> led me to think they pay way under market value in the UK.

This isn't true; you can look up their salaries - they're one of the best paying companies in the UK.

This is simply not true. Safety net provides basic amenities and not a desired or extravagant life style. And the United States is still one of the better countries in the world when it comes to social safety net. Those who have witnessed poverty and true inequalities around the world can attest to this.

Do Americans make uneducated and wrong choices? Yes, they do. Like any human being. Do Americans have inflated expectations of what is owed to them due to entitlement? Yes, they do. Are Americans manipulated and gaslit by politicians as are other citizens of the world? Yes, they are.

But we have plentiful and cheap food. Gas is cheaper than most countries in the world. Energy and connectivity is accessible to all. Some of the best tech and solutions that make the world a better place is exported from the United States. There is a social security program for the most vulnerable. But the greatest strength of United States is that the country offers opportunities and a chance to ascend socially/economically.

The best part is that the potential for America to become the best country in the world is literally limitless. Just rein in the politicians and get back to being being what we are good at…creating and managing capital for bettering the country and exporting the tech/know how.

We shouldn’t aspire to be Scandinavia or China or Europe. Often the romanticizing is about being old White Europe..which is embarrassing. It pretty much throws light on the demographic that is creating this narrative of America being deficient. This in turn has created a defensive resistance from other demographic sections of the population that doesn’t have Western European roots.

America has to stand on its own. (The only growth model we should follow/learn from..as should all nations in the world..is the Singapore Model. Lee Kuan Yew was a true visionary) And not try to emulate any other nation because no other country is close to our land mass size or population size. Or GDP. The list goes on. America cannot permit the turkeys bring the elephant down.

I have lived and worked for at least several years in both the US and the EU (and I am from an EU country). People in America like to portray everything as being better in Europe, but from my experience life there is fine and there are certainly some things that I prefer, but overall I think the quality of life for a middle class person in the US is noticeably higher.

People earning 400k tech salaries are probably fine though... ?

That's a separate issue, the difference in the social safety net is hardly relevant to the people who work at the data jobs that the article talks about.

I lived/worked in Israel (no US experience) and now live and work in Germany.

I would say European engineers are adequately priced relative to the value European companies are able to derive from their work. And FAANG are just matching the market.

It is mostly VC money or companies that need to pay that much to keep the best talent around (aka FAANGs). Most software engineers do not make 400k in the US. They just don't.