Brandon H

@joeykatzen @cosmorxn A common-law system according strong deference to private property rights, an even more litigious culture than our Anglosphere counterparts, excessive & redundant permitting processes, lack of in-house design and engineering expertise, lack of economies of scale, and corruption.

@cosmorxn Why are we so bad at infrastructure then? The US is by far the worst first-world country at building moderninfrastructure affordably and at a decent pace.

I’m seeing this sentiment quite a bit, but I think it fundamentally misunderstands how people perceive wealth in the 21st century. Much of America’s wealth is effectively invisible. The country can lose billions through waste, inefficiency, or corruption and barely notice the impact (the Somali Minnesota daycare scandal is one example). Wealth is reflected less in visible infrastructure and more in things like high salaries, retirement security, and access to the world’s most advanced healthcare. Football fans aren’t necessarily going to be impressed by those things because they are difficult to see. Most Europeans have little idea how wealthy Americans actually are. Walking around New York, for example, they are likely to see cities that feel familiar in many ways: older buildings, historic neighbourhoods, and dense urban environments similar to European ones, albeit with more skyscrapers. Even the huge stadiums, while visually impressive, may strike some visitors as more extravagant than evidence of everyday prosperity. They are also going to use subways full of graffiti, crazy people, rats, and fare dodgers. A useful comparison is China. Someone visiting a Chinese city might come away thinking China is exceptionally wealthy because of its infrastructure: the modern airports, high-speed rail, and newly built urban areas (pictured). But they would be drawing conclusions from what is most visible rather than from the underlying reality. China remains significantly poorer than the United States on a per capita basis. In both cases, the average person is misled by what they see.

@JoeTCasey @cosmorxn

@cosmorxn Wealth in the us is a lie. Everyone is drowning in debt.

@l86_david @cosmorxn Debt is only relevant to the size of one's economy.

@cosmorxn Aren’t you the most in debt country on the planet?

@labs_yy @cosmorxn Comparing the respective youth unemployment and underemployment rates between the two countries, as well as the median graduate salaries and salary progression, I'd say it's significantly better. Not as many students pay sticker price as you attempt to portray.

@cosmorxn A US college costs 10X of a Chinese one, bit is it 10X better?

@ResidentOfSound @SunAndArtemis @BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn All modern market economies run on debt. Doesn't change the fact that net worth (assets - debt) is at record highs.

@SunAndArtemis @BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn It's all debt and wishful thinking

@huzai994 @BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn Any difference in "quality of life" metrics can be attributed almost entirely to the greater historical and present-day cultural/lifestyle heterogeneity among the US population. Europeans in the US live better lives than those back home.

@BrandonH228388 @BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn That's a different can of worms. But for as long as the welfare state is solvent Europeans live better lives than Americans.

@huzai994 @BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn It's getting very close to the point of insolvency for many countries. Paris is on the verge of a conflagration every time any minor pension reforms are proposed.

@truealfapacino @funandprofitco @AlecTorelli The US has always been vastly more heterogenous than any European country, and with that comes diversity in lifestyle preferences that impacts life expectancy. The average Italian immigrant to the US lives just as long as their counterpart back home and is far more prosperous.

@funandprofitco @AlecTorelli We have 10 times your quality of life in Italy. And die later than you do. Worry about your credit score, we don’t have one.

Pretty crazy that airport “bar” food in Italy is legit better quality than 98% of normal restaurants in the U.S. yet costs half the price.

@truealfapacino @funandprofitco @AlecTorelli Good luck affording your bloated welfare state with stagnant productivity growth and horrendous demographics. The music is coming to an end very soon and you simply don't realize it yet.

@mara_har @caesarsolidiv I like not having an Orwellian surveillance state where police show up at my front door for the most innocuous of remarks, where the government doesn't push for VPN bans, on-device scanning, and encryption backdoors.

@caesarsolidiv I lived in the USA for 7 years, and I couldn't wait to come back to the UK. I like food without 37 additives, safe schools, people interested in culture and more than just sports, who are well travelled, polite, and, above all, that have a sense of humour!

It is notable that the only Europeans who dunk on the US are the poor ones who can’t afford to come to the World Cup. Those guys all love it here. I’ve been to Europe many times. I don’t have anything bad to say about it. But if you take the average wanker who complains about our food or culture on X, just remember, he lives in a 12 square foot concrete bunker without air conditioning and his idea of a meal is a piece of toast and a cigarette.

@mara_har @caesarsolidiv I prefer housing that wasn’t shoddily built a century ago and neglected ever since, not having some of the highest electricity and natural gas prices in the world, stagnant real wages over the past two decades, and a technologically backward, overcrowded healthcare system.

@mara_har @Glazertwalker And yet far more people born in the UK live in the US than the others way around despite having a fifth the population. A 20x per-capita difference.

@Glazertwalker You're deluded. We lived for a few years in the USA, and we couldn't wait to come back to the UK. It's funny to see how you're all still brainwashed into thinking you live in some sort of heaven... 😂😂😂😂

Europeans will come back from the World Cup in the USA realising how poor their continent has become.

@RickyBo01773682 @AbbieSomething You've been in the grave for a decade fool.

@AbbieSomething Lol, they can see you circling the drain!! We all can!!

The one-sided beef Aussies have with the US is weird.

@BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn

@cosmorxn Stupid take. Most of American wealth is tied to debt (housing) and retirement plans that will draw down once the person retire. European do not need to accumulate money the way Americans do because they are already covered by the taxes they pay.

@janklp @UID_ And far less fiscal space to raise revenue.

@UID_ En om het echt angstig te maken. Percentage van de begroting dat naar rentebetalingen gaat. Dit ziet er echt anders uit in Europa. Eens met dat we daar flink achterlopen, maar in tegenstelling tot de US hebben we wel meer monetaire financiële slagkracht.

Ik heb de tank van mijn auto zojuist volgegooid voor $40 in Amerika. De Amerikaan heeft inmiddels bijna 2x zoveel te besteden als de Europeaan. Ik ga zo een MacBook Pro kopen voor $1549 die $2063 in Europa kost. En zal gretig gebruik maken van Siri dat in Europa niet gelanceerd zal worden vanwege beklemmende Europese regelgeving. Europa is een continent dat exponentieel in verval is geraakt en drastisch gemoderniseerd dient te worden. Vandaag, niet morgen.

@janklp @UID_ And yet the Eurozone has a far larger balance sheet relative to GDP.

@BarelyTrying92 @Mileistesfr Doubtful.

@Mileistesfr Americans discover the fact that any random European can afford 3 weeks vacations in the US

Les européens découvrent avec stupeur que les États-Unis sont réellement le pays le plus riche du monde.

@BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn This clearly isn't sustainable. Western EU governments are pretending like the music can keep playing forever, but they'll soon have to wake up to the harsh fiscal realities of stagnation.

@BarelyTrying92 @cosmorxn European wealth is tied to housing to a far greater extent, given lower ownership of equities.