Money isn't everything. The french have better public transport, more social stability, a life expectancy that's higher by five (!) years etc etc.
By pretty much whatever standard you use, their quality of life is much higher.
> Disposable income is a poor metric to use though.
Hard Disagree. It's directly related to standard of living. You're also leaving out the other parts. It's adjusted for PPP, taxes, essential household costs (healthcare, shelter, etc), and social benefits.
> Money isn't everything. The french have better public transport, more social stability, a life expectancy that's higher by five (!) years etc etc.
Of course money isn't everything...but again we started off by talking about it.
> By pretty much whatever standard you use, their quality of life is much higher.
Except for household income, wealth, affordability, and others. See for yourself! This is an excellent resource: https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?lc=en&tm=NAAG&pg=0&snb=12...
As another random (non-definitive) data point take the homelessness rate: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/homelessn...
I stand by my statement. Too many Americans don't appreciate how good they have it. Cultural differences are real.
Because you mentioned it, I do think a lot of this comes down to cultural differences. To me (and to most Europeans!), the economic stuff just doesn't matter as much, so it's not a compelling argument to make.
I had excellent cheap pasta on a beautiful plaza in Italy yesterday, I got there via 30 euro Ryanair flight, and I booked it over my abundant PTO. At no point exploring Florence, a city of 400.000 people, did I feel unsafe at all.
That, to me, is the kind of stuff that really matters and the kind of stuff that I just can't have in the US.
It's also the kind of stuff that is hard to capture in economic stats, which is why I don't really pay as much attention to them.
I've lived in the US for almost a decade. I made a lot more money, but my life felt worse.
But maybe Americans really do just have different values and they'd rather have more money on their bank account.
I upvoted you because you argued your point well.
It's just that we're talking past each other, quality of life is so much more than that. It's the environment you live in. It's knowing that a random piece of bread you'll buy in a supermarket or in a train station will have a certain level of quality. It's cheese that doesn't taste like plastic. It's having time to spend with your loved ones. It's nobody having to worry about a medical emergency bankrupting them. It's higher education not being gated to the well-off.
Then why did you move to make more money in the US? Why are many young Europeans moving to work abroad?
People who gaslight others for chasing money, are those who already have enough money and can't empathize with those wo do not.
>I had excellent cheap pasta on a beautiful plaza in Italy yesterday, I got there via 30 euro Ryanair flight
Cherry picking personal holiday travels isn't representative of anything in this topic. Also 30 Euro flights are not the norm everywhere. You need to live in the right country/city and get lucky.
Experiences like these are just straight up impossible in the US. Believe me, I've tried. There's no nice Italian plazas anywhere and in most places in the country you wouldn't even wanna be sitting outside.
There is very few places in the US where I would like to sit outside on a plaza and have my dinner - and that is indicative of social decay and a lack of focus on building pleasant public spaces.
Europe also doesn't have grand canyons. I don't need to see a grand canyon every month though.
>- and that is indicative of social decay and a lack of focus on building pleasant public spaces.
Go to Frankfurt train station.
Feel free to address the others instead!
Benefits are expensive, healthcare is expensive, transportation is expensive, food is expensive, and on and on. It's quite hard to just compare the US to France because of that. I think a lot of this "disposable income" relies on you being an able-bodied person of young age with zero health conditions and zero risk of emergencies. As soon as that's not the case, that "disposable" income vanishes.
Easy to high road others now, AFTER you made 7 figures in the country you now publicly despise, and wouldn't be able to where you're originally from.
Why try to emotionally pull the ladder?
- housing is expensive
- it's not cardboard boxes, it's tents
- you'd be mugged/knifed rather than shot, agreed
- public transportation is good when not on strike. However, it's dirty and you might get robbed
- the world's most creative government when it comes to taxes
- it's still beautiful though…
The parts of Paris I went to recently were quite nice, but of course, a tourists view is different from a locals.
I'd be surprised if it was anywhere near as bad as, say the SF tenderloin though.