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

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251–260 of 274 posts

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

#251

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?

The USSR. (I know, doesn't exist anymore) but I can't think of a single year of its existence in which it wasn't occupying, invading or repressing some subject foreign nationality or population in some way, usually many of them simultaneously.

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

#252
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Food is cheap and plentiful. The portion sizes are twice as large for the same equivalent price as the EU :). As someone who moved from EU to the US for 6 years and recently got back: the quality of the food is way lower there, though. As in: food standards imposed are significantly lower. I ended buying mostly organic food at Costco after my body significantly changed within first 6 months. EDIT: don't know why I…

washed refrigerated eggs are pretty standard also in many European countries, that's not exactly helping your argument though I agree US standards are lower than EU

Well, washing eggs nor refrigerating pre-purchase cannot be standard, because it's pretty much forbidden:

"4.3. Washing of eggs

The practice of washing eggs of class A for human consumption is forbidden by the European Union legislation."

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52...

Class A eggs are basically the only type you'd buy for consumption. I, for one, have not once found Class B eggs in a store. AFIK Class B are used in food manufacturing only.

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food standards might be lower, but I would argue that the food quality is better, depending on the country in the EU. Here in Germany, 25% of meat bought in grocery stores doesn't follow the most basic of butchering standards set forth: https://www.ua-bw.de/pub/beitrag.asp?subid=0&Thema_ID=2&ID=2... What you get in the US is choice - and as a software engineer, you have the money to make those choices. Shop at Whole…

For a fair comparison, what percentage of meat bought in US grocery stores follows the most basic German butchering standards? It's true that any given German grocery store has fewer choices than any given US one, but extrapolating that to "there are no choices" is absurd. Germany has more choices of grocery store, and in both countries if you really want good meat you go to a real butcher (definitely not Whole Foods…

I don't know the statistics, but I've never encountered bone splinters in any meat I've ever eaten in the US.

As for the universities, it's not like I made this up. I'm well aware of the broad differences in quality of education (and futhermore, healthcare) here, but my comment wasn't about me and this is not an invention of mine, it is a widely held belief: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/ay5nrs/which_un...

I also didn't say "there are no choices", so I don't know who you're quoting here. What I was trying to explain is the European worldview being applied to the US, where there is much vaster inequality between universities, products, income, etc. I didn't attempt to make a value judgement about it, I was trying to show a common pitfall of Europeans arriving in the US: it's important that you know where you're shopping, it's important that you know where you're going to school, and it's important that you know what neighborhood you're in. In Germany, you don't need to know what neighborhood you're in: they are all roughly the same in terms of crime.

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a fair comparison, what percentage of meat bought in US grocery stores follows the most basic German butchering standards? It's true that any given German grocery store has fewer choices than any given US one, but extrapolating that to "there are no choices" is absurd. Germany has more choices of grocery store, and in both countries if you really want good meat you go to a real butcher (definitely not Whole Foods…

I don't know the statistics, but I've never encountered bone splinters in any meat I've ever eaten in the US. As for the universities, it's not like I made this up. I'm well aware of the broad differences in quality of education (and futhermore, healthcare) here, but my comment wasn't about me and this is not an invention of mine, it is a widely held belief: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/ay5nrs/which_u…

A reddit thread with 15 comments, several of which disagree with your claim, is not a "widely held belief"!

> you don't need to know what neighborhood you're in: they are all roughly the same in terms of crime.

This is unreal. Is this some Bavarian bullshit? Nobody in the north believes it.

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

#256
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can't judge how much of a burden healthcare costs are unless you account for how much of a person's income or some proxy of it healthcare is. Just saying that the US spends more per capita than other OECD countries doesn't say anything without more context. IF you want to show that the healthcare spending isn't efficient in the US you have to at least show that it's not just because everything costs more there or that everyone earns more in the US (gdp/capita is higher than ~85% of OECD in US).

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

#257
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can't judge how much of a burden healthcare costs are unless you account for how much of a person's income or some proxy of it healthcare is. Just saying that the US spends more per capita than other OECD countries doesn't say anything without more context. IF you want to show that the healthcare spending isn't efficient in the US you have to at least show that it's not just because everything costs more there or…

It spends more per capita with worse outcomes

That's the point, where is that extra spending going? What good is it doing? Why is any other question the topic of discussion?

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

#258

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…

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 vast…

Enjoying a materially higher standard of living with large houses doesn't really match how people actually enjoy experience and happiness. The thorough social disconnect in the US, in great part explained because said large houses have to be set up in the relative middle of nowhere, counts far more for "standard of living" in my book as well as those of a lot posters here.

Addendum: used to live in a very wealthy suburb in the US. Said houses are creaky, have constant humidity issues because the mildest of winds would blow out the roof tiles, and have a very low standard of construction coming from other places. More square footage is not indicative of a higher quality of life; many rooms sat mostly empty and did nothing for us.

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

#259
post #181
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue isn’t the wilingness to spend. It’s the lack of willingness to make it effective .

The reason its not effective is because most of the money doesn't actually do anything, that's literally what profit is Profiteering leeches resources from a system to benefit a small number of people at the expense of the rest of the healthcare system In my opinion, please excuse my language, but it's fucking insane

In my experience, it’s often even worse - there often isn’t even any significant profit, at least not in any coherent, centralized way. There are a lot of individual players who can be pointed out, but none of them individually is ‘the problem’.

Absolutely massive amounts of value is destroyed (and patients harmed) just doing super inefficient shitty processes because no one has the ability or incentive to do any better at a systemic level.

Everyone in the system who has a degree of control gets paid very well keeping the wheels turning and consuming cash.

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

#260
post #259
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason its not effective is because most of the money doesn't actually do anything, that's literally what profit is Profiteering leeches resources from a system to benefit a small number of people at the expense of the rest of the healthcare system In my opinion, please excuse my language, but it's fucking insane

In my experience, it’s often even worse - there often isn’t even any significant profit , at least not in any coherent, centralized way. There are a lot of individual players who can be pointed out, but none of them individually is ‘the problem’. Absolutely massive amounts of value is destroyed (and patients harmed) just doing super inefficient shitty processes because no one has the ability or incentive to do any be…

You're 100% on the nose. A big part of it is unnecessary middleman companies leeching at every point in the process.

That's why the profit is so minimal, because there are just so many people providing little to no benefit all taking their piece and spreading it over a bunch of salaries while people get denied treatment

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