> I think one weird aspect of living in Europe, or at least Germany, is that all the stuff that US politicians told me were “too expensive” apparently aren’t!

> I think one weird aspect of living in Europe, or at least Germany, is that all the stuff that US politicians told me were “too expensive” apparently aren’t! If you look at the spending of the countries' governments, you partly can explain why these social services, health and public transport are considered better by the author. One outlier worth mentioning is the big spend on "Defence" by the US. Of course, Europe benefits from that to in terms of protection in NATO. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/general-government-spending.html?oecdcontrol-b8a601814c-var6=SOCPROT&oecdcontrol-38c744bfa4-var1=USA%7CBEL%7CDNK%7CDEU%7CIRL%7CNLD https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/general-government-s...