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Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

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Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#141

Post by theironhammer »

stuaxo wrote: post #35
seren wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage. At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

In the UK, our healthsystem was the best on most metrics before the Tories came in and now it's behind on most. Next will be Kier Starmer for Labour who main promises seem to be to keep the policies of the incumbents. (Health used as an illustrative area but this applies across the board).

Neoliberal ideology is deeply entrenched in the Angloshere. UK even more so.

Kier Starmer thinks Corbyn lost because he was a Socialist. It was about Brexit. "Get Brexit Done" was a master class in political expediency. Even Boris was wise enough to sprinkle a little "socialism" with his levelling up policies.

Kier Starmer looks like he's going to score an own goal in the last minute of extra time.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#142

Post by nvm0n1 »

m000 wrote: post #138
seren wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage. At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

> At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good. Shouldn't a stagnating GDP translate to a stagnating quantity/quality of services? If things are getting worse while GDP stagnates, it appears that there is a gross mismanagement of the same amount of resources. And I'd dare to say, that this mismanagement typically boils down to the privatization of (previously)…

"Getting worse" can be relative. If progress in your country had stopped in 1920 then it would be fair for people who lived there to think things had got worse over the past 100 years when they look to America and see how people live there.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#143

Post by nvm0n1 »

ramblerman wrote: post #99
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Food is bad. Very xenophobic society. Where did you get your info? Swiss food quality is some of the best in the world, well regulated and mostly organic, that's why it's so expensive. How did you measure xenofobia?

By food I meant preparation, i.e. cuisine. You are right that food quality in supermarket although expensive is not bad (I wouldn't say it's as amazing as you claim either though, any french/spanish market would knock switzerland out of the park for fresh produce/meats). xenofobia is subjective, and maybe wrong word, but expat society is largely cut off from locals. I know many germans firsthand that feel they can't…

Switzerland has a massive foreign-born population compared to other places - their largest city is something like 30% foreign - yet very few problems caused by that even though those people often don't learn the local dialects or not even German/French at all. If it were actually a xenophobic society (spelled with PH not F in English) then they'd be having race riots all the time.

In practice Switzerland is one of the more accommodating societies in the world. Most Swiss people don't move far from where they grow up though, so often still have friends from school. It isn't a culture oriented towards chatting with strangers or making new friends at the drop of a hat, but that's not the same thing as xenophobia. Swiss who move abroad then back after many years experience the same difficulties with making new friends.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#144

Post by nvm0n1 »

pas wrote: post #106
nunez wrote: post #103

> NAME REDACTED, a 31-year-old anesthesiologist living in Manchester, England, earns about £51,000 ($67,000) per year for a 48-hour workweek. Inflation, which has been about 10% or higher in the U.K. for nearly a year, is devouring his monthly budget, he says. That's insane. AFAIK, Anesthesiologists in the US make $400k/year MINIMUM. (I redacted their name to prevent them from backlinking to this site.)

Brexit is working as intended, yeey! More NHS funding ... oh what, wait, what... oh dear, the xenophobe conservative clowns were lying? Oh no! Never would have crossed my mind!

Given one of the primary justifications for not leaving the EU was to retain access to unlimited cheap labor for the NHS, it isn't easy to blame low medical worker wages on Brexit. If you want medical staff to make more money, removing their primary source of competition is a quick way to do that.

In practice of course Brexit has done no such thing as the immigration rules in the UK are still optimized for mass immigration, as the Conservatives are so much not xenophobic that they prefer to enrage their own voter base than restrict immigration by even small amounts.

As for healthcare spending, the massive jump in NHS spending during the pandemic more than consumed the former EU contributions. The EU funds did indeed go to the NHS and then a lot more on top. If the UK was still paying in, then inflation would be even worse.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#145

Post by r00fus »

code-blooded wrote: post #9

I moved from the US to Europe a year ago and I think articles like this don't capture quality of life in Europe well. Just think about healthier food, walkable cities, great public transportation, safety, free education and healthcare. The way I see it, life in Europe is less stressful and more enjoyable than in the US. Having less money translates into having a smaller house or a car, but in my opinion that doesn't…

The entire concept of "wealth" in the US is perverted - there's general ignorance or disdain for socially-owned wealth, instead of it's wealth extracted from the ground or populace or biomass and converted into personal wealth (then aggregated into a metric like GNP).

As someone who had a chance a decade or so ago to emigrate to the EU from the US, I regret not doing so every time I hear of a school shooting or visit the EU and see how much actual health/enjoyment for normal people I see over there that's not visible here.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#146

Post by r00fus »

rob74 wrote: post #48

Many of the examples given in the article are complete rubbish: > The French are eating less foie gras and drinking less red wine. foie gras involves torturing animals, and drinking less alcohol is healthier, so good for them! > Across Germany, meat and milk consumption has fallen to the lowest level in three decades yes, more people are eating less meat - good for them and for the environment! > TooGoodToGo, a compa…

The real rub is that neoliberalism exists in Europe too. Just it hasn't completely captured or replaced existing systems... yet.

The struggle is real for non-wealthy everywhere as more and more is owned by fewer and fewer people. To paraphrase William Gibson: "the future is here, just unevenly distributed".

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#147

Post by mmmmmbop »

r00fus wrote: post #145
code-blooded wrote: post #9

I moved from the US to Europe a year ago and I think articles like this don't capture quality of life in Europe well. Just think about healthier food, walkable cities, great public transportation, safety, free education and healthcare. The way I see it, life in Europe is less stressful and more enjoyable than in the US. Having less money translates into having a smaller house or a car, but in my opinion that doesn't…

The entire concept of "wealth" in the US is perverted - there's general ignorance or disdain for socially-owned wealth, instead of it's wealth extracted from the ground or populace or biomass and converted into personal wealth (then aggregated into a metric like GNP). As someone who had a chance a decade or so ago to emigrate to the EU from the US, I regret not doing so every time I hear of a school shooting or visit…

What stops you from moving to the EU now?

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#148

Post by shtam »

tim333 wrote: post #133
nunez wrote: post #103

> NAME REDACTED, a 31-year-old anesthesiologist living in Manchester, England, earns about £51,000 ($67,000) per year for a 48-hour workweek. Inflation, which has been about 10% or higher in the U.K. for nearly a year, is devouring his monthly budget, he says. That's insane. AFAIK, Anesthesiologists in the US make $400k/year MINIMUM. (I redacted their name to prevent them from backlinking to this site.)

Brief googling gives Average base salary £100,082 the guy in 51k probably just started in the job.

Only consultants will earn that, and only after they've been a consultant for several years (i.e. they've been working as a hospital doctor in total for somewhere between 12-20 years)

https://www.bmj.com/careers/article/the-complete-guide-to-nh...

The doctor quoted will likely be ST3 band, which means they've completed a 5 or 6 year medical degree, and then been a full-time "junior doctor" working in a hospital for 5 further years.

Doctors in the NHS are horrifically underpaid, and especially post-brexit there's a growing exodus to higher-paid countries (Australia, New Zealand, USA...).

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#149

Post by pieter_mj »

ramblerman wrote: post #49
hcks wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans have a strong ability to cope for their declining standards of life. They’ll mention how about they have great cities/safety/etc but you’ll notice they never say which city/country exactly they’re talking about (as in let’s pretend all of Europe is Switzerland)

Swiss cities are consistently among the most expensive in the world. Food is bad. Very xenophobic society. It has a lot of great things too ofc. But I wouldn’t consider it representative of the nicer parts of Europe (vs pure financial optimization) mentioned above such as working less, walking, biking in the city.

Swiss wages are easily 20-30% higher than the rest of Europe as well.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#150

Post by ryan1235 »

remarkEon wrote: post #17
seren wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage. At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

I've spent about a month in Europe for the last three years on vacation and travel there for work semi-frequently. I've considered moving (wife says no, for now). I agree with you on the finance part. I'd need to accrue some significant coin to make this move make sense financially (plus finish becoming fluent). What I'd tell you is this "cope" isn't really cope. Americans just don't have many options for cities that…

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