Is it really better getting raped with huge healthcare bills and student loan debt? It's a very complicated and non-straight-forward comparison, but the bottom line imho is that those belonging to the top 15-25% of the income distribution are better off in the US, while the rest is better off in Europe.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 10 2020 01:48pm

Even Saudi Arabia managed to figure this out. The challenge for SA is that they need to pay for 34 million people with that wealth, and Norway only needs to pay for 5.

Sure, but you aren't doomed to failure for having a low resources/capita and you aren't guaranteed success for having a high one.

Norway has done a fantastic job managing their resources and so have reaped the benefits. They could just as easily allowed foreign companies to come in and export the profit and seen none of the benefit.

North Dakota's high gdp/capita was exclusively driven by the shale oil and fracking boom, which is over with corona and the recent oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. ND is in for a couple of bad bad years. And once you take oil out of the equation, ND is left with no infrastructure, no good jobs, extreme continental climate and few if any tourist attractions.

The rest of your points are decent, although I dont fully agree.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 10 2020 02:03pm

Case in point: Germany and Japan, two countries which have almost no significant amounts of natural resources (at least not relative to their large population) yet belong to the most wealthy and successful nations in the world.
Compare them to a country like Venezuela, which has abundant natural resources, particularly relative to its modest population, yet is a total failure.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 10 2020 02:02pm

I get raped for 28% federal taxes on my income plus $12k/year property tax bill and pay other but i do enjoy the space. I was stationed in Germany and the cold drinks weren't that cold and the rooms were small everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#2018_Human_Development_Index_(2019_report)

HDI actually to me is a pretty good indicator of how livable a country is. I'd personally be ok with the entire top 30. But there are definitely places in the US I wouldn't want to live (climate or otherwise).

Norway is probably a case study for how to perfectly manage natural resources. They nationalized it, didn't over-spend on the money like Venezuela, and invested in long-term return things like infrastructure, education, and technology. They've got a fucking huge fund that could basically run the country for years to come that they are continuing to invest to make sure their country is going to continue to thrive.

The United States kind of takes the middle ground. We let a lot of the profit from natural resources be run away with by private companies, but at least taxed them at a decent rate throughout most of our history, until the 1980's at least, and have since not seen nearly the returns since then.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 10 2020 02:09pm

The scale of a country upwards of a few million isn't relevant in determining how good it is to live there. You're going off-topic into reasons why countries are wealthier than others.

I disliked the expansiveness in the US from a practical point of view. Having to drive everywhere in cities and going through downtown areas which are inhospitable when in Europe you can walk around most city centres in a few hours. It was a real culture shock for me as I was looking on google maps like 'oh yeah, this place is really close to us', then walking there and it takes an hour. I am just used to driving somewhere and then being able to walk around with everything in distance.

It's great having so many different places in the same country though, that is really quite unique and isn't captured on all the development indices.

Currently i want to be in the US but it's a different answer when i retire. Me and my wife have talked and fantasized about retiring in southern Europe. It would have to be in a small city or a town, somewhere coastal. I know Spain and Portugal is real popular with the Brits. Croatia even better, but asshole northern Europeans have really driven that real estate market up. There's a certain charm to the old Mediterranean coastal towns, but really would have to be small, i really would hate to be anywhere near a tourist trap. You can't find some of those charming places in US.