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Comment by igorkraw | Hacker News Reader

If you can and aren't already, maybe consider organising with less privileged workers for things like striking in unison. Or getting politically active to grow economy and society so it will be kinder and allow a slip up.

One of the many reasons I would never move to the US is that in Europe I don't feel like a minor slip up or bad luck will send me into financial ruin. I'll need surgery on my shoulder soon and hopefully it should be fully covered by my health insurance, no added charges. It's an example that comes up again and again and I'm sure people in your position worry less about it, but it's something I keep seeing play a role with my acquaintances and online

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I moved from europe to the us because I could never become financially independent with the low compensation and high taxes in EU. I would never wish for us to ever be as unambitious and hard to grow as the eu is.

I think it’s quite possible to find a middle road there.

You would never wish it for those that achieve growth or for the people suffering homelessness, debt, precariousness, etc? My gut tells me we both have very different ideas on what ambition is/can be, what form of growth is valuable, and how economic liberalism weighs in.

Ethics aside, the taxes I've been paying out of my salary since I've been in the industry allows me today to benefit from an incredible financial safety net as I'm attempting to put together my own R&D software company.

On Europe vs. the US: if you consider private health insurance in the US a part of your taxes, then the difference is not that big anymore. In fact it may even be the other way around: in the US you may be overpaying for health services if you are insured [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/22/upshot/hospit...

A minor slip up doesn’t ruin people financially in the US the vast majority of the time. That’s why it’s a non-issue politically.

Your perspective of US life is just shaped by what they report on in the news/reddit/here/etc. Nobody reports on the people that live boring, comfortable lives.

I know enough US citizens personally that I can assure you, I'm aware of the correction that needs to be applied but consider that you might be underestimating how bad things are in the US because you are comfortable.

I personally would not want to live in that system. I am 29, debt free, with a university education from one of the countries top universities where I spend 1.5 years extra for an exchange and having needed hospitalisation multiple times in my life. This experience is something that, statistically, not many US citizens my age have (especially the debt freeness), and I have had enough interactions with exchange students who expressed genuine surprise I had no second thought of going to the hospital to appreciate this carefreeness over the benefits the US system might bring for people like me in the happy path.

But that's personal opinion of course.

Even if a minor slip up doesn't ruin you, the paperwork, hassle and the constant fear is ridiculous. That's no way to live a civilized life - and I say this as an American who has experienced better care even in third world countries.

If you have talent, show up, and a clean criminal record, you can make it in the US without a problem. There’s more money than talent, meaning if you have talent, there are people ready to give you plenty of money. It’s not hard in and of itself. It says something that many people’s problem in the US is getting in their own way. People in other places in the world have far less mobility opportunities than we have here. I’m thankful for that.

If you compare globally sure, if you compare with Europe, the data tells a different story. The US are 27th in social mobility behind all of the northwestern European nations with high taxation (data from the WEF, infographic from the site I link to).

While Germany and the other European nations are far from perfect and I like some of the business aspects of the US, coming from money matters more in the US than in Europe, statistically.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...

Very grateful for your notification of the existence of visualcapitalist.com (It also has RSS, though through an external provider)

I wanted to reciprocate revealing something along the lines, but apart from ourworldindata.org (which has a numeric approach instead of notional), I can only find the promising JunkChart, https://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/ , and The Economist's Graphic Detail, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail?page=1 , blogs.

Edit: the said branch of The Economist seems very promising: the latest article, "Just like modern humans, honeybees avoid each other amid plagues // They segregate behaviours in different parts of their hives to prevent parasites from spreading" as a stub shout heading reads «Social distan-sting». Thank you dear editor!

When "other places in the world" is mentioned, one need not imagine it refers to the non-applicable places. That seems a wasted effort.

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