# General Discussion > Opinions >  Is most of Europe poorer than the U.S.?

## Angela

See:

https://fee.org/articles/most-of-eur...united-states/
[IMG][/IMG]


Clearly, some countries are more variable, of course.

[IMG][/IMG]

In England, the high GDP seems to be the counties around London. How much of that is related to the financial markets? The same is true for southern Ireland, I think, i.e. financial markets.

France, it's just Paris, yes?

Scotland, Norway, oil?

Belgium, perhaps to some extent, the EU headquarters?

"As a quick caveat, it’s worth noting that there’s not a one-to-one link between gross domestic product and actual living standards. Some of the economic activity in energy-rich states such as North Dakota, for instance, translates into income for shareholders living elsewhere in America.But if you look at the US average ($54,629), it obviously is higher than economic output in European nations. And if you prefer direct measures of living standards, then data on consumption from the OECD also shows that America is considerably more prosperous.

None of this suggests that policy in America is ideal (it isn’t) or that European nations are failures (they still rank among the wealthiest places on the planet).
I’m simply making the modest — yet important — argument that Europeans would be more prosperous if the fiscal burden of government wasn’t so onerous. And I’m debunking the argument that we should copy nations such as Denmark by allowing a larger government in the United States (though I do want to copy Danish policies in other areas, which generally are more pro-economic libertythan what we have in America)."

He obviously has an axe to grind. Is there another side of the story?

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## Maciamo

Yes, in GDP per capita term, that is correct. But the US has such blatant inequalities that if you ignore the top 1% (who own 35% of the country's wealth), the average West Europeans are in fact richer than the average American. If you check the median wealth by adult, the USA ranks 25th worldwide. And that does not even take into account the generous social security, free or cheap healthcare and tertiary education in most of Europe. So statistics alone can be very misleading.

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## Angela

Good point. We do have a very large underclass, much larger than in Europe, some of it native born and some of it from immigrants.

This is interesting. Is there similar data available for Europe that could be converted to dollars?

[IMG][/IMG]

This is gross income, as well. Americans keep a lot more of their income because their taxes are much lower. Anyone* making under 50,000 pays no federal income tax, and payroll or withholding taxes for social services type things are quite low by European standards, as are sales taxes in comparison to VAT. 

I think to prove his point he'd have to do a much more in depth analysis, taking all these things into consideration, plus cost of living and on and on.

Ed. * A family of four...refers to effective tax rate.

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## elghund

People making less than $50,000 do pay federal income tax. Individuals earning less than $10,000 are still paying federal income tax. People making millions from the stock market don't pay federal income tax, but the vast majority of those actually working do.

2017 Federal Tax Rate Schedules
https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips...ules/L7Bjs1EAD

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## LeBrok

> People making less than $50,000 do pay federal income tax. Individuals earning less than $10,000 are still paying federal income tax. People making millions from the stock market don't pay federal income tax, but the vast majority of those actually working do.
> 
> 2017 Federal Tax Rate Schedules
> https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips...ules/L7Bjs1EAD


 I suggest, you make money on stock market too. What is holding you? Then, don't pay taxes on it and we'll see what happenes...

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## elghund

> I suggest, you make money on stock market too. What is holding you? Then, don't pay taxes on it and we'll see what happenes...


Basic necessities is what holds back most Americans from playing the stock market. Most wage earners are barely meeting their basic needs of shelter, food, utilities, security, medical, and transportation for work. A large percentage of people don't have the intellectual capacity and education to go about wisely investing in the stock market. Meanwhile, politicians and their puppeteers, like a pack of ravenous hyenas, want to privatize social security, so they can rob wage-earning Americans. I predict they will be successful doing this, and then the insatiable beasts will look for whomever's savings they can then consume.

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## Angela

You do indeed pay tax on money you make on the stock market. It's taxed twice, effectively, once when I earn the income, and then when whatever I've invested makes a profit. Then if it goes into my estate for my children it's taxed again. It's highway robbery.

I was speaking of income for a family of four. I have gone back to correct the sloppiness. 

Table 1
Maximum Income a Married Couple with Two Children Can Earn
and Yet Pay No Federal Income Tax, Assuming No Unusual Tax Situations
(Nominal and 2010 Dollars)






Including the 2008 stimulus checks;
maximum $1,200 for married couples,
plus $300 per child.
$55,583
$56,715

2009
Making-work-pay credit introduced;
maximum $800 for married couples
$50,233
$51,439

2010
(assuming no retroactive changes
made during 2010)
$50,250
$50,250




For individuals:
Table 2
Federal Individual Income Tax Returns with Zero or Negative Tax Liability

Then there are all the people who make so little they don't file. 

2006
138,394,754
45,681,047
33.0%

2007
143,030,461
46,655,760
32.6%

2008
142,350,256
51,631,917
36.3%


https://taxfoundation.org/record-num...s-making-over/
See also:
[IMG][/IMG]

You'd have to factor in state and local taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, etc. to get a real picture, and then purchasing power for that amount of money. Health insurance could be added in for everyone who has it? Medicaid for a lot of those who don't?

This one is interesting too. No wonder so many multi-millionaires move to Switzerland. I wonder if New Zealand has the same policies as Australia. A lot of those people do that. I started hearing about that ten years ago. I also think that supposedly the wind currents mean it wouldn't be as affected in case of some disaster.

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## bicicleur

> Basic necessities is what holds back most Americans from playing the stock market. Most wage earners are barely meeting their basic needs of shelter, food, utilities, security, medical, and transportation for work. A large percentage of people don't have the intellectual capacity and education to go about wisely investing in the stock market. Meanwhile, politicians and their puppeteers, like a pack of ravenous hyenas, want to privatize social security, so they can rob wage-earning Americans. I predict they will be successful doing this, and then the insatiable beasts will look for whomever's savings they can then consume.


indeed, making big money on the stock market is for the happy few who have the right capacities and mindset
the same goes for top sporters, movie stars and entertainers

if you don't make it on the stock market, maybe you could try top sport or to become a movie star
good luck


I think those on the stock markets pay the most taxes of all these categories

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## bicicleur

it is hard to compare US with EU incomes

EU has a big social and medical security system - sometimes to big - which America lacks
Americans work many more hours than the average European
and then there are regional differences inside EU and inside US

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## Maciamo

> Good point. We do have a very large underclass, much larger than in Europe, some of it native born and some of it from immigrants.


Looking at this chart, the American underclass appears to be really huge. 



50% of American households have a total wealth (including house, cars, savings, etc.) of less than $100,000. That's close to poverty as it means they most probably do not own their own house/apartment. In contrast 96% of Romanians own their home, despite having low income. In fact, the USA has one of the lowest home ownership rate (64.5%) in the developed world. 

25% of American households own less than $10,000. That's pretty much destitute. 

I found a similar chart for the UK (figure 3), which has one of the most unequal wealth distribution in Western and Northern Europe, and it shows that at the 50th percentile people have a household wealth of £259,000, which is $340,000 at the current exchange rate due to the unusually low value of the GBP at present, but more like $400,000 in normal times. You have to go up the 70th percentile in the US to reach this level of wealth. Similarly, at the 90th percentile American households own $1,186,000, which is approximately £625,000, what in the UK is found at the 75th percentile. Where Americans catch up is at the 99% percentile, where household wealth shoots up above $10 million, against "only" about $4 million in the UK. So it's really the very rich who pull up all the wealth data upward in the USA. Otherwise most of the population is poorer than in Northwestern Europe. 

OECD stats also show that the USA has the highest ration of people living in poverty (17.8%) among developed countries. In Central and Northern Europe it is between 5 and 10%.





> This is interesting. Is there similar data available for Europe that could be converted to dollars?


Pew Research compare the share of lower, middle and upper classes by country in a very comprehensive study (13 pages) last year. They found that the USA had the smallest middle class and the largest lower and upper classes in all countries surveyed.




Even when taking the US median income to define middle class boundaries, West European countries (except Italy, Spain and oddly Britain) still had larger middle classes than the US.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> See:
> 
> https://fee.org/articles/most-of-eur...united-states/
> [IMG][/IMG]
> 
> 
> Clearly, some countries are more variable, of course.
> 
> [IMG][/IMG]
> ...


iTs obvious! USA is a lot richer than any separate country of Europe, or Europe in general. As it stands right now USA with 320 people, produces the same as EU with 520 million people, roughly 21 trillion dollars each. So for every dollar one makes in European union, in USA the person makes 2. I THINK Usa will remain the wealthiest country for at least 100 years to come.

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## Maciamo

Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.

According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant. 

This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).

So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.

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## Yetos

hmmm

I wonder if we compare the USA state by state,
and EU state by state
what results we also get?

and offcourse prices/cost for life,
for example the price of bread in N Orleanes and NY, and in London and Talin

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> hmmm
> 
> I wonder if we compare the USA state by state,
> and EU state by state
> what results we also get?
> 
> and offcourse prices/cost for life,
> for example the price of bread in N Orleanes and NY, and in London and Talin


There was such a comparison in 2015. England the richest country in Europe had incomes as much as Mississippi, the purest state of USA.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.
> 
> According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant. 
> 
> This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).
> 
> So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.


STILL, all the foreign rich people in USA dont have a quarter of what Bezos have. Jeff as we speak right now t stands at 164 billion dollars. And thats rich

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## Angela

> indeed, making big money on the stock market is for the happy few who have the right capacities and mindset
> the same goes for top sporters, movie stars and entertainers
> 
> if you don't make it on the stock market, maybe you could try top sport or to become a movie star
> good luck
> 
> 
> I think those on the stock markets pay the most taxes of all these categories


That's not how it works here. Corporate pension funds and pensions for government employees are invested in the equity markets (i.e. teachers, police, as well as bureaucrats). Even small companies, service companies, provide pensions with funds invested in the markets, usually not individual stocks, but mutual funds, government bonds etc., for safety). Then, people who save even small amounts of money invest in mutual funds. Banks offer them. That's not to mention that many companies offer stock options to their employees. 

A very large percentage of the American population is invested in the market either directly or indirectly. Basically, if you have a decent job you're invested in the market, even if not directly.

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## Angela

> Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.
> 
> According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant. 
> 
> This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).
> 
> So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.


I don't think 42 out of 400 is such a large number. The vast majority are native born Americans. 

The size of the underclass is indeed large, and it's never going to get smaller, I fear. Most of these people just don't have the skills to prosper in modern America and I don't believe the happy talk that they can be "trained" or re-trained. The introduction of even more automation, driverless cars and trucks, etc. is just going to make things worse. 

If, however, you have an education and real skills, and are willing to work, I think it's clear that economically you're much better off in the U.S. in terms of real after tax income and purchasing power.

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## Salento

USA is a dynamic society, opportunities are there for the taking if you really want to.
A driven INDIVIDUAL can easily prosper, re-invent him/herself when needed, and is able to live a dignified life.
imo 50% of the poor in the US, are poor for being static (Lazy), unwilling to move where the jobs are and afraid of change. The other 50% have health issues, addiction or mental problems.
If you expect Social Perks don’t come to America, you’ll be disappointed. 
If you are a driven Individual: You’ll Love it here! :)

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## davef

> I don't think 42 out of 400 is such a large number. The vast majority are native born Americans. 
> 
> The size of the underclass is indeed large, and it's never going to get smaller, I fear. Most of these people just don't have the skills to prosper in modern America and I don't believe the happy talk that they can be "trained" or re-trained. The introduction of even more automation, driverless cars and trucks, etc. is just going to make things worse. 
> 
> If, however, you have an education and real skills, and are willing to work, I think it's clear that economically you're much better off in the U.S. in terms of real after tax income and purchasing power.


cant say they all can't be trained to land a good job.

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## Angela

> USA is a dynamic society, opportunities are there for the taking if you really want to.
> A driven INDIVIDUAL can easily prosper, re-invent him/herself when needed, and is able to live a dignified life.
> imo 50% of the poor in the US, are poor for being static (Lazy), unwilling to move where the jobs are and afraid of change. The other 50% have health issues, addiction or mental problems.
> If you expect Social Perks don’t come to America, you’ll be disappointed. 
> If you are a driven Individual: You’ll Love it here! :)


You don't have to be a superstar to have a better life economically here: a teacher, a cop, someone with a good job in tech, a nurse, a good electrician or plumber, etc. 

The problem is that all kids are shoved into college prep courses, and they're not all capable of succeeding at those kinds of courses. I don't care how much you torture them with after school time, year long school etc. they're not going to be up to it. That's why you have this big bloc of recruited students in colleges and universitites who are still there six or seven years later, still incapable of graduating. They form a big percentage of the idiots making a mockery of our higher education system with their protests about cultural appropriation, triggering and associated insanities. 

America has to come to grips with the fact that all people should be and are equal in front of the law, but all of them are not equal in terms of IQ. A European type system of technical schools would help immensely, get them off welfare, and raise their standard of living. 

As it is now, a lot of people aren't capable of more than minimum wage jobs in fast food restaurants etc.

That would still leave those who really don't have the mental capacity to do the jobs that will be left after automation really takes hold, the ill, the addicted to drugs or alcohol and, as you say, the lazy.

As to the last thing, that's why so often foreign born people do better than some native born Americans. Look at the Haitians, or the South Asian farmers and fishing folk who were brought here after Vietnam etc. They haven't gotten used to being on public assistance generation after generation.

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## firetown

> 


I am not sure why they have decided to leave out Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands and Iceland and started with number 7 for Europe just to do what? Make a point? Since the data is from 2014, Norway would have been number 7 on this list. Luxembourg number 1. Ireland has since taken over the number 2 spot for Europe from Norway.


Home ownership appears to be surprisingly low in Western and Northern Europe with the exception of Norway topping it with 82.8%.


According to the QLI, Norway is also up there. 

Why even bother posting something so incomplete and so ultimately misleading?

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## Angela

I didn't check the data myself, relying on the fact that it came from the world bank. Perhaps I should have. 

Let's examine it, however. Luxembourg has fewer than 600,000 people and is small geographically as well. If I were better at computer graphics and were to lay it over an area going from, say, Darien Connecticut and stretching over to Westchester, how much do you want to bet that 100,000 or so would be chicken feed in comparison? Greenwich, Connecticut, alone has an average income per year of 415,000/yr. 
http://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ss...155e8e6384.jpg

Take a look at other wealthy zip codes. 

That leaves us with Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland. 

Switzerland benefits from all that money legally invested and illegally hidden there. 

If we're going to include havens for money, how about Monaco? :)

I'll grant you Norway. Like South Dakota it makes a lot of money from fossil fuels and doesn't have a huge underclass. Also low in population. Still comes in 7th. 

That leaves Ireland. 

"Anyway, in the case of Ireland, the measurement of GDP is significantly distorted by the composition of the Irish economy, whose measurement is particularly volatile due to the corporate tax policy of the country, and how GDP is measured. If you took the numbers at face value, it's GDP grew by 26.3% in 2015 (FT, 2016) which is hilarious. If you actually dig into why the statistic is that way, you'll notice that it stems from multinationals domiciling their assets in Ireland (be it IP, planes to be leased to airlines and corporate tax inversions). As these capital assets are now "Irish", the numerator in the GDP PPP per Capita calculation balloons, even after how you adjust for cost of living, and when you combine it with Ireland's low population you have a high GDP PPP per Capita. 

Does this actually reflect living standards in Ireland? Probably not. Those planes, corporations etc. don't really have anything to do with Ireland (little to no local employment for these assets, proportionally low level of tax paid so doesn't generate a lot of tax revenue for the government to spend on services etc.), Ireland is just where they're registered. Hence their GDP measurements are particularly quirky to the point of uselessness."

It all totally makes sense. Still lots of illegal Irish immigrants here. 

So, each country has to be looked at individually. None of those you mentioned are a good comparison. 

Even in general, comparisons between these tiny in population and until now homogeneous, highly education countries are not meaningful.

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## LeBrok

> Home ownership appears to be surprisingly low in Western and Northern Europe with the exception of Norway topping it with 82.8%.


If I'm not mistaken, home ownership includes apartments too, not just single family houses. Very roughly speaking, in cities and towns in Europe 80% people own apartments, 20% own single family homes, in America it is reversed 80% own single family homes, 20% apartments.

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## ToBeOrNotToBe

> See:
> 
> https://fee.org/articles/most-of-eur...united-states/
> [IMG][/IMG]
> 
> 
> Clearly, some countries are more variable, of course.
> 
> [IMG][/IMG]
> ...


In England, it is mostly related to financial markets, around London of course. Ireland is due to it being a tax haven for corporations.

But in America, despite the MUCH larger class divide than anywhere in Europe (though here in the UK we have a pretty big one), there is hugely better economic mobility, which definitely lends itself well to greater overall wealth. Also, almost all large companies will have some form of headquarters in America.

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## Maciamo

> If I'm not mistaken, home ownership includes apartments too, not just single family houses. Very roughly speaking, in cities and towns in Europe 80% people own apartments, 20% own single family homes, in America it is reversed 80% own single family homes, 20% apartments.


I found the statistics by country on Eurostat. There are huge variations between countries. The Benelux is more like the US, with about 20% of apartments vs 80% of houses. The UK and Ireland have even less apartments. Overall Europeans live more in houses than in apartments. Only in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece), Germany and the three Baltic states, but it is barely above 50% and nowhere near 80%.




It's also interesting to compare the percentage of owners who have a mortgage or loan vs those who completely own their home. In that regard, many of the former Soviet-bloc countries have extremely high full home ownership. 95% of Romanians and 85% of Croatians completely own their home without a loan to repay, while only 10% of Dutch people and 5% of Swiss do. High salaries are one thing, but if you have to spend a big part of your salary either paying back a loan or renting your home, there is much less disposable income left.

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## bicicleur

> It's also interesting to compare the percentage of owners who have a mortgage or loan vs those who completely own their home. In that regard, many of the former Soviet-bloc countries have extremely high full home ownership. 95% of Romanians and 85% of Croatians completely own their home without a loan to repay, while only 10% of Dutch people and 5% of Swiss do. High salaries are one thing, but if you have to spend a big part of your salary either paying back a loan or renting your home, there is much less disposable income left.


house prices are highly influenced by regulations
in Belgium and neighbouring countries scarcity is created by reducing the areas on which houses can be built

furthermore, house prices are simply calculated by what an average couple with double income can pay on a 20 years loan with current intrest rates,
that is what the market is aligned to

the higher the average income and the lower intrest rates, the higher house prices become

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## Angela

> If I'm not mistaken, home ownership includes apartments too, not just single family houses. Very roughly speaking, in cities and towns in Europe 80% people own apartments, 20% own single family homes, in America it is reversed 80% own single family homes, 20% apartments.



It's the difference in the sizes of the dwellings, both houses and apartments, that always strikes me as I go back and forth (well, unless you're living in NYC), as your chart shows.  I know that in Italy a major factor is the cost of heating, never mind air conditioning.

Another factor is their virtual mania for not enlarging the overall human footprint. It drives me mad. I was seriously toying with the idea of buying a country property, which no one wants, by the way, with an abandoned farmhouse. Every single one I found that I liked could only have the square meters footprint on the ground of the original farmhouse. You could built up but not out. What possible difference could it have made when you're on acres?

It affected my family too. My distant cousin still has a lot of land. She wanted to build a house for her two children on it. Couldn't do it. So she had to tack on two floors to her own house, making it effectively a three unit apartment house. 

In a lot of places the rules are that you can't change the outside of old buildings for historical reasons. Look, the houses used to be plastered. They weathered when they were abandoned. Why the hell can't you plaster them again?

It's madness in my opinion.

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## LeBrok

[QUOTE=Maciamo;553546]I found the statistics by country on Eurostat. There are huge variations between countries. The Benelux is more like the US, with about 20% of apartments vs 80% of houses. The UK and Ireland have even less apartments. Overall Europeans live more in houses than in apartments. Only in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece), Germany and the three Baltic states, but it is barely above 50% and nowhere near 80%.


I ment only cities, metropolitan areas. Europe doesn't have suburbs like american cities. Otherwise it depends where populatin live. If a country has more rural population like Bulgaria or Romania, then most will live in their own homes. There are no apartment buildings in a village.

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## LeBrok

> It's the difference in the sizes of the dwellings, both houses and apartments, that always strikes me as I go back and forth (well, unless you're living in NYC), as your chart shows.  I know that in Italy a major factor is the cost of heating, never mind air conditioning.
> 
> Another factor is their virtual mania for not enlarging the overall human footprint. It drives me mad. I was seriously toying with the idea of buying a country property, which no one wants, by the way, with an abandoned farmhouse. Every single one I found that I liked could only have the square meters footprint on the ground of the original farmhouse. You could built up but not out. What possible difference could it have made when you're on acres?
> 
> It affected my family too. My distant cousin still has a lot of land. She wanted to build a house for her two children on it. Couldn't do it. So she had to tack on two floors to her own house, making it effectively a three unit apartment house. 
> 
> In a lot of places the rules are that you can't change the outside of old buildings for historical reasons. Look, the houses used to be plastered. They weathered when they were abandoned. Why the hell can't you plaster them again?
> 
> It's madness in my opinion.


I agree, this is craziness. Too strict regulations will lead to abandonment and ruin of many villages. It is not that population of Europe will double anytime soon. ;)

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## bicicleur

> I agree, this is craziness. Too strict regulations will lead to abandonment and ruin of many villages. It is not that population of Europe will double anytime soon. ;)


yes, but population density in Europe is much higher than in America
you have much more space over there

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## Angela

> yes, but population density in Europe is much higher than in America
> you have much more space over there


That's probably a factor I didn't mention: land cost, in addition to heating costs, but I wonder if the building materials themselves are more expensive. 

Clearly, houses in the suburbs of New York City or Boston are expensive, but they're still not as expensive as similar sized homes in Europe, while in most states, you can get three times the house that you could get in Europe for the same price. 

In my rural area of Italy, really far from major shopping, theaters, far from train stations, highways and airports, this is what you get for 250,000 Euro:
https://www.gate-away.com/property_detail.php?id=375926


In Venice, Florida, a beautiful town with all the conveniences of modern life, close to the beach, close to highways, airport etc., this is what you get for 50,000 dollars more. It includes the Club pool, tennis courts and probably exercise room. 
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...ect/10_zm/3_p/

It's mind boggling.

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## bicicleur

> That's probably a factor I didn't mention: land cost, in addition to heating costs, but I wonder if the building materials themselves are more expensive. 
> 
> Clearly, houses in the suburbs of New York City or Boston are expensive, but they're still not as expensive as similar sized homes in Europe, while in most states, you can get three times the house that you could get in Europe for the same price. 
> 
> In my rural area of Italy, really far from major shopping, theaters, far from train stations, highways and airports, this is what you get for 250,000 Euro:
> https://www.gate-away.com/property_detail.php?id=375926
> 
> 
> In Venice, Florida, a beautiful town with all the conveniences of modern life, close to the beach, close to highways, airport etc., this is what you get for 50,000 dollars more. It includes the Club pool, tennis courts and probably exercise room. 
> ...


it's hard to judge real estate just from pics
but yes, I'd go for Venice, Florida

by the way, did you know Verhofstad, the Belgian ex-prime minister who now is in the EU parlement and can give very emotional speeches there about European values has a large estate and is producing olive oil in Tuscany, all of it subsidised with EU money?
that is the way to go
the EU values are for us, and the money is for him and his colleages

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## bicicleur

as for building materials, aren't more houses in the US built from wood, while in Europe they are almost allways from stone?
I have the impression European houses are more solid

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## Salento

> as for building materials, aren't more houses in the US built from wood, while in Europe they are almost allways from stone?
> I have the impression European houses are more solid


Most modern home in Europe are not made of Stone, are made of Cylinder Blocks and concrete.
Most modern concrete last 30 years or so. After that the steel will rust and degrade.
Pro and Con.
In the north and center of the US Most homes are made of wood, toward the Southwest and Desert not so much.

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## firetown

Imbalance and confusion kick in when Western Europeans travel to countries where their money has more buying power. I have seen it a lot in Eastern Europe where Western Europeans travel and are able to afford a nice vacation which they couldn't in their own country. Many save all year for it and then are able to enjoy things for a month. Only problem: In their own country they are often deep in debt and their lifestyle doesn't allow much and people in the countries they visit have a much better lifestyle than they do in their own countries.




> I found the statistics by country on Eurostat. There are huge variations between countries. The Benelux is more like the US, with about 20% of apartments vs 80% of houses. The UK and Ireland have even less apartments. Overall Europeans live more in houses than in apartments. Only in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece), Germany and the three Baltic states, but it is barely above 50% and nowhere near 80%.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's also interesting to compare the percentage of owners who have a mortgage or loan vs those who completely own their home. In that regard, many of the former Soviet-bloc countries have extremely high full home ownership. 95% of Romanians and 85% of Croatians completely own their home without a loan to repay, while only 10% of Dutch people and 5% of Swiss do. High salaries are one thing, but if you have to spend a big part of your salary either paying back a loan or renting your home, there is much less disposable income left.

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## firetown

Financial obligations is a factor often ignored. In the US they are sometimes huge. But also we should measure opportunities. It is one thing to own a home fully, but not have too many opportunities to step things up. In the US, we have huge levels of opportunities. But not as much of a safety net as in Western Europe.




> I found the statistics by country on Eurostat. There are huge variations between countries. The Benelux is more like the US, with about 20% of apartments vs 80% of houses. The UK and Ireland have even less apartments. Overall Europeans live more in houses than in apartments. Only in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece), Germany and the three Baltic states, but it is barely above 50% and nowhere near 80%.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's also interesting to compare the percentage of owners who have a mortgage or loan vs those who completely own their home. In that regard, many of the former Soviet-bloc countries have extremely high full home ownership. 95% of Romanians and 85% of Croatians completely own their home without a loan to repay, while only 10% of Dutch people and 5% of Swiss do. High salaries are one thing, but if you have to spend a big part of your salary either paying back a loan or renting your home, there is much less disposable income left.

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## Maciamo

> Financial obligations is a factor often ignored. In the US they are sometimes huge. But also we should measure opportunities. It is one thing to own a home fully, but not have too many opportunities to step things up. In the US, we have huge levels of opportunities. But not as much of a safety net as in Western Europe.


What kind of opportunities for example?

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## firetown

In Europe it is for example much harder to move up in the pay scale unless you have a degree. In the US, if you are a hard worker, it is literally possible to go from part-time clerk to district manager if you work hard. Regardless of what your education level and degree might be.



> What kind of opportunities for example?

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## Angela

Credit for starting up a country is much easier to obtain, also, although things aren't as good as when he came to America.

Eighteen months after arriving, having found an Italian American partner who had some experience and could translate for him (and whom out of loyalty he then carried for decades), he got a start up loan with no collateral other than his skill, job history and character. Oh, and without a university degree, either. 

Within five years he was employing hundreds and hundreds of people. That couldn't have happened where he came from minus an education and connections, either legit or criminal.

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## Piro Ilir

I can't tell much, but there's something for sure; if you want to make money, USA is the right place. Forged about Europe or EU. My compatriots whom migrated into USA, generally bought two houses. While these working in Europe in the best case bought only one house. USA , and generally north America is the best.

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## Piro Ilir

> Credit for starting up a country is much easier to obtain, also, although things aren't as good as when he came to America.
> Eighteen months after arriving, having found an Italian American partner who had some experience and could translate for him (and whom out of loyalty he then carried for decades), he got a start up loan with no collateral other than his skill, job history and character. Oh, and without a university degree, either. 
> Within five years he was employing hundreds and hundreds of people. That couldn't have happened where he came from minus an education and connections, either legit or criminal.


Forged about Europe. USA it's the land of freedom. All the rest it's just far leftist propaganda. Please , keep USA as it already is. Don't change it into something like Europe.

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## Angela

> I can't tell much, but there's something for sure; if you want to make money, USA is the right place. Forged about Europe or EU. My compatriots whom migrated into USA, generally bought two houses. While these working in Europe in the best case bought only one house. USA , and generally north America is the best.


Interesting that you mentioned houses. I hired a Portuguese woman "right off the boat", as we say, to help with the housework and child care because I worked even after my children were born. She lived in so she could save every dime of her salary. She also used the time to learn English, and get her driver's license. After six years, she got married, literally out of my house, and my son was her ring bearer at the wedding. Her husband is a stone mason and all around construction worker. With her saved money they bought a rather dilapidated two family house. She cleaned two houses a day five days a week for money even after her daughter was born (another Portuguese woman looked after five children for her and other women in the community). The money she made they used for construction supplies while they lived on his salary. Part of the reason it worked is because we keep more of our salary because we pay lower taxes. Weekends and nights they both worked on the house. Eventually, they lived in one flat and rented out the other, so they were living rent free. Using that house as collateral, they got a loan to buy another house, and eventually another, all of which they also fixed up and rented. I tell her that she's going to become a real estate mogul. :)This is a woman from a farm in Portugal where she was still washing clothes at an outdoor water trough, and didn't make it past the basic required education level. Her daughter goes to a Catholic school and is doing very well. Last year she had a house built in Portugal where she installed her parents and where she goes on vacation, although she tells me she'll never go back there to live. Frankly, I think she also wanted to stick it in the eye of all those people who had always looked down on them. 

Given the difficulty of getting credit for people like her in Europe, and the unbelievable regulations when you build and rent out property, this would never have been possible for her if she hadn't left. According to her, neither would she and her husband ever have gotten the respect they do here. 

Instead of Europe wanting to become more like the U.S. in terms of an economic system, I see people wanting to change it into Europe. I don't get it. Imo, it's not logical. If you have some intelligence, have any skills at all, are not afraid of hard work, aren't an alcoholic or druggie or gambler or suffering from mental illness, you can't beat it for economic opportunity, and nobody gives a darn about the pedigree of your parents or grandparents. As my Dad told the loan officer, what I have as collateral is my hands and what's in my brain. It will be enough, I promise you. It was.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> Interesting that you mentioned houses. I hired a Portuguese woman "right off the boat", as we say, to help with the housework and child care because I worked even after my children were born. She lived in so she could save every dime of her salary. She also used the time to learn English, and get her driver's license. After six years, she got married, literally out of my house, and my son was her ring bearer at the wedding. Her husband is a stone mason and all around construction worker. With her saved money they bought a rather dilapidated two family house. She cleaned two houses a day five days a week for money even after her daughter was born (another Portuguese woman looked after five children for her and other women in the community). The money she made they used for construction supplies while they lived on his salary. Part of the reason it worked is because we keep more of our salary because we pay lower taxes. Weekends and nights they both worked on the house. Eventually, they lived in one flat and rented out the other, so they were living rent free. Using that house as collateral, they got a loan to buy another house, and eventually another, all of which they also fixed up and rented. I tell her that she's going to become a real estate mogul. :)This is a woman from a farm in Portugal where she was still washing clothes at an outdoor water trough, and didn't make it past the basic required education level. Her daughter goes to a Catholic school and is doing very well. Last year she had a house built in Portugal where she installed her parents and where she goes on vacation, although she tells me she'll never go back there to live. Frankly, I think she also wanted to stick it in the eye of all those people who had always looked down on them. 
> 
> Given the difficulty of getting credit for people like her in Europe, and the unbelievable regulations when you build and rent out property, this would never have been possible for her if she hadn't left. According to her, neither would she and her husband ever have gotten the respect they do here. 
> 
> Instead of Europe wanting to become more like the U.S. in terms of an economic system, I see people wanting to change it into Europe. I don't get it. Imo, it's not logical. If you have some intelligence, have any skills at all, are not afraid of hard work, aren't an alcoholic or druggie or gambler or suffering from mental illness, you can't beat it for economic opportunity, and nobody gives a darn about the pedigree of your parents or grandparents. As my Dad told the loan officer, what I have as collateral is my hands and what's in my brain. It will be enough, I promise you. It was.


dear Angela! USA has still some advantages compared to Europe like lower population density and virgin lands. When USA brings a lot of skilled Indians and the population density rises Americans also will have fewer houses. American way of life is unsustainable f for all the world. European way of life is more sustainable so Europe will be there for s long time

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## Gnarl

A few points:

1) The notion that opportunity is greater in the US is not fact-based. The US and the UK together has the lowest social mobility in the western world. I don't have enough posts to include references, but a quick google of social mobility and countries should provide facts. Also, the Economist in feb 2018 had a interesting article on how people in the US overestimate their ability to move up more than any other nation. Better social mobility in the US is a bit of a national myth.

2) The original post just compares GDPs. In addition to the good points made about how this is pulled up by the super-rich and the median doing worse than most of Europe, people have different expenses. It is more relevant to compare GDPs between nations with roughly similar social benefits. The average family in the US pays 12 000 $ for health insurance. (in GDP terms it is irrelevant if the money is paid out of pocket or subtracted from wages. The citizens are not seeing it anyway). Americans also have to consider things like college for their kids, pensions etc, which may be free or included in some European countries. The larger expenses here will have an impact on a persons finances.

3) My experience is that the notion that personal taxes are so much lower in the US is a myth. Its just spread out over more taxes. My experience of life in Norway and the US is that you pay much the same total taxes. Other European nations may look different, I understand that Denmark has very high taxes. But that does mean there are considerable variation in Europe.

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## Angela

I'm not going to go over all of this again, or all of the deceptive statistics and flawed social science studies. In case you haven't heard, the social sciences and even economics are undergoing a huge replication crisis in terms of lots of studies, because left wing politics hijacked science. We've covered it extensively here and elsewhere. 

Talk to me when a huge percentage of your population is an underclass like ours, with all the problems that they have, including drug and alcohol addiction. I never said everyone in American society can prosper and move up the latter economically. A lot of people are incapable of it, for various reasons, and the more automation takes hold, the more of them there will be. All any government can try to provide is equal opportunity; it can't guarantee equal outcomes. 

Also, the health insurance benefits most people get through their employer aren't computed as part of their salaries. (As for employee contributions, I've never contributed a penny in my life toward it) That's part of your total "package", not your total income or salary, and the "dollar value" of your health insurance doesn't go onto your IRS form, which is where the gross and net salaries for these studies are culled. That's all untaxed "extra" income. 

I'm sorry, but there is no comparison between these small, homogenous societies and the U.S.

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## Maciamo

> I'm not going to go over all of this again, or all of the deceptive statistics and flawed social science studies. In case you haven't heard, the social sciences and even economics are undergoing a huge replication crisis in terms of lots of studies, because left wing politics hijacked science. We've covered it extensively here and elsewhere. 
> 
> Talk to me when a huge percentage of your population is an underclass like ours, with all the problems that they have, including drug and alcohol addiction. I never said everyone in American society can prosper and move up the latter economically. A lot of people are incapable of it, for various reasons, and the more automation takes hold, the more of them there will be. All any government can try to provide is equal opportunity; it can't guarantee equal outcomes. 
> 
> Also, the health insurance benefits most people get through their employer aren't computed as part of their salaries. (As for employee contributions, I've never contributed a penny in my life toward it) That's part of your total "package", not your total income or salary, and the "dollar value" of your health insurance doesn't go onto your IRS form, which is where the gross and net salaries for these studies are culled. That's all untaxed "extra" income. 
> 
> I'm sorry, but there is no comparison between these small, homogenous societies and the U.S.


I think that the misunderstanding comes from the fact that there are many different societies, cultures and systems in Europe. Italy and Norway are vastly different in many regards. Tax rates and socio-economic opportunities vary a lot between countries.

Tax rates in the USA can vary a lot between states too. According to this Wikipedia list of countries by tax rates, the maximum tax rate in the USA is 51.8% (max federal tax of 37% + max state tax of 13.3% + max city tax o 1.5%). That's higher that the highest rate in all European countries except for Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. For example the highest tax rate in Italy is 43%, while in the UK, France and Spain it is 45%. Generally poorer countries have lower tax rate (although there are exceptions). The developing word has very low tax rates. Even in Europe the lowest rates are found in countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia (all with a max rate of only 10%).

The Economist explained that Americans overestimate social mobility based on a study comparing actual vs perceived social mobility. In contrast, Europeans underestimated their capacity to move up the social ladder. That is why Americans typically boast of the 'American Dream' and the land of opportunities, but the data shows that Americans are in fact more likely than West Europeans to remain poor if born poor, and Americans also have less chances to moving from the bottom quintile to the top quintile during their life time. 

Once again, there are variations within Europe. The OECD did a in-depth study of Intergenerational Social Mobility across OECD Countries and found that the extent to which sons’ earnings levels reflect those of their fathers (low social mobility) was highest in the UK, Italy and the USA, all three with a correlation of nearly 0.5 (out of 1). It was much lower (high social mobility) in Denmark, Austria, Norway and Finland - all under 0.2 (see page 5).

Of all OECD countries, the influence of parental background on student achievement in secondary education was the highest in the USA (page 8). They didn't do the same for tertiary education, but it is obvious that the USA is the most unequal society in this regard, given the extremely high cost of American universities. Both in the UK and the USA going to expensive private secondary schools strongly favours admission to prestigious universities, which in turn usually guarantees higher salaries. This system perpetrates the status quo and discourages social mobility.

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## firetown

> The Economist explained that Americans overestimate social mobility based on a study comparing actual vs perceived social mobility. In contrast, Europeans underestimated their capacity to move up the social ladder. That is why Americans typically boast of the 'American Dream' and the land of opportunities, but the data shows that Americans are in fact more likely than West Europeans to remain poor if born poor, and Americans also have less chances to moving from the bottom quintile to the top quintile during their life time.


So why do you think that Americans and Europeans feel so differently about their opportunities? Name a worldwide celebrated European success story other than Royalty.

There will never be a European Bill Gates, Amazon.com, Google etc. Europeans tend to be workers, not entrepreneurs. If you reach a certain success level, you wind up paying more than 50% taxes in much of Europe. 

Even if in the US many don't move up, at least there are doors open. Europe has limits. Limits how low you can fall and how high you can rise. America has less limits. But overall, it is why the US is THE nation of nations. I don't care how many people try to say it isn't. The system works and produces opportunities and mobility. It doesn't mean everyone takes advantage of it. But it does mean that if you really put effort into something, you can get something back and not wind up paying more than half in taxes at one point to make sure that everyone feels safe regardless of what they are doing with their lives.

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## Maciamo

> So why do you think that Americans and Europeans feel so differently about their opportunities? Name a worldwide celebrated European success story other than Royalty.
> 
> There will never be a European Bill Gates, Amazon.com, Google etc. Europeans tend to be workers, not entrepreneurs. If you reach a certain success level, you wind up paying more than 50% taxes in much of Europe. 
> 
> Even if in the US many don't move up, at least there are doors open. Europe has limits. Limits how low you can fall and how high you can rise. America has less limits. But overall, it is why the US is THE nation of nations. I don't care how many people try to say it isn't. The system works and produces opportunities and mobility. It doesn't mean everyone takes advantage of it. But it does mean that if you really put effort into something, you can get something back and not wind up paying more than half in taxes at one point to make sure that everyone feels safe regardless of what they are doing with their lives.


European success stories? Easy: 

- Amancio Ortega, currently the 5th wealthiest person in the world, worth $67 billion, made his wealth through his company, Inditex, the mother company of Zara, Massimo Dutti and many other fashion brands.

- Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, who was worth $58 billion when he died this year (more than either Google founder)

- Leonardo Del Vecchio founded Luxottica, an eye wear company. He came from an impoverished family and is now worth $24 billion.

- SAP, co-founded by Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther. They all became multi-billionaires. Hasso Plattner is the richest in the lot and is now worth $14 billion. 

- James Dyson, founder of the Dyson company of vacuum cleaner, is now worth $11 bn.

- Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, which made him over $6 billion.

- The Kristiansen family, who founded and still own the Lego Group and are worth over $20 billlions.

- Ruben Rausing founded Tetra Pak. His son Hans took over the family business and has a fortune of $12 bn.

- The Swedish businessman Bertil Hult founded the international education company EF (Education First) and is now worth $7.5 bn.

- Martin Lorentzon, Swedish founder of Spotify and Tradedoubler, has a wealth of $4 bn.

There are many families of self-made billionaires, especially in Italy, such as the Agnelli of FIAT, the Ferrero of the epynomous company, the De'Longhi, and fashion designers like Giorgio Armani ($7 bn), Patrizio_Bertelli and Miuccia Prada (of Prada, worth together $9 bn), just to cite a few. Fashion billionaires are not just found in Italy. The Dane Anders Holch Povlsen is the founder and sole owner of the Bestseller company and is now worth $6 bn. The Persson family in Sweden founded H&M. Stefan Persson alone is worth $18 bn.

There are plenty of other families of billionaires who made their money through the business they founded, including car makers, pharmaceutical companies and other industries. I am not going to list them all.

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## firetown

> European success stories? Easy: 
> 
> - Amancio Ortega, currently the 5th wealthiest person in the world, worth $67 billion, made his wealth through his company, Inditex, the mother company of Zara, Massimo Dutti and many other fashion brands.
> 
> - Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, who was worth $58 billion when he died this year (more than either Google founder)
> 
> - Leonardo Del Vecchio founded Luxottica, an eye wear company. He came from an impoverished family and is now worth $24 billion.
> 
> - SAP, co-founded by Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther. They all became multi-billionaires. Hasso Plattner is the richest in the lot and is now worth $14 billion. 
> ...


I didn't word this well. And of course, Richard Branson would be a worldwide celebrated European success story.
But I am also looking at the list of the top 10 companies and not one is European. 8 out of 10 are American.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> European success stories? Easy: 
> 
> - Amancio Ortega, currently the 5th wealthiest person in the world, worth $67 billion, made his wealth through his company, Inditex, the mother company of Zara, Massimo Dutti and many other fashion brands.
> 
> - Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, who was worth $58 billion when he died this year (more than either Google founder)
> 
> - Leonardo Del Vecchio founded Luxottica, an eye wear company. He came from an impoverished family and is now worth $24 billion.
> 
> - SAP, co-founded by Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther. They all became multi-billionaires. Hasso Plattner is the richest in the lot and is now worth $14 billion. 
> ...


you missed one important Internet. Internet was started by Europe and payed for by Europe. Obviously the person lives in his narrow world called USA

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## Maciamo

> I didn't word this well. And of course, Richard Branson would be a worldwide celebrated European success story.
> But I am also looking at the list of the top 10 companies and not one is European. 8 out of 10 are American.


I don' know which list you checked. Here is the Wikipedia list of largest companies by revenue. In the top 10, 3 are European, 3 are Chinese, 3 are American and one is Japanese. 

The Forbes Global 500 ranking has only 126 American corporations (25% of the total) against 188 East Asian companies and 143 European ones.

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## Angela

> I think that the misunderstanding comes from the fact that there are many different societies, cultures and systems in Europe. Italy and Norway are vastly different in many regards. Tax rates and socio-economic opportunities vary a lot between countries.
> 
> Tax rates in the USA can vary a lot between states too. According to this Wikipedia list of countries by tax rates, the maximum tax rate in the USA is 51.8% (max federal tax of 37% + max state tax of 13.3% + max city tax o 1.5%). That's higher that the highest rate in all European countries except for Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. For example the highest tax rate in Italy is 43%, while in the UK, France and Spain it is 45%. Generally poorer countries have lower tax rate (although there are exceptions). The developing word has very low tax rates. Even in Europe the lowest rates are found in countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia (all with a max rate of only 10%).
> 
> The Economist explained that Americans overestimate social mobility based on a study comparing actual vs perceived social mobility. In contrast, Europeans underestimated their capacity to move up the social ladder. That is why Americans typically boast of the 'American Dream' and the land of opportunities, but the data shows that Americans are in fact more likely than West Europeans to remain poor if born poor, and Americans also have less chances to moving from the bottom quintile to the top quintile during their life time. 
> 
> Once again, there are variations within Europe. The OECD did a in-depth study of Intergenerational Social Mobility across OECD Countries and found that the extent to which sons’ earnings levels reflect those of their fathers (low social mobility) was highest in the UK, Italy and the USA, all three with a correlation of nearly 0.5 (out of 1). It was much lower (high social mobility) in Denmark, Austria, Norway and Finland - all under 0.2 (see page 5).
> 
> Of all OECD countries, the influence of parental background on student achievement in secondary education was the highest in the USA (page 8). They didn't do the same for tertiary education, but it is obvious that the USA is the most unequal society in this regard, given the extremely high cost of American universities. Both in the UK and the USA going to expensive private secondary schools strongly favours admission to prestigious universities, which in turn usually guarantees higher salaries. This system perpetrates the status quo and discourages social mobility.



This includes ALL taxes: income, investment, social security, property, and sales purchases:

[IMG][/IMG]

Then you have to factor in the lower cost of a lot of goods and services here, and real property as well. 

There's just no comparison.

As for upward mobility, as I've said over and over again, all of our figures are skewed by the fact that such a large percentage of our population doesn't work, has never worked, have no education, etc. 

It impacts things like health statistics, for example. I see these stats all the time about how bad the infant mortality rates are for the U.S. Yeah, they are, but you have to factor in how many of those babies are born in ghettos to drug addicted mothers who have never gotten the proper pre-natal care even if they have medicaid. It's just an unfair comparison. Same thing for some education statistics. A lot of the tests are given after the age at which students in Europe have been sorted by ability. That NEVER happens here.

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## Salento

> you missed one important Internet. Internet was started by Europe and payed for by Europe. Obviously the person lives in his narrow world called USA



I’m going to Fact-Check you now:
The USA ARMY (US Department of Defense) financed the Internet development.



... The history of the Internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Initial concepts of wide area networking originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.[1] The US Department of Defense awarded contracts as early as the 1960s, including for the development of the ARPANET project, directed by Robert Taylor and managed by Lawrence Roberts. The first message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969 from computer science Professor Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the second network node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

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## firetown

I was looking at market capitalization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...capitalization





> I don' know which list you checked. Here is the Wikipedia list of largest companies by revenue. In the top 10, 3 are European, 3 are Chinese, 3 are American and one is Japanese. 
> 
> The Forbes Global 500 ranking has only 126 American corporations (25% of the total) against 188 East Asian companies and 143 European ones.

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## Angela

> I’m going to Fact-Check you now:
> The USA ARMY (US Department of Defense) financed the Internet development.
> 
> 
> 
> ... The history of the Internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Initial concepts of wide area networking originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.[1] The US Department of Defense awarded contracts as early as the 1960s, including for the development of the ARPANET project, directed by Robert Taylor and managed by Lawrence Roberts. The first message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969 from computer science Professor Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the second network node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). ...
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet


That's absolutely correct. For quite a while it was a defense department and governmental thing. I'm sure of it, but I can't tell you why and how, because then I'd have to kill you! :)

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> I’m going to Fact-Check you now:
> The USA ARMY (US Department of Defense) financed the Internet development.
> 
> 
> 
> ... The history of the Internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Initial concepts of wide area networking originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.[1] The US Department of Defense awarded contracts as early as the 1960s, including for the development of the ARPANET project, directed by Robert Taylor and managed by Lawrence Roberts. The first message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969 from computer science Professor Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the second network node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). ...
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet


I meant world wide web! It did not start by US army! The center of WWW was in Switzerland and its development was payed by Europe. The network of US army was private and minuscule in scope

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## davef

You all are wrong! It was the Indo Europeans who invented the Internet

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## Salento

@Tutkun Arnaut

@Davef

*I’m not wrong.*

We are talking about money, not inventions.
I said that the USA ARMY (US Department of Defense)* financed* the Internet development.
*I didn’t say who Invented the Internet.*
As a *Government* _I stated Who Paid for it,_ to develop (enhance) and it was NOT the Europeans to do it at first as Tutkun Arnaut asserted in his 1st post, but the Americans.



*@Angela - lol :) 

@Davef -* Al Gore invented the Internet lol ;)

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## Maciamo

> I was looking at market capitalization:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...capitalization


Market capitalisation does not take into account privately held (i.e. not publicly listed) companies like Ikea, Lego, Aldi, Schwarz Group, Airbnb, Deloitte, Koch Industries, etc. Europe has more unlisted companies (family businesses) and in fact many of the billionaires mentioned above own unlisted companies.

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## Maciamo

> This includes ALL taxes: income, investment, social security, property, and sales purchases:
> 
> [IMG][/IMG]
> 
> Then you have to factor in the lower cost of a lot of goods and services here, and real property as well. 
> 
> There's just no comparison.


We aren't talking about income tax anymore, but total taxes, including corporate taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, inheritance, taxes, license taxes. The biggest share of the taxes is paid by companies. The reason why some European countries have substantially higher tax revenues is because corporate taxes are higher. US federal corporate tax is 21%, while in Europe it is up to 33% in France, 29.5% in Germany and Belgium, 29% in Greece, 28% in Italy, 25% in Austria and Spain, etc. 

Then sales taxes (VAT) are also much higher in Europe, with rates generally between 20 and 25%, while it is between 0% and 11.7% in US States. Nevertheless many European countries have reduced rates and zero rates for essential goods and services (food, children stuff, books, pharmaceuticals, sports, transports).

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> @Tutkun Arnaut
> 
> @Davef
> 
> *I’m not wrong.*
> 
> We are talking about money, not inventions.
> I said that the USA ARMY (US Department of Defense)* financed* the Internet development.
> *I didn’t say who Invented the Internet.*
> ...


If you talk about money How come USA has a trade deficit with every single western European country? Does it mean to you USA is selling more stuff to Europe or vice versa? Germany alone has a trade deficit of 300 billion dollars with the world. It means that Germany is selling to the world including USA not vice versa. Not to confuse with surplus trade China has with the USA which is based in lower labour cost. European exports are high quality products? And by the way a lot of money was made by the internet from Europe

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> You all are wrong! It was the Indo Europeans who invented the Internet


Do you know what world wide web mean? Before there were no internet cables and infrastructure for internet for masses. Europe stepped in and made internet what is today. Internet for masses not army? As for those Indos who work in the internet field is you who let them get into your necks and taking your jobs. In Europe its not easy.

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## Salento

> If you talk about money How come USA has a trade deficit with every single western European country? Does it mean to you USA is selling more stuff to Europe or vice versa? Germany alone has a trade deficit of 300 billion dollars with the world. It means that Germany is selling to the world including USA not vice versa. Not to confuse with surplus trade China has with the USA which is based in lower labour cost. European exports are high quality products? And by the way a lot of money was made by the internet from Europe


The United States negative trade deficit and imbalance with most of the World, has many reasons.
- Favorable trade deal with EX-Developing-Countries (China, India, S.Korea, ..) were not revised as their Status changed.
- To lure away Communist and Extreme Socialist countries (Europe Eastern Bloc, Soviet, China, Vietnam, ...) toward Capitalism.
- Many are OUTDATED Geopolitical Trade Deals signed in the Past to have access, or control to strategic assets (sea, roads, ports, airports, Islands, Army bases, ...) important to US National Security. 
The USA has still 1000s and 1000s of Soldiers in Germany, Japan and many places, and in the past they were incentivized for that.
- The USA is revising the outdated Trade Deals.

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## Angela

Beware of what you want to claim, Tutkun....Who knows what they hid in there? It could turn out to be like Skynet! :)

Btw, when Davef said the Indo-Europeans invented it he meant these guys, not INDIANS! :) It was a joke.


As for the OP, given where I live, I know lots of people from different parts of Europe who are working here temporarily, and lots of Americans who work in Europe for a time, mostly Britain. Take any job: cop, nurse, teacher, tech worker, engineer, doctor,stockbroker, or whatever, their standard of living is higher here. Speaking of Britain, people still immigrate to commonwealth countries because the opportunities are better.

This isn't a competition thing. The better off everyone is, the better for everyone. 

@Salento,
I was only half kidding!

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## firetown

So basically this is now a competition whom to give credit? At least don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops



> The story, set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, predicted technologies such as instant messaging and the Internet.


You can't build it without imagining it. You cannot build it without it being financed. 




> I meant world wide web! It did not start by US army! The center of WWW was in Switzerland and its development was payed by Europe. The network of US army was private and minuscule in scope

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## firetown

True. But when I look at last year's revenue, then my question is whether or not and how soon this will change. For example: I wouldn't bet on Walmart, but rather Amazon when it comes to value of the brand. Market capitalisation is an indicator, a strong one, for the companies listed.


> Market capitalisation does not take into account privately held (i.e. not publicly listed) companies like Ikea, Lego, Aldi, Schwarz Group, Airbnb, Deloitte, Koch Industries, etc. Europe has more unlisted companies (family businesses) and in fact many of the billionaires mentioned above own unlisted companies.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> The United States negative trade deficit and imbalance with most of the World, has many reasons.
> - Favorable trade deal with EX-Developing-Countries (China, India, S.Korea, ..) were not revised as their Status changed.
> - To lure away Communist and Extreme Socialist countries (Europe Eastern Bloc, Soviet, China, Vietnam, ...) toward Capitalism.
> - Many are OUTDATED Geopolitical Trade Deals signed in the Past to have access, or control to strategic assets (sea, roads, ports, airports, Islands, Army bases, ...) important to US National Security. 
> The USA has still 1000s and 1000s of Soldiers in Germany, Japan and many places, and in the past they were incentivized for that.
> - The USA is revising the outdated Trade Deals.


So as I understand the German cars are sold in abundance in USA as result of productivity, otherwise Germans make those cars cheaper and USA customers profit from them?!!!!! Or Italian fashion is not that expensive? Thats what you are saying. My understanding is Americans lack the quality of goods. Car makers there are mostly run by Indian CEO, and what do you expect Indians make better cars than Germans? Or AIRPLANES by the way? As I said with Asian countries surplus of them comes from cheap labor, With Europeans superior quality of goods. Have you seen major USA trading partner is Mexico? Thats the only olace where you can actually sell.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> So basically this is now a competition whom to give credit? At least don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
> 
> You can't build it without imagining it. You cannot build it without it being financed.


As I understand it what you saying is smoke. I cant really get the meaning of it!!

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> Beware of what you want to claim, Tutkun....Who knows what they hid in there? It could turn out to be like Skynet! :)
> 
> Btw, when Davef said the Indo-Europeans invented it he meant these guys, not INDIANS! :) It was a joke.
> 
> 
> As for the OP, given where I live, I know lots of people from different parts of Europe who are working here temporarily, and lots of Americans who work in Europe for a time, mostly Britain. Take any job: cop, nurse, teacher, tech worker, engineer, doctor,stockbroker, or whatever, their standard of living is higher here. Speaking of Britain, people still immigrate to commonwealth countries because the opportunities are better.
> 
> This isn't a competition thing. The better off everyone is, the better for everyone. 
> 
> ...


Davef is mostly wrong but the joke about Indo Eurpeans touched a cord with me, I had a good laugh. He meant Indians own the internet at the moment and he is right.

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## Salento

> So as I understand the German cars are sold in abundance in USA as result of productivity, otherwise Germans make those cars cheaper and USA customers profit from them?!!!!! Or Italian fashion is not that expensive? Thats what you are saying. My understanding is Americans lack the quality of goods. Car makers there are mostly run by Indian CEO, and what do you expect Indians make better cars than Germans? Or AIRPLANES by the way? As I said with Asian countries surplus of them comes from cheap labor, With Europeans superior quality of goods. Have you seen major USA trading partner is Mexico? Thats the only olace where you can actually sell.


I don’t understand how you could possibly reach that conclusion about my post. 
Clearly, you just resent the USA, that’s your prerogative, knock yourself out.
...........

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## Salento

> The United States negative trade deficit and imbalance with most of the World, has many reasons.
> - Favorable trade deal with EX-Developing-Countries (China, India, S.Korea, ..) were not revised as their Status changed.
> - To lure away Communist and Extreme Socialist countries (Europe Eastern Bloc, Soviet, China, Vietnam, ...) toward Capitalism.
> - Many are OUTDATED Geopolitical Trade Deals signed in the Past to have access, or control to strategic assets (sea, roads, ports, airports, Islands, Army bases, ...) important to US National Security. 
> The USA has still 1000s and 1000s of Soldiers in Germany, Japan and many places, and in the past they were incentivized for that.
> *- The USA is revising the outdated Trade Deals.*


*Goodbye Forever NAFTA*

_Hello_ *USMCA*

... The deal has a new name, new rules for cars and trucks, and labor and IP protections. ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.fd6cc414fca1

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## Angela

Fix the China problem, Trump.

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## firetown

Germany is great at making powerful cars. So is Italy. But there is not that much of a need to have high HP ones in a nation where the speed limit is 65. 




> So as I understand the German cars are sold in abundance in USA as result of productivity, otherwise Germans make those cars cheaper and USA customers profit from them?!!!!! Or Italian fashion is not that expensive? Thats what you are saying. My understanding is Americans lack the quality of goods. Car makers there are mostly run by Indian CEO, and what do you expect Indians make better cars than Germans? Or AIRPLANES by the way? As I said with Asian countries surplus of them comes from cheap labor, With Europeans superior quality of goods. Have you seen major USA trading partner is Mexico? Thats the only olace where you can actually sell.

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## Maleth

Reading of all the opportunities and the circulation of money in the USA one would have thought that as a country it should make it at least in the top 10 of the happiest. Things cant be all that bad in Europe.

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## Maleth

> Germany is great at making powerful cars. So is Italy. But there is not that much of a need to have high HP ones in a nation where the speed limit is 65.


65? some autobahns in Germany have no speed limits.....

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## Gnarl

> Talk to me when a huge percentage of your population is an underclass like ours, with all the problems that they have, including drug and alcohol addiction. I never said everyone in American society can prosper and move up the latter economically. A lot of people are incapable of it, for various reasons, and the more automation takes hold, the more of them there will be. All any government can try to provide is equal opportunity; it can't guarantee equal outcomes.


 When the OP question is "_Is most of Europe poorer than the US?_" it seems entirely relevant that a much larger fraction of the US lives in absolute poverty, and has much less opportunity to work their way out of it. For a long time, the US was the nation with the greatest social mobility, and judging from the comments, it seems a lot of people think it is still that way. It is very far from the reality of the situation.




> Also, the health insurance benefits most people get through their employer aren't computed as part of their salaries. (As for employee contributions, I've never contributed a penny in my life toward it) That's part of your total "package", not your total income or salary, and the "dollar value" of your health insurance doesn't go onto your IRS form, which is where the gross and net salaries for these studies are culled. That's all untaxed "extra" income.


My point was that the comparison wasn't income to income, but GDP to GDP. If you are using GDP per person as a basis of comparison it does matter. It reduces your financial situation regardless. When you spend 10 000 $ for health care per citizen, and the nations you are comparing to spends $ 5000 with as good or better results, your GDP figure as it translates to the wealth of the citizens loses 5000 $. You can't even think of it as a stealth tax, because a tax could in theory be spent on things that benefit you. In the end, you have 5000 $ less.

There are of course many such differences between nations, but what is special about health care is size. The difference is several times the total difference in military spending, etc. It doesn't even out.

There is also the fact that you pay more in taxes for health care than most Europeans, and then your employer have to fork out additional money that could have been used on remuneration to provide extra health care for you.




> I'm sorry, but there is no comparison between these small, homogenous societies and the U.S.


Then why make an OP that quite specifically compares them ?




> We aren't talking about income tax anymore, but total taxes, including corporate taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, inheritance, taxes, license taxes. The biggest share of the taxes is paid by companies. The reason why some European countries have substantially higher tax revenues is because corporate taxes are higher. US federal corporate tax is 21%, while in Europe it is up to 33% in France, 29.5% in Germany and Belgium, 29% in Greece, 28% in Italy, 25% in Austria and Spain, etc.


I am also told that there are more tax loopholes for companies in the US tax code than in most European ones, which means that an even larger share of the total tax burden in the US is borne by the citizens. However, it is just a feeling I get. I cannot cite anything and it sounds like a difficult thing to investigate.

Beyond that though, is the fraction of working population. Many countries in Europe have long maternity leaves and policies that make it easier to return to work after childbirth. This yields a larger fraction of the middle-class population as two income couples. Hence the fraction of the total tax burden that is borne by the taxpayer is shared out among more taxpayers.




> Then sales taxes (VAT) are also much higher in Europe, with rates generally between 20 and 25%, while it is between 0% and 11.7% in US States. Nevertheless many European countries have reduced rates and zero rates for essential goods and services (food, children stuff, books, pharmaceuticals, sports, transports).


VAT is normally calculated as a cost of living thing rather than a tax. It has more in common with costs of living than taxes. It is, specifically included in PPP calculations, so the OPs chart already had differences in VAT worked in.

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## halfalp

Why are we in grey?

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## Maciamo

> VAT is normally calculated as a cost of living thing rather than a tax. It has more in common with costs of living than taxes. It is, specifically included in PPP calculations, so the OPs chart already had differences in VAT worked in.


From the point of view of the individual, yes, but here Angela was comparing government tax revenues, and VAT is just as good as any other tax in that regard.

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## firetown

My thoughts on the social democratic systems of Europe are not that positive. From the beginning, it was designed to not change much. Meaning: It was created to create a huge middle class where everyone is more or less OK, but nobody can get wealthy meaning never posing a true threat to the families which have always been on top. That goes hand in hand with taxes exceeding 50% once you have reached a certain level of success in Germany. Sure, you can state that you like being able to find an apartment in East Germany, have the government pay for it, give you free health insurance, 400 Euro in cash and plenty of extras such as clothing allowance if you are German citizen or legal resident. But do you really think that this is necessary and that high earners need to lose cash-flow and investment power to make that happen?

Ireland now has the second highest GDP in Europe, because they won't play those games. Yes, a lot of Irish people have told me that they consider their system unbalanced and unfair as the cash is in few hands. But now you have many start-ups and entrepreneurs moving there boosting the economy. 

Germany has become a haven for parasites and people who simply don't feel like getting a job. I believe in safety nets. But if you have not worked in 20 years and do your obligatory job searches with coffee stains on your shirt and not having showered in a week to make sure you don't get accidentally hired, then I see a problem. They make it difficult for successful people and easy for those who just want to take it easy without having a big change in lifestyle.

And it halts progress. And it isn't that the social democratic politicians "care about people". They use their situation to enforce stronger tax laws and implement guilt to "justify it".

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