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Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#321

Post by scarby2 »

tomxor wrote: post #246
TameAntelope wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in the US my whole life, I've been to LA once for a wedding, and I really don't see a single similarity between what's going on in LA and what's going on where I live (Northwest Arkansas). My air is clean, my commutes are traffic free, the people here generally suck, and I have access to world class... everything, if I want it (well, maybe not transportation, but my car is nice, German even!, and I can get…

> Because I'm wealthy, I can afford all of the things you get for free in Germany without it negatively affecting my way of life, which probably helps substantially, but that's part of America too. As an outsider, this looks like the biggest problem in the US. The EU is no utopia, but standards of living, environment and way of life is pretty good for the "not-wealthy". In the US, it looks like you can also have a pr…

> As an outsider, this looks like the biggest problem in the US. The EU is no utopia, but standards of living, environment and way of life is pretty good for the "not-wealthy". In the US, it looks like you can also have a pretty damn good standard of living with a nice environment... but only if you are in the fairly wealthy minority. Which perhaps explains why there is such a focus on unobtainable "prosperity", to make it to the "other side".

You're mostly right. Except the threshold for a nicer life isn't the wealthy minority. i'd hazard a guess that it's somewhere below median income i.e. i could get so much more in most of the US for the median income vs what i could get in most parts of Europe for the median income. however the bottom quarter have so many more problems here. Coincidentally this is about the amount of people struggling to afford medical care.

Personally (having lived many places) i would want to be in a much higher income quotient in Europe.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#322

Post by mmarq »

nivenkos wrote: post #159
mmarq wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you have to go through a GP first, which has a budget and tends to be very conservative. Many GPS will try some silly experiments for months before writing a referral. But once you get a referral it’s reasonably quick. Many companies now offer health insurance with private GPs, which tend to be less unreasonable re: referrals. Said that it is much worse than Germany or France. To this day I don’t…

It's a pretty similar system in Germany and Sweden at least though (I haven't lived in France). I moved from the UK to Germany right when I had to have surgery and the wait time was identical (scans were much quicker though as I lived right next to a student hospital).

It isn’t similar. As you mentioned, it’s much quicker to get a scan in Germany (or Italy or France), which is specular to saying it’s very hard to get referred for a scan in the UK.

Seeing specialists through the NHS is very hard. I’m giving you some examples from my past year:

- in the UK women deliver babies without being visited by a gynaecologist a single time, my partner had to pay for that.

- The NHS don’t provide paediatricians. We have to go to a private doctor.

- Getting a referral for an allergologist was taking ages, we had to take the baby to a private doctor.

All this cost in excess of 5000£. My insurance paid or will pay back that money, so it’s not a problem for me, but not everybody is insured here.

I would have spent 0€ in Germany or France for the same level of service.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#323

Post by AspiringFinn »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #289
AspiringFinn wrote: post #219

I moved from the USA to Finland. Biggest sacrifice I had to make was downsizing my residence. I have a small flat in Helsinki instead of a large US home. Homes are generally much smaller here, though with more rooms for the square footage than they do in the USA. I have gained so much. I live in a place where it is safe for my children to wander the city alone. I live in a place where I never get harassed by homeless…

I’m happy for you. For the majority of my life I had a dream to live in Finland (home of my ancestors) but the closest I got was Norway. I recognise a lot of similarity with what you have experienced in Finland to what I have experienced here in Norway with my family.

I've got ancestors from Norway and Sweden and am looking forward to getting a chance to visit Scandinavia.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#324

Post by bengalister »

I am French living in south of France but I would not recommend France mainly for 1 reason: (the lack of) safety.

I lived a few years in Canada so I can compare to North America.

France is not what tiktok videos about US expat living in Paris show you. You probably know about French strikes, bureaucracy, rude people etc. But also France turned into a violent country in the last 2 decades, and is the worst in western Europe. No city is safe. The health system is cheap, but not really good and it is very hard outside Paris to get an appointment to see a dermatologist, ophthalmologist, any specialized doctor. And if you opt for Paris, housing is of low quality, very expensive, cramped and very hard to find a rental.

The only benefits: cheap wine/cheese and plenty of vacation.

IMHO, Netherlands, Danemark, Sweden/Norway/Finland, Germany (especially Munich), Austria, Switzerland are better options. And if the low wages are not a problem, Portugal, Czech Republic could be nice.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#325

Post by pintxo »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #283
TameAntelope wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my darker moments I tend to agree with you here, but what I then realize is that it's monumentally difficult to get a land of 330m people to agree, and when you've got a group of people that large, the worst groups will just be bigger and meaner. My worry for you is that this reaction is a visceral one, fundamentally rooted in a dislike for America's diversity. It's a messy process, getting everyone to work togeth…

Germany and the US have very similar levels of foreign-born populations.[1] Austria has a much larger muslim minority as a share of the population than the US, and the same goes for Germany.[2] While US politics are certainly more divisive, it is hard for me to see how it is more diverse.[3] Fully absent from your consideration is the fact that both Austria and Germany are part of the EU, a project in diversity maybe…

thanks a lot for referencing the numbers. I (German) was not aware of them being so similar.

I was wondering if this might be because most immigration in Germany is actually from more or less neighboring EU countries, and according to [1], that group accounts for 2/3 of the immigrants.

[1] Figure 2: https://www.bamf.de/DE/Themen/Forschung/Veroeffentlichungen/...

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#326

Post by nexuist »

lm28469 wrote: post #309
harpersealtako wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I was under the impression that even the average person living in a poor European country (e.g. Moldova, Belarus, Kosovo) has a worse quality of life in most ways compared to, for example, someone living in a rural trailer park in Mississippi (an especially poor state) making minimum wage. What are some notable examples?

European Union countries* For basic things like vacations, parental leaves, access to basic healthcare, &c. I've seen skidrow in LA and some parts of SF and NY, this is third world country tier, it looked like war times refugees camps

That's just moving goal posts. European people are still European even if they're not EU citizens. Compare New England averages to European Union averages if you want a fair assessment - you'll find that not only are New Englanders making more money, they also have equivalent or higher quality of life than many EU countries do.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#327

Post by syki »

oaiey wrote: post #138
teakettle42 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vienna is one of the nicest and wealthiest cities in Europe. LA is a car-centric sprawling cesspool. Even for the US, it’s uniquely terrible. If you’d moved to some of the less desirable locations in Europe, you’d probably find them to be a shithole, too. Your lack of perspective (“how much of a shithole the USA really is”) is something I’d only expect from someone half your age on their first backpacking tour of Eur…

I come from a normal German city, nothing fancy, and have been overall roughly a year in the US. Boston, Princeton, Philadelphia, NY state. I am wealthy, privileged and was guided safely I can absolutely confirm the sentiment of the OP, not coming from worst to best but coming from mid range to mid range. Europe has the better package. The amount of homeless, the amount of wasted landscape, the amount of beton, the c…

...but life quality measured in every day quality ... Do not get me started on that.

It's so difficult to get Americans to grasp that this could be true. Most simply won't contemplate that it could be true. It does not occur to us that freedom to get healthcare without fear of going bankrupt is a freedom worth having. The simple act of walking from one town to another is alien to Americans. One thing that struck me when living in Germany was the lack of development around the lakes. In the U.S. lakes mostly are surrounded by houses with little thought to letting people walk there and enjoy the lake. I much prefer the European way of life. Europeans know how to live better than Americans. But we Americans can burn Korans, walk around with guns, and do Nazi salutes so we must be more free than Europeans....

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#328

Post by pintxo »

bengalister wrote: post #324

I am French living in south of France but I would not recommend France mainly for 1 reason: (the lack of) safety. I lived a few years in Canada so I can compare to North America. France is not what tiktok videos about US expat living in Paris show you. You probably know about French strikes, bureaucracy, rude people etc. But also France turned into a violent country in the last 2 decades, and is the worst in western…

Good luck finding affordable real estate in Munich. It's pretty much the most expensive in Germany. Though it may still seem cheap coming from Paris, London etc.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#329

Post by pintxo »

eternalban wrote: post #311
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #115

How come nobody mentions France in the comments? :) I am French but have been working 12 years for a very large US company , spent a lot of time in the US, go friends there - an witnessed/helped several Americans moving to France. Salary and healthcare were already covered. The fact that over a 3 days drive across Europe you visit 4 or 5 countries with vastly different cultures is a big plus. And by vastly I mean rea…

That's funny about the tap water. Remember my first visit to France as a kid (~late 70s) and the whole family wondering at the stuff floating in Paris tap water. We did not touch it, and drank bottled water. Btw, this was in a very nice rented flat near Etoile on Ave. Victor Hugo.

Mostly the water provided by the municipality is drinking water quality in Europe. But sometimes the building and its water pipes will be so old that the pipes leak metals into the water.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#330

Post by Nextgrid »

Hamuko wrote: post #287
Nextgrid wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you be broke as a senior software engineer? Housing and taxes are both expensive.

They're not that expensive, and if a senior software engineer can't put a roof on top of themselves while paying taxes, how can anyone expect a school teacher or a nurse to do so?

Those are not mutually exclusive. Both software engineers and school teachers can be in the shit. I'd argue that the tax impact is even worse for software engineers (as the top end of their salary is mostly consumed by the higher tax brackets) and their net situation ends up not much above that of a school teacher.
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