I feel bad for Europeans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy to tell 90% of the posters on this thread have never lived in Europe and get their entire perspective of life in Europe from a tik tok clip showing progressive liberal people in hip neighborhoods in Paris or Berlin.

As someone who's actually lived in Europe long enough and still spends plenty of time in Europe in various countries, it's indisputable that incomes are higher - substantially higher - in the United States. Average income in the entire UK is lower than the average income in Mississippi, the poorest state in the US. At the same time cost of living in the popular key European cities where the better jobs are isn't necessarily low either. Anyone looked at the cost of housing in London (or most of Britain in general?). Or Paris? Very expensive. Pretty much only rich people and poor people in subsidized housing live in most central European capital cities. Middle class and everyday people live in suburbs and outer neighborhoods, with long commutes on public transportation. Many Europeans somehow end up coming to the US for work and completely fall in love with the ease of suburban American life. And there's no shortage of poor neighborhoods in Europe too, the banlieues of Paris, the housing estates of Britain, the crowded tenements of migrants living off generous doles that is causing enormous cultural strife across Europe. And there's small dying towns and villages (speaking to the person complaining about small town America).

Europe does have a large enough affluent upper middle class but most Europeans are not in this category. And there's widespread fears across Western Europe over economic insecurity and decline in standards of living and mass migration. Few people are taking things for granted or thinking the future is rosy.

+100000

It’s like the women on Reddit who praise European parental leaves but don’t understand it’s $250-300 a week, the woman likely had finances independent of her partner/husband (meaning she’d have $0 of support) and there is the expectation the woman spends significant time away from work to watch a young child and also expected to return.

Thank you! I find it so weird when people say how it's so much better for women in Europe. Really? Because I remember it being hard to get hired as people thought I WOULD leave for a baby, and then looking at me like a criminal if I DIDN"T take time to be with baby. There's no cjhoice but to 1) not have kids or 2) be mommy-tracked. is that others experience? There's a dark side to being entitled to "generous" leave and it's not always in favor of fmailies or women.

How dare you be so logical!

Seriously though, if I'm a business owner, am I going to feel great about hiring a woman of child bearing age who I know will be peacing out for a year each time she has a kid?

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody is forced into mediocre existence. People just don't care about material things like they do here.They don't produce as much waste a much as Americans. Perhaps this is your measure of good life. Add $10k of crap Americans buy a year, and health, property taxes, education to that $50k.
It never crossed my mind in EU that I will be homeless or can't afford to go to the doctors. If this were in the back of my mind all the time, sure I want to become well off. This is not a worry in EU.
The ones who have the drive, do get rich. Look at the unicorns per capita for Estonia. The education level for the poor is so much better than in US (see Pisa 2022). If any, the poor are forced and stay in poverty in US because of their education level.
Don't confuse not wanting to be uber rich with being held back. Europeans can invest in the markets/real estate just like anyone else. It's just not as important as it is here.
It actually seems more important to Eastern Europeans as we remember not being able to do so. But our kids are getting 'soft' as the need for extra things or money is not there. Experiences yes, but not things. They definitely travel more than people in US.
I'm from EE, but living here. I talk about money and the need to get rich more than my friends back at home. They need me to shut up and just enjoy the party.
They have access to American stock market and their own markets. They have the 20 euros a day to throw into it to retire early. They'd rather enjoy it, because they already live as if they are semi-retired.

I was shocked at the luxury stores in the Amsterdam airport. Europeans are clearly highly materialistic.. I’ve never seen Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Baccarat, and Hermes etc. stores in any American airports.

europeans tend to spend on quality products (if they can afford it), but quality over quantity. Same for clothing

That’s hilarious. My European female friends have fewer clothes and mainly shop at places like H&M. Why? It’s what they can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy to tell 90% of the posters on this thread have never lived in Europe and get their entire perspective of life in Europe from a tik tok clip showing progressive liberal people in hip neighborhoods in Paris or Berlin.

As someone who's actually lived in Europe long enough and still spends plenty of time in Europe in various countries, it's indisputable that incomes are higher - substantially higher - in the United States. Average income in the entire UK is lower than the average income in Mississippi, the poorest state in the US. At the same time cost of living in the popular key European cities where the better jobs are isn't necessarily low either. Anyone looked at the cost of housing in London (or most of Britain in general?). Or Paris? Very expensive. Pretty much only rich people and poor people in subsidized housing live in most central European capital cities. Middle class and everyday people live in suburbs and outer neighborhoods, with long commutes on public transportation. Many Europeans somehow end up coming to the US for work and completely fall in love with the ease of suburban American life. And there's no shortage of poor neighborhoods in Europe too, the banlieues of Paris, the housing estates of Britain, the crowded tenements of migrants living off generous doles that is causing enormous cultural strife across Europe. And there's small dying towns and villages (speaking to the person complaining about small town America).

Europe does have a large enough affluent upper middle class but most Europeans are not in this category. And there's widespread fears across Western Europe over economic insecurity and decline in standards of living and mass migration. Few people are taking things for granted or thinking the future is rosy.

+100000

It’s like the women on Reddit who praise European parental leaves but don’t understand it’s $250-300 a week, the woman likely had finances independent of her partner/husband (meaning she’d have $0 of support) and there is the expectation the woman spends significant time away from work to watch a young child and also expected to return.

Thank you! I find it so weird when people say how it's so much better for women in Europe. Really? Because I remember it being hard to get hired as people thought I WOULD leave for a baby, and then looking at me like a criminal if I DIDN"T take time to be with baby. There's no cjhoice but to 1) not have kids or 2) be mommy-tracked. is that others experience? There's a dark side to being entitled to "generous" leave and it's not always in favor of fmailies or women.

How dare you be so logical!

Seriously though, if I'm a business owner, am I going to feel great about hiring a woman of child bearing age who I know will be peacing out for a year each time she has a kid?

Nope.

Glad there are other people who recognize the significant downsides of these parental leaves.

My extremely controversial opinion is that it’s government welfare and instead of spending money on daycares, European governments have figured out they can get women to stay home with young babies for a small amount of money, and then force these same women back to work in mommy-tracked jobs. But there is less opportunity for advancement or building personal wealth in many of these countries, so makes sense they have these policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody is forced into mediocre existence. People just don't care about material things like they do here.They don't produce as much waste a much as Americans. Perhaps this is your measure of good life. Add $10k of crap Americans buy a year, and health, property taxes, education to that $50k.
It never crossed my mind in EU that I will be homeless or can't afford to go to the doctors. If this were in the back of my mind all the time, sure I want to become well off. This is not a worry in EU.
The ones who have the drive, do get rich. Look at the unicorns per capita for Estonia. The education level for the poor is so much better than in US (see Pisa 2022). If any, the poor are forced and stay in poverty in US because of their education level.
Don't confuse not wanting to be uber rich with being held back. Europeans can invest in the markets/real estate just like anyone else. It's just not as important as it is here.
It actually seems more important to Eastern Europeans as we remember not being able to do so. But our kids are getting 'soft' as the need for extra things or money is not there. Experiences yes, but not things. They definitely travel more than people in US.
I'm from EE, but living here. I talk about money and the need to get rich more than my friends back at home. They need me to shut up and just enjoy the party.
They have access to American stock market and their own markets. They have the 20 euros a day to throw into it to retire early. They'd rather enjoy it, because they already live as if they are semi-retired.

I was shocked at the luxury stores in the Amsterdam airport. Europeans are clearly highly materialistic.. I’ve never seen Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Baccarat, and Hermes etc. stores in any American airports.

europeans tend to spend on quality products (if they can afford it), but quality over quantity. Same for clothing

That’s hilarious. My European female friends have fewer clothes and mainly shop at places like H&M. Why? It’s what they can afford.

Once more...are we talking about the average American or are we now comparing wealthy Americans to the average European? It's quite confusing all the apples-to-oranges comparison.

The average American is lucky to shop at Walmart and can't afford much.

Maybe the title of this thread is something like "I feel bad for Paris law partners who make much less than their US big city counterparts"...or "I feel bad for SWEs in Dublin at Meta who make much less than SV SWEs at Meta". Both would be apt comparisons.

I specifically leave out London law partners, bankers, hedge fund guys, PE folks...because they make a shit ton of money like anyone in NYC.

[Anonymous]

This entire discussion only makes sense if specifying income percentiles. Bottom 50 percent in the US are worse off fue to a lack of welfare state. Top 5-10 percent ? are demonstrably better off though possibly working harder and experiencing relatively high anxiety on average. The rest is up for debate IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Europeans get significantly more vacation days and have better work life balance. France offers 7 weeks of paid vacation. The average 40-hour-per-week employee in the U.S. is working 400 more hours annually — the equivalent of 10 more weeks — than employees in Germany. But it is very American of you to feel bad for them because they don’t have a McMansion while you take your sad 3 weeks of vacation.

Americans want to work hard and work more to build wealth. All the hard workers left Europe in the 17th-20th centuries to pursue the American dream and left the deadbeats back in Europe to rot away in their archaic system with vestiges of serfdom and failed monarchies. The European mindset is one of mediocrity. In business, a moderately driven person immediately sales to the top in Europe because there’s no competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy to tell 90% of the posters on this thread have never lived in Europe and get their entire perspective of life in Europe from a tik tok clip showing progressive liberal people in hip neighborhoods in Paris or Berlin.

As someone who's actually lived in Europe long enough and still spends plenty of time in Europe in various countries, it's indisputable that incomes are higher - substantially higher - in the United States. Average income in the entire UK is lower than the average income in Mississippi, the poorest state in the US. At the same time cost of living in the popular key European cities where the better jobs are isn't necessarily low either. Anyone looked at the cost of housing in London (or most of Britain in general?). Or Paris? Very expensive. Pretty much only rich people and poor people in subsidized housing live in most central European capital cities. Middle class and everyday people live in suburbs and outer neighborhoods, with long commutes on public transportation. Many Europeans somehow end up coming to the US for work and completely fall in love with the ease of suburban American life. And there's no shortage of poor neighborhoods in Europe too, the banlieues of Paris, the housing estates of Britain, the crowded tenements of migrants living off generous doles that is causing enormous cultural strife across Europe. And there's small dying towns and villages (speaking to the person complaining about small town America).

Europe does have a large enough affluent upper middle class but most Europeans are not in this category. And there's widespread fears across Western Europe over economic insecurity and decline in standards of living and mass migration. Few people are taking things for granted or thinking the future is rosy.

+100000

It’s like the women on Reddit who praise European parental leaves but don’t understand it’s $250-300 a week, the woman likely had finances independent of her partner/husband (meaning she’d have $0 of support) and there is the expectation the woman spends significant time away from work to watch a young child and also expected to return.

Thank you! I find it so weird when people say how it's so much better for women in Europe. Really? Because I remember it being hard to get hired as people thought I WOULD leave for a baby, and then looking at me like a criminal if I DIDN"T take time to be with baby. There's no cjhoice but to 1) not have kids or 2) be mommy-tracked. is that others experience? There's a dark side to being entitled to "generous" leave and it's not always in favor of fmailies or women.

How dare you be so logical!

Seriously though, if I'm a business owner, am I going to feel great about hiring a woman of child bearing age who I know will be peacing out for a year each time she has a kid?

Nope.

Glad there are other people who recognize the significant downsides of these parental leaves.

My extremely controversial opinion is that it’s government welfare and instead of spending money on daycares, European governments have figured out they can get women to stay home with young babies for a small amount of money, and then force these same women back to work in mommy-tracked jobs. But there is less opportunity for advancement or building personal wealth in many of these countries, so makes sense they have these policies.

There are very few women in senior positions in Europe who have children between 0 and 10. The very few women execs are all older with kids in college or never had kids. Women of child bearing age 100% get sidelined. It’s just not the same in the U.S. because the expectation is you put your head down and grind.

[Anonymous]

Socialism my dear. Reject it!