I feel bad for Europeans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have relatives in both northern and Southern Europe and none of them are complaining about their standard of living, even the ones whose incomes your would consider extremely low.

If you measure success or a good standard of living by large homes, large cars, and large portion sizes when eating out, then yes, Europeans are "poorer." But most Europeans don't have 4-5 bedroom houses filled with endless stuff from Costco and Target "runs" or big-ass fuel-guzzling cars. They take (much) longer vacations, can retire earlier in some countries, don't go into debt for higher education, and don't have to declare bankruptcy due to medical debt. They all take vacations, even those with lower incomes, and have full lives--except with a lot less of the store-bought crap that Americans spend their lives working for.

Living in a nice, large home and driving a large, comfortable car IS something most people want, including Europeans. They buy the nicest home they can, just like we do.

sounds like you think all Americans care about is buying stuff at Target, which is so sad. It’s a big country out there and you should get out there and discover it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Repeating for the people who think they are discovering something novel. The US is a terrible place to be poor but ok if you are rich (though that is getting to be debatable). Europe is a good place to be if you are middle income or poor. The rich try to shelter.

The US is a pretty good place to be poor compared to 90% of the world

We hide our poor citizens and do an amazing job doing so. In fact we are so successful at doing it that everyone wants to come here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Repeating for the people who think they are discovering something novel. The US is a terrible place to be poor but ok if you are rich (though that is getting to be debatable). Europe is a good place to be if you are middle income or poor. The rich try to shelter.

The US is a pretty good place to be poor compared to 90% of the world

We hide our poor citizens and do an amazing job doing so. In fact we are so successful at doing it that everyone wants to come here.

We don’t hide them…but rather most live in places nobody would ever think to
Visit. Inner cities, Appalachia, rural AL, AR, LA, MS, decaying 75k rust belt towns like Youngstown, OH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

Why are you allowed to cherry-pick stats, but other countries can't do the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have relatives in both northern and Southern Europe and none of them are complaining about their standard of living, even the ones whose incomes your would consider extremely low.

If you measure success or a good standard of living by large homes, large cars, and large portion sizes when eating out, then yes, Europeans are "poorer." But most Europeans don't have 4-5 bedroom houses filled with endless stuff from Costco and Target "runs" or big-ass fuel-guzzling cars. They take (much) longer vacations, can retire earlier in some countries, don't go into debt for higher education, and don't have to declare bankruptcy due to medical debt. They all take vacations, even those with lower incomes, and have full lives--except with a lot less of the store-bought crap that Americans spend their lives working for.

[b]Living in a nice, large home and driving a large, comfortable car IS something most people want, including Europeans. They buy the nicest home they can, just like we do.

sounds like you think all Americans care about is buying stuff at Target, which is so sad. It’s a big country out there and you should get out there and discover it.

I’m an American and I hate having huge cars. It’s something that’s a necessity to live in the US and is an expensive externality that I do not want.

Unfortunately, walkable neighborhoods and adequate public transportation are a pipe dream. I HATE having to spend tens of thousands of stupid cats simply because there’s no other way to transport kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

Why are you allowed to cherry-pick stats, but other countries can't do the same?

I'm assuming PP is talking about black Americans. There is no European country with a black population remotely close to that of the US. If you removed them from both sets of data you'd just end up reducing the gap between the US and Europe by a significant amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But an American who earns well can retire way earlier because they don’t rely on a pension system where the age gets pushed further and further back. High earners can retire by their 30’s if they make the right moves and invest aggressively.

What America do you live in? I know many successful high earners and none have retired in their 30s nor do they believe they can and have financial stability into old age.

It's not common because a high earner has a high standard of living they're used to. But someone with several million technically doesn't need to work as long as they move to a cheap location or country, you're not actually a wage slave at that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

It's always like this when you apply a very broad statistic to a huge diverse country. Usually problems manifest themselves in specific groups of people which has a significant effect on the average, and people who aren't statistically literate or have a political agenda spin things to make an argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

What you fail to understand is that Europe also has poor immigrants. Chile has poor people. There are minority groups in Europe with terrible health and low education and out of wedlock births — as you so delicately put it.

And yet, the United States is the only developed country with a maternal and infant mortality rate that Latvia would be ashamed of.

There is no denying that the United States has horrible outcomes for women and babies. But sure keep putting your head in the sand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

It's always like this when you apply a very broad statistic to a huge diverse country. Usually problems manifest themselves in specific groups of people which has a significant effect on the average, and people who aren't statistically literate or have a political agenda spin things to make an argument.

Interesting.

So your argument is that there are no poor, uneducated, unwed minority groups in any European country?

Don’t forget that the population of the European Union is MUCH larger than the United States so *huge diverse country talking points* go out the window

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

What you fail to understand is that Europe also has poor immigrants. Chile has poor people. There are minority groups in Europe with terrible health and low education and out of wedlock births — as you so delicately put it.

And yet, the United States is the only developed country with a maternal and infant mortality rate that Latvia would be ashamed of.

There is no denying that the United States has horrible outcomes for women and babies. But sure keep putting your head in the sand.

The CIA estimates the US' infant mortality rate at a 5.1 per 1000 vs Latvia's 4.7. Meanwhile Afghanistan is a 101.3. You're stretching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You obviously feel strongly about what you wrote. Your comment is practically hysterical. Despite your claims, American women are having more babies than Europeans. It’s not a tiny wealthy minority.

My guess is you live in a blue urban liberal bubble and don’t get out there often. Your beliefs are shaped by wealthy liberals and the poor minorities living around you.

I'm not PP, but are you disputing that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world?

I think if you remove one minority group with terrible health, high obesity rates, low education and high out of wedlock births then the situation in America looks very different.
It’s tragic but simply doesn’t apply to your average white woman who graduated college and got married before having kids.

What you fail to understand is that Europe also has poor immigrants. Chile has poor people. There are minority groups in Europe with terrible health and low education and out of wedlock births — as you so delicately put it.

And yet, the United States is the only developed country with a maternal and infant mortality rate that Latvia would be ashamed of.

There is no denying that the United States has horrible outcomes for women and babies. But sure keep putting your head in the sand.

The CIA estimates the US' infant mortality rate at a 5.1 per 1000 vs Latvia's 4.7. Meanwhile Afghanistan is a 101.3. You're stretching.

Stop and think about what you’re saying:

You’re celebrating because the US has better health outcomes than Afghanistan! And you’re accepting that the United States is worse than Latvia. But maybe if we work hard we can finally meet Latvia’s numbers.

THAT is winning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Flip side, even cashiers can have a nice life.

They have smaller houses, smaller cars, excellent weather compare to most of US. Cheap vacations across many countries and settings.

They don’t worry about being laid off at 50 and having to become a cashier who makes so little she is eligible for snap benefits.

Rewarding mediocrity doesn’t lead to prosperity in the long term. To an extent, an effective government needs to light a fire under people’s asses to achieve things in life. Coddling and enablement makes everyone poorer eventually

If more people are happier, it’s definitely a better system. What’s the point in a system where nobody except the very wealthy are happy?