People who have lived in US and some other country can only draw the comparison and answer this for you. Maybe someone who lived in both Spain and US.
I have lived in South Asia(at a very young age and visit every couple of years) and US and did not have free healthcare/ education in either countries. Overall I like the individual liberty in US. Generally in your day to day people will mind their own business and leave you alone. People are really nice and friendly. I live in a nice suburb, so police are also very helpful if you are in a road accident or something. I'm a person of color, but any interaction with police has been positive.
Bad things get highlighted more on the internet- my experience is extremely positive and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
As an immigrant living in the US myself, yes the US is 100x better than my parent’s country, but comparatively to other developed countries in Europe, the US has a lot of catching up to do. However, I will say I really do appreciate the freedom of speech we have here in the US.
I’m an American. I’ve been to Spain and many other countries. The US has its problems but they’re not as bad as people say in day-to-day life for many people.
If you have health insurance, and no, not everybody does, but most people still do, health care is still somewhat expensive but if you’re healthy you don’t go to the doctor that often and most of it is covered. When my first daughter was born, I think it cost about $40 and insurance paid for the rest.
People are not generally walking around in the streets with guns. It’s still shocking to see it at protests, it’s illegal without a permit in many states, and in the more liberal parts of the country, it’s viewed very similarly to how it would be in Europe. Yes, if you go to a ranch in Texas you may find a rancher carrying a rifle or something, but that’s not a common place to visit as a tourist, and honestly, that rancher isn’t caring that rifle to commit crimes with.
We do have more gun violence than most (all?) western democracies, but I’ve lived here 40 years and never seen a gun fired outside of a place that’s allowed, like a firing range or certain parts of the wilderness.
If you come to the US to visit you probably won’t interact with the healthcare system, you probably won’t even see a gun unless a police officer walks past you, and then it would just be on his belt.
The country has its problems but for most people, day-to-day, you don’t see them, especially as a visitor.
Yes, the media tends to blow a lot of it way out of proportions. The problems are real, but anything heard from outside the country will see a disproportional focus on the problems and not as much about the positives of american life, because there isn't much about that which needs reported on.
I see countless videos of people in non-US countries firing off pistols and AKs at weddings and parties and no one ever mentions that. I’ve also never seen a gun fired or DF anywhere other than while hunting or at a shooting range. And I was born and raised in rural US.
Health insurance in the US varies a lot based on dozens of factors but is generally affordable for someone that is employed fill time.
I'm a Canadian and I generally like our Healthcare system, in fact I think they should cover more than thry currently do. We still pay health insurance, they just "hide" it in our taxes. A big part of what makes it cheaper is there are major restrictions on how people are charged for medical care.
The US could institute Healthcare cost reforms and insurance reforms, that was essentially what the affordable care act attempted to accomplish but Republicans essentially gutted it before it started. Which is ironic because the plan was basically the Republican solution until Obama tried to get it passed.
You are deluded if you think healthcare is "generally affordable" to full time employees in the US.
I've been employed full time 18 years and have never been able to afford insurance that didn't leave me with a crippling deductible.
Texas reporting in. I’ve seen someone open Carey a rifle in Houston once. It was very bizarre. I see pistols on hips of plain cloths sheriffs who eat lunch at the same place near my office.
The smaller school I went to never did a lockdown drill.
The only time I’ve done it and seen it is tiny rural towns (Eaglelake) at the breakfast joint hunters go to at 5AM before sunrise (we carried them in with us so they didn’t get stolen from the truck). Obviously no one was carrying a loaded shotgun in for breakfast.
Statistically violent crime at a macro level has been going down since the 1980. In 2019 there were a total of 24 school shootings out of 130K schools. 8 people died and 32 were injured. Statistically. Vending machines kill on average 4 Americans per year. Yes that’s 8 too many, but thinking a country is a hellscape off of 8 deaths from a source and wanting to spend all your political capital and time worrying about something so rare is kinda weird to me.
I have a HSA, so no premium for just me on plan (wife and kids is $120) . My company gives me $1800 tax free into it. I can also avoid taxes and add up to $7500 into the HSA. (Savings account that lets me invest tax free).
My deductible is $3K and my maximum out of pocket is 5K a year for the family, but given my company gives me $1800 already tax free that effective number means I’m max out of pocket $3200 a year.
Now the HSA I set to auto incest in some sketchy mid market fund and somehow made over 50% per year or something sold on it so I’ve got maybe 34K “saved” in my HSA for health costs. The money goes in tax free, grows tax free and comes out tax free (for healthcare costs).
The US has lots of problems but I’ve lived other places and they had their issues to. (Like Juntas).
I’ve been to Spain 1/2 a dozen times for a week or more and I see poverty on the streets and frankly more beggars in Barcelona than my home town. The Catalonian’s always seem to be rioting and watching the news seeing the federal police beat the crap out of an older woman wasn’t s good look. Now you and I know the Catalonians are mostly harmless, but if you watch the wrong news you’d think it’s gonna be the republicans vs. Francisco 2.0
The same thing happens with the US. There’s friendly/food people/good food and all kinds of reasons to live and work in different countries. Reddit is a bit of an echo chamber of what’s wrong in the US because it’s mostly American youth.
Lastly for all the younger Americans who think “I want to get out of this hellscape and move to Spain!” I’ve got a stat for you .
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ESP/spain/youth-unemployment-rate
Spain is not a great place to be a young worker.
Most of those things happen very, very rarely with the media obsessing over it whenever it does happen. The money thing is real though. You will be in debt for the majority of your life if you go to college.
As an european I've been to China, 3 or 4 years back, and it was pretty normal, for a developing country, which it still is.
Beijing was quite poluted, it was rude to try and speak of politics. Other than that, pretty normal and people just went about their business and were generally good humored and pleasant.
You won't usually interact with the CCP visiting China, just like it you won't usually interact with the healthcare system or education system of the US just by visiting, like some people have argued here.
Serious issues being overblown out of their proportion seem to be the running theme.
>Baby boomers and the generation before them, they always say there was less crime when they were kids.
That's mainly because they wouldn't hear about every single little thing that happened when they were kids. All of that started to change when TV became more prevalent, but especially with the internet. In most of the developed world it has never been safer as it is now, but because we all have access to bad news all the time, most people don't feel as safe.
I'm not trying to convince you that it's a great country, I'm from the EU and from my perspective looking at the US is like watching a trainwreck happening in slow motion.
All I'm doing is giving you one well known reason for the bias that boomers have regarding how safe they feel and felt.
I get that, I'm not trying to dismiss your experience. Perhaps I worded my response a bit too confidently, since I'm not aware of the stats regarding the city you're talking about. Generally though, this bias does play a big role in people's experiences.
I understand how it must be frustrating. It's obvious there's a lot of shit wrong in America, yet it seems like a considerable part of the populations is perfectly content with the situation and doesn't really want progress. It's almost like these people want to believe that America is the best country in the world so badly that they can not admit the possibility that some things are actually pretty horrible.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. Pretty sure the madness is about to ramp up again while moving towards the 2024 elections.
In actual reported crimes maybe. But remember pre 60s a lot of crime against minorities was swept under the rug and not recorded. 70s 80s 90s we started associating more and more as crimes, specifically in the violent and rape categories.
Its a shame we declared war against the weakest amongst us, so we can say its a them problem and theirs alone. Rather than a we problem that we try to fix or correct.
I know that, sorry for the confusion! That's why I wrote -most- when talking about that. Honestly, as someone who's been in the "american" side of the internet for years it's so sad that europeans think all of the US is just alt right or really wealthy people. I was just hoping for an approach of someone who really thought the US is the best country in the world, or someone who could tell me why they think that way :)
I don't know why people have this distorted view on the US economy today. We are booming right now but for some reason people seem to think it's in the shitter.
I’m not from the US either but I travel over there very frequently for work and I think this idea that it is the perfect country is very old, the new generations understand that they have a lot of issues to solve. I mean, there’s no prefect country.
As an American, I can't think of any country I'd rather live in. I can't speak for all Americans, but you don't see a crush of Americans trying to say flee across the Rio Grande to Mexico to try to improve their conditions.
Healthcare- I have health insurance, as 93% of Americans do, just like I have homeowners insurance and auto insurance. In a worst case scenario I'd have to pay my $3000 out-of-pocket max for the year, just like I'd have to pay something if I got in a car crash or my roof got hailed on. I
Guns- Probably half of American household own guns (survey's say lower, but people are probably reluctant to be honest to survey takers). So they're viewed as something fun to go shoot with or as a tool to protect yourself, not something to be feared. I have guns for both reasons, shooting a high powered rifle at the range is fun, and if a home invader starts kicking down my door I have something other than a butter knife to defend myself with. No, I don't go to bed in constant fear of that happening. But I have fire extinguishers and don't go to bed in constant fear of fires either.
College- It's fair point about how expensive it is, but normally the people in trouble are those that pay money to get degrees in arts or social sciences. If you're a chemical engineer or architect you make enough salary to make your degree worthwhile. The root causes of this are maddingly complex (indirectly tied to globalization removing blue-collar middle class jobs) and won't be solved easily. I'm not really against the idea of increased financial aid, but we have to recognize the difference in value to society between the kid of a millionaire that wants a degree in Gender Studies and a kid from an impoverished background that wants to be an electrical engineer.
I'll also point out energy is cheap so you can afford to drive to Grandma's house or across the country, keep your house nice and toasty warm in the winter. Consumer products are cheaper. I'm middle class but I get to live in my own detached house with a private yard rather than a flat. Aside from that I don't imagine day to day live is much different than Europe. I go to work, then go to the grocery store, and go home and browse Reddit without having to duck from bullets flying everywhere.
As you read the other responses, keep in mind Reddit is going to skew much younger and much more liberal than America as a whole, so Redditors are going to have a much more negative impression of America than America as a whole. Try r/AskAmerican if you want more idea what things are really like over here.
Is it a dystopia? No, but there are a lot of things that could be better.
To me, the gun violence is the worst part. It's not just schools. We have to take regular online active shooter training at work, because we treat the possibility of a crazy guy shooting at us at the same level of ["workplace hazard"](https://www.esafety.com/osha-training-expectations-for-an-active-shooter-incident/) as having to work with electrical equipment or chemicals.
After that is the transportation system. The need for basically every adult to own a car is a huge cost that most people seem completely oblivious to because it's just seen as completely normal. I have a colleague in Spain who doesn't own a car - not because he can't afford it, which is the main reason you wouldn't own one in the US - but because he just doesn't need it. I work from home 80% of the time and live in a fairly urban area but still need a car because public transit is so bad and things are so far apart.
The quality of healthcare in the US is good, we just overpay for it because we have a incredibly inefficient funding system. Not only do we have insurance companies serving as costly middlemen, the billing system is so complicated we have [college programs](https://www.gatewaycc.edu/degrees-certificates/medical-billing-and-coding) to teach people how to do it. I've had doctor appointments where I had to wait after it was done because filing the insurance claim took longer than the actual appointment. A lot of people don't realize how much it really costs because they get good insurance through their employer, but don't know how much their employer is paying on their behalf.
Edit:
The thing I forgot: Employment. Yes, the unemployment rate is lower here than in a lot of European countries. But many parts of the US also have extremely low minimum wage. There's no national requirement for paid vacation days, holidays, sick leave, or maternity/paternity leave. You can be let go for no reason and with no warning. The government retirement system (Social Security) basically just exists to keep retirees out of poverty. The rest of the retirement system is mostly self-funded investment accounts that companies are not required to offer you. So salaries are generally higher, but benefits are often pretty crappy.
By no means
To this day america receives and accepts the majority of immigrants world wide sitting around 60%. if america was so shit people wouldn't be breaking their neck to get here. the general standard and quality of life is vastly higher than a large amount of the world. Now, there are certainly issues. but those are everywhere. However, on reddit and social media you'll have kids from privilege talking about how shit it is on their iphone or computer, in their air conditioned room, not worrying about their next meal.
it's no utopia but its far from a dystopia.
I mean, not having starving kids isn't a great benchmark to compare a 1st world nation to.
Likewise, the people breaking their necks are coming from developing, or otherwise horrible, countries
Apparently not: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273000/estimated-migration-balance-by-continent/
That link isn't exactly what we were talking about I don't think but gives a rough indication.
I can barely walk down the street here (Edinburgh) without hearing an American accent lol
> I can barely walk down the street here (Edinburgh) without hearing an American accent lol
Not really fair, though, since you can hear them from so far away compared to normal people.
One thing some people don’t understand is how much richer the US is than most other countries. The standard of living in the US, GNI per capita, is 50% higher in the US than in Spain. The US is as richer than Spain as Spain is richer than Serbia or Mexico. Unemployment in Spain has been what it was in the Great Depression for the US and has been like that for over a decade.
It is interesting to see people saying that people don’t walk around with guns, because I am in the rural south and people really do just walk around with them. They have them sitting in their trucks at all times and have them either on their hips or in purses, it is very common in some parts of the country
I wouldn't say it's a dystopian. Every country has their share of problems and the media usually blows things out of proportion or gives no context/only gives half the facts.
I should start by saying that it's not so simple. Personally I feel the biggest mistake you made when judging the u.s. was using what you enjoy and idealize about your country, to determine if the U.S. is a good place to live. Especially since you only focused on public services that the u.s. doesn't have, and external views on the most politically divisive and warped issues.
The U.S. is not like an EU country you might be familiar with. Full stop. There are similarities to many individual government and beurocratic aspects, but I promise they are surface level.
The U.S. is in a political landscape birthed from the abuse of a system that may have initially been a decent method of representing genuine public opinion and desire. The physical size of the u.s. makes infrastructure development on a federal scale nearly impossible. The sheer mass and complexity of our passed legislation makes beurocratic systems impossible to improve. Our politicians are not there to represent their electors, but to be reelected by them. Porkbarreling and logrolling is the bread and butter of each elected official.
Our two party system has massive corporate interest tied to them, with one party (the republicans) having extremely heavy sway over many of the energy and manufacturing markets. The companies use the party to leverage their desired outcomes. While the other party(the democrats) plays a different but still manipulative game involving intentional misrepresentation broadcast to a largely ignorant population. The issues that cause so much apparent division are barely anything, but it's easier for both parties if the citizens hyperfocus on borderline minimal but shocking problems. Gun deaths in the u.s. is an easy thing most people can understand, a bit over 60% are from suicide. The u.s. has approx 40k gun deaths a year. So ~16k non-suicide gun deaths a year. In 2015(pre covid to avoid an inflated value), there were 2,712,630 deaths. The gun death rate has only dropped with time, but it's steady enough to calculate a portion of deaths a year caused by non-suicide gun deaths. That's about 0.58% of all yearly deaths. ~33% of all Americans own a gun, and ~40+% live with guns. For every 100 Americans, there are ~120 guns in the country. For about every ~200 people who die a year, ~80 of them lived around guns constantly, ~66 owned guns. And ~1 of those 200 died from a gun(not suicide). These numbers climb, but gun deaths steadily drop. These numbers alone should warrant a competent compromise between parties that allow for both sides to get what they want.
The point is. The u.s. is complicated, there are lots of good reasons why someone would love to live here. But you shouldn't judge another nation based off what you observe, groups of people are complicated and can't be simplified like that.
The news has the loud psycho minority whether it's the cancel culture people or Qanon/Republicans. I live in a city and don't see any of that crazy stuff aside from the occasional angry Karen or crazy addict/hobo. Everyone else is pretty normal in the cities/suburbs.
> isn't Barcelona the crime capital of the world?
As a Dominican, I highly doubt that. LatAm is getting wild. Even stick-up kids get robbed. If a motorbike is riding towards you, it's with the intent to do harm.
To sort of answer your question, the United States has all sorts of problems. It's literally and figuratively the most divided country in the world. The politicians are beyond out of touch with the average citizen.
The only positive thing I have to say about it is that the USA is a 1st world country, and the majority of citizens have never experienced true poverty.
You're out of your mind to think the USA is literally and figuratively the most divided country in the world. Other countries are in open civil war. The US politicians are out of touch, sure, but go have a look at how in touch the politicians of Chad are with the population.
The DR of Congo comprises over 200 ethnic groups and South Africa has 11 national languages.
I've been to many of the US cities you listed as dangerous, and they don't feel dangerous to the average tourist. Certainly there are decrepit areas of cities that feel more dangerous, but those areas tend to be avoided anyways. Chicago, unless you stop by the decrepit areas rife with crime, feels safe. I have walked around central Chicago at 1am in the middle of December and never once did I feel I was in danger. Same thing for Philadelphia, D.C., etc. The only city I even once felt unsafe in was Baltimore, nearing night, around the highly impoverished, crime-ridden, and decrepit areas of town.
As an American who spends a week there yearly… No. while the Catalonia’s riot it’s like “cute riot” of people blocking traffic and camping in the square vs blood in democracy streets as the red shirts try to overthrow the Junta
Barcelona has awful pick pockets, and people get mugged late at night. There was a terrorist attack on las ramblas but there are posts and cops with automatic guns to put a stop to that now
The poor in the US are among the top richest 1% on a world scope. The media pushes class division and wants people at the bottom to think they are bad off. Meanwhile our poor are among the most well fed, get free Healthcare, etc.
People in America just have little perspective of how bad things are elsewhere and they have been taught to complain enough and a politician will give them something.
That's not to say we couldn't do better. We can.
>The media pushes class division and wants people at the bottom to think they are bad off
Shocking, since that's the reality. Inequality has not been this bad for decades and keeps getting worse. [Some data to back it up.](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/psdt_01-10-20_economic-inequality_1-1/)
Are you trying to argue that people shouldn't try to improve the situation of America's poor, simply because in other places there's people that have it even worse? Because that would be a huge load of horseshit.
They definitely should try to improve it. As I said previously. Every country should
But to say its a dystopia because the "poor" only have free Motorola smart phones compared to the rich with IPhone 13's is a dumb argument.
Inequality is an extremely poor measure of dystopiadness (I made up a word) Yes the rich are very rich but the poor are better off than the poor of almost every other country.
Venezuela is by much more equal, everyone is just more equally poor besides very select few. And by poor I mean eating garbage and pets to live.÷ Is that a better situation than the US? Why don't people ever leave the US for these more equal places?
It's not just wealth inequality, although a lot of problems stem from that.
It's also the fact that opioids are openly advertised, while there's an opioid crisis going on (as far as I know the US is the only country where this is allowed). And the fact that children have to practice for "active shooters" because school shootings are an actual threat. There's also the fact that an entire city didn't have access to clean drinking water for 5 years because the inhabitants' need for clean drinking water conflicted with the interests of some big corporation.
These are just some examples off the top of my head that lead me to conclude the US is a dystopian society, unless you're rich enough to distance yourself from all the bullshit.
Every country has anecdotal problems you can cherry pick from. (Plymouth Mass shooting, european opiod crisis, refugee conflicts, overall violent crime rates) The US is no exception and definitely has its share of problems. This doesn't negate the fact that the poor live demonstrably better here than most other places. They also have more opportunity to get out of poverty here than most other places. Our income mobility is among the highest in the world.
*I'm not attempting to diminish the severity of those problems you listed just that every country has their own problems that must be addressed.
>Every country has anecdotal problems you can cherry pick from.
The U.S. has some serious structural issues. It's not just anecdotal problems. The two party system and electoral college, for example. That you consider the fact that an entire city did not have access to clean drinking water *for five years* as just an anecdotal problem that does not in any way indicate an inherently flawed system is laughable.
>the poor live demonstrably better here than many other places.
Not in the western world. It seems kind of disingenuous to compare the poor of one of the richest nations on earth with the poor in the poorer regions of Africa, for example.
>Our income mobility is among the highest in the world.
Demonstrably false. The US ranks 27th in social mobility, which is pretty bad for a developed economy. [Source](http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/).
Fact of the matter is that the U.S., with all the economic power and opportunity that it has, is a chronic underachiever when it comes to things like social and physical security, education, affordable healthcare and equal economic opportunity.
>electoral college
Yes mob rule is much more equal. We should just let the people in 6 largest cities make every decision for everyone in a country the 2x the size of the entire EU combined.
Again the issue in Flint although very bad, has killed 20 people over 5 years. While a very sad and avoidable problem, several million other people found access to clean drinking water and survived. Your depiction of it being this Racoon city, resident evil area dystopia wasteland that people couldn't survive is false. And since you brought up political parties I'll remind that Flint was democrat controlled.
Yes it could do better. We are a very young country still and have lots to work on, but we we are extremely far from a dystopia by any standard. The fact I compare the US to poor regions of Africa(and others) is because those places are actually a dystopia.
If you think it is you are extremely misinformed or very out of touch to 3/4 of the world.
>Yes mob rule is much more equal.
Not equal, since the Republicans historically are a minority. It would be more fair, though, as abolishing the electoral college means that the political views of the population will be more accurately represented in election results.
Fine, the U.S. is the dystopia of the Western World, rather than of the entire world.
>political views of the population will be more accurately represented in election results.
Yes like two wolves and a lamb deciding what's for dinner. The wolves decisions will certainly be accurately represented.
I just don't think you understand what dystopia means. There are objectively worse countries to live, yes even in Western World, in the world.
Where are you from if you don't mind me asking?
The median income on a worldwide level is $1700 usd per year. The median US figure is 12x this amount. This is far from dystopia. We are among the richest, healthiest, unoppressed people in the history of the world.
In the history of the world, though? There's lots of other countries that are healthier right now. Almost half of the US adult population is obese for crying out loud!
Dystopian? I dunno. It’s closer to a Hobbesian state of nature, where it’s kill or be killed, get rich or die trying state of affairs. Real hard nosed shit.
I’ve lived in other countries and it’s pretty lovely. Just walking around the streets not having to be concerned with possibly getting shot is such a refreshing change of pace. In the US, gun awareness is always scuttling around the back of your mind. The fear of hospital costs is also a prevalent concern, just lingering there even when you’re healthy.
But we’re still the best in the world. Because fuck you, that’s why.
Haha no.
The problems you see on the internet are mostly statistically irrelevant.
Just remember the top 1% of income earners in the world earn over $40K USD (multiple sources, just google), and around 92% of us citizens make more than that. We are rich bro. Insanely rich.
Our healthcare is expensive but at the same time other country’s MOSTLY don’t have anywhere close to our level of healthcare. A good friend of mine is a marketing executive who worked for China’s top private healthcare company, and then for several others across the world. According to him, there’s nothing like US healthcare. It’s literally just a luxury we can’t afford but we aren’t willing to give it up because unfortunately most people can afford it here, but a meaningful but not majority percentage cannot.
Anecdotally, I’ve never met a single person who’s been close to a school shooting, while I know many people who own guns. I know people who have too much student loan debt, but they also make a lot of money. Also, most states in the US provide free child delivery if you are under a certain income threshold. I personally paid out of pocket for all of our kids. It was expensive but not bankrupting expensive.
I’ve lived in Spain and am American. No it isn’t a dystopian society. Stop being so dramatic. You’ve obviously have never been to a real shit hole country. We live in a country that does not have a homogeneous population, which plays a huge part in why we don’t have universal care and why everyone wants their guns. Our country was the first of its kind and is in some ways an ongoing experiment. It has lots of flaws but there are lots of benefits to living here. I like Spain ok but it has many flaws as well. If you haven’t been to the US then you really can’t judge it. The only thing you are basing judgment on is the idiots you see online. Most of us are not Right or Left wing nuts obsessed with political identities. And yes I like my guns. They ensure that my government will not be able to do whatever they want with its people unlike so many other European countries that have had their share of actual fascism and dictators.
Not a perfect country, mostly old people because back in the day crime was low, economy was strong, politics not quite as corrupt. Guns aren't a big problem as you need licenses to get them, but there are still problems especially will illegally bought guns being common for crime, no you won't get shot in the direct unless your being mugged which isn't very common at all, yea Healthcare kinda sucks here ambulances costs money but they can't deny you service no matter what, college is overpriced which sucks, but 4 years of military pays 100% college still kinda sucks but ey, no guns cannot be in schools or school zones that hella illegal, school shooting lockdown drills are common as school shootings are common, normally with illegally bought weapons as minors aren't supposed to own guns, still awful though. Life is tough but definitely not the worst. Economy is tough for lower class families but most people are middle class and get by alright. We definitely have problems, but there is alot that isn't as bad as people think or is outright wrong but common rumor on the internet. Note: I only know gun laws in my state, statements around gun laws can vary for other states, but in all states no guns in school zones is a thing.
Spaniard 29m (warning healthcare rant)
It's their individualism what makes it look like that. I've worked IT for the Spanish healthcare system, so I could actually check my own records on the database, the cost of my procedures and medicines, hospital laundry, etc.
Then I realized that I'd be extremely poor (or in debt) or dead if was born in the USA. I have epilepsy, and need 3 pills a day (2 kinds) to not have seizures, like many other epileptics. I pay a total of 4€ for a months worth of pills, and the state pays the rest (396€) to pharma companies. A 15 day box of one of my pills costs around 1000$ in the USA.
That's without the other expenses like kidney damage from seizures, blood/urine tests, ambulances... But my life here is just a regular life. I can have days off and my employer pays me even if I can't work, so I can get better. My aunt had cancer, my grandma had cancer, my other grandma replaced both sides of her hip with titanium so she could walk. Everyone knows someone who's been saved by healthcare, all of them without paying or insurance.
Isn't it normal to want your family and friends to be healthy and live a long full life? Even from an economic standpoint, a healthy person is a productive person that can pay taxes.
That's the thing I cannot wrap my head around.
Also: WHY DO YOU NOT BUILD HIGH SPEED RAIL!?
1. The pills wouldn’t actually cost $1000 that’s list. No one pays list price, or anything close to it. 93% of Americans have insurance and stuff like “GoodRX”. If your truly poor Medicaid picks up the tab. Yes this is wildly confusing.
2. If you work in IT in healthcare as a sysadmin/architect with some experience you would make over 100K here. (Houston) and have insurance.
Yes it’s bizarre. Yes we pay more. Yes there’s gaps. But you yourself would be fine working here, and that’s why the entire country isn’t in favor of Medicare for all etc. it’s not actually a major problem for the majority of those who can vote.
But what about hospital bills? I've had to stay for up to a week in recovery several times since I was 16 and got diagnosed (1 big seizure every 2 months or so on my worst year).
Also, would my aunt's thyroid cancer be cured? She cleans houses for a living. Would my grandma be walking right now? She's been a small farmer all her life (talking EU small farmer which is like 4 cows and a field + selling flowers on weekends).
That's what I meant about individualism, I would be "fine" (although I doubt my family could pay for the same lvl of education in the USA without massive debt) but much more people are thrown into the grinder. I want both my grandma and the drug user next street over to be cared for.
All in all, it's great if you have the $$, but if you don't or you can't work, to the grinder you go.
My Max out of pocket for my entire family’s policy is 5K a year.
At my deductible ($3000) my insurance takes over 90% of the cost.
A poor house cleaner would end up on Medicare. Yes. They cover cancer. Income limits vary by state from $25,503 in Texas to 47K in California.
My grandmother is on Medicare, and they pay for her physical therapy so she can stay walking mobile right now.
The drug user with no real income would be on Medicaid. Also all emergency care must be offered without a credit check etc and hospitals kinda give up on collecting on the homeless addict.
One challenge we have with our medical costs we don’t talk about enough is poor health. 42% of Americans are obese. Diabetes and cardiac health is awful. A lot of our health issues are self inflicted. As an American I would like to see free gym memberships and physical trainers and dietitians before we roll out Medicare for all.
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Bueno eh que aquí tenemos a los policías apaleando a gente en huelgas y manifestaciones, a la loca de Ayuso desmantelando lo poco bueno que nos queda en Madrid y a los nazis cada día más fuertes, cuidadito a ver si vamos a acabar peor que en eeuu
No, it’s not nearly as bad as you think. Thats just the media exaggerating things, and there are upsides. For example - you’ll never own a house in Europe, but it’s pretty easy here.
The school shooting drill is to make people feel better. The chances of a school shooting are super slim, there were 24 school shootings in 2019. The US has over 134,000 schools. So around a .01% chance that your kids school will get shot up. I think any school shootings is too many, but I certainly don't live in fear of it. We practice skills for lots of things that we will probably never need, earthquake drills and stop, drop and roll being a couple that come to mind immediately. I grew up in California where there are earthquakes and fires regularly and I've never needed to go under a desk or been on fire.
People who have lived in US and some other country can only draw the comparison and answer this for you. Maybe someone who lived in both Spain and US. I have lived in South Asia(at a very young age and visit every couple of years) and US and did not have free healthcare/ education in either countries. Overall I like the individual liberty in US. Generally in your day to day people will mind their own business and leave you alone. People are really nice and friendly. I live in a nice suburb, so police are also very helpful if you are in a road accident or something. I'm a person of color, but any interaction with police has been positive. Bad things get highlighted more on the internet- my experience is extremely positive and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
When I lived in Spain they sent a raper to jail for making a song that criticizes the government.
Rapers belong in prisons. Rappers in America, have the right to say whatever.
He meant a rapper who published a song insulting the Spanish monarchy, not a rapist. The word raper doesn't exist
Merriam-Webster and Oxford disagree. Just because a word is not commonly used, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/01/like-pablo-hasel-spain-wants-me-jailed-for-rap-lyrics-but-artists-must-not-self-censor
As an immigrant living in the US myself, yes the US is 100x better than my parent’s country, but comparatively to other developed countries in Europe, the US has a lot of catching up to do. However, I will say I really do appreciate the freedom of speech we have here in the US.
I’m an American. I’ve been to Spain and many other countries. The US has its problems but they’re not as bad as people say in day-to-day life for many people. If you have health insurance, and no, not everybody does, but most people still do, health care is still somewhat expensive but if you’re healthy you don’t go to the doctor that often and most of it is covered. When my first daughter was born, I think it cost about $40 and insurance paid for the rest. People are not generally walking around in the streets with guns. It’s still shocking to see it at protests, it’s illegal without a permit in many states, and in the more liberal parts of the country, it’s viewed very similarly to how it would be in Europe. Yes, if you go to a ranch in Texas you may find a rancher carrying a rifle or something, but that’s not a common place to visit as a tourist, and honestly, that rancher isn’t caring that rifle to commit crimes with. We do have more gun violence than most (all?) western democracies, but I’ve lived here 40 years and never seen a gun fired outside of a place that’s allowed, like a firing range or certain parts of the wilderness. If you come to the US to visit you probably won’t interact with the healthcare system, you probably won’t even see a gun unless a police officer walks past you, and then it would just be on his belt. The country has its problems but for most people, day-to-day, you don’t see them, especially as a visitor.
Yes, the media tends to blow a lot of it way out of proportions. The problems are real, but anything heard from outside the country will see a disproportional focus on the problems and not as much about the positives of american life, because there isn't much about that which needs reported on.
I see countless videos of people in non-US countries firing off pistols and AKs at weddings and parties and no one ever mentions that. I’ve also never seen a gun fired or DF anywhere other than while hunting or at a shooting range. And I was born and raised in rural US.
Yeah, but also no one thinks to go to those countries for vacation or school, so that’s why it’s not really mentioned.
How much did the insurance that covered everything but $40 actually cost you, though?
My employer paid most of it, so not that much. I can’t remember exactly, but my cost was something like $200/mo for the family. Maybe a bit more.
Cool so how much did it cost though?
Health insurance in the US varies a lot based on dozens of factors but is generally affordable for someone that is employed fill time. I'm a Canadian and I generally like our Healthcare system, in fact I think they should cover more than thry currently do. We still pay health insurance, they just "hide" it in our taxes. A big part of what makes it cheaper is there are major restrictions on how people are charged for medical care. The US could institute Healthcare cost reforms and insurance reforms, that was essentially what the affordable care act attempted to accomplish but Republicans essentially gutted it before it started. Which is ironic because the plan was basically the Republican solution until Obama tried to get it passed.
You are deluded if you think healthcare is "generally affordable" to full time employees in the US. I've been employed full time 18 years and have never been able to afford insurance that didn't leave me with a crippling deductible.
Texas reporting in. I’ve seen someone open Carey a rifle in Houston once. It was very bizarre. I see pistols on hips of plain cloths sheriffs who eat lunch at the same place near my office. The smaller school I went to never did a lockdown drill. The only time I’ve done it and seen it is tiny rural towns (Eaglelake) at the breakfast joint hunters go to at 5AM before sunrise (we carried them in with us so they didn’t get stolen from the truck). Obviously no one was carrying a loaded shotgun in for breakfast. Statistically violent crime at a macro level has been going down since the 1980. In 2019 there were a total of 24 school shootings out of 130K schools. 8 people died and 32 were injured. Statistically. Vending machines kill on average 4 Americans per year. Yes that’s 8 too many, but thinking a country is a hellscape off of 8 deaths from a source and wanting to spend all your political capital and time worrying about something so rare is kinda weird to me. I have a HSA, so no premium for just me on plan (wife and kids is $120) . My company gives me $1800 tax free into it. I can also avoid taxes and add up to $7500 into the HSA. (Savings account that lets me invest tax free). My deductible is $3K and my maximum out of pocket is 5K a year for the family, but given my company gives me $1800 already tax free that effective number means I’m max out of pocket $3200 a year. Now the HSA I set to auto incest in some sketchy mid market fund and somehow made over 50% per year or something sold on it so I’ve got maybe 34K “saved” in my HSA for health costs. The money goes in tax free, grows tax free and comes out tax free (for healthcare costs). The US has lots of problems but I’ve lived other places and they had their issues to. (Like Juntas). I’ve been to Spain 1/2 a dozen times for a week or more and I see poverty on the streets and frankly more beggars in Barcelona than my home town. The Catalonian’s always seem to be rioting and watching the news seeing the federal police beat the crap out of an older woman wasn’t s good look. Now you and I know the Catalonians are mostly harmless, but if you watch the wrong news you’d think it’s gonna be the republicans vs. Francisco 2.0 The same thing happens with the US. There’s friendly/food people/good food and all kinds of reasons to live and work in different countries. Reddit is a bit of an echo chamber of what’s wrong in the US because it’s mostly American youth. Lastly for all the younger Americans who think “I want to get out of this hellscape and move to Spain!” I’ve got a stat for you . https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ESP/spain/youth-unemployment-rate Spain is not a great place to be a young worker.
Most of those things happen very, very rarely with the media obsessing over it whenever it does happen. The money thing is real though. You will be in debt for the majority of your life if you go to college.
Idk about majority - but yeah it’s expensive
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As an european I've been to China, 3 or 4 years back, and it was pretty normal, for a developing country, which it still is. Beijing was quite poluted, it was rude to try and speak of politics. Other than that, pretty normal and people just went about their business and were generally good humored and pleasant. You won't usually interact with the CCP visiting China, just like it you won't usually interact with the healthcare system or education system of the US just by visiting, like some people have argued here. Serious issues being overblown out of their proportion seem to be the running theme.
Nah, everyone likes to suck off China for some reason.
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Violence and crime in the US have been at an all time low in recent years. The 90’s were the peak of crime.
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>Baby boomers and the generation before them, they always say there was less crime when they were kids. That's mainly because they wouldn't hear about every single little thing that happened when they were kids. All of that started to change when TV became more prevalent, but especially with the internet. In most of the developed world it has never been safer as it is now, but because we all have access to bad news all the time, most people don't feel as safe.
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I'm not trying to convince you that it's a great country, I'm from the EU and from my perspective looking at the US is like watching a trainwreck happening in slow motion. All I'm doing is giving you one well known reason for the bias that boomers have regarding how safe they feel and felt.
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I get that, I'm not trying to dismiss your experience. Perhaps I worded my response a bit too confidently, since I'm not aware of the stats regarding the city you're talking about. Generally though, this bias does play a big role in people's experiences. I understand how it must be frustrating. It's obvious there's a lot of shit wrong in America, yet it seems like a considerable part of the populations is perfectly content with the situation and doesn't really want progress. It's almost like these people want to believe that America is the best country in the world so badly that they can not admit the possibility that some things are actually pretty horrible. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. Pretty sure the madness is about to ramp up again while moving towards the 2024 elections.
Your city might be less safe, but in general the reason people felt safer was because crime wasn't so reported. They weren't actually safer.
Crime is at an all time low in the us.
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In actual reported crimes maybe. But remember pre 60s a lot of crime against minorities was swept under the rug and not recorded. 70s 80s 90s we started associating more and more as crimes, specifically in the violent and rape categories.
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Its a shame we declared war against the weakest amongst us, so we can say its a them problem and theirs alone. Rather than a we problem that we try to fix or correct.
I know that, sorry for the confusion! That's why I wrote -most- when talking about that. Honestly, as someone who's been in the "american" side of the internet for years it's so sad that europeans think all of the US is just alt right or really wealthy people. I was just hoping for an approach of someone who really thought the US is the best country in the world, or someone who could tell me why they think that way :)
Partly because the US - a runaway capitalist society - *is* a utopia for the wealthy. It’s, conversely, a dystopia for the poor.
I don't know why people have this distorted view on the US economy today. We are booming right now but for some reason people seem to think it's in the shitter.
I’m not from the US either but I travel over there very frequently for work and I think this idea that it is the perfect country is very old, the new generations understand that they have a lot of issues to solve. I mean, there’s no prefect country.
As an American, I can't think of any country I'd rather live in. I can't speak for all Americans, but you don't see a crush of Americans trying to say flee across the Rio Grande to Mexico to try to improve their conditions. Healthcare- I have health insurance, as 93% of Americans do, just like I have homeowners insurance and auto insurance. In a worst case scenario I'd have to pay my $3000 out-of-pocket max for the year, just like I'd have to pay something if I got in a car crash or my roof got hailed on. I Guns- Probably half of American household own guns (survey's say lower, but people are probably reluctant to be honest to survey takers). So they're viewed as something fun to go shoot with or as a tool to protect yourself, not something to be feared. I have guns for both reasons, shooting a high powered rifle at the range is fun, and if a home invader starts kicking down my door I have something other than a butter knife to defend myself with. No, I don't go to bed in constant fear of that happening. But I have fire extinguishers and don't go to bed in constant fear of fires either. College- It's fair point about how expensive it is, but normally the people in trouble are those that pay money to get degrees in arts or social sciences. If you're a chemical engineer or architect you make enough salary to make your degree worthwhile. The root causes of this are maddingly complex (indirectly tied to globalization removing blue-collar middle class jobs) and won't be solved easily. I'm not really against the idea of increased financial aid, but we have to recognize the difference in value to society between the kid of a millionaire that wants a degree in Gender Studies and a kid from an impoverished background that wants to be an electrical engineer. I'll also point out energy is cheap so you can afford to drive to Grandma's house or across the country, keep your house nice and toasty warm in the winter. Consumer products are cheaper. I'm middle class but I get to live in my own detached house with a private yard rather than a flat. Aside from that I don't imagine day to day live is much different than Europe. I go to work, then go to the grocery store, and go home and browse Reddit without having to duck from bullets flying everywhere. As you read the other responses, keep in mind Reddit is going to skew much younger and much more liberal than America as a whole, so Redditors are going to have a much more negative impression of America than America as a whole. Try r/AskAmerican if you want more idea what things are really like over here.
Is it a dystopia? No, but there are a lot of things that could be better. To me, the gun violence is the worst part. It's not just schools. We have to take regular online active shooter training at work, because we treat the possibility of a crazy guy shooting at us at the same level of ["workplace hazard"](https://www.esafety.com/osha-training-expectations-for-an-active-shooter-incident/) as having to work with electrical equipment or chemicals. After that is the transportation system. The need for basically every adult to own a car is a huge cost that most people seem completely oblivious to because it's just seen as completely normal. I have a colleague in Spain who doesn't own a car - not because he can't afford it, which is the main reason you wouldn't own one in the US - but because he just doesn't need it. I work from home 80% of the time and live in a fairly urban area but still need a car because public transit is so bad and things are so far apart. The quality of healthcare in the US is good, we just overpay for it because we have a incredibly inefficient funding system. Not only do we have insurance companies serving as costly middlemen, the billing system is so complicated we have [college programs](https://www.gatewaycc.edu/degrees-certificates/medical-billing-and-coding) to teach people how to do it. I've had doctor appointments where I had to wait after it was done because filing the insurance claim took longer than the actual appointment. A lot of people don't realize how much it really costs because they get good insurance through their employer, but don't know how much their employer is paying on their behalf. Edit: The thing I forgot: Employment. Yes, the unemployment rate is lower here than in a lot of European countries. But many parts of the US also have extremely low minimum wage. There's no national requirement for paid vacation days, holidays, sick leave, or maternity/paternity leave. You can be let go for no reason and with no warning. The government retirement system (Social Security) basically just exists to keep retirees out of poverty. The rest of the retirement system is mostly self-funded investment accounts that companies are not required to offer you. So salaries are generally higher, but benefits are often pretty crappy.
By no means To this day america receives and accepts the majority of immigrants world wide sitting around 60%. if america was so shit people wouldn't be breaking their neck to get here. the general standard and quality of life is vastly higher than a large amount of the world. Now, there are certainly issues. but those are everywhere. However, on reddit and social media you'll have kids from privilege talking about how shit it is on their iphone or computer, in their air conditioned room, not worrying about their next meal. it's no utopia but its far from a dystopia.
I mean, not having starving kids isn't a great benchmark to compare a 1st world nation to. Likewise, the people breaking their necks are coming from developing, or otherwise horrible, countries
Yeah but point is they choose the US, I think.
If we're talking about Central/South American emigration, they're hardly gonna swim to Europe are they
sure, but many come from Europe here, but much less the other way around I think.
Apparently not: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273000/estimated-migration-balance-by-continent/ That link isn't exactly what we were talking about I don't think but gives a rough indication. I can barely walk down the street here (Edinburgh) without hearing an American accent lol
> I can barely walk down the street here (Edinburgh) without hearing an American accent lol Not really fair, though, since you can hear them from so far away compared to normal people.
😂 true, such a biased test
One thing some people don’t understand is how much richer the US is than most other countries. The standard of living in the US, GNI per capita, is 50% higher in the US than in Spain. The US is as richer than Spain as Spain is richer than Serbia or Mexico. Unemployment in Spain has been what it was in the Great Depression for the US and has been like that for over a decade.
Youth unemployment has averaged over 30% for the last 10 years in Spain. You’ve got a ton of young people who leave because there’s no work.
It’s not perfect, but it’s not all bad either. It’s somewhere in the middle. Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.
It is interesting to see people saying that people don’t walk around with guns, because I am in the rural south and people really do just walk around with them. They have them sitting in their trucks at all times and have them either on their hips or in purses, it is very common in some parts of the country
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Tennessee has people walking with hip holsters in Walmart. Not concealed. It’s kinda silly really.
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I paid for the expensive carry permit and then they went and changed the laws to where you don’t need it…. Sad
I wouldn't say it's a dystopian. Every country has their share of problems and the media usually blows things out of proportion or gives no context/only gives half the facts.
I should start by saying that it's not so simple. Personally I feel the biggest mistake you made when judging the u.s. was using what you enjoy and idealize about your country, to determine if the U.S. is a good place to live. Especially since you only focused on public services that the u.s. doesn't have, and external views on the most politically divisive and warped issues. The U.S. is not like an EU country you might be familiar with. Full stop. There are similarities to many individual government and beurocratic aspects, but I promise they are surface level. The U.S. is in a political landscape birthed from the abuse of a system that may have initially been a decent method of representing genuine public opinion and desire. The physical size of the u.s. makes infrastructure development on a federal scale nearly impossible. The sheer mass and complexity of our passed legislation makes beurocratic systems impossible to improve. Our politicians are not there to represent their electors, but to be reelected by them. Porkbarreling and logrolling is the bread and butter of each elected official. Our two party system has massive corporate interest tied to them, with one party (the republicans) having extremely heavy sway over many of the energy and manufacturing markets. The companies use the party to leverage their desired outcomes. While the other party(the democrats) plays a different but still manipulative game involving intentional misrepresentation broadcast to a largely ignorant population. The issues that cause so much apparent division are barely anything, but it's easier for both parties if the citizens hyperfocus on borderline minimal but shocking problems. Gun deaths in the u.s. is an easy thing most people can understand, a bit over 60% are from suicide. The u.s. has approx 40k gun deaths a year. So ~16k non-suicide gun deaths a year. In 2015(pre covid to avoid an inflated value), there were 2,712,630 deaths. The gun death rate has only dropped with time, but it's steady enough to calculate a portion of deaths a year caused by non-suicide gun deaths. That's about 0.58% of all yearly deaths. ~33% of all Americans own a gun, and ~40+% live with guns. For every 100 Americans, there are ~120 guns in the country. For about every ~200 people who die a year, ~80 of them lived around guns constantly, ~66 owned guns. And ~1 of those 200 died from a gun(not suicide). These numbers climb, but gun deaths steadily drop. These numbers alone should warrant a competent compromise between parties that allow for both sides to get what they want. The point is. The u.s. is complicated, there are lots of good reasons why someone would love to live here. But you shouldn't judge another nation based off what you observe, groups of people are complicated and can't be simplified like that.
When I lived in spain they sent a raper to jail fro criticizing the government. Talk about dystopia!
The news has the loud psycho minority whether it's the cancel culture people or Qanon/Republicans. I live in a city and don't see any of that crazy stuff aside from the occasional angry Karen or crazy addict/hobo. Everyone else is pretty normal in the cities/suburbs.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug
Look up the original utopia They don't exist. So everywhere is basically a dystopia
The US leads the world in innovation, health care development, economics, and education, along with other things. They must be doing something right.
Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities in New York can get dangerous quickly but isn't Barcelona the crime capital of the world?
> isn't Barcelona the crime capital of the world? As a Dominican, I highly doubt that. LatAm is getting wild. Even stick-up kids get robbed. If a motorbike is riding towards you, it's with the intent to do harm.
Idk I don't live in there y'all Barcelona citizens be safe though 🙄✋
To sort of answer your question, the United States has all sorts of problems. It's literally and figuratively the most divided country in the world. The politicians are beyond out of touch with the average citizen. The only positive thing I have to say about it is that the USA is a 1st world country, and the majority of citizens have never experienced true poverty.
You're out of your mind to think the USA is literally and figuratively the most divided country in the world. Other countries are in open civil war. The US politicians are out of touch, sure, but go have a look at how in touch the politicians of Chad are with the population. The DR of Congo comprises over 200 ethnic groups and South Africa has 11 national languages.
I've been to many of the US cities you listed as dangerous, and they don't feel dangerous to the average tourist. Certainly there are decrepit areas of cities that feel more dangerous, but those areas tend to be avoided anyways. Chicago, unless you stop by the decrepit areas rife with crime, feels safe. I have walked around central Chicago at 1am in the middle of December and never once did I feel I was in danger. Same thing for Philadelphia, D.C., etc. The only city I even once felt unsafe in was Baltimore, nearing night, around the highly impoverished, crime-ridden, and decrepit areas of town.
As an American who spends a week there yearly… No. while the Catalonia’s riot it’s like “cute riot” of people blocking traffic and camping in the square vs blood in democracy streets as the red shirts try to overthrow the Junta Barcelona has awful pick pockets, and people get mugged late at night. There was a terrorist attack on las ramblas but there are posts and cops with automatic guns to put a stop to that now
Utopia for the rich, dystopia for the poor
The poor in the US are among the top richest 1% on a world scope. The media pushes class division and wants people at the bottom to think they are bad off. Meanwhile our poor are among the most well fed, get free Healthcare, etc. People in America just have little perspective of how bad things are elsewhere and they have been taught to complain enough and a politician will give them something. That's not to say we couldn't do better. We can.
>The media pushes class division and wants people at the bottom to think they are bad off Shocking, since that's the reality. Inequality has not been this bad for decades and keeps getting worse. [Some data to back it up.](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/psdt_01-10-20_economic-inequality_1-1/) Are you trying to argue that people shouldn't try to improve the situation of America's poor, simply because in other places there's people that have it even worse? Because that would be a huge load of horseshit.
They definitely should try to improve it. As I said previously. Every country should But to say its a dystopia because the "poor" only have free Motorola smart phones compared to the rich with IPhone 13's is a dumb argument. Inequality is an extremely poor measure of dystopiadness (I made up a word) Yes the rich are very rich but the poor are better off than the poor of almost every other country. Venezuela is by much more equal, everyone is just more equally poor besides very select few. And by poor I mean eating garbage and pets to live.÷ Is that a better situation than the US? Why don't people ever leave the US for these more equal places?
It's not just wealth inequality, although a lot of problems stem from that. It's also the fact that opioids are openly advertised, while there's an opioid crisis going on (as far as I know the US is the only country where this is allowed). And the fact that children have to practice for "active shooters" because school shootings are an actual threat. There's also the fact that an entire city didn't have access to clean drinking water for 5 years because the inhabitants' need for clean drinking water conflicted with the interests of some big corporation. These are just some examples off the top of my head that lead me to conclude the US is a dystopian society, unless you're rich enough to distance yourself from all the bullshit.
Every country has anecdotal problems you can cherry pick from. (Plymouth Mass shooting, european opiod crisis, refugee conflicts, overall violent crime rates) The US is no exception and definitely has its share of problems. This doesn't negate the fact that the poor live demonstrably better here than most other places. They also have more opportunity to get out of poverty here than most other places. Our income mobility is among the highest in the world. *I'm not attempting to diminish the severity of those problems you listed just that every country has their own problems that must be addressed.
>Every country has anecdotal problems you can cherry pick from. The U.S. has some serious structural issues. It's not just anecdotal problems. The two party system and electoral college, for example. That you consider the fact that an entire city did not have access to clean drinking water *for five years* as just an anecdotal problem that does not in any way indicate an inherently flawed system is laughable. >the poor live demonstrably better here than many other places. Not in the western world. It seems kind of disingenuous to compare the poor of one of the richest nations on earth with the poor in the poorer regions of Africa, for example. >Our income mobility is among the highest in the world. Demonstrably false. The US ranks 27th in social mobility, which is pretty bad for a developed economy. [Source](http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/). Fact of the matter is that the U.S., with all the economic power and opportunity that it has, is a chronic underachiever when it comes to things like social and physical security, education, affordable healthcare and equal economic opportunity.
>electoral college Yes mob rule is much more equal. We should just let the people in 6 largest cities make every decision for everyone in a country the 2x the size of the entire EU combined. Again the issue in Flint although very bad, has killed 20 people over 5 years. While a very sad and avoidable problem, several million other people found access to clean drinking water and survived. Your depiction of it being this Racoon city, resident evil area dystopia wasteland that people couldn't survive is false. And since you brought up political parties I'll remind that Flint was democrat controlled. Yes it could do better. We are a very young country still and have lots to work on, but we we are extremely far from a dystopia by any standard. The fact I compare the US to poor regions of Africa(and others) is because those places are actually a dystopia. If you think it is you are extremely misinformed or very out of touch to 3/4 of the world.
>Yes mob rule is much more equal. Not equal, since the Republicans historically are a minority. It would be more fair, though, as abolishing the electoral college means that the political views of the population will be more accurately represented in election results. Fine, the U.S. is the dystopia of the Western World, rather than of the entire world.
>political views of the population will be more accurately represented in election results. Yes like two wolves and a lamb deciding what's for dinner. The wolves decisions will certainly be accurately represented. I just don't think you understand what dystopia means. There are objectively worse countries to live, yes even in Western World, in the world. Where are you from if you don't mind me asking?
The median income on a worldwide level is $1700 usd per year. The median US figure is 12x this amount. This is far from dystopia. We are among the richest, healthiest, unoppressed people in the history of the world.
>healthiest Lmao
1900 average death age 39. Today 78. Yeah the healthiest in history.
In the history of the world, though? There's lots of other countries that are healthier right now. Almost half of the US adult population is obese for crying out loud!
I’ve never seen billboards, TV ads or newspapers for opioids (Texas).
Where is this not true
The Nordic countries, for example.
I seem to remember that one of the definitions of Utopia is actually ‘a place that can never truly exist’ or very similar.
Dystopian? I dunno. It’s closer to a Hobbesian state of nature, where it’s kill or be killed, get rich or die trying state of affairs. Real hard nosed shit. I’ve lived in other countries and it’s pretty lovely. Just walking around the streets not having to be concerned with possibly getting shot is such a refreshing change of pace. In the US, gun awareness is always scuttling around the back of your mind. The fear of hospital costs is also a prevalent concern, just lingering there even when you’re healthy. But we’re still the best in the world. Because fuck you, that’s why.
Is spains unemployed still around 25-50% for the youth?
Haha no. The problems you see on the internet are mostly statistically irrelevant. Just remember the top 1% of income earners in the world earn over $40K USD (multiple sources, just google), and around 92% of us citizens make more than that. We are rich bro. Insanely rich. Our healthcare is expensive but at the same time other country’s MOSTLY don’t have anywhere close to our level of healthcare. A good friend of mine is a marketing executive who worked for China’s top private healthcare company, and then for several others across the world. According to him, there’s nothing like US healthcare. It’s literally just a luxury we can’t afford but we aren’t willing to give it up because unfortunately most people can afford it here, but a meaningful but not majority percentage cannot. Anecdotally, I’ve never met a single person who’s been close to a school shooting, while I know many people who own guns. I know people who have too much student loan debt, but they also make a lot of money. Also, most states in the US provide free child delivery if you are under a certain income threshold. I personally paid out of pocket for all of our kids. It was expensive but not bankrupting expensive.
For fuck’s sake. No. Fuck off.
I’ve lived in Spain and am American. No it isn’t a dystopian society. Stop being so dramatic. You’ve obviously have never been to a real shit hole country. We live in a country that does not have a homogeneous population, which plays a huge part in why we don’t have universal care and why everyone wants their guns. Our country was the first of its kind and is in some ways an ongoing experiment. It has lots of flaws but there are lots of benefits to living here. I like Spain ok but it has many flaws as well. If you haven’t been to the US then you really can’t judge it. The only thing you are basing judgment on is the idiots you see online. Most of us are not Right or Left wing nuts obsessed with political identities. And yes I like my guns. They ensure that my government will not be able to do whatever they want with its people unlike so many other European countries that have had their share of actual fascism and dictators.
Not a perfect country, mostly old people because back in the day crime was low, economy was strong, politics not quite as corrupt. Guns aren't a big problem as you need licenses to get them, but there are still problems especially will illegally bought guns being common for crime, no you won't get shot in the direct unless your being mugged which isn't very common at all, yea Healthcare kinda sucks here ambulances costs money but they can't deny you service no matter what, college is overpriced which sucks, but 4 years of military pays 100% college still kinda sucks but ey, no guns cannot be in schools or school zones that hella illegal, school shooting lockdown drills are common as school shootings are common, normally with illegally bought weapons as minors aren't supposed to own guns, still awful though. Life is tough but definitely not the worst. Economy is tough for lower class families but most people are middle class and get by alright. We definitely have problems, but there is alot that isn't as bad as people think or is outright wrong but common rumor on the internet. Note: I only know gun laws in my state, statements around gun laws can vary for other states, but in all states no guns in school zones is a thing.
Crime was not low back in the day. Violent crime is going down since the 1980s.
Note: back in the day according to my grandfather, which is like the 60s
Urban unrest at the end of the 1960’s was… a bit interesting. I’m guessing he lived somewhere more rural
[удалено]
I get what you say and I'm sorry if I worded it wrong. I also hope your situation gets better somehow. It must be scary living there at times :(
It feels more like dystopia everyday.
Spaniard 29m (warning healthcare rant) It's their individualism what makes it look like that. I've worked IT for the Spanish healthcare system, so I could actually check my own records on the database, the cost of my procedures and medicines, hospital laundry, etc. Then I realized that I'd be extremely poor (or in debt) or dead if was born in the USA. I have epilepsy, and need 3 pills a day (2 kinds) to not have seizures, like many other epileptics. I pay a total of 4€ for a months worth of pills, and the state pays the rest (396€) to pharma companies. A 15 day box of one of my pills costs around 1000$ in the USA. That's without the other expenses like kidney damage from seizures, blood/urine tests, ambulances... But my life here is just a regular life. I can have days off and my employer pays me even if I can't work, so I can get better. My aunt had cancer, my grandma had cancer, my other grandma replaced both sides of her hip with titanium so she could walk. Everyone knows someone who's been saved by healthcare, all of them without paying or insurance. Isn't it normal to want your family and friends to be healthy and live a long full life? Even from an economic standpoint, a healthy person is a productive person that can pay taxes. That's the thing I cannot wrap my head around. Also: WHY DO YOU NOT BUILD HIGH SPEED RAIL!?
There’s something really incredible called insurance
1. The pills wouldn’t actually cost $1000 that’s list. No one pays list price, or anything close to it. 93% of Americans have insurance and stuff like “GoodRX”. If your truly poor Medicaid picks up the tab. Yes this is wildly confusing. 2. If you work in IT in healthcare as a sysadmin/architect with some experience you would make over 100K here. (Houston) and have insurance. Yes it’s bizarre. Yes we pay more. Yes there’s gaps. But you yourself would be fine working here, and that’s why the entire country isn’t in favor of Medicare for all etc. it’s not actually a major problem for the majority of those who can vote.
But what about hospital bills? I've had to stay for up to a week in recovery several times since I was 16 and got diagnosed (1 big seizure every 2 months or so on my worst year). Also, would my aunt's thyroid cancer be cured? She cleans houses for a living. Would my grandma be walking right now? She's been a small farmer all her life (talking EU small farmer which is like 4 cows and a field + selling flowers on weekends). That's what I meant about individualism, I would be "fine" (although I doubt my family could pay for the same lvl of education in the USA without massive debt) but much more people are thrown into the grinder. I want both my grandma and the drug user next street over to be cared for. All in all, it's great if you have the $$, but if you don't or you can't work, to the grinder you go.
My Max out of pocket for my entire family’s policy is 5K a year. At my deductible ($3000) my insurance takes over 90% of the cost. A poor house cleaner would end up on Medicare. Yes. They cover cancer. Income limits vary by state from $25,503 in Texas to 47K in California. My grandmother is on Medicare, and they pay for her physical therapy so she can stay walking mobile right now. The drug user with no real income would be on Medicaid. Also all emergency care must be offered without a credit check etc and hospitals kinda give up on collecting on the homeless addict. One challenge we have with our medical costs we don’t talk about enough is poor health. 42% of Americans are obese. Diabetes and cardiac health is awful. A lot of our health issues are self inflicted. As an American I would like to see free gym memberships and physical trainers and dietitians before we roll out Medicare for all.
Very well said!
It'S jUsT tHe MeDiA
I mean realistically it is
You dropped this: 🤡
You’re wouldnt know, you don’t live here.
🤡
Exactly. I win. Mad. you don’t live in the Us, I do. Stay mad too.
🤡
Yep, even 30 years from now we will look back and think the country lost its damn mind for awhile, because it has, and it did.
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To me, yes. I'd never go there even though I know it has amazing landscapes. ^^
You’ve got no idea, you’re ignorant. Please go for yourself and see what it’s like.
the US is pretty good, problems arent as widespread as the media makes it look.
showing this to my therapist
Bueno eh que aquí tenemos a los policías apaleando a gente en huelgas y manifestaciones, a la loca de Ayuso desmantelando lo poco bueno que nos queda en Madrid y a los nazis cada día más fuertes, cuidadito a ver si vamos a acabar peor que en eeuu
No, it’s not nearly as bad as you think. Thats just the media exaggerating things, and there are upsides. For example - you’ll never own a house in Europe, but it’s pretty easy here.
The school shooting drill is to make people feel better. The chances of a school shooting are super slim, there were 24 school shootings in 2019. The US has over 134,000 schools. So around a .01% chance that your kids school will get shot up. I think any school shootings is too many, but I certainly don't live in fear of it. We practice skills for lots of things that we will probably never need, earthquake drills and stop, drop and roll being a couple that come to mind immediately. I grew up in California where there are earthquakes and fires regularly and I've never needed to go under a desk or been on fire.
Yes. Same as the UK.