3 ms·
GDP hasn't been a good metric for a good 50 years now. It's good when your country burns coals and shits out steel, not much more. High gdp for sure, higher sal
by lm28469 2y ago
GDP hasn't been a good metric for a good 50 years now. It's good when your country burns coals and shits out steel, not much more. High gdp for sure, higher salaries for sure, everything needed to survive is twice as expensive and you have 0 social safety net.
Meanwhile in the US
- mortgage are above 7%, twice as high as in Europe
- min wage is bellow the Polish min wage, half the German min wage
- life expectancy is going down, 4 years under the EU 27 average, 6 years less than France
- wealth and income inequalities are worse than pretty much any EU country: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-index https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-...
- parental leaves, paid vacations, unions, &c. are either optional or frowned upon
- pensioner poverty is 2x+ more than in the EU: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/12/02/which-countries-have-the-highest-levels-of-poverty-for-pensioners-infographic/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/12/02/which-...
- whimsicalism 2y ago1. EU barely has 30 year fixed rates - of course rates will be higher for a much riskier loan to counterparty. 2. Yes true, the minimum wage in Poland is 13 cents higher than the US. Fewer than 1% of US income earners are paid the federal minimum wage. In Poland, ~15% of income earners are paid the minimum wage. 3. Yes our life expectancy is bad - although better when you do demographic control, we have a problem with obesity and easy access to guns causing suicide. 4-6. sorry but relative wealth measures are not effective for deciding how affluent a society is. our ‘pensioners’ in poverty are only in poverty relative to the very high median earnings in the US. They could take their money to the EU and spend better than many of those other retirees.