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Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

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Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#231

Post by heavyset_go »

koevet wrote: post #102
cameronperot wrote: post #93

I'm an American (Texan) who has been living in Germany for the past 6 years. I would suggest to consider the culture and lifestyle more than the work, as those will play a much larger role in your happiness and satisfaction. It sounds cliché, but money doesn't necessarily buy happiness. I enjoy living in German/European cities significantly more than I did living in big cities in Texas (I can't speak for the East Coa…

Hey thanks for your comment, I feel this thread is turning a bit into a US vs. EU pitfight. We are going to be in NYC in a couple of weeks and we plan to spend one day in Princeton, as you suggest. Regarding the long term relationship, if we move we are going to move as a family (2 kids included :))

> Regarding the long term relationship, if we move we are going to move as a family (2 kids included :))

Have a plan for covering your family members' health insurance. You can use this website to compare NJ's individual marketplace for health insurance plans here[1].

Get the details of what your partner's employer is offering for health insurance, including what the costs are for each additional member of your family. Find out what the total cost of coverage is for COBRA should your partner be laid off and you want to keep your healthcare coverage. Health insurance rates skyrocket when it comes to covering family members if your employer isn't paying your premiums and deductibles for you. Family plans can have deductibles alone of over $14k every year, with premiums in the thousands of dollars per month.

Once you know the details of the offered plans, use the insurance company's website to see if there are any providers that take the plans in your area, including hospitals and emergency rooms. I say this because even if you have health insurance, that doesn't mean healthcare providers will take it. It's especially important with kids, because if you need to take them to the emergency room, you will be paying a large premium for doing so even if you get little to no care at all. It's very easy to walk away from a emergency room visit with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars for even minor emergencies.

You'll also need separate vision and dental insurance plans.

If you or anyone in your family has disabilities, or are at risk of becoming disabled, really, really consider if you want to leave a place with relatively cheaper and sane healthcare for another place without it. The US is not a kind place for those with disabilities or chronic illness.

[1] https://www.nj.gov/getcoverednj/getstarted/compare/

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#232

Post by ipaddr »

pkb wrote: post #68

Do not go. Here's why: 1) You have no network in the US. You will have to start from scratch. Remember how you started. Multiply difficulty level by 2. And you're not going to be any younger. 2) Salaries for perm positions being "significantly lower" in the US than in EU. This nullifies gains from moving to the US. Add cost of moving everything over long range by plane/cargo ship. 3) Healthcare cost. My friend asked…

Salaries for perm positions being "significantly lower" in the US than in EU.

Do you mean the opposite?

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#233

Post by feet »

ipaddr wrote: post #225
feet wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that even matter?

Things cost more in some places so you need to account for that variation. A million could pay for 3 / 4 doctors in the US or 30 / 40 in Africa.

You say this like the profit seeking in the US is some sort of natural phenomenon that we can't avoid. We can adjust costs based in cost of living and local currency, profiteering is what sucks resources out of the system

Physicians in the US are protected, there's only a limited number of slots every year in med schools. This is fake scarcity

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#234

Post by feet »

kongolongo wrote: post #227
feet wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that even matter?

Let's say the US spent 2x on healthcare as some country, but had 4x the disposable income, would this still be overspending or would it be more efficient given the amount relative to income? Healthcare spending in $ per capita doesn't capture how much people earn in that country or how much of a burden it is relative to their income so its kinda meaningless without more context. It's like saying the US economy is bet…

"Disposable income" is undefined, its super vague and we can't determine anything with that phrase

Most people in the US don't have "disposable income" from my perspective

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#235

Post by guerrilla »

ipaddr wrote: post #230
Daishiman wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, take Spain. Quality of life there is just substantially better than pretty much all of the US.

In what way? Do people live on huge ranches / estates, walk through large redwood trees, ski down a glacier, watch professional football/hockey/basketball live? Can they hunt, fish, shoot or run into hollywood celebrities? Can they even buy a house or do they have to settle for an apartment? Quality of live might be great in Barcelona if you like to drink and eat and want to work less. But Spain is so small comoared…

> In what way? Do people live on huge ranches / estates, walk through large redwood trees, ski down a glacier, watch professional football/hockey/basketball live? Can they hunt, fish, shoot or run into hollywood celebrities?

What... world do you live in that Europeans* can't do all of that except the last?

> Can they even buy a house or do they have to settle for an apartment?

Of course... wtf? lol 76% of people own their homes in Spain. Home ownership in the US is only 65%...

* Spanish people can go anywhere in the EU with just an ID, no passport needed, just like in the US.

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#236

Post by guerrilla »

_-david-_ wrote: post #218
guerrilla wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Can you name a country who hasn't done bad things?

Can you name another country that's done bad things to other countries for every year of its existence aside from a decade?

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#237

Post by guerrilla »

ipaddr wrote: post #228
guerrilla wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is a monoculture of ethnically similar people, has basically no immigration to speak This isn't even true (immigration accounts for half of Norway's population growth) but let's take a more extreme example: Sweden, the country with 7th highest quality of life on planet Earth yet every 1 in 11 people is an immigrant. This single case proves your generalization wrong. Every 16th person is a first generation immigrant…

Norway's population grew under 50,000 which means they welcomed 20,000.. Cities like Toronto are welcoming 10 - 15 times more people from a much wider variety of places. The ethnicities in Norway are recorded as Norwegian 83.2%, other European 8.3%, other 8.5% Your vision of Norway and the numbers don't lineup. 92.9% of people are white..

I think you misread what I said.

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#238

Post by _-david-_ »

guerrilla wrote: post #236
_-david-_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a country who hasn't done bad things?

Can you name another country that's done bad things to other countries for every year of its existence aside from a decade?

UK

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#239

Post by kongolongo »

feet wrote: post #234
kongolongo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say the US spent 2x on healthcare as some country, but had 4x the disposable income, would this still be overspending or would it be more efficient given the amount relative to income? Healthcare spending in $ per capita doesn't capture how much people earn in that country or how much of a burden it is relative to their income so its kinda meaningless without more context. It's like saying the US economy is bet…

"Disposable income" is undefined, its super vague and we can't determine anything with that phrase Most people in the US don't have "disposable income" from my perspective

There's a very consistent definition for what that means with plenty of papers and institutions that use use roughly the same definition. Here's one phrasing of it by the OECD[1]. Basically it's just income minus taxes, what part of that is remotely vague?

Discretionary income might be an even better measure but that has more wiggle room on defining what is a necessity and not.

https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm [1]

Re: Ask HN: Europe to East Coast, does it make sense to move at 50?

#240

Post by ipaddr »

guerrilla wrote: post #235
ipaddr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? Do people live on huge ranches / estates, walk through large redwood trees, ski down a glacier, watch professional football/hockey/basketball live? Can they hunt, fish, shoot or run into hollywood celebrities? Can they even buy a house or do they have to settle for an apartment? Quality of live might be great in Barcelona if you like to drink and eat and want to work less. But Spain is so small comoared…

> In what way? Do people live on huge ranches / estates, walk through large redwood trees, ski down a glacier, watch professional football/hockey/basketball live? Can they hunt, fish, shoot or run into hollywood celebrities? What... world do you live in that Europeans* can't do all of that except the last? > Can they even buy a house or do they have to settle for an apartment? Of course... wtf? lol 76% of people own…

Spain is much smaller than Europe and houses are much smaller and salaries are smaller and the political divide is much worse in Spain. Two different states want out and after a vote they arrested the head of state for those regions. The legacy of Franco..
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