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I would like to see US answers to this but in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich and then it degrades fast: in NL it is good to great for

I would like to see US answers to this but in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich and then it degrades fast: in NL it is good to great for all. So I can pick bleeding hard work in a lottery to maybe be someone or I can do whatever I like and have most of those same perks. Where is the choice here?

joelbluminator 5y ago
> in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich I would argue almost everywhere in the world quality of life is fantastic if you are rich. What is the huge difference between living in a gated community in California to doing it in Thailand?
- tluyben2 5y ago
  That in Thailand that would cost almost nothing. And personally, it is much nicer on probably almost everything besides the small issue that the country is completely owned by the military. But yes, you are right: rich is also better in NL. But it is not 1000x better: it is just better. Subjective of course; if you enjoy driving McLarens into trees then rich is a lot better. I have the feeling, and again, I do not live there so I cannot be sure (and can you be even if you live there?) But from books, docus and US friends, the difference is not 1000x even. It is just another world. That is simply not true here. I guess it is a matter of taste if you can stomach that inequality. I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your have poor here but that is exclusively mentally challenged(or what is the current PC term?) People who get help but always fall back, and very few of them. I recognize the vagrants in my home city from decades ago: still the same people: they have a state provided house and get help but it does not help. You cannot fix that. But rows of addicts turned criminals lining the streets in tents and worse. In the richest country on earth. Rich people should be ashamed that happens on their doorstep. They can and should fix it today.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    > I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your snarky comment is just pretentious cherry-picking. I can walk you through some neighborhoods in France, Sweden and the UK where you'd also wouldn't want to live.
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      The snark was only because of the American induced (and we have it here now) driving everywhere, even if it is a few 100m (I have been all across the US many times and people find it weird if you walk anywhere unless you are actually hiking in nature). It cannot be really denied if everyone would do their shopping by foot (meaning you would need to do multiple runs a week) you would be healthier and have better quality of life right? That was the norm here but now people get into their SUVs and drive. And it is not cherry picking: I know those places too: I do not count the UK as that is another Anglo Saxon country so it seems to copy the US values faster (like Australia where the best city in the world to live apparently, Melbourne, I literally trip over the drug addicts in every street and I go there a lot). And yes, there are places enough I would not want to live but they do not look quite as bad as some things I have seen in the US which were more akin to New Delhi. Maybe I did not travel enough and also not the point; if you are the richest country in the world you simply cannot allow that. In my opinion of course.
relativ575 5y ago
I'm in the US. Quality of life is unbelivable if you're rich, great for upper middle class, good for middle class, okay if you're working class, terrible if you're poor. Of course, all of that is still very much generalization, and I find comparing quality of life in Europe with US is more or less dick measure contest. You try one when there are no fact based arguments to talk about. NHS versus Medicaid, for example, that's could be a good debate.
- RGamma 5y ago
  "Unbelievable" is a strong qualifier. Care to give some examples? Genuinely curious.
rsj_hn 5y ago
The US suffers from de-industrialization as a result of the free trade agreements. That is 100% the cause of the excessive poverty we have vis-a-vis Europe. What's odd is this belief that consumer protection laws are somehow what is keeping Europe from having the same problems. And I don't really see Europe as being on a different development path. Rather, the EU managed to buy time with Eastern Europe coming into the fold creating a source of cheap labor nearby that delayed the migration of industry to China and the resulting mass de-industrialization and growing pockets of poverty that result. But the rot is already there with the industrial decline of Southern Europe and firms migrating production out of Europe, just at a slower rate. You can view Europe as lagging the U.S. in this area also.

joelbluminator 5y ago

> in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich I would argue almost everywhere in the world quality of life is fantastic if you are rich. What is the huge difference between living in a gated community in California to doing it in Thailand?

tluyben2 5y ago
That in Thailand that would cost almost nothing. And personally, it is much nicer on probably almost everything besides the small issue that the country is completely owned by the military. But yes, you are right: rich is also better in NL. But it is not 1000x better: it is just better. Subjective of course; if you enjoy driving McLarens into trees then rich is a lot better. I have the feeling, and again, I do not live there so I cannot be sure (and can you be even if you live there?) But from books, docus and US friends, the difference is not 1000x even. It is just another world. That is simply not true here. I guess it is a matter of taste if you can stomach that inequality. I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your have poor here but that is exclusively mentally challenged(or what is the current PC term?) People who get help but always fall back, and very few of them. I recognize the vagrants in my home city from decades ago: still the same people: they have a state provided house and get help but it does not help. You cannot fix that. But rows of addicts turned criminals lining the streets in tents and worse. In the richest country on earth. Rich people should be ashamed that happens on their doorstep. They can and should fix it today.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  > I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your snarky comment is just pretentious cherry-picking. I can walk you through some neighborhoods in France, Sweden and the UK where you'd also wouldn't want to live.
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    The snark was only because of the American induced (and we have it here now) driving everywhere, even if it is a few 100m (I have been all across the US many times and people find it weird if you walk anywhere unless you are actually hiking in nature). It cannot be really denied if everyone would do their shopping by foot (meaning you would need to do multiple runs a week) you would be healthier and have better quality of life right? That was the norm here but now people get into their SUVs and drive. And it is not cherry picking: I know those places too: I do not count the UK as that is another Anglo Saxon country so it seems to copy the US values faster (like Australia where the best city in the world to live apparently, Melbourne, I literally trip over the drug addicts in every street and I go there a lot). And yes, there are places enough I would not want to live but they do not look quite as bad as some things I have seen in the US which were more akin to New Delhi. Maybe I did not travel enough and also not the point; if you are the richest country in the world you simply cannot allow that. In my opinion of course.

relativ575 5y ago

I'm in the US. Quality of life is unbelivable if you're rich, great for upper middle class, good for middle class, okay if you're working class, terrible if you're poor. Of course, all of that is still very much generalization, and I find comparing quality of life in Europe with US is more or less dick measure contest. You try one when there are no fact based arguments to talk about. NHS versus Medicaid, for example, that's could be a good debate.

RGamma 5y ago
"Unbelievable" is a strong qualifier. Care to give some examples? Genuinely curious.

rsj_hn 5y ago

The US suffers from de-industrialization as a result of the free trade agreements. That is 100% the cause of the excessive poverty we have vis-a-vis Europe. What's odd is this belief that consumer protection laws are somehow what is keeping Europe from having the same problems. And I don't really see Europe as being on a different development path. Rather, the EU managed to buy time with Eastern Europe coming into the fold creating a source of cheap labor nearby that delayed the migration of industry to China and the resulting mass de-industrialization and growing pockets of poverty that result. But the rot is already there with the industrial decline of Southern Europe and firms migrating production out of Europe, just at a slower rate. You can view Europe as lagging the U.S. in this area also.