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0 pointsornornor3y ago0 comments

The corollary is that you live like a king in a country where people could be billionaires or they could be poor, desperate, with untreated mental health issues, nothing to lose, and a loaded gun.

On the global scale, I wouldn’t say the US is a beacon of progress and happiness. It’s better than many bottom tier countries but far from top tier countries (which aren’t as liberal, for the most part)

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nivenkos3y ago

What top tier countries?

The US is the wealthiest country in the world by miles. It's had the highest GDP every single year for over 100 years continuously.

That amount of capital is phenomenal, and part of why Americans enjoy salaries 3-4x higher than even Western Europe in most professional work - Tech, Medicine, Law, truck driving, etc.

And that money allows you to work your way up, and buy your own property, etc. which is almost impossible in much of Europe, Canada, etc.

BossingAround3y ago

> The US is the wealthiest country in the world by miles.

True, but the point is that most of that wealth is highly concentrated. Hence why the US is not the beacon of happiness and progress.

samatman3y ago

Balderdash.

The median net worth in the US is $125,000 for a household. It's €50,000 in the Netherlands.

ornornorOP3y ago

Yes on economical metrics. But in happiness, life expectancy, education, equality, prisoners count, literacy, and many other things that arguably matter more in life than $$$ then the US is quite lagging compared to other developed economies.

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