What is the point of living in the US?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, don't get me wrong - I love this country and everything it ostensibly stands for. This idea that your identity is tied to an idea vs a race, ethnicity, or place of origin really is a beautiful thing. But - we have massive problems. The gun violence is just insane and no developed country with the resources we have should tolerate it. I know almost everyone who posts here would probably support policy changes to help curb it, but that's not the country we live in.
The creeping autocracy is also quite concerning. I follow international politics pretty closely, and while you do see some of this in other western countries - we are much further along. Look at Canada - yes the Conservatives have a wide base of support. But the fascist-adjacent, "Trumpy" part of the Canadian right, the People's Party, still only gets like 5-10% of the vote.

But some of this is also the case elsewhere, particularly the rise in populism.

Here's the reality - the US is a great place to be if you are very ambitious. It's unparalleled if you are smart, an entrepreneur, have a clear and focused goal, and are either already educated or can afford a U.S. college degree. But it is not a great place for everyone else. Content to be type B? Not for you. Want to work just to pay your bills and focus on enjoying your free time? Nope. Happen to get sick or disabled or have a financial crisis of any kind? Nada.

This is the most honest truth about the U.S.

I concur with above being the honest truth and will add that the US is by and large much more accepting of ‘others’ than many other developed countries. I think people would be surprised at how racist Australians can be (not to pick on Australian, but yes, to pick on Australia). Or how strict most other European counties are on immigration. It’s easy and fun to criticize America on the aggregate, but get down to the neighborhood, community level and there’s a lot to like. It’s summertime, and I have basically a model UN of kids hunting fireflies, chasing after the ice cream truck, and making up weird games on their bikes. Are their parents struggling and working long hours? Some of them, absolutely. Are they first and second generation immigrants? Many, yes. Do I use too many rhetorical questions? Probably. You can idolize the pensioner lifestyle in UK or Italy, but take a closer look and you’ll see it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and also that their fortunes are inextricably tied to the success of America. At least the fate of retirees in America is tied directly to the success of America not to any one other country

When you take a look at most European social welfare benefits, you often find the grass isn’t really greener.

My favorite lauded benefit is “fully paid” maternity leave in European countries. What’s rarely shared is how low the salary cap is for this “fully paid” benefit. In the UK, you receive full pay for 8 weeks, which is very similar to the STD policies many American women have. After the 8 weeks, the benefit is a paltry $250 a week! Yes, this is better than nothing and if you plan to stay home anyway, then maybe it’s ok. But how many UMC women would really be content earning $250 a week while out on maternity leave for a year? I would argue the main benefit is it holds your job for a year, but it’s harder to land a permanent job in the UK than the US.

Similar story for universities. Yes, education costs are lower but so are the many restrictions and requirements to attend. My kids can apply to any school they want in the US. There is way more freedom to study what you want and attend the school you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what you deem to be valuable - there's cash and then there's value. It's easy to make money here hard to make a career actually. I can do multiple gigs and hustle, work a zillion hours but there's no safety net for me. Healthcare, infrastructure, crime, insurance and other practical considerations make living in US not easy. But the more money you make the easier it gets because you hire people to work on the hard stuff for you - money buys everything. You have to commit to making that money over anything else however. Go into debt via education for example. Be ruthless and psycho workaholic for example. I mean, it comes down to having money in the US. It's everything but it's also nothing. In Asia everyone has either a very strong family network or they hire help. Being a first time mother is somewhat easier for example. In Europe you get more paid days off, it's a big deal to be able to not always have to be expected to work. Culturally, a lot of other countries are easier than US lifestyles. So it totally depends on what you value. And I would suggest YS is less a land of opportunity than it used to be. There was a time it truly was but it's so much harder because of competition now. What it does do well is offer freedom of expression although the French are magnificent in their daily protests of a zillion issues - it's like a sport there! Lol

Another great post and on point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, you immigrated here. Do you often do "pointless" things?

I immigrated when I was 22 years old. It's not like I was thinking about real estate, kids, schools, etc. If I knew what I know now, I would never come here.

You can always leave, op. Find your perfect spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG - please leave if you hate this country so much. Grass ain't greener in these other countries, in many cases.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Sounds about white.

An American citizen who loves to travel but glad to come back home to the US. Every country has its warts. What country are you from? What makes it so great yet you’re living in the United States?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant, so the question is highly relevant to me. The real estate is so expensive that it entirely negates the point of earning high salaries. Schools are garbage, crime is rampant, nothing is walkable... once upon a time at least you could get a huge house to compensate for that. Not any more. I am now embarrassed to show tiny old houses with low ceilings and vinyl siding that go for million+.

I moved here for my American husband from London. My life is so much better here than had I stayed in London. I love to go visit and love the UK, but it is bloody expensive and job opportunities are not early as good as here. I'm also very grateful for my private health insurance here. My poor mother had to wait 5 years for a knee replacement and could not even walk for the last 3. The NHS is so incredibly broken.

Crickets from DCUM! I’m sorry to hear that, and I hope your mum is doing well now.

I'll add that a friend of mine who lives in London recently gave birth and had to share a room with SIX OTHER new moms & their newborns during her hospital stay. SIX. Here we have a hissy fit if you have to share with one other new mom. It sounds so unbelievably awful and unrestful. You're exhausted and dealing with all of the post partum factors that really require some privacy.

This is an odd thing to focus on but, for what it’s worth, I had both my children on the NHS and it was perfectly fine. Yes, I shared a room for a night with others after each but I was able to go home the next day and I had home visits from lovely midwives both before and after the birth. Perhaps focus on something else or the big picture.

Maybe YOU would have a hissy fit, but you're on DCUM so we already knew that.

You ask the average American if they'd rather spend one night in a room with 6 other people or get a $30,000 bill for their private room and I guarantee you I know what most people will answer.

Most women aren’t receiving $30k bills for the birth of a child. C’mon. Yes, it can be a few thousand dollars but overall taxes are SO much lower here. Sorry but the quality of NHS healthcare is pretty bad. Way better to be on Medicaid in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

This. Most technological advances, new medications and inventions come from the US. In addition, almost every genre of modern music. We also have a robust film industry. There is our patent and legal system that has supported most of our achievements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant, so the question is highly relevant to me. The real estate is so expensive that it entirely negates the point of earning high salaries. Schools are garbage, crime is rampant, nothing is walkable... once upon a time at least you could get a huge house to compensate for that. Not any more. I am now embarrassed to show tiny old houses with low ceilings and vinyl siding that go for million+.

I moved here for my American husband from London. My life is so much better here than had I stayed in London. I love to go visit and love the UK, but it is bloody expensive and job opportunities are not early as good as here. I'm also very grateful for my private health insurance here. My poor mother had to wait 5 years for a knee replacement and could not even walk for the last 3. The NHS is so incredibly broken.

Crickets from DCUM! I’m sorry to hear that, and I hope your mum is doing well now.

I'll add that a friend of mine who lives in London recently gave birth and had to share a room with SIX OTHER new moms & their newborns during her hospital stay. SIX. Here we have a hissy fit if you have to share with one other new mom. It sounds so unbelievably awful and unrestful. You're exhausted and dealing with all of the post partum factors that really require some privacy.

Maybe YOU would have a hissy fit, but you're on DCUM so we already knew that.

You ask the average American if they'd rather spend one night in a room with 6 other people or get a $30,000 bill for their private room and I guarantee you I know what most people will answer.

Most women aren’t receiving $30k bills for the birth of a child. C’mon. Yes, it can be a few thousand dollars but overall taxes are SO much lower here. Sorry but the quality of NHS healthcare is pretty bad. Way better to be on Medicaid in the US.

So… you think everyone who isn’t a one percenter qualifies for Medicaid? A family of four making 45k a year HHI won’t even qualify. You really think that family is better off? When my first child was born, we were paying something like $600 per month for insurance and ended up with about $5k in hospital bills. It was a lot of money for us at the time, but we did not qualify for Medicaid. Not even close.

My friends in Belgium take a month of vacation on a regular basis. Healthcare costs are not something they worry about. School activities/enrichment and summer camp are dirt cheap. You know what my boss would do if I wanted to take a month off? Here’s an article from good old Fox discouraging people from taking off for two weeks. A measly two weeks!

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/planning-vacation-experts-workers-think

Obviously there are great things about living here too. But is our standard of living and the “grind until you die or you’re a lazy waste of space” culture really so great?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

This. Most technological advances, new medications and inventions come from the US. In addition, almost every genre of modern music. We also have a robust film industry. There is our patent and legal system that has supported most of our achievements.

I am not convinced by American exceptionalism. So...a group of outsiders come to a physically vast and resource rich land and appropriates basically everything, uses free and low paid labour to take advantage of it and builds a powerful economy at a time when the critical mass of your domestic economy was all-important, builds up wealth that then supports a flourishing of the arts, sciences and learning. I mean, this has happened time and time again throughout history, right? Greece, Egypt, China, Rome, the UK. They all had their time. Even the tiny Netherlands was one of the most powerful countries in Europe back in the 1500s. Isn't the only difference that the US has happened in recent history? I'm not sure the US has regressed or whether the pattern that you see throughout history has just been repeated, ie none of these exceptional places stays exceptional forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant, so the question is highly relevant to me. The real estate is so expensive that it entirely negates the point of earning high salaries. Schools are garbage, crime is rampant, nothing is walkable... once upon a time at least you could get a huge house to compensate for that. Not any more. I am now embarrassed to show tiny old houses with low ceilings and vinyl siding that go for million+.

I moved here for my American husband from London. My life is so much better here than had I stayed in London. I love to go visit and love the UK, but it is bloody expensive and job opportunities are not early as good as here. I'm also very grateful for my private health insurance here. My poor mother had to wait 5 years for a knee replacement and could not even walk for the last 3. The NHS is so incredibly broken.

Crickets from DCUM! I’m sorry to hear that, and I hope your mum is doing well now.

I'll add that a friend of mine who lives in London recently gave birth and had to share a room with SIX OTHER new moms & their newborns during her hospital stay. SIX. Here we have a hissy fit if you have to share with one other new mom. It sounds so unbelievably awful and unrestful. You're exhausted and dealing with all of the post partum factors that really require some privacy.

Maybe YOU would have a hissy fit, but you're on DCUM so we already knew that.

You ask the average American if they'd rather spend one night in a room with 6 other people or get a $30,000 bill for their private room and I guarantee you I know what most people will answer.

This is such a stupid response. YOU are also on DCUM and claiming that you would NOT have a hissy fit so your "we already knew that" comment is invalid. Aside from that:
1) Why are you comparing 0 health insurance to NHS? That is a false comparison. A more logical argument would have been comparing health insurance costs to the costs of taxes that support NHS.
2) Point 1 touches on this, but because it seems you're confused: NHS is not free. People pay for NHS in the form of taxes, which are higher in other countries in order to pay for programs like NHS.

Aside from this, I also disagree with your thoughts on what the average American wants. Sure, we all want to pay less for services, whether health care or anything else, but the standard of choice and personal decision is so ingrained in the minds of Americans that it is second nature. Given the choice between a government-run healthcare system and private insurance, I think most Americans prefer the private insurance, which is a bit more expensive, in order to have freedom of choice regarding their medical care. Think of Obamacare -- one of the fundamental pieces is shopping the marketplace!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

This. Most technological advances, new medications and inventions come from the US. In addition, almost every genre of modern music. We also have a robust film industry. There is our patent and legal system that has supported most of our achievements.

I am not convinced by American exceptionalism. So...a group of outsiders come to a physically vast and resource rich land and appropriates basically everything, uses free and low paid labour to take advantage of it and builds a powerful economy at a time when the critical mass of your domestic economy was all-important, builds up wealth that then supports a flourishing of the arts, sciences and learning. I mean, this has happened time and time again throughout history, right? Greece, Egypt, China, Rome, the UK. They all had their time. Even the tiny Netherlands was one of the most powerful countries in Europe back in the 1500s. Isn't the only difference that the US has happened in recent history? I'm not sure the US has regressed or whether the pattern that you see throughout history has just been repeated, ie none of these exceptional places stays exceptional forever.

She says, while writing on her iPhone and searching something on Google. Soon she will save her data on the cloud for a few pennies. Perhaps in a bit she will go take a lifesaving biological medicine that was invented up the road at NIH.

[Anonymous]

The United States is my home, and I've traveled the world extensively. While we certainly have our issues, and some serious ones to boot, there is no other country that I would want to settle in permanently.

I prefer to invest my time and energy in helping to fix the problems here rather than fleeing to another land and its own share of problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

This. Most technological advances, new medications and inventions come from the US. In addition, almost every genre of modern music. We also have a robust film industry. There is our patent and legal system that has supported most of our achievements.

I am not convinced by American exceptionalism. So...a group of outsiders come to a physically vast and resource rich land and appropriates basically everything, uses free and low paid labour to take advantage of it and builds a powerful economy at a time when the critical mass of your domestic economy was all-important, builds up wealth that then supports a flourishing of the arts, sciences and learning. I mean, this has happened time and time again throughout history, right? Greece, Egypt, China, Rome, the UK. They all had their time. Even the tiny Netherlands was one of the most powerful countries in Europe back in the 1500s. Isn't the only difference that the US has happened in recent history? I'm not sure the US has regressed or whether the pattern that you see throughout history has just been repeated, ie none of these exceptional places stays exceptional forever.

You're posting like the Belgians stayed in the Belgian Congo, and didn't just exploit the natural resources.

[Anonymous]

The title shows that you've never spent time anywhere outside the US.