I have a very close family friend whos military and been stationed in America, Canada and Germany and the only place he max extended was Germany, said schooling for children was unparalleled compared to North America , better infrastructure, etc. He said he would never leave. Likely depends on the post I suppose, but Id bet in most cases German public school offers better education than American public schools as well as wider ranges of activities.
Obviously the comparison here is public to public. American probably has the wider range of private options and clearly has world class universities, at a cost though. Accessible averages probably to go a lot of EU countries. Paid offerings, America will dominate.
For that matter I believe German living standards are also just better. America touts income, but also has the highest income inequality. If you have the money, you're going to be best off in America. If you're middle-class probably better in Germany.
Military person that earns Canadian/US salary living in Germany. Lol, i'd like that arrangement also, except with being in the military you get bounced around all the time which is shit for a family. I say this to my coworkers very often, if i can make a US salary or even 60-75% of what i make and live in eastern Europe i would do it in a heartbeat.
Germany is great, and in many ways cream of the crop of the EU, if you don't count the super small population wise Switzerland, Norway, Nederland, etc. Like i said i have cousins in their 30s that live in western Germany. They make between 2-3k euro per month and I've asked them dozens of times and they always say they would rather live in the US. Their little brother who's 20 year old recently visited the US and stayed for a few months and he was quite literally asking me if it's worth just staying here after his student visa expires illegally because he thinks it's way better here. He can literally go live in Germany legally and he'd rather risk it to stay here illegally. Of course i told him it's a bad idea and there's better ways.
Now lets carve out the Germany's or the other top rich mostly northwestern EU countries. Majority of Europeans are living in 2k euros per month or less. Huge portion of that goes to taxes. Huge portion of that goes to housing. Western large Euro cities are now overrun with migrants with native ethnics being a minority increasingly in most of these cities. Petty crime is sky rocketing, knife attacks, robberies, etc. Huge youth unemployment rates across the Euro south. I could keep listing major issues but you get my drift. I love Europe and maybe one day i will return but certainly not to any major western cities that have become unlivable in. Maybe one day after i have a nice nest egg it'll be worth it living in some Sicilian or Greek village.
This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 26 2025 09:24am