maybe the main difference is that you can work as a freelancer, expense everything, and effectively opt-out of health insurance, and take home more salary.
But if you're salaried and in tech in the top quartile of the labor market, post-tax savings is pretty much the same in western EU vs U.S. There's no 10x difference in wages, (excluding equity performance, which is not a tax/benefits policy issue).
In general, E.U. citizens I know who have come to the U.S. do it because the businesses here are more interesting and have more upside (i.e. the aforementioned equity upside component). If they're making bigger heaps of money, it's because of startup equity comp, not because of tax or benefits policies.
> But if you're salaried and in tech in the top quartile of the labor market, post-tax savings is pretty much the same in western EU vs U.S. There's no 10x difference in wages, (excluding equity performance, which is not a tax/benefits policy issue).
As someone who's worked in top companies in Germany and the US, I feel confident enough to weigh in on this. Top earners might make 200k TC in Berlin, but engineers at this caliber will earn 500k+ in NYC. And no, rent and tipping in restaurants does not take up that 300k difference.
> If they're making bigger heaps of money, it's because of startup equity comp, not because of tax or benefits policies.
They're making more money because American companies pay more money, because they make more money, they have access to more capital, they hire in a more competitive market.
- 350k is like 200k net in CA
- 200k is ~110k net in Germany
- ~90k post-tax difference
- Germany: 25 days PTO min
- Meta: 25-30 days PTO min
- Google: 20 days PTO min
Considering COL differences, you'd probably save 40-50k more in the US than Germany with these numbers. Maybe it's not significant enough to lose the EU lifestyle bonuses but it's also not nothing.
That's insanely high post-tax salary for Germany. Most aren't making that before-tax. You're an exceptionably rare circumstance that's far from the norm.
As a freelancer, you make around 800-1000$ a day working for bigger German companies, and the bar to become one is not very high from my experience on both sides of the table. For internal employees the ceiling is at around 120k for senior engineers, above that you need to go into middle management territory or be an EM equivalent.
That only leaves you with immigrants from beyond the EU. Most of those who have any skills are going to try to get into the US. The ones that can't are probably going to try and get residency / citizenship in canada and get in via a TN visa.
Europe is left with the remainder, and unskilled migrants from cultures which frankly have a much harder time integrating into a western one. Over the long term it's a pretty dire situation.
The birth rate in the US is 1.64, the EU average is 1.53. So this is almost equally true for the US, a country historically built on the backs of immigrants.
Neither can the US with social security, pensions and 401ks. All ponzi schemes created on infinite growth with the future generation paying off the last. The rate of pension bailouts by the Feds has been increasing even now.
On top of that, tech emerging as a big industry which forms a big part of the whole economic output of a country, has led to Europe losing out to US. Although only China through thier protectionism has been safe from that.
You can see this in the commentary about UK politics, where they don't have money to fund NHS and NHS wages haven't grown which has bogged down their healthcare system. Most of the manufacturing ecosystem is completely degraded. Productivity is at a complete toss as well, as they are not even able to build high speed rail well now, which for a social net country like UK should be of paramount importance.
To combat this, they have increased taxation, either through freezing slabs or moving down tax slabs. This penalises people in high wage professions and it leads to loss of competitiveness.
We can't build high speed rail either -- we can't even keep our low-speed rail running well -- and our answer to expensive healthcare is typically just "let them die, we can replace them" (immigration too, except we don't have to give our immigrants anything, just wink and pretend we hate them).
At the end of the day no society has it all figured out yet, but I'd love to live in a place with social services and a less hostile democracy so that all the citizens can work together to figure out next steps, instead of being dragged kicking and screaming by the rich. It's just a more collectivist mindset, not necessarily better or more right in any way.
My whole point was how these issues are less of an issue for US, again comparing with UK
US has better age demographic distribution than UK
The net tax burden on an average UK person is way higher compared to US while having worse average wages. Quick googling shows per capita income tax collected in US is $15K, while in UK it is $21K
GDP per capita of UK is $46K compared to US's 70K
If even after having high taxes, a country is having problem funding social services, then that's a big issue as the high taxes are meant to take care of that. US doesn't have this issue as taxes being lower, people can use the money not spent on tax on funding the social care things for themselves.
Also, overall US is still an attractive place for high earners so it will keep on attracting people from those segments which will boost its tax revenues and lead to decline of Europe. As while western Europe might be still a good place for people on median wages or below, USA might be much better for people on the other end
I can believe that. Japan's even worse off, wonder what they're gonna do...
> The net tax burden on an average UK person is way higher compared to US while having worse average wages. Quick googling shows per capita income tax collected in US is $15K, while in UK it is $21K
It's a bit trickier than that, because some of the same services (like healthcare) are still paid by the typical consumer in the US, it just doesn't show up in their taxes. $6k/year might actually just cover the premiums for a small family (what you pay the insurer before you use any services). Using that healthcare would be way more expensive.
I think a fairer comparison would be discretionary income (disposable income minus cost of living expenses like housing, healthcare, food, education), etc. Unfortunately that data isn't easy to find, and definitions differ, but without considering all of those, it's not really apples-to-apples just to look at taxation rates.
The average person is more affected by "how much money do I have left to spend after the essentials" than "am I paying the government or a private company for these essentials".
This is not true anywhere in the US. The lowest premiums are ~$400 per person per month for bronze level insurance.
Lowest premiums for a family of four would be ~$2k per month plus annual deductible of $5k to $10k plus annual out of pocket maximum of ~$10k to $17k (legal limit).
At least until the end of 2024, insurance premiums are capped via subsidies (either paid directly, or as tax credits). The computation of the cap is extremely complex, but basically: you do not pay more than 8.3% of your household AGI for your state's 2nd most expensive silver-level insurance plan.
This is not widely talked about. It was a part of the ACA, but there was a salary cap somewhere near 100k/yr. The cap was removed during the COVID19 pandemic, and this currently runs to the end of 2024.
I used to pay $1300/month for my wife and I (in our late 50s); I currently pay $440/month (annual income approx $120k).
I see the full $30k+ in annual premiums that my employer plus I am paying in my W-2 (box 12 code DD), which is money that could have been cash compensation.
Europe faces three big issues: demographic crisis, energy/resources dependency, and security vulnerability. US on the other hand will have good demographic outlook for most of this century, it is energy (including renewables) and resources rich, and separated by oceans from anyone who can threaten it.
High speed rail? Non-factor in a bigger picture.
Tax and wealth distribution needs a fundamental rethink going into the next few decades - I really don't have high hopes that the current approaches will work. As you say, they are predicated on high growth scenarios which western nations are no longer experiencing at a macro level.
It is not because of welfare that there are less startups in Europe and it is not because of welfare that the big companies in Europe prefer to be more conservative with their spending on R&D. It's cultural. It's people being more financially conservative and risk averse.
I'm a relatively well paid software engineer in the UK, and I don't recognise this at all. I would be very happy to be taxed more to have a better health system. I wouldn't see this as being penalised, but something I'd vote for.
I have plenty of disposable income; if I had a bit less I'd probably spend less on buying expensive tech gadgets from American companies, investing in international shares or taking foreign holidays. It would be better for the country if that cash was diverted towards the NHS. I think overall it would make the country more prosperous. A sick workforce is an inefficient workforce.
Having a bit less cash would not make me less keen to start a company or change employer for more cash. In fact it would probably do the opposite.
We do have the money to fund the NHS. Successive Conservative governments have made the choice to defund the NHS, along with public health, and social care. And they did all of this on top of Brexit.
- heatlhcare isn't what it used to be. Sure, it's free but it can take months to see some doctors, or even a dentist.
- retirement: the pension system isn't good. Most people will get less than 1.5K a month, and not before 64. The effects of the various pension reforms aren't visible yet but they will increase old people poverty.
- safety: this is political and people hold strong opinions on this, but my feeling is that poverty is on the rise, there are more and more unemployed young refugees...
More speculatively, I think Europe lacks natural resources and this is going to bite us more than the US.
> The eurozone economy grew about 6% over the past 15 years, measured in dollars, compared with 82% for the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data. That has left the average EU country poorer per head than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report this month by the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based independent think tank. If the current trend continues, by 2035 the gap between economic output per capita in the U.S. and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report said.
> The European Union now accounts for about 18% of all global consumption spending, compared with 28% for America. Fifteen years ago, the EU and the U.S. each represented about a quarter of that total.
> Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, wages have declined by about 3% since 2019 in Germany, by 3.5% in Italy and Spain and by 6% in Greece. Real wages in the U.S. have increased by about 6% over the same period, according to OECD data.
Keep in mind a lot of this is exchange rates. If you look at GDP PPP, while falling slightly behind, the EU has mostly kept up with the US: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?locat...
Now nominal value is more important on a global influence scale so the usual figures still mean a lot, but it's way more nuanced than most peopl think.
Yes, this is what the US brand sells. And for you it worked. Your sample has a survivor bias so to speak.
That aside, let's question the founding assumption: that the goal in life is to "get ahead". And that to "get ahead" the best way is to have the most opportunities. Perhaps this is why so many Americans (note: I was born, raised and live here) are unhappy, uncomfortable and unsatisfyied? That is, "getting ahead" isn't what it's cracked up to be? That after running on the rat wheel for so long and seeing so little in return, they're frustrated?
My point is, the natural born experience is not the same as the immigrant experience. To be promised something and getting little is not the same as having little and then everything is a bonus.
Yes you can get ahead here. Yes there is opportunity. The question is: how much joy and happiness will that bring? Will it last? Or is this a false construct that eventally reveals itself?
I think the answer to your question depends on the person and their personality. Many people get happiness and satisfaction from achievement, and the result of their work. For example, many people get happiness from achievements in sports, others in business.
A few years ago, I was writing a lot of proposals for government work, and I was winning a lot of them, even when competing against large defense contractors. So much so that my company didn't need any more work. But I was enjoying the satisfaction of winning that I wanted to keep going. My friend (who was also partnered with me on those proposals) and I were reflecting on that, and we agreed that the validation that came with winning was what really was motivating us, more so than the money.
Will it last? Again, I think it depends on the person. I think most high achievers get long term satisfaction from what they do. Not everyone, sure. But I don't think it's a false construct because some don't.
Also, with interest rates this high and the economy steaming along. That means inflation is going to keep rising as well.
None of that says too much GDP growth by itself means higher rates.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/monetary-polic...
“Over time, growth in GDP causes inflation, which if left unchecked, runs the risk of morphing into hyperinflation. Most economists today agree that a small amount of inflation, about 2% a year, is more beneficial than detrimental to the economy.”
Because, it looks like you're saying all GDP growth causes hyperinflation based on an article on a dodgy website.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2019/05/01/does-eco...
they're also aware that American Exceptionalism relies on comparing America to the most poorly run and suffocatingly authoritarian countries on the planet, and ignoring that the developed world exists at all
people are aware that the US is a great starting point to go to those other developed nations. Getting a job in the US and moving to somewhere in Western Europe is a great privilege, greater than being born somewhere else and going straight to Western Europe, greater than being born in Western Europe without inheritance
people are aware that the US could uniquely solve all of its own problems, and have all of the 21st century advances of the developed world, but it simply doesn't and lacks consensus
try not to misunderstand what US Citizens are aware of
The USA is pretty bad (compared to most rich / developed countries) in general at giving opportunities to the broader population. Check the studies on intergenerational mobility to see that the USA ranks pretty badly there. It's not surprising to me given the inequality of the education system and how segregated it is (in terms of social class, parent educational level, etc).
You bring an interesting point though: "as an immigrant". Maybe the USA IS pretty good at giving opportunities to certain kind of immigrants (even if it isn't for the broader population). I haven't seen any study about it, but I'm sure there are analysis.
You can go from the lowest to the 2nd highest quintile in the US and be better off than the lowest to the highest in Canada.
Chicago for all the shitting on it gets for it's high murder rates actually has dozens of neighborhoods that are larger than most towns, suburbs and cities, that have seen zero homicides for several years, which places them well below the national rate and makes them exceptionally safe.
And I'm not some crime apologist. Look at my post history. I'm as conservative as they come. Just following the data.
I don't understand, these types of comments are relative. Which countries are we comparing? Why the US over another country, for example, Canada? France? Sweden? Japan? Thailand? Have people tried these out (I know people who have!)?
The only reason I can think of Why the US over another place is is the amount of wealth and the amount of land in the US is staggering, and the appeal of that makes people feel wealthy themselves by way of association. It's a glamorous lure.
Or is it because of less government restrictions and oversight? Which has its downsides as well.
I feel, as my primary residence, that the US is a cutthroat place to live. Those that speak well of it usually have been lucky.
- No universal healthcare
- No universal mental healthcare
- Millions of homeless and functionally housing-insecure people
- Crazy people in government who don't want it to function and who supported the insurrectionists
- Absurdly gerrymandered Congressional districts that put the thumb on the scale for one side
- Grotesque corruption of dark money in politics
- No meaningful climate change policy
- Massive income inequality
- An inability of the average family to purchase real estate
- A doddering old man sleepwalking the US into a new era of terrorism in 2026-2029 by taking the side of a brutal, corrupt authoritarian and an inability to apply the nuance to the Middle East conflict
Apart from mythological ideals, what specific benefit do US citizens have that British or EU Schengen citizens lack?
Those freedoms are defended by individual power. All power in the world derives from force. The benefit of private gun ownership is a much higher level of individual power and thus the ability to defend that freedom vs the continuous encroaches of government. Mass shootings are an unfortunate side effect, but one worth accepting. I'd rather have a few thousand gun related deaths a year than hundreds of thousands or millions die when a too powerful government takes power.
The reality is that US politics is utterly fucked up, but the US economy is by far the strongest in the world, it might be the most resilient economy in all of human history, it's continually astounding how it manages to surge forward, overcome obstacles and grow. If you are a US citizen, you have access to this economy in ways that other people don't.
So let me throw out a couple examples of this.
* Energy. A shale revolution is now well underway in North America, what this translates to is energy independence and some of the cheapest oil on the planet being well within the USA's grasp. But what you will hear Americans talk about if you bring this up is the POLITICAL problem of how we can't regulate emissions and the climate apocalypse is going to cook us all. Look I'm not saying that climate change isn't a serious problem. It is. But keeping with my theme here, it's going to cook India a lot sooner than it cooks the USA. And the ECONOMIC benefits to the US of the shale revolution are enormous.
* Home-shoring. The amount of money going into rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity right now is staggering, we're in the early stages of an enormous boom and a resurgence of stuff that's made in the USA, including very high tech companies like TSMC building factories in the US. Again people want to talk about the POLITICS with China and how messy they are, but ECONOMICALLY, the US is going to benefit from a ton of manufacturing growth over the next decade.
* Demographics. In the long run, economically, China's doomed, Japan's doomed, the outlook for much of Europe is bleak because they're not having kids. The US still has kids at a somewhat decent rate and has tons of immigration. So again everyone will want to argue about the POLITICS of illegal immigration, but the fact of the matter is, ECONOMICALLY the US will benefit greatly from its demographics.
* Tech, rocket ships, you name it - in virtually all bleeding edge industries, the USA is #1 or #2.
Betting that the US economy will win (even just in a simple form like using your spare cash to buy the S&P 500 and hold it, something that billions of people in this world can't easily do), just keeps on being the right call, almost continuously since WW2.
I'm not saying the politics aren't totally fucked up. They are. I'm not saying the wealth this economy creates is distributed fairly. It's not. But especially online the discussion is way way way way way skewed towards "look how bad these awful US political problems are" meanwhile the one big advantage you have as an American is you have direct access to this unbelievable economic machine, you are actually a member of it, you can buy and sell things in it (and that is how we get to why the entrepreneurial stuff is important!).
This is why MAGA made no sense to me. America is great already. It's not perfect and has a lot of things that need to be fixed. But MAGA is starting from behind.
Unsurprisingly , my wife’s love for USA knows no bounds - she’s one of the most patriotic immigrants you’ll ever meet