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It kind of depends on how much you are willing to "hack the system". If you just want a job for life, the European system is way better. But the American system
by vouaobrasil 3y ago
It kind of depends on how much you are willing to "hack the system". If you just want a job for life, the European system is way better. But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit, move to a very cheap area, and become an independent with a passive income stream. Of course, that mainly works if you do something like STEM (high-paid programmer, finance, etc.) But since the article is about having "more money", I thought it was worth mentioning.
- thfuran 3y ago>But the American system can be better if you want to work for 5-10 years at a high-paying job out of school, living frugally to save up a lot, and then just quit That accounts for about 0% of the population. Well, probably many people want to retire after a few years, but almost no one actually can do it. So saying that it's better for those people at the expense of everyone else is pretty much just saying it's worse.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoI didn't say retire, as I mentioned in the rest of my post that you left out. I just said start your own independent thing (like small business, passive income, content creator, etc.)
- sheepscreek 3y agoTo be brutally honest, only the Wall Street elites can effectively pull that off. But then finance guys in Europe don’t do that bad either. Other than the frantic pace of innovation, there is nothing to brag about the American system. It is glorified servitude for the majority, where the real “winners” are at the top and even they aren’t “happy” by any measure. Financial freedom alone doesn’t equate to living and contentment - that requires a shift in the “I need to X so I can do/have/feel Y” mindset. Sadly, American economy thrives on this - the people pulling all the strings show carrots to the masses because it serves their purpose. The masses keep falling for it and the cycle repeats itself in perpetuity. Like I said, this is great for innovation (to motivate people towards a capitalistic endeavour) but is absolutely soul crushing and mind numbing. Burnout is imminent.
- redserk 3y agoThis would apply to a very few number of people. The overwhelming majority of tech jobs in the US do not pay anywhere nearly enough to work for 5-10 years and fully retire. This would even prove a problem with many of the very well paid devs as you'd need somewhere to sleep.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoI didn't say fully retire. I said become independent and start your own business or independent income stream like writing, content creation, etc. Actually, that is what I am doing.
- thfuran 3y agoNo, you said "become an independent with a passive income", which sounds a lot more like retiring and living off investments than starting a business.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoWell, that is not what I meant. Plain and simple.
- c-hendricks 3y agoSurely you see that opening your own store, or content creation, are not "passive income".