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While the USA is a better place than many, it's far from ideal. It's nice to get a high salary for a few years. The USA still has a lot of private capital to a

While the USA is a better place than many, it's far from ideal. It's nice to get a high salary for a few years. The USA still has a lot of private capital to attract talents. But eventually it's going to run out of it or the dollar will lose value. This will be accelerated by the growth of the Chinese renminbi, especially once countries start to use it as a base currency instead of the dollar. The USA has high salaries and relatively cheap house but it also has high taxes, high cost of healthcare and education, a good amount of social craziness (political polarisation, crime, revolts, gun shootings in school, badly handled homelessness) - I personally think you may be better off living in Europe for the time being. Still, Europe is a time bomb waiting to explode. The demographics decline and high paid jobs moving away to countries with lower taxation will trigger a pension crisis, eventually. When Italy needs a bailout, Europe will stop being what it is. I think in x0 years South America could be the next Europe and China could be the next USA.

xwolfi 5y ago
But Europe doesnt exist in the same sense as the US does. It's not a system that can blow up, it s a group of interest that prevent French and Germans to murder each others and their neighbour. If we can do that without the EU so be it, it's not like we culturally merged just yet. But not saying the situation is great in each country, but I suppose if Italy dies, we can still kick it out or stop the EU as long as France and Germany find a way to ensure no more world war. This is the only goal for most of us. Every other advantage is a bonus, every flaw a necessary sacrifice.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  I see your point and I agree that individual countries would be able to live just fine and cooperate / trade with each other - eventually. I still think that if the EUR currency were to fail all those countries will face tremendous adversities for quite some time. That could be a chance for countries like Italy and Greece to rebuild a less corrupted version of themselves, but I reckon it would take a long time.
davewritescode 5y ago
You're right about a lot of the social problems in the US. You're wrong about almost everything else. It boils down to the following in the US. If you are upper middle class or above you have a very high quality of the life in the US. Healthcare is excellent, taxes are very low for the wealthy and unlike some parts of central and South America, you're free to openly enjoy your wealth here without fear of retribution. My parents live in the US and would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. China may end up being the dominant economic power but it's unlikely to ever reproduce what the US has in the last century. While the US has societal issues, it's not (currently) committing genocide and it's not facing a demographic time bomb with no ability to incorporate immigrants into society. For all the problems in the US, within a generation or two immigrants become Americans and participate at the highest echelons of American society. Please call me when that's the case in China. What has made the US great is that it's been able to convince the brightest people in the world to make their homes here. From Albert Einstein to the Google founders and Elon Musk. I really don't see any of that that happening in China.
- mapmap 5y ago
  >would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. Could you expand on that? Does Spain heavily tax retirees?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Not really and they could opt for Portugal which gives 10 years tax free. I know the US taxes his citizens on global income though, so they would be taxed like US retirees.
- coliveira 5y ago
  You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions here. Nobody in the world expected that China would be in this position 50 years ago. Very few people expected the US to be in the current situation either: a country saddled with debt, with periodic economic crisis, with a shortage of workers, making life very hard for immigrants, with an increasingly unstable political system and unable to solve racial problems that span already more than 200 years. Nowadays every serious analyst of the economic landscape sees that the future seems brighter for China than for the US. Unless the US is able to do a very serious overhaul of its current path, which it doesn't seem able or capable or doing. My opinion is that the US will become a worse Europe: with more money to spend but with a population immersed in third world problems.

xwolfi 5y ago

But Europe doesnt exist in the same sense as the US does. It's not a system that can blow up, it s a group of interest that prevent French and Germans to murder each others and their neighbour. If we can do that without the EU so be it, it's not like we culturally merged just yet. But not saying the situation is great in each country, but I suppose if Italy dies, we can still kick it out or stop the EU as long as France and Germany find a way to ensure no more world war. This is the only goal for most of us. Every other advantage is a bonus, every flaw a necessary sacrifice.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
I see your point and I agree that individual countries would be able to live just fine and cooperate / trade with each other - eventually. I still think that if the EUR currency were to fail all those countries will face tremendous adversities for quite some time. That could be a chance for countries like Italy and Greece to rebuild a less corrupted version of themselves, but I reckon it would take a long time.

davewritescode 5y ago

You're right about a lot of the social problems in the US. You're wrong about almost everything else. It boils down to the following in the US. If you are upper middle class or above you have a very high quality of the life in the US. Healthcare is excellent, taxes are very low for the wealthy and unlike some parts of central and South America, you're free to openly enjoy your wealth here without fear of retribution. My parents live in the US and would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. China may end up being the dominant economic power but it's unlikely to ever reproduce what the US has in the last century. While the US has societal issues, it's not (currently) committing genocide and it's not facing a demographic time bomb with no ability to incorporate immigrants into society. For all the problems in the US, within a generation or two immigrants become Americans and participate at the highest echelons of American society. Please call me when that's the case in China. What has made the US great is that it's been able to convince the brightest people in the world to make their homes here. From Albert Einstein to the Google founders and Elon Musk. I really don't see any of that that happening in China.

mapmap 5y ago
>would love to retire in Spain. The tax burden alone makes that untenable. Could you expand on that? Does Spain heavily tax retirees?
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Not really and they could opt for Portugal which gives 10 years tax free. I know the US taxes his citizens on global income though, so they would be taxed like US retirees.
coliveira 5y ago
You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions here. Nobody in the world expected that China would be in this position 50 years ago. Very few people expected the US to be in the current situation either: a country saddled with debt, with periodic economic crisis, with a shortage of workers, making life very hard for immigrants, with an increasingly unstable political system and unable to solve racial problems that span already more than 200 years. Nowadays every serious analyst of the economic landscape sees that the future seems brighter for China than for the US. Unless the US is able to do a very serious overhaul of its current path, which it doesn't seem able or capable or doing. My opinion is that the US will become a worse Europe: with more money to spend but with a population immersed in third world problems.