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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?

#241

Post by armitron »

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…

I have lived in Spain. Taxes are high, salaries are low, bureaucracy is a lot worse than the US, most people live in small apartments and they certainly don’t own US sized houses. Cost of living can also be high, if one tries to meet the same standard that he would have in US (electricity, gasoline prices are a lot higher).

I could pick pretty much any US state over Spain and with a US engineering salary enjoy a vastly better standard of living.

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

#242

Post by guerrilla »

ipaddr wrote: post #240
guerrilla wrote: post #235

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? 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..

Did you check your numbers this time or are you still just making things up? I'm going to trust you know nothing about the politics of Spain and ignore that comment.

> Two different states want out and after a vote they arrested the head of state for those regions. The legacy of Franco..

You must be trolling. You literally had a civil war for the same exact reason... Unfortunately, no state allows any subset of itself to secede.

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

#243

Post by guerrilla »

_-david-_ wrote: post #238
guerrilla wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

UK

Well, that was the British Empire, but I'll give it to you... fair enough.

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

orzig wrote: post #85

Attempting a concise rebuttal to doom-forecasting about USA’s future: Which decade since 1900 was worse than the one before it? Did the daily newspapers predict the most impactful events of the decade (positive or negative)? I share most of your current outrage and concerns, but history shows a clear net positive trend

[deleted]

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

#245

Post by dougmwne »

koevet wrote: post #109
dougmwne wrote: post #69

You have not provided enough context for anyone to give you useful advice. We would need to know your hourly or daily rate and to basically see your resume to have any chance of giving a rate range. There is also the issue of taxes which make comparisons less straightforward. That said, I think you can generally expect IT pay to be higher in US major cities than almost anywhere in the EU. The US also has the concept…

Fair point, I didn't want to turn the post into a vanity context. My daily rate is around 1k euro + 19% vat. Note that I have multiple clients, so in some good months the above figure is higher. My tax pressure is around 43%, including health insurance.

You are already at a reasonably high rate, even compared to the US. That rate is about 250k annualized, which is a good senior developer salary at most companies outside the big tech companies. It is possible to make more consulting, but it would require the hard work of building your US client base. Specialization matters as well. I think you might have trouble finding many projects through agencies, as that rate is higher that most Agency rates I’ve heard quoted, but again it depends on specialization.

So no, there’s no low hanging fruit here. I’m sure you could improve your rate in the US by 2x or 3x by running your own business, but as you are already in a very optimal place there would be hard work involved. And honestly, Americans put longer hours in, pathologically, so you may find the return on investment to work for American clients to be distinctly lacking.

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

#246

Post by dougmwne »

koevet wrote: post #115
christophilus wrote: post #88

I freelance and love it. The hard part for you will be getting your foot in the door. I’m about your age, and so far haven’t had any problems with employers in our industry. The rise of remote work probably helps you a bit with the employment side of your question. As for the negative comments, what the comments here don’t address is this: the US is almost more like a bunch of countries rather than one single entity.…

Thanks for your thoughts. I visited the US in the past (hell, me best trip ever was an epic coast to coast with a Marine friend) and I'm aware of the differences. Cultural differences are ok, this is why we consider moving - and why I moved a lot around in the past. My main concern is about getting to an age where I can't really afford severe financial missteps. Our "purchase power" here in Berlin is very very high a…

I looked at your comment history, because I was thinking , “wow that guy must have it pretty good in Berlin.” And yes, as you say, you have a very very high purchase power in Berlin. I think you will find that it will be quite expensive in NJ to replicate your quality of life as you are not nearly as far up the income percentiles for the NYC metropolitan area. We spend part of the year in Warsaw and feel like kings, then we go back to Florida and feel distinctly more plebeian. I would say everyone can adapt, but for example if you wanted to replicate the amenities in Berlin you will find yourself in an extraordinarily expensive and near-unicorn walkable neighborhood. If you prefer a car based life then your cost of living in rural NJ will be much lower (and you will also probably be able to afford a nicer car without all those auto and fuel taxes).

I don’t know much about the relative school quality for your kids, but do know that in the US schools are funded locally so people spend a lot to be in the zone of a desirable school or otherwise go private. Since the difference between good and bad schools can be enormous, you will end up paying for this one way or another.

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

#247

Post by sdfjkl »

jules wrote: post #74
sdfjkl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be France you're describing. Plus, the food is better there :)

Is it? This may be heresy, but I found the food in the US to be better than in France. If you're willing to spend a lot of money it may be better in France, but for ordinary eating out I've found the US to be better. Patisserie is better in France, though.

I think so. But we mostly cook, so ingredient availability/price is more important than restaurants, which however I also found much better in France. Of course it probably depends on the areas you visit and how you select restaurants. Paris is full of tourist traps. In the US regional differences were enourmous.

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

#248

Post by bjornsing »

sdfjkl wrote: post #25
bjornsing wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting work? A love for liberty? Less crab mentality? Sorry, as a somewhat disgruntled European I couldn’t resist.

That'd be France you're describing. Plus, the food is better there :)

Just the fact that you’re focused on the food makes me think you’re totally wrong. ;)

France has one of the highest tax-to-gdp ratios in the world (46%). If you like government constraints it’s not the place to be.

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

#249

Post by TMWNN »

seibelj wrote: post #41
bshepard wrote: post #7

Hello there, I live in Berlin now and used to live in the United States. My family is there, and I go back to the east coast of the US often. The degenerating and dystopian quality of the United States is difficult to overstate, but almost impossible to capture verbally. Whatever one cause attributes to the systematic breakdown of the US, it is difficult to deny the realities of the decline -- massive alcohol and nar…

This is hilariously inaccurate and essentially a stereotype perceived from the Reddit front page. Europe is experiencing legions of issues including runaway inflation, a government and social safety net that is rapidly becoming unaffordable, a migrant crisis that is causing their own racial issues that they pretend don’t exist but are causing huge polarization and the rise of right-wing parties, a business climate th…

>This is hilariously inaccurate and essentially a stereotype perceived from the Reddit front page.

I can't pick what was more brain cells-killing to read: bshepard's initial rant, his later claim that he doesn't use Reddit despite having written a comment that could be pulled from /r/politics or /r/worldnews every single day, or eertami's claim that the Ukraine war affects "barely anybody in Europe". Honorable mention: kkfx's claim that a lawyer is needed to get a gym membership in the US.

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

#250

Post by feet »

kongolongo wrote: post #239
feet wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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-dis…

I still don't see how that's a good metric, in any way, for judging health care costs. "Disposable income" takes nothing else into account such as other costs or predatory behaviors in the healthcare system

Its literally just money after taxes, and most people are living paycheck to paycheck

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