Anonymous
08/12/2025 21:33
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
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
What is mediocrity? Public servants such as a teacher, fire fighter, service member or police officer? How about line men at the local energy company or a plumber or nurse. Hell, most Americans could be “mediocre” but they live a good life. Not everyone can or wants to be in the top 10%. The majority of Americans work to live, not live to work.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 21:24
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
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.
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.
Not really. Plenty of people even here prioritize walkable, livable communities. They are extremely expensive and out of reach for most.
I have been all over this great country and my work carries me out to the more far flung areas. It’s amazing how similar it all looks. Rotten urban core, streetcar suburbs of varying wealth, more spread out suburbs with strip mall after strip mall with the same stores, followed by exurb developments, some with mansions where you have to drive to get your mail, and others that are like a cheap Tuscan knockoff with a name like Grove Estates.
And just behind that - the poverty. The junk in the yard, falling down houses, trailer park on the suburb, Dollar General intractable, hopeless, rural poverty.
The flavors are are little different - southern poverty hits different than northeastern small factory town poverty. But the American dream looks really depressing when you see it rotting all over. And you see where fentanyl hit the hardest.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 21:09
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
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.
Okay, I get it: You only care about white women, so let’s look at those statistics; According to the CDC (non-Hispanic) white women in the US have an infant mortality rate of 4.5 per 1000 births.
Congratulations! Your babies are worse off than an impoverished African migrant giving birth in Poland (and just about every other European country.)
CIA has Poland listed at a 4.9 so that would make their odds worse.
Oops. That was a typo. I meant to write Portugal which has a rate of 3.0
Anonymous
08/12/2025 21:09
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Day to day life is definitely less stressful compared to basically 75% of all Americans because their incomes after taxes are similar to American after tax incomes when you also subtract employee portion of health insurance plus deductibles/copays, childcare costs and savings for college and elder care.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 21:01
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote: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.
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.
Okay, I get it: You only care about white women, so let’s look at those statistics; According to the CDC (non-Hispanic) white women in the US have an infant mortality rate of 4.5 per 1000 births.
Congratulations! Your babies are worse off than an impoverished African migrant giving birth in Poland (and just about every other European country.)
CIA has Poland listed at a 4.9 so that would make their odds worse.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:47
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:I was surprised to learn most Western Europeans makes well under 50k EUR per year even with high levels of education. Is it worth it to make 1/5 an American for the same job just for some free healthcare (which we get at our jobs anyway) and education?
How is Europe supposedly more egalitarian than the US when the only way to become well off is to inherit money? You can be full of drive and ambition over there and still live the same life as a cashier because everyone is forced into the same mediocre existence.
The median income in the US is $40k USD. And Americans have to pay for health care and college.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:47
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
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
Do you mean the government should tax inheritance at something like 90% to make sure people aren’t idle?
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:46
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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?
I'm suggesting that you're pretending the US is so awful when it's very slightly worse than major European countries, which largely have socialized medicine. The US doesn't have horrible outcomes, it has slightly worse outcomes, largely due to a single population group that has an outsized impact on the numbers.
Hold up. The US is not slightly worse than major European countries. The US is slightly worse than one of the poorest countries in the Europe — Latvia.
The US has completely fallen behind major European countries like the UK, Germany and France. And all of those countries have poor African migrants, war refugees and asylum seekers included in their data.
Germany 3.1, 3.1, and UK 3.8. The US has all of those people too. Keep on stretching.
lol I only mentioned the poor migrants because you seem convinced that if we excluded black people from US data the numbers would be similar. They’re not.
But hey, if you’re happy with having the highest rates of infant mortality in the developed world, who am I to argue with you! You’re in the right country!
The rest of us do not want our babies to die.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:41
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
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.
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.
Okay, I get it: You only care about white women, so let’s look at those statistics; According to the CDC (non-Hispanic) white women in the US have an infant mortality rate of 4.5 per 1000 births.
Congratulations! Your babies are worse off than an impoverished African migrant giving birth in Poland (and just about every other European country.)
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:22
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
The average after tax income in Latvia is $17,000 usd/ yr. And they have better healthcare than the US? Thats wild.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:18
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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?
I'm suggesting that you're pretending the US is so awful when it's very slightly worse than major European countries, which largely have socialized medicine. The US doesn't have horrible outcomes, it has slightly worse outcomes, largely due to a single population group that has an outsized impact on the numbers.
Hold up. The US is not slightly worse than major European countries. The US is slightly worse than one of the poorest countries in the Europe — Latvia.
The US has completely fallen behind major European countries like the UK, Germany and France. And all of those countries have poor African migrants, war refugees and asylum seekers included in their data.
Germany 3.1, 3.1, and UK 3.8. The US has all of those people too. Keep on stretching.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 20:03
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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?
I'm suggesting that you're pretending the US is so awful when it's very slightly worse than major European countries, which largely have socialized medicine. The US doesn't have horrible outcomes, it has slightly worse outcomes, largely due to a single population group that has an outsized impact on the numbers.
Hold up. The US is not slightly worse than major European countries. The US is slightly worse than one of the poorest countries in the Europe — Latvia.
The US has completely fallen behind major European countries like the UK, Germany and France. And all of those countries have poor African migrants, war refugees and asylum seekers included in their data.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 19:49
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote: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?
I'm suggesting that you're pretending the US is so awful when it's very slightly worse than major European countries, which largely have socialized medicine. The US doesn't have horrible outcomes, it has slightly worse outcomes, largely due to a single population group that has an outsized impact on the numbers.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 19:41
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Europe is a big region. Now that Trump is spooking the bond market with his crazy, funds are flowing out of the USA and into Germany/Bundes as an alternate safe haven country.
Anonymous
08/12/2025 19:33
Subject: I feel bad for Europeans
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Europe still sucks to be poor, it’s just that more people are poor so you don’t feel as bad because everyone else is in the same boat. And it’s harder to become not poor. Reduced class mobility, more entrenched aristocratic wealth over there. They tax labor like crazy but barely touch capital generated income.
Estonia has more social mobility than the US.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/social-mobility-by-country
Some European countries are lower than the US, but most are well above it.
I have a very difficult time believing social mobility in the UK is at or more than in the US - at least socially, once you are working class (or whatever) You are ALWAYS that class.
Have you ever traveled to poor parts of the US?
There is zero social mobility here. Visit Appalachia or the Deep South and then try to say that this is a land of opportunity with a straight face.
This--or go to the rural areas of New York and Pennsylvania. It's hard to get out. Only the very brighest do. There is a lot of poverty in the United States. The urbanites and suburbanites on the coasts have no idea. It makes me ill. I am from one of these horribly depressing places. Only a handful of us got out.