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I think when I was very young, the US briefly offered an appealing lifestyle. But its one of the few countries these days where I believe emigration would send

I think when I was very young, the US briefly offered an appealing lifestyle. But its one of the few countries these days where I believe emigration would send me significantly backwards. GDP isnt an interesting metric for this conversation tbh. The US can be "Winning" the monetary accumulation race while still being a terrible place in most other aspects. Why dont you use "Adult literacy rate" as a comparison.

yes_really 1y ago
Which country do you live in?
adventured 1y ago
You do understand the US, much like Europe, is highly bifurcated. Show me the gap between the top and the bottom in Europe and the EU. In Western Russia poverty looks like people earning $100-$200 per month. They exist in third world conditions. That's part of Europe. Germany is an elite outcome for Europe for example. Population 83 million. Show me what the top 83 million in the US look like by comparison (roughly the top 25% of the US). Hint: it's not even close.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  There was another HN thread recently where someone was commenting about how living conditions in specific parts of Europe were better than the US. When everyone questioned them, they explained that they just didn’t consider various parts of the EU or even certain large cities in major EU countries to be part of the comparison because everyone knew their living standards were lower. It’s a strange double standard where the US gets evaluated as a mix of the worst headlines from every state, but when commenters talk about Europe being a utopia they actually refer to a cherry picked mix of the best parts of different countries.
  - brewdad 1y ago
    I can’t speak to the specific living standards of a bottom half European but I can say I have visited probably a dozen major cities of Europe and never seen a single person living in a tent on the street. In at least half of those cities I have ventured well outside the “tourist” areas. Meanwhile, I can’t go anywhere in my American city without encountering people living in conditions worse than the average person in a third world country.
    - seec 1y ago
      Clearly you havent visited Paris, especially the northern part. Tent people are everywhere and it used to be more at the periphery but nowadays even inside the city around popular metro stations, they are right there. All this tells me that you have rose tinted glass and would rather ignore reality. Sure, there are plenty of things the EU does better than the US but I seriously doubt the bottom part of the population is living significantly better...
- _delirium 1y ago
  The US is more like Latin America here, where top 25% does not mean you are immune to the problems of the other 75%. Your average resident of an affluent western European country does not come into daily contact with a poor resident of western Russia (except maybe through some recent drones...?). But in the US, it's hard to escape the poverty and violence unless you're closer to the top 1%. I am probably around top 20%, in an affluent part of an affluent coastal US city (but not Manhattan affluent). Still, I don't walk outside after dark because of the high crime rates. The crime rates are not as high as in the bad parts of the same city, but people are mugged on a daily basis, and even murders are uncomfortably frequent. I didn't have this problem when I lived in several different places in western Europe, which had lower incomes, but also much lower levels of violent crime. I will admit that American pay is better, but not sure about the quality of life.
  - yes_really 1y ago
    Western European cities have been getting more violent.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - syrgian 1y ago
      London murder rate per million in 2024: 11.6 NYC murder rate per million in 2024: 43 And from what I read, NYC is exceptionally safe for a US city, and London is exceptionally unsafe for a UK city.
      - youngtaff 1y ago
        104 murders in London in 24/25, 535 in the whole of the UK for the same period Overall crime and especially violent crime is falling in the UK but there are some well publicised hotspots - phone theft, shoplifting
      - rsynnott 1y ago
        NYC is very safe for an American city, but London is not particularly unsafe for a UK one; its violent crime rate is about average for England as a whole.
- hvb2 1y ago
  > Germany is an elite outcome for Europe for example. Population 83 million. Show me what the top 83 million in the US look like by comparison (roughly the top 25% of the US). I don't know where you learned statistics but this is like comically bad. I suggest you pick an even smaller country like Andorra ~82K people and compare that with the top 82K people in the US. Seriously, it's well known the US is skewed towards the top and it's actually a problem... We all remember how Warren Buffet had to say it was weird how he played a lower marginal tax rate than his secretary, right?
  - SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
    I need to brush up on statistics. Would it be better to compare p95 or p90 between the two? Granted I don’t see a lot of these stats outside the tech industry and I always wondered why.
  - Sammi 1y ago
    Yes that's the point that was being made.
- protocolture 1y ago
  So your argument is that Countries:Countries is unfair, and that Europe should be inclusive of Russia, which isn't even an EU member state, and they are at war with by some metrics, for a proper like comparison? Why don't you include Mexico in the USA? Or Venezuela? The failure of your argument is front and center, you basically admit that Germany has done well for itself, and so you label it "Elite". But that Elite nature is recent and fleeting, its based on what the government has been able to deliver its citizens. The same things that the US government has failed to deliver its own citizens. We aren't just comparing regions of land, but polities. Otherwise its moot. I think the US can do better, and it can do better by improving the performance of its polity. Germans however cant exactly vote to directly improve Russian literacy.
  - Our_Benefactors 1y ago
    > Why don't you include Mexico in the USA? Or Venezuela Because they aren’t part of the USA. You didn’t address their point at all, which was to demonstrate that the USA is a rich country, and that both the top and bottom tiers are higher in wealth than top and bottom tiers in Europe. Even excepting Russia and other non-EU countries this holds true.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      >USA is a rich country Yes, so the proper comparison is a Country. Not a Region or a Continent. You could stretch the EU to fit "Country" but the poster went even further and decided that Germany includes Russia. Spain gets even poorer if you include Zimbabwe in its data for no reason at all. Crazy.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  If you include Western Russia, you can also include Mexico and the Caribbean Islands.
Aurornis 1y ago
> while still being a terrible place in most other aspects. When I worked for a multinational company we had a lot of people from foreign offices visit the United States for the first time. It was really interesting for me to see how many of them, especially those who built their worldview from headlines and internet comment sections, were so surprised to discover that the US wasn’t the dystopian hellhole like they had come to believe. It was almost a rite of passage for us to dispel a bunch of myths over lunches and explain how the things they saw in a headline somewhere were not representative of typical American experiences. Don’t get me wrong, this country has a lot of things that need to improve. However, the internet comments version of the US has taken on a life of its own. I’m now old enough to have a lot of friends who either worked in foreign countries for extended periods of time or even emigrated abroad, only to come to realize that the rest of the world isn’t as picture-perfect as they though it would be according to the Internet. There’s a dynamic where no positive comments about the US are allowed, but negative comments about other countries are considered out of bounds, denied, or downvoted away. For example, the recent US reductions in COVID vaccine availability are something I vehemently oppose, but even the current US system makes it far easier to get a COVID vaccine than in the NHS. Every time I tell people this fact (which is easily verifiable by Googling it) I get shouted down or accused of making it up. Both online and in person.
- rjh29 1y ago
  > even the current US system makes it far easier to get a COVID vaccine than in the NHS Okay, I'll bite. During covid I got my three injections very easily. Currently you can get them for free if you are older/at-risk, or you can pay £100 to get them private, or your employer might pay for it as part of private insurance (as mine does) What does the US do?
yes_really 1y ago
> The US can be "Winning" the monetary accumulation race while still being a terrible place in most other aspects The US is definitely not "a terrible place in most other aspects". The US is at the top (or near the top excluding small countries like Switzerland) in: - Consumer spending; - Disposable income; - Size of housing afforded; - Top university rankings; - Research and development; Europe suffers from many things that would be hard to imagine in the US. Only 20% of European homes have air conditioning vs 88% of American homes. This causes real problems. In 2024, there were 62,700 Europeans who died from extreme heat, compared to ~3,000 Americans.
- hollerith 1y ago
  >Only 20% of European homes have air conditioning vs 88% of American homes. Also, screens on windows (to keep out mosquitoes and such) are almost ubiquitous in the US (even in government-funded housing for poor people, the disabled and the elderly) whereas many homes in Europe do not have them (even though Europe has mosquitoes that spread illnesses).
  - gspr 1y ago
    I do not believe for a single second that the lack of those in southern Europe is a matter of cost or availability. To me, as a European (albeit a northerner, where mosquitoes are very annoying, but not a source of disease), those screens are just incredibly tacky and disgusting. They scream American. If it were a matter of cost/availability, then surely they'd be everywhere on wealthy homes in affected areas in Europe?
    - m4rtink 1y ago
      I don't find screens on windows tacky & they are nice in summer to avoid all kinds of flying insects getting in when the windows are open in the evening. But they do make it harder to exchange inside and outside air, as they increase air resistance, especially in hot summer evenings when there is little temperature difference and no wind.
    - danaris 1y ago
baranul 1y ago
Quality of life Index, Cost of Living Index, or Happiness Index would seem to be better for comparison, than just GDP.
rayiner 1y ago
I’m a Nordic-phile, but I took the OP to be more about global leadership.

yes_really 1y ago

Which country do you live in?

adventured 1y ago

You do understand the US, much like Europe, is highly bifurcated. Show me the gap between the top and the bottom in Europe and the EU. In Western Russia poverty looks like people earning $100-$200 per month. They exist in third world conditions. That's part of Europe. Germany is an elite outcome for Europe for example. Population 83 million. Show me what the top 83 million in the US look like by comparison (roughly the top 25% of the US). Hint: it's not even close.

Aurornis 1y ago
There was another HN thread recently where someone was commenting about how living conditions in specific parts of Europe were better than the US. When everyone questioned them, they explained that they just didn’t consider various parts of the EU or even certain large cities in major EU countries to be part of the comparison because everyone knew their living standards were lower. It’s a strange double standard where the US gets evaluated as a mix of the worst headlines from every state, but when commenters talk about Europe being a utopia they actually refer to a cherry picked mix of the best parts of different countries.
- brewdad 1y ago
  I can’t speak to the specific living standards of a bottom half European but I can say I have visited probably a dozen major cities of Europe and never seen a single person living in a tent on the street. In at least half of those cities I have ventured well outside the “tourist” areas. Meanwhile, I can’t go anywhere in my American city without encountering people living in conditions worse than the average person in a third world country.
  - seec 1y ago
    Clearly you havent visited Paris, especially the northern part. Tent people are everywhere and it used to be more at the periphery but nowadays even inside the city around popular metro stations, they are right there. All this tells me that you have rose tinted glass and would rather ignore reality. Sure, there are plenty of things the EU does better than the US but I seriously doubt the bottom part of the population is living significantly better...
_delirium 1y ago
The US is more like Latin America here, where top 25% does not mean you are immune to the problems of the other 75%. Your average resident of an affluent western European country does not come into daily contact with a poor resident of western Russia (except maybe through some recent drones...?). But in the US, it's hard to escape the poverty and violence unless you're closer to the top 1%. I am probably around top 20%, in an affluent part of an affluent coastal US city (but not Manhattan affluent). Still, I don't walk outside after dark because of the high crime rates. The crime rates are not as high as in the bad parts of the same city, but people are mugged on a daily basis, and even murders are uncomfortably frequent. I didn't have this problem when I lived in several different places in western Europe, which had lower incomes, but also much lower levels of violent crime. I will admit that American pay is better, but not sure about the quality of life.
- yes_really 1y ago
  Western European cities have been getting more violent.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - syrgian 1y ago
    London murder rate per million in 2024: 11.6 NYC murder rate per million in 2024: 43 And from what I read, NYC is exceptionally safe for a US city, and London is exceptionally unsafe for a UK city.
    - youngtaff 1y ago
      104 murders in London in 24/25, 535 in the whole of the UK for the same period Overall crime and especially violent crime is falling in the UK but there are some well publicised hotspots - phone theft, shoplifting
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      NYC is very safe for an American city, but London is not particularly unsafe for a UK one; its violent crime rate is about average for England as a whole.
hvb2 1y ago
> Germany is an elite outcome for Europe for example. Population 83 million. Show me what the top 83 million in the US look like by comparison (roughly the top 25% of the US). I don't know where you learned statistics but this is like comically bad. I suggest you pick an even smaller country like Andorra ~82K people and compare that with the top 82K people in the US. Seriously, it's well known the US is skewed towards the top and it's actually a problem... We all remember how Warren Buffet had to say it was weird how he played a lower marginal tax rate than his secretary, right?
- SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
  I need to brush up on statistics. Would it be better to compare p95 or p90 between the two? Granted I don’t see a lot of these stats outside the tech industry and I always wondered why.
- Sammi 1y ago
  Yes that's the point that was being made.
protocolture 1y ago
So your argument is that Countries:Countries is unfair, and that Europe should be inclusive of Russia, which isn't even an EU member state, and they are at war with by some metrics, for a proper like comparison? Why don't you include Mexico in the USA? Or Venezuela? The failure of your argument is front and center, you basically admit that Germany has done well for itself, and so you label it "Elite". But that Elite nature is recent and fleeting, its based on what the government has been able to deliver its citizens. The same things that the US government has failed to deliver its own citizens. We aren't just comparing regions of land, but polities. Otherwise its moot. I think the US can do better, and it can do better by improving the performance of its polity. Germans however cant exactly vote to directly improve Russian literacy.
- Our_Benefactors 1y ago
  > Why don't you include Mexico in the USA? Or Venezuela Because they aren’t part of the USA. You didn’t address their point at all, which was to demonstrate that the USA is a rich country, and that both the top and bottom tiers are higher in wealth than top and bottom tiers in Europe. Even excepting Russia and other non-EU countries this holds true.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    >USA is a rich country Yes, so the proper comparison is a Country. Not a Region or a Continent. You could stretch the EU to fit "Country" but the poster went even further and decided that Germany includes Russia. Spain gets even poorer if you include Zimbabwe in its data for no reason at all. Crazy.
1718627440 1y ago
If you include Western Russia, you can also include Mexico and the Caribbean Islands.

Aurornis 1y ago

> while still being a terrible place in most other aspects. When I worked for a multinational company we had a lot of people from foreign offices visit the United States for the first time. It was really interesting for me to see how many of them, especially those who built their worldview from headlines and internet comment sections, were so surprised to discover that the US wasn’t the dystopian hellhole like they had come to believe. It was almost a rite of passage for us to dispel a bunch of myths over lunches and explain how the things they saw in a headline somewhere were not representative of typical American experiences. Don’t get me wrong, this country has a lot of things that need to improve. However, the internet comments version of the US has taken on a life of its own. I’m now old enough to have a lot of friends who either worked in foreign countries for extended periods of time or even emigrated abroad, only to come to realize that the rest of the world isn’t as picture-perfect as they though it would be according to the Internet. There’s a dynamic where no positive comments about the US are allowed, but negative comments about other countries are considered out of bounds, denied, or downvoted away. For example, the recent US reductions in COVID vaccine availability are something I vehemently oppose, but even the current US system makes it far easier to get a COVID vaccine than in the NHS. Every time I tell people this fact (which is easily verifiable by Googling it) I get shouted down or accused of making it up. Both online and in person.

rjh29 1y ago
> even the current US system makes it far easier to get a COVID vaccine than in the NHS Okay, I'll bite. During covid I got my three injections very easily. Currently you can get them for free if you are older/at-risk, or you can pay £100 to get them private, or your employer might pay for it as part of private insurance (as mine does) What does the US do?

yes_really 1y ago

> The US can be "Winning" the monetary accumulation race while still being a terrible place in most other aspects The US is definitely not "a terrible place in most other aspects". The US is at the top (or near the top excluding small countries like Switzerland) in: - Consumer spending; - Disposable income; - Size of housing afforded; - Top university rankings; - Research and development; Europe suffers from many things that would be hard to imagine in the US. Only 20% of European homes have air conditioning vs 88% of American homes. This causes real problems. In 2024, there were 62,700 Europeans who died from extreme heat, compared to ~3,000 Americans.

hollerith 1y ago
>Only 20% of European homes have air conditioning vs 88% of American homes. Also, screens on windows (to keep out mosquitoes and such) are almost ubiquitous in the US (even in government-funded housing for poor people, the disabled and the elderly) whereas many homes in Europe do not have them (even though Europe has mosquitoes that spread illnesses).
- gspr 1y ago
  I do not believe for a single second that the lack of those in southern Europe is a matter of cost or availability. To me, as a European (albeit a northerner, where mosquitoes are very annoying, but not a source of disease), those screens are just incredibly tacky and disgusting. They scream American. If it were a matter of cost/availability, then surely they'd be everywhere on wealthy homes in affected areas in Europe?
  - m4rtink 1y ago
    I don't find screens on windows tacky & they are nice in summer to avoid all kinds of flying insects getting in when the windows are open in the evening. But they do make it harder to exchange inside and outside air, as they increase air resistance, especially in hot summer evenings when there is little temperature difference and no wind.
  - danaris 1y ago

baranul 1y ago

Quality of life Index, Cost of Living Index, or Happiness Index would seem to be better for comparison, than just GDP.

rayiner 1y ago

I’m a Nordic-phile, but I took the OP to be more about global leadership.