Comment by legulere
4 years ago
The amount spent does not say anything about efficiency if you don't consider what is provided with that money. Lack of free healthcare and education are some of the biggest complaints about the US after all.
Europe is also doing pretty well in several fields and you don't explain at all how tech in particular is affected by public spending.
Public spending is not the biggest issue. The problem is that having lots of government employees in cushy jobs starves the labor market of talent. Why take on a risky job at a flimsy startup when you can have a nearly guaranteed income till retirement in a 9-5 job?
I might take a risky job if the upside justifies the risk. But even in the US, the amount of stock options granted to employees (apart from the very earliest ones) will only result in a big pay-offs for the most successful of startups, and even then requires a lot of risk and/or sticking it out. EU startup culture appears less generous with equity and growth potential but doesn't make up for it with higher salaries.
We have those in the US too, it's called the "defense" industry. Our permanent wartime economy isn't for the good of most Americans or our talent pool—free education and healthcare (the largest discrepancy in public funding between the US and EU) would increase available talent but is considered authoritarian despotic socialism/communism within the American Overton Window.
Why take on a risky career path like being a doctor if best case you're half a million in debt and that's assuming you don't get weeded out at any point? It's no surprise we have shortages of engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.
Even a bachelor's degree is on average 32k for in-state at public colleges assuming you graduate in 4 years. Contrast that with my German peers who didn't pay anything and yeah, maybe I wouldn't have been a software engineer if everything else wasn't so volatile. I certainly don't feel as essential as doctors or nurses, especially now.
Sure it's cheaper to start a LLC in the US and you can hire/fire on a whim practically, but 63% of Americans don't have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency. Doesn't exactly leave a lot of wiggle room unless your parents have a basement for your MVP and some seed money.
56% of GDP amounts to around 20k euro per person and year
Would you rather get the public health and education, or keep the 20k euro and find a solution for yourself?
I reckon that my health expenditures are 1000 per year, and I am self-taught, so I don't need the government for anything.
What we need is to make the public services Opt-in/Opt-out, so people who find it competitive like yourself can keep enjoying it.
Well, you will pay these 20k only the 40-ish years you'll work, while you'll pay your US health care insurance until you die. The average American pays more for healthcare over their live than the average European, and the outcomes are objectively worse.
Also, EU governments provide retirement benefits while the US's doesn't. This is the main expenditure for these governments.
Not saying that your argument has not some truth in it, but it's definitively wrong in the case of healthcare.
The outcomes are definitely not objectively worse, to the point that the U.S. is a huge medical tourism destination.
The US population not taking care of themselves is a public health problem not a medical care quality issue.
15 replies →
The US government provides extensive retirement benefits similar to the EU in both type and dollar value. These are some of the biggest spending line items in the US budget: Social Security, Medicare, etc.
My US government provided pension will be something like $3500/month when I reach retirement age. This is in addition to any personal retirement savings.
20k of GDP per capita means in any year of your life, even after 65.
People migrate to the US before the EU. Besides, US lifestyle (also a high tax country btw) is not the only possible alternative to european style quasi socialism (56% on the way there)
1 reply →
Society and the world at large doesn't revolve around individuals. Despite not having had any major health expenditures myself (for now), I have absolutely no problem with supporting a system that allows for those less fortunate to not have to worry about it, among other things. Frankly, anything else is simply barbaric.
The majority (or easily over 80%) of the EU's high taxation incomes are not being spent solely to support the people who can't afford their own healthcare or on those who are truly in need of that money, so that argument is pointless. Unless you are a millionaire you can't live well in EU. If you are just a regular tech worker advancing in your career can actually reduce your salary because of the tax brackets.
1 reply →