Comment by bflesch
1 month ago
In the US you have to privately pay for many things that you get for free in more developed nations.
For example safety is not guaranteed due to extreme homelessness and easy access to guns, so you have to pay more for gated communities and security/concierge. You need to privately pay for healthcare and also pay off debt from university tuition, both is much cheaper in EU. If you have kids, you have to pay for private schools.
Then all over the US the infrastructure is so extremely bad that you don't even have sidewalks and you need to take a car to get anywhere, with really bad public transport.
If you want to just emulate European lifestyle in the US you really need to spend a lot of money.
>If you want to just emulate European lifestyle in the US you really need to spend a lot of money.
Even a lot of Europeans today are not having the envied European lifestyle right now. Things are getting worse here too, so you also need to spend out of pocket and have a very good paying job, just to get the European lifestyle that was the norm 10+ years ago with an average job.
And it's only gonna get downhill from here with the increase in defense spending that's gotta come from somewhere, the stagnating economy and increasing CoL, the ballooning retirement and welfare timebomb, etc.
If you make 50% of US FANG wages, then you'll probably be fine, but most people don't.
And there's a lot of places in the US (excluding the major cities) that don't have those issues you mentioned and where you can live a pretty chill and safe lifestyle too if you're a skilled worker on a decent income, similar how there's cities in Europe that have a lot of poverty, crime and failing infrastructure as well where you need a good job and skills to get out. It's not as binary as you try to make it be.