<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>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>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></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>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>mikejb</author><text>I agree with the white-collar BS story. People work hard in Europe, and especially in cities, some need to work multiple jobs to afford a very basic life. But there&amp;#x27;s one part I disagree with:&lt;p&gt;&amp;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;I mean, you&amp;#x27;re disagreeing with yourself here: first you say that many don&amp;#x27;t sit in a coffee shop writing poetry, only to then try to make a point basing it on everyone sitting at the coffee shop writing poetry.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s plenty of innovation in Europe - but there&amp;#x27;s also limitations that go beyond the personal limitations of people, e.g. lots of regulation and market fragmentation. And often enough, that innovation finds its way into foreign companies, where it then seems as they got shit done.</text></comment>