<story><title>Why Don&apos;t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?</title><url>http://www.danielsjourney.com/2017/12/21/america.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bepotts</author><text>Americans don&amp;#x27;t believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don&amp;#x27;t have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is.&lt;p&gt;I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and training. That is available to almost every American if they just put in the work.&lt;p&gt;That, to me, is not just a great thing but the morally right thing. Apply yourself and make a better future for you and your family.&lt;p&gt;To the people responding to me with the most &lt;i&gt;predictable&lt;/i&gt; lines: poverty exists in Europe; so does homelessness; as does food insecurity. Please don&amp;#x27;t tell me that Europe is some great place where poverty doesn&amp;#x27;t exist and everyone is living great lives.&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to be sympathetic toward the most needy while not supporting collectivism. You know what the poor need most? A marketable skill. A good job. Support programs that give people the skills they need in order to compete in a globalized market. It&amp;#x27;s funny how collectivists never push that though, and instead push for more collectivism.</text></item><item><author>cribbles</author><text>&amp;gt; One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry.&lt;p&gt;This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with labor protections, healthcare, social welfare, the ability to afford housing and take vacations than whether their country’s economy is producing “innovative companies” (read: tech startups?). This was certainly true of myself when I worked in food service.&lt;p&gt;Even so, this point does not stand well on its own. It may be that Europeans are deincentivized from creating enormously overvalued startups because their quality of life is much better (although I question whether this is worth bragging about, from a US standpoint). Nevertheless, I’d consider things like lack of a single market, fragmented languages and cultures, completely different VC environment, and so on to be much more impactful in that regard.</text></item><item><author>seibelj</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentary by an academic, the BBC’s Blue Planet, or a Swedish crime-noir. I think back on my day and remember the people smiling and laughing at the pubs and cafes.&lt;/i&gt;[0]&lt;p&gt;No, not everyone in Europe gets to live white-collar worker dream of writing poetry at the coffee shop and coming in late. See the people working at the coffee shop, the construction workers, garbage men, etc.&lt;p&gt;One thing I love about America is that people still get shit done here. One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry.&lt;p&gt;An old joke  - &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Every MBA in America dreams of starting a billion dollar business. Every MBA in Europe dreams of starting a satellite office of the American business.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;[0] From the actual blog the author quoted from &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eand.co&amp;#x2F;what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-from-itself-58ae28cefd23&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eand.co&amp;#x2F;what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-fro...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SolaceQuantum</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and training. That is available to almost every American if they just put in the work.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if that&amp;#x27;s true. If I&amp;#x27;m a child with food insecurity, my lack of nourishment, poor home life, overtaxed regional social programs, and government disincentives will cause me to be unable to focus on my education at my overtaxed school program, thereby setting me back for the rest of my life through no fault of my own.&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#x27;m one of many children born in a county or state with no access to clean water, I am more likely to develop a chronic illness that will prevent me from putting in the work necessary to achieve your lifestyle through no fault of my own.&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#x27;m one of many blue collar workers who destroyed my body in my 40s putting in work, I no longer have access to my way of work and the industries I can go into are plagued with known ageism. I am now stuck through no fault of my own save for a lack of future-sight that technology will be the thing to get into 40 years ago.&lt;p&gt;Moral correctness is all well and good, but if we are gleaning over those less fortunate with our morals, we&amp;#x27;re not being moral at all- we&amp;#x27;re just providing justifications for why we deserve what we have and more importantly &lt;i&gt;why people who do not have what we have deserve their poverty&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Don&apos;t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?</title><url>http://www.danielsjourney.com/2017/12/21/america.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bepotts</author><text>Americans don&amp;#x27;t believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don&amp;#x27;t have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is.&lt;p&gt;I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and training. That is available to almost every American if they just put in the work.&lt;p&gt;That, to me, is not just a great thing but the morally right thing. Apply yourself and make a better future for you and your family.&lt;p&gt;To the people responding to me with the most &lt;i&gt;predictable&lt;/i&gt; lines: poverty exists in Europe; so does homelessness; as does food insecurity. Please don&amp;#x27;t tell me that Europe is some great place where poverty doesn&amp;#x27;t exist and everyone is living great lives.&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to be sympathetic toward the most needy while not supporting collectivism. You know what the poor need most? A marketable skill. A good job. Support programs that give people the skills they need in order to compete in a globalized market. It&amp;#x27;s funny how collectivists never push that though, and instead push for more collectivism.</text></item><item><author>cribbles</author><text>&amp;gt; One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry.&lt;p&gt;This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with labor protections, healthcare, social welfare, the ability to afford housing and take vacations than whether their country’s economy is producing “innovative companies” (read: tech startups?). This was certainly true of myself when I worked in food service.&lt;p&gt;Even so, this point does not stand well on its own. It may be that Europeans are deincentivized from creating enormously overvalued startups because their quality of life is much better (although I question whether this is worth bragging about, from a US standpoint). Nevertheless, I’d consider things like lack of a single market, fragmented languages and cultures, completely different VC environment, and so on to be much more impactful in that regard.</text></item><item><author>seibelj</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentary by an academic, the BBC’s Blue Planet, or a Swedish crime-noir. I think back on my day and remember the people smiling and laughing at the pubs and cafes.&lt;/i&gt;[0]&lt;p&gt;No, not everyone in Europe gets to live white-collar worker dream of writing poetry at the coffee shop and coming in late. See the people working at the coffee shop, the construction workers, garbage men, etc.&lt;p&gt;One thing I love about America is that people still get shit done here. One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry.&lt;p&gt;An old joke  - &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Every MBA in America dreams of starting a billion dollar business. Every MBA in Europe dreams of starting a satellite office of the American business.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;[0] From the actual blog the author quoted from &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eand.co&amp;#x2F;what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-from-itself-58ae28cefd23&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eand.co&amp;#x2F;what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-fro...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;You know what the poor need most? A marketable skill. A good job&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I thought freedom to play and study as kids. A full belly. A supporting family. Family connections. Not fearing for tomorrow (eviction, money trouble, muggings, etc). Money for college. Not having to work to support anybody but themselves.&lt;p&gt;You know, the kinds of things it would be statistically (if not entirely) safe to presume you had as a child, or that most successful (e.g. college wise) kids have, and most unsuccessful kids lacked.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.radionz.co.nz&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-wireless&amp;#x2F;373065&amp;#x2F;the-pencilsword-on-a-plate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.radionz.co.nz&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-wireless&amp;#x2F;373065&amp;#x2F;the-penci...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;But yeah, lacking all that, a marketable skill and a support program will do.&lt;p&gt;And they might even be able to make it, if they work doubly as hard, and manage twice as many hardships as those who had all of above provided for them from birth.</text></comment>