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Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

danielsjourney.com

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Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#211

Post by pr0tocol_7 »

lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around…

100% Except its not a spoiled rich kid, it's a man with "20 years of experience in technology" who is most certainly not a poor american.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#212

Post by ergothus »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #138
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our quality of life is not poor. We just have different prioritizes. See the guy who lives in a double wide but has a Corvette in the driveway.

This whole entire argument is pretty strange to me. It's upper class people from Europe debating with upper class people from the US where it's better for "middle class" people. If you've read Picketty at all, it's pretty clear there is no middle class. And the only place in the world a true and sizeable middle class ever existed was the post WWII United States from like the 50s to (maybe as late as) the 90s. Life su…

> social mobility -- as depressingly low as it is in the modern US -- is (and has been) MUCH worse in Europe.

This doesnt match the reporting I've seen. (Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility )

Of course, this may be twisted statistics - what are you basing your claim on?

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#213

Post by sidesentists »

bepotts wrote: post #106
cribbles wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

Americans don't believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don't have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is. I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and traini…

"I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and training. That is available to almost every American if they just put in the work."

So, not trying to be antagonistic but this is pretty much a perfect example of survivorship bias: "this worked for me/X so it could work for everyone."

It's also part of what the author is referencing: this idea that you can always point, post hoc, to ways in which someone could have worked harder.

It also ignores rampant structural problems. There are plenty of people with marketable skills, or who are capable of doing such work, but who are walled out of opportunities because of implicit or explicit rules that actually have nothing to do with ability to do the work at hand. So we, for example, assume that task X can only be done by someone with a score on some proxy standardized test A, or with specific degree B, or who come from a certain type of school C; or who have experience working with specific platform D.

These types of arguments always seem to devolve into extremes, which is frustrating to me. It's possible to say "the US can be a better place to be for more people by changing X, Y, or Z."

The irony is that if I could change things the way I'd like a lot of the changes would involve pretty extreme deregulation in some areas mixed with certain select areas where I would increase taxes and provide more things publicly through the government. But these kind of mixed solutions tend not to get anywhere in today's political climate.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#214

Post by contrahax »

Tor3 wrote: post #184
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can claim that for the list if you want. Torvalds is American and lives in Oregon; most of the major Linux contributors were sponsored by American companies if I recall correctly. Red Hats and IBMs of the world. America must be doing something right.

That was tongue in cheek, perhaps? Torvalds is Finnish. Of the Swedish minority in Finland. He lives in the US now (he moved to the US when he got a job in Transmeta), but that doesn't make him American.

In America it does.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#215

Post by joejerryronnie »

sacheendra wrote: post #31
JohnBooty wrote: post #16

Don't get me wrong; vast numbers of Americans do have plenty of experience with the world outside America. The simple (and unfortunate) answer is that because America is geographically isolated, many Americans literally don't see how folks in other countries live. Also, thanks to the Cold War, we spent half a century being indoctrinated to believe that socialism is evil and capitalism equals freedom and that's why th…

I wouldn't necessarily say vast number of americans have plenty of experience outside the US. For example, only 42% have a passport. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/11/the-sh...

That's 137 million people, far more than any European country ;-)

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#216

Post by freshm087 »

carlmr wrote: post #139
jlawson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not the deciding factor in American elections. Hillary Clinton spent twice as much as Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Campaign spending is not the whole picture. How many outside interests contributed otherwise to HC and DT in the last election? You can start an ad campaign against a candidate you don't like without that showing up in the campaign fund.

HC factically started her campaign right after the first Obama's term, had support of party leadership, and therefore major party donors, and having sympathies of the press. DT started his campaign a year before elections, was rudiculed by mainstream Republican opinion-makers until May 2016, was (and is) in a conflict with major donors (like Koch brothers), and had/has generally unfriendly relations with press. So unless you imply some very big conspiracy theory I don't see how he could have even a chance to outspent HC.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#217

Post by Supernaut »

ekianjo wrote: post #123
0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we convince people if they kill themselves for corporate, they'll get a minuscule slice of money from the top. American dream and all that. At least people in Europe have hobbies.

Most Americans enjoy a level of live that Most Europeans can only dream of. Large cars, very large houses, every product they buy is at least 20 to 30% cheaper, they have access to the latest technologies... the list goes on and on. Hobbies do not make up for the lack of opportunities.

Since it appears that you weren't just trolling with that comment, I have to ask, have you ever actually been to Europe? The north-western countries offer pretty much the same abundance of material goods and lifestyle opportunities as the wealthier areas of the USA. (I will grant you that the average European passenger vehicle is less wastefully enormous than its North American equivalent.)

And can you give us an example of a cutting-edge consumer technology that is widely available in the USA, but not in Europe?

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#218

Post by close04 »

siidooloo wrote: post #209
wozniacki wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be that Europeans are deincentivized from creating enormously overvalued startups because their quality of life is much better Come on you didn't even have a ride-hailing service like Uber and relied on those stodgy black cabs. Ireland still doesn't have Uber or Lyft.[1] [1] Does Uber or Lyft exist in Dublin?? https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g186591-i88-k11258020-...

The only reason Uber/Lyft exist is because transport in the US is mostly terrible.

@wozniacki most likely bases those opinions on second hand knowledge. It's hard to imagine why Uber isn't so in demand in many parts of Europe until you see the quality and price of the competition there.

Before hailing a ride I always check Uber and taxi apps, all of which give me a spot on estimation o price. Most times I have to choose between a Mercedes (C/E class, so large and comfortable) taxi and a Uber (lower class car), the Uber ended up being more expensive. In some countries Uber will still offer better price or price/quality ratio but this is far from a given.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#219

Post by spoovy »

bepotts wrote: post #106
cribbles wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

Americans don't believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don't have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is. I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and traini…

I'm European and I'd love to live in the USA; if I put the same effort in there as I have done here my quality of life would be so much better.

I've worked incredibly hard all my life in the UK (and I've been successful at work -- something I have to remind myself of regularly) and it's got me practically nowhere. I'm taxed to the eyeballs (this year I'll pay approx 70% of my turnover in taxes of one sort or another) and the cost of living is insane (the average house price in London is currently about £530,000). Unless you have wealthy parents and bought 10 years ago you can forget about ever escaping the rent trap.

Great public transport though eh! Er no actually. Rail services carry people crammed in like sardines in conditions that it would be illegal to carry livestock in, and reliability stats are terrible; I am regularly delayed by an hour or more. And I am forced to use the trains, because I don't own a car, as I don't have a parking space attached to my tiny rented 1-bedroom flat.

Free healthcare is great though right? Well, when a total of 500 million EU citizens are all entitled to rock up demanding 'free' healthcare whenever they like despite having never paid a penny into the system all their lives, and I have to wait 3-4 weeks to see a doctor, then no, it's not great actually.

Please, my US friends, do not believe the Julia Roberts films, or your friend's holiday snaps of Rome. We, the poor European people who do all the work, do not spend our days writing poetry and blissfully sipping premium coffee, we have it pretty sh!tty actually, and be grateful for your amazing country and the opportunities it offers you.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#220

Post by jeffbax »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #138
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our quality of life is not poor. We just have different prioritizes. See the guy who lives in a double wide but has a Corvette in the driveway.

This whole entire argument is pretty strange to me. It's upper class people from Europe debating with upper class people from the US where it's better for "middle class" people. If you've read Picketty at all, it's pretty clear there is no middle class. And the only place in the world a true and sizeable middle class ever existed was the post WWII United States from like the 50s to (maybe as late as) the 90s. Life su…

I think you're putting too much weight into Picketty's fairly contentious conclusions.

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99455/...

https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/06/unpersuaded.html

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/capital-...

http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/krugman-reviews-picketty/

(for some starters, if you somehow have not seen how it is not the Bible that some people want it to be?).

Also it is hard to compare Europe's norms which country-by-country are generally featuring a lot more ethnic-cohesion and have social spending heavily subsidized by America's military (not to mention much more density for things like trains)

I say this as someone who wishes there were more dense, EU-style cities in America.

Mobility is certainly not dead in America, and the middle class is shrinking because more people are moving up and making more money overall: http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-us-middle-class-is-sh...

I think anyone trying to say "you don't know how shitty you have it!" is akin to saying "you vote against your own interests" which is really saying "I think I know better than you" -- which is trash.

The fact of the matter is a lot of people prefer US-style suburban living.

America certainly has its share or problems, reliable/trustable Governance being a big one (social welfare spending in the US, despite the money thrown at the problem, is just not up to the standards of northern EU although certainly preferable to what goes on in southern EU -- see cohesion argument though culture matters a lot too)

See this as an example why both the left and right suck when it comes to US healthcare: https://www.econlib.org/the-case-for-european-health-care/

In fact, I would argue much of the problem in the US arises because our politicians are simply full of bad ideas and not held accountable to them. Fortunately our institutions restrict them from running amok too much.

ex: the US subways suck because city politicians allowed construction and transit unions to run roughshod over the taxpayers for years on top of increasingly stupid regulations (lol @ US being the reliable land of laissez-faire) and that is why it costs 7x more to deploy subway in the US than most first world nations https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Still, I am willing to bet a chunk of cash that the US generally has the better recipe for ensuring economic dynamism and mobility. I'll take the hopeful over the complacent, given the choice.

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