I wanted to spend a few years working in Europe, where my grandparents came from. After searching around, I found TC there is generally laughable but COL is definitely not low. Why?
Same as in Canada.
Not only is TC low, taxes are insane. Agree with @pikachui, socialism, not in its most extreme sense but what people call “democratic socialism” which is socialism light. Massive social welfare programs mean massive taxes for employers/employees and everyone suffers. All these idiots espousing democratic socialism point to Scandinavian countries but the truth is individuals from these countries come here and do far better. Most of these countries made all their achievements under capitalism and have started to crumble under socialism lite and unfettered immigration of uneducated/unskilled individuals.
WTF are you talking about, Scandinavian countries routinely score on the top in terms of development and 'happiness' scores.
Yeah because they teach them since middle school to be happy through no daylight season and horrible weather. If they can be happy through that, they can be happy through socialism. Anyways, the OP was talking about TC, not happiness. So I dont see why you bring it up.
Disagree I was just recently on Spain and Portugal for holiday and drove around the country. The streets are super clean, the roads and infrastructure are in great shape (much better than in Seattle) and in ten days I never saw a homeless person or someone begging. You do see people who play guitar or do other things on the street. Go to SFO, NY or Seattle or any big us city and you see tons of garbage and homeless people. It's very simple, in western European countries they have veryarge safety nets with free health care, education, etc. And yes ymtaxes are very high. I'm personally happy to pay higher taxes if it will help people. So, the best deal is to earn in the us and then retire in Europe.
Socialism dude. There is no desire to rise about mediocrity. The actual value of tech is hence not reflected in salaries since people only view it as another profession. Also the European tech industry is very small compared to US or China mostly due to socialist regulations and culture. They rather spend lazy time on the beach
This
BS, maybe you’re talking about Spain/Portugal and Greece, but just for you to know - the rest of Europe thinks they only lie on the beach too.
All these people saying "socialism" are partially right, but not for the reasons they think. In European countries, you don't need to make such a huge income to maintain a decent standard of living. You don't need massive savings accounts in case you get cancer, for example. So the price that people are willing to exchange for their time and skills can be lower. Then there are market dynamics - not as many tech jobs in Europe => less demand for SWEs => less competition from employers.
I think this thread shows how massively uneducated many here are about Europe. Or social systems in general, for that matter.
“You don’t always get what you want...but if you try sometimes you just might find...you get what you need”. This is Europe in a nutshell. They have higher standards of living for 75% of the population compared to the US. Better infrastructure. Affordable education. Paid healthcare. Generous retirement benefits and paid leave. Heavy weight system of checks and balances. But people are more to content with the medium bucks, because of what else they get for their tax dollars. And home ownerships isn’t a major thing there. Most people rent and rent prices are more reasonable. This is why the cost of labor has a tight upper bound. Because you’re not worth more than what they pay. They will find someone else with similar skills to do the work. If you’re a typical middle class worker in the US and in Europe, you’ll find that what is paid for through your tax dollars is quite generous and would require you to earn more money in the states to cover. Add up the costs of things like childcare, healthcare, transportation, college, and eldercare/retirement, pension/retirement income. Europe isn’t that bad of a gig for most people. But for high earning folks like us, the US is better.
It just rewards mediocrity. The reason it can do so and tax high is because the US covers their défense
You’re going to have to convince them of that. I doubt you will. And I wouldn’t call the finished goods coming out of Europe mediocre. A sizable chuck of the electronics in an IPhone come from Various countries in Europe. Airbus planes aren’t mediocre compared to Boeing. German cars aren’t mediocre to US cars. Point of fact I prefer most European exports to domestic analogs simply because they’re better. I guess this isn’t what you mean by mediocrity...
They are already rich and don’t need to work as hard.
Socialism my friend. The government does the spending for you.
And what’s wrong with that when your tax is the same as in US? And you get healthcare and schools for that. Btw my tax in Switzerland is below 20% on average.
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Socialism
🙄 at least enough distant from the gun lovers
Gun violence happens most of the time in places where most people dont have guns.