[seren]

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage.

At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

[remarkEon]

I've spent about a month in Europe for the last three years on vacation and travel there for work semi-frequently. I've considered moving (wife says no, for now). I agree with you on the finance part. I'd need to accrue some significant coin to make this move make sense financially (plus finish becoming fluent). What I'd tell you is this "cope" isn't really cope. Americans just don't have many options for cities that have clean and reliable public transit, beautiful architecture, and safe streets. There's exceptions, obviously. But ... those exceptions are not, say, Vienna.

Edit: I suppose it isn't just the transit and the architecture and the safety that's the draw. Many in America, even if they're "conservative" (whatever that means today), are willing to pay more in taxes if it means free health care and a functioning bureaucracy.

[jb1991]

You don’t need to become fluent in a European language before moving there. Most expats don’t. Having some familiarity will help, it’ll become much easier to learn the language when you’re actually in the environment, and no one will expect you to suddenly speak their language when you get there.

[jefozabuss]

Speaking of Vienna: is anyone here who work from there remotely (for a non-Austrian company)? I heard it's a bit complicated due to you need to have an in-country representation of the company or similar.

[motbus3]

As a non European, I can see some patterns that happen to my country 10-20y ago. There is a systematic de-funding of education and health care to prioritise the same private sectors. It is hard to explain in few words, but at least in my country we realised it too late.

[stuaxo]

Neoliberalism is fairly explicit that the government shouldn't do anything - everything is farmed out to for profit businesses with light touch regulation - enshitification of everyday services is the result.

[stuaxo]

In the UK, our healthsystem was the best on most metrics before the Tories came in and now it's behind on most.

Next will be Kier Starmer for Labour who main promises seem to be to keep the policies of the incumbents.

(Health used as an illustrative area but this applies across the board).

[theironhammer]

Neoliberal ideology is deeply entrenched in the Angloshere. UK even more so.

Kier Starmer thinks Corbyn lost because he was a Socialist. It was about Brexit. "Get Brexit Done" was a master class in political expediency. Even Boris was wise enough to sprinkle a little "socialism" with his levelling up policies.

Kier Starmer looks like he's going to score an own goal in the last minute of extra time.

[m000]

> At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

Shouldn't a stagnating GDP translate to a stagnating quantity/quality of services? If things are getting worse while GDP stagnates, it appears that there is a gross mismanagement of the same amount of resources.

And I'd dare to say, that this mismanagement typically boils down to the privatization of (previously) predominantly publicly-operated sectors. A soon as the publicly-operated provider shuts down, profiteering starts.

[nvm0n1]

"Getting worse" can be relative. If progress in your country had stopped in 1920 then it would be fair for people who lived there to think things had got worse over the past 100 years when they look to America and see how people live there.

[murderfs]

Europe, with the exception of the countries directly bordering Russia and Greece (buying weapons to point at fellow NATO member Turkey), has spent decades underinvesting in national defense, arguably freeloading under American hegemony. Now that that's coming to an end, expect things to get worse.

[piva00]

Freeloading? The USA spends massive amounts on its military exactly to maintain hegemony, European countries weren't going around the globe to fight pointless wars based on shaky (or completely fabricated) casus belli. There was no reason to spend a lot of tax money on military equipment, training, upkeep, just because. Russia's complete invasion of Ukraine shook Europe's defence outlook and created a reason to invest in it but that's it.

The USA providing security guarantees is not freeloading, it's USA's strategy to hegemony, it's how the USA has kept it...

Investing in defence without participating in wars (or to defend your hegemony) is just a waste of taxpayers' money, it's money that could go to healthcare, to education, or to any other improvement in quality of life of your citizens. I'm very glad that Europe hasn't been burning trillions of dollars on stuff just made to kill people.