Americans who are able to get jobs in the tech industry do not have to worry about expensive healthcare, at all.
The US is very much a tale of two countries - but people here making a lot of money have a great quality of life.
The US is very much a tale of two countries - but people here making a lot of money have a great quality of life.
US is a great place in many aspects for top 1%, but progressively crappy as you move down the scale. And even good-earning IT worker is one long-term debilitating illness/accident away from financial catastrophe. Let's not forget completely fucked up US university system.
Overall, when I was young and relatively naive, US seemed a great place to be. Now that I have kids and seen the world a bit, I see it as one of the alternatives (to say Australia and New Zealand, compared to Europe), but with way too many issues, high criminality, us-vs-them mentality. Also the very obvious class system based on income/wealth, we don't have it here so pronounced which I consider much healthier.
One last point - we europeans generally (maybe except for UK) strongly disagree with all wars US is waging in past 30 years or so. Deaths of millions, misery for hundreds of millions for generations to come, pure evil for very little good. There is no way around this if you work in US - your taxes are directly supporting this, everybody a little. We hear a lot about voting with our money - well not living there is also that kind of vote. Passive resistance if you want.
The US isn't perfect. But the idea that it is this lawless wasteland that is terrible is just flat out wrong.
From the outside, America does not portray itself to be a particularly stable or desirable place to live.
In reality different people have different priorities, so no single country ever can be "the best", as that solely depends on the individual priorities.
It's also not like RT and Xinhua are making up the stuff they use to agitate against the US, like most propaganda it's usually based on at least a kernel of truth.
For example the US incarceration rate is a pretty blatant outlier, particularly among developed countries, a factual reality that clashes very harshly with the self-propagandized idea of "Country of the free". The regular "race riots" in the US, and their scale, are a clear indicator to still unresolved issues on that end.
Disregarding these as "It's only Russian/Chinese propaganda!" is exactly the kind of mindset that leaves these issues unresolved and tolerated as "normal".
[0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
> From the outside, America does not portray itself to be a particularly stable or desirable place to live.
In your opinion.
Again, it's better to be rich in the USA than in Europe, but it's way worse to be poor.
Basing anything on the horror stories will make you think everything is bad. Many americans think Europe is a communist hell hole where people steal your money through taxes overrun by islamists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
combined with that "one illness/accident away from the catastrophe."
I find the holier than thou attitude based on European insecurity quite entertaining. Europe is great - you don't have to denigrate other places. But don't doubt for a second how Europe got there - through colonial genocide.
I’m an American and my sentiments are based on watching what this country has done to my working class friends and family. I’m glad those things don’t happen to people in Europe.
> But not everyone agrees, and in our country, you have the right to disagree and vote for who you want.
Just about every parliamentary democracy in Europe is more representative than the American system and nowhere near as corrupt.
> But don't doubt for a second how Europe got there - through colonial genocide.
Quite familiar with that history, as well as our own of chattel slavery and the genocide of indigenous people.