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I am inclined to agree with the article. As an American who has lived abroad for a sizable fraction of adulthood while frequently traveling back, the rising le

I am inclined to agree with the article. As an American who has lived abroad for a sizable fraction of adulthood while frequently traveling back, the rising level of degradation — the people, public and private goods — in the U.S. simply can’t be ignored or smugly explained away. The country is rotting. Life looks so hard, the conditions and future tenuous, that my family is making the conscious choice to raise our child abroad. While our American friends miss us to be sure, not a single one has recommended we return — esp. those with children.

smallgovt 8y ago
I think people should stop using their personal experiences to support an argument that requires data on a much larger scale. For example, OC claims there has been an alarming rise in degradation of public infrastructure in the US. Does the hard data really support this? If so, I'd love to see it (seriously). Observations from personal travel are virtually meaningless in this context.
- skh 8y ago
  Do you apply this standard to all beliefs you have? It’s interesting that you wrote what you did when you could have done a search and found some answers. From the third link below: Meanwhile, Americans’ international peers enjoy more efficient and reliable services, and their public investment in infrastructure is on average nearly double that of the United States.....The United States generally lags behind its peers in the developed world. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, in 2016 the United States ranked [PDF] tenth in the world in a broad measure of infrastructure quality—down from fifth place in 2002. That places it behind countries like France, Germany, Japan, and Spain. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37562 http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37562 http://theconversation.com/measuring-up-us-infrastructure-against-other-countries-78164 http://theconversation.com/measuring-up-us-infrastructure-ag... https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure
- matttproud 8y ago
  Dive down the rabbit hole: https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org The Interstate 35W Bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis 2007, I used that four or more times a day on average shortly before its demise. The story was similar throughout Minnesota and proved poisonous to the then-governor who wanted to starve the state. For us, we based our decision not on infrastructure alone but rather total system health. We need to be able to adequately commit to maintenance and future-proofing our societies, not kicking the metaphorical can down the road.
theNJR 8y ago
Which country are you going to raise your kids in?
- smt88 8y ago
  Not GP, but I have American friends/acquaintances who have decided to raise kids in Sweden, The Netherlands, and Germany due to issues (either real or perceived) with the US. I mostly think people with money in the US are unlikely to have much different quality of life than developed European counterparts, though. It's mostly people with fewer resources that are disproportionately worse off.
  - matttproud 8y ago
    Even the seemingly wealthy or middle class still conduct crowd fundraisers for critical medical care, funerals, etc. We helped another American friend with one of these recently. Just this week, a friend who is middle class with chronic but manageable health problems was expressing serious intent on leaving the U.S. precisely because of long-term bankruptcy from medical cost prospects.
    - zanny 8y ago
      The worst thing is that the incentives are perverse. Your chronic pain friend can easily cost a society more than they will return in value, but if society will not take care of its feeble and weak than what value does it have? If your friend emigrates, they may put a burden on the country they go to. Even if they are productive, the cost of their ailment (assuming its not just ridiculously ovepriced medicine in the US that is in reality really cheap everywhere else, in which case the nation he immigrates to should be overjoyed at the opportunity!) can slow economic growth over if someone with no ailment and the same qualifications emigrated instead. So the US "sheds" a "cost center" and another country takes on the burden. American companies keep turning over record profits and stock valuations while its poor and sick suffer and die, while other nations are burdened with those America should have taken care of itself with its vast wealth if only it had any morality to care about its citizens.
briandear 8y ago
Comparing San Francisco to similarly sized Marseille; I would suggest that Europe doesn’t necessarily have to answers either. I lived near Avignon and half of the storefronts in that town are boarded up. You’ll find a similar story across much of France. Paris, Marseille and Lyon suburbs often look like war zones and while the US has some similar areas, there are still plenty of places that don’t. Those that like to compare Europe to the US often look at the capital cities such as Paris as examples, but fail to look beyond the surface. France has considerable decay and economic malaise. Two of my kids were born in France and while it’s a nice place, the opportunity there doesn’t even come close to the US.
- sveme 8y ago
  Prime r/shitamericanssay stuff here. Which places in France look like Syria?
- toweringgoat 8y ago
  Using France as a representaiton of Europe isn't really sensible. And Europe as a representation of life outside the US even more so. Travelling to France feels similar to travelling to the US to me. Horrible infrastructure (especially Paris IMHO). Similar feelings for some other European countries, Italy at the forefront. Better models are places like the Nordics, New Zealand, Singapore. But more middlingly, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, all outclass life in the US or France. Heck, I'd even say China are doing a lot better in many regards (they have their own issues of course, but many aspects are strong).
  - beerlord 8y ago
    France is fundamentally broken. Welfare is 31.5% of GDP and even at entry-level taxes will take up over half your labour. You have a low-IQ non-European immigrant population growing rapidly with all of the attendant criminal problems. France needs to kill the welfare state, and limit immigration of non-compatible cultures, if it wishes to make any improvement. Otherwise the future is just continual decay until some kind of another revolution takes place and the whole setup is violently upended.
theredbox 8y ago
This is so out of touch with reality. You have traded an insanely rich country for another super insanely rich country and called it a day. This in no way can even start a productive discussion.
- matttproud 8y ago
  We never “called it a day.” We remain active on social, justice, and political issues from abroad. In fact, we are beginning the process to incorporate a small 501c3 around civic engagement and betterment. We spent a decent fraction of our pretax income on the aforementioned effort alone in 2018. Nevertheless, when taking the whole risk and probability matrix into account, neither my spouse nor I feel confident that the U.S. will turn itself around successfully to warrant an all eggs in one basket approach. The United States would need to stop acting like a petulant family at war with itself and start taking better care of itself and its people.
- m_fayer 8y ago
  Huh? Why? I'm an American who had traded America for Germany. It's no panacea but it is a marked improvement along multiple axes. That's real and unambiguous. Which is, I think, worth discussing.
  - theredbox 8y ago
    Because it's just not comparable. Different settings and different environment. You cant move around in Europe if you are an average folk like you can in the US. Moving around in Europe means almost a life time commitment to the language and the country and that does not always pay off.
    - raverbashing 8y ago
      Wow, "lifetime commitment" to a language or a country sounds harsh. I think you can achieve a working level of any (European) language in around one year. And today we have Google translation in our phones, the job is 10x easier. Nowhere is a "lifetime" commitment, but if you like a place, might just stay there.

smallgovt 8y ago

I think people should stop using their personal experiences to support an argument that requires data on a much larger scale. For example, OC claims there has been an alarming rise in degradation of public infrastructure in the US. Does the hard data really support this? If so, I'd love to see it (seriously). Observations from personal travel are virtually meaningless in this context.

skh 8y ago
Do you apply this standard to all beliefs you have? It’s interesting that you wrote what you did when you could have done a search and found some answers. From the third link below: Meanwhile, Americans’ international peers enjoy more efficient and reliable services, and their public investment in infrastructure is on average nearly double that of the United States.....The United States generally lags behind its peers in the developed world. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, in 2016 the United States ranked [PDF] tenth in the world in a broad measure of infrastructure quality—down from fifth place in 2002. That places it behind countries like France, Germany, Japan, and Spain. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37562 http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37562 http://theconversation.com/measuring-up-us-infrastructure-against-other-countries-78164 http://theconversation.com/measuring-up-us-infrastructure-ag... https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure
matttproud 8y ago
Dive down the rabbit hole: https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org The Interstate 35W Bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis 2007, I used that four or more times a day on average shortly before its demise. The story was similar throughout Minnesota and proved poisonous to the then-governor who wanted to starve the state. For us, we based our decision not on infrastructure alone but rather total system health. We need to be able to adequately commit to maintenance and future-proofing our societies, not kicking the metaphorical can down the road.

theNJR 8y ago

Which country are you going to raise your kids in?

smt88 8y ago
Not GP, but I have American friends/acquaintances who have decided to raise kids in Sweden, The Netherlands, and Germany due to issues (either real or perceived) with the US. I mostly think people with money in the US are unlikely to have much different quality of life than developed European counterparts, though. It's mostly people with fewer resources that are disproportionately worse off.
- matttproud 8y ago
  Even the seemingly wealthy or middle class still conduct crowd fundraisers for critical medical care, funerals, etc. We helped another American friend with one of these recently. Just this week, a friend who is middle class with chronic but manageable health problems was expressing serious intent on leaving the U.S. precisely because of long-term bankruptcy from medical cost prospects.
  - zanny 8y ago
    The worst thing is that the incentives are perverse. Your chronic pain friend can easily cost a society more than they will return in value, but if society will not take care of its feeble and weak than what value does it have? If your friend emigrates, they may put a burden on the country they go to. Even if they are productive, the cost of their ailment (assuming its not just ridiculously ovepriced medicine in the US that is in reality really cheap everywhere else, in which case the nation he immigrates to should be overjoyed at the opportunity!) can slow economic growth over if someone with no ailment and the same qualifications emigrated instead. So the US "sheds" a "cost center" and another country takes on the burden. American companies keep turning over record profits and stock valuations while its poor and sick suffer and die, while other nations are burdened with those America should have taken care of itself with its vast wealth if only it had any morality to care about its citizens.

briandear 8y ago

Comparing San Francisco to similarly sized Marseille; I would suggest that Europe doesn’t necessarily have to answers either. I lived near Avignon and half of the storefronts in that town are boarded up. You’ll find a similar story across much of France. Paris, Marseille and Lyon suburbs often look like war zones and while the US has some similar areas, there are still plenty of places that don’t. Those that like to compare Europe to the US often look at the capital cities such as Paris as examples, but fail to look beyond the surface. France has considerable decay and economic malaise. Two of my kids were born in France and while it’s a nice place, the opportunity there doesn’t even come close to the US.

sveme 8y ago
Prime r/shitamericanssay stuff here. Which places in France look like Syria?
toweringgoat 8y ago
Using France as a representaiton of Europe isn't really sensible. And Europe as a representation of life outside the US even more so. Travelling to France feels similar to travelling to the US to me. Horrible infrastructure (especially Paris IMHO). Similar feelings for some other European countries, Italy at the forefront. Better models are places like the Nordics, New Zealand, Singapore. But more middlingly, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, all outclass life in the US or France. Heck, I'd even say China are doing a lot better in many regards (they have their own issues of course, but many aspects are strong).
- beerlord 8y ago
  France is fundamentally broken. Welfare is 31.5% of GDP and even at entry-level taxes will take up over half your labour. You have a low-IQ non-European immigrant population growing rapidly with all of the attendant criminal problems. France needs to kill the welfare state, and limit immigration of non-compatible cultures, if it wishes to make any improvement. Otherwise the future is just continual decay until some kind of another revolution takes place and the whole setup is violently upended.

theredbox 8y ago

This is so out of touch with reality. You have traded an insanely rich country for another super insanely rich country and called it a day. This in no way can even start a productive discussion.

matttproud 8y ago
We never “called it a day.” We remain active on social, justice, and political issues from abroad. In fact, we are beginning the process to incorporate a small 501c3 around civic engagement and betterment. We spent a decent fraction of our pretax income on the aforementioned effort alone in 2018. Nevertheless, when taking the whole risk and probability matrix into account, neither my spouse nor I feel confident that the U.S. will turn itself around successfully to warrant an all eggs in one basket approach. The United States would need to stop acting like a petulant family at war with itself and start taking better care of itself and its people.
m_fayer 8y ago
Huh? Why? I'm an American who had traded America for Germany. It's no panacea but it is a marked improvement along multiple axes. That's real and unambiguous. Which is, I think, worth discussing.
- theredbox 8y ago
  Because it's just not comparable. Different settings and different environment. You cant move around in Europe if you are an average folk like you can in the US. Moving around in Europe means almost a life time commitment to the language and the country and that does not always pay off.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Wow, "lifetime commitment" to a language or a country sounds harsh. I think you can achieve a working level of any (European) language in around one year. And today we have Google translation in our phones, the job is 10x easier. Nowhere is a "lifetime" commitment, but if you like a place, might just stay there.