6 ms·

Which country are you going to raise your kids in?

by theNJR 8y ago

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.
    - matttproud 8y ago
      It’s the overpriced medicine problem.
    - webmobdev 8y ago
      > If your friend emigrates, they may put a burden on the country they go to. Not necessarily - old or feeble doesn't mean useless. Brain drain is a real thing ...
- lumost 8y ago
  In the middle / upper middle class of America, you are likely to have a much higher time demand than in Germany / Canada / France / Europe. Checking the government's mandated annual time off shows that Germany has 29 paid days off per year, while Canada has 16-30-the US has 0 mandatory paid days off per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... While you probably have PTO in the US, the typical leave is 2 - 3 weeks, many companies will offer unlimited PTO to further obfuscate how much time you are expected to take and avoid PTO payouts.
matttproud 8y ago
At the moment, Switzerland. We speak one of the languages, know enough of the culture and politics, etc. to be inconspicuous and blend into the crowd. More than that, the culture and people and country have grown on us tremendously. :-)
- testpostpls 8y ago
  Switzerland is kind of made to appeal to rich foreigners who spend money. Not too long ago, most people here were very poor. A lot of problems are hidden.
  - matttproud 8y ago
    Being a foreigner on the ground, I think the reality is more mixed: CH appeals most to rich and upper-middle class foreign tourists, but I distinguish between “visitor” from “foreigner living there”. In terms of the latter group, I don’t think CH attempts to appeal: practically all paperwork is in local language with no attempt at furnishing anything in the language of my mother tongue. Further, your immigration status factors into contracts: subscriptions (telephony), rental agreement, etc. We were once turned down for an apartment because of it. Throughout my time abroad, a common trend is that expats (note: first use of that word) don’t bother to learn local language and are typically unhappy. Those that do attempt to are far happier. Does a host country afford and coddling for the former? I’ve never seen evidence of that no matter how rich. Is it hostile? No. The story could be different for the super rich who live there like Tina Turner and former Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but that is not the circumstances of our family nor any other family we know by a long-measure. Citizenship cannot be bought here either. I think for a few million it is purchaseable in Austria or Hungary. But at the end of the day, in my top-level reply, I had stated “at the moment.” We have lived elsewhere in the world, and the assessment of the overall problems the U.S. are facing would have been identical. The decline is palpable.
    - Youden 8y ago
      > Throughout my time abroad, a common trend is that expats (note: first use of that word) don’t bother to learn local language and are typically unhappy. In Switzerland, that's no longer going to be an option. They recently implemented a change that requires you to learn at least A1 level (super basic) German in order to keep your B-permit. As a recent arrival on a B-permit, I think it's a good idea.

Which country are you going to raise your kids in?

by theNJR 8y ago

Which country are you going to raise your kids in?

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.
  - matttproud 8y ago
    It’s the overpriced medicine problem.
  - webmobdev 8y ago
    > If your friend emigrates, they may put a burden on the country they go to. Not necessarily - old or feeble doesn't mean useless. Brain drain is a real thing ...
lumost 8y ago
In the middle / upper middle class of America, you are likely to have a much higher time demand than in Germany / Canada / France / Europe. Checking the government's mandated annual time off shows that Germany has 29 paid days off per year, while Canada has 16-30-the US has 0 mandatory paid days off per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... While you probably have PTO in the US, the typical leave is 2 - 3 weeks, many companies will offer unlimited PTO to further obfuscate how much time you are expected to take and avoid PTO payouts.

matttproud 8y ago

At the moment, Switzerland. We speak one of the languages, know enough of the culture and politics, etc. to be inconspicuous and blend into the crowd. More than that, the culture and people and country have grown on us tremendously. :-)

testpostpls 8y ago
Switzerland is kind of made to appeal to rich foreigners who spend money. Not too long ago, most people here were very poor. A lot of problems are hidden.
- matttproud 8y ago
  Being a foreigner on the ground, I think the reality is more mixed: CH appeals most to rich and upper-middle class foreign tourists, but I distinguish between “visitor” from “foreigner living there”. In terms of the latter group, I don’t think CH attempts to appeal: practically all paperwork is in local language with no attempt at furnishing anything in the language of my mother tongue. Further, your immigration status factors into contracts: subscriptions (telephony), rental agreement, etc. We were once turned down for an apartment because of it. Throughout my time abroad, a common trend is that expats (note: first use of that word) don’t bother to learn local language and are typically unhappy. Those that do attempt to are far happier. Does a host country afford and coddling for the former? I’ve never seen evidence of that no matter how rich. Is it hostile? No. The story could be different for the super rich who live there like Tina Turner and former Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but that is not the circumstances of our family nor any other family we know by a long-measure. Citizenship cannot be bought here either. I think for a few million it is purchaseable in Austria or Hungary. But at the end of the day, in my top-level reply, I had stated “at the moment.” We have lived elsewhere in the world, and the assessment of the overall problems the U.S. are facing would have been identical. The decline is palpable.
  - Youden 8y ago
    > Throughout my time abroad, a common trend is that expats (note: first use of that word) don’t bother to learn local language and are typically unhappy. In Switzerland, that's no longer going to be an option. They recently implemented a change that requires you to learn at least A1 level (super basic) German in order to keep your B-permit. As a recent arrival on a B-permit, I think it's a good idea.