[loewenskind]

>And, as bad as the US is on an absolute scale, I'm having trouble finding some place better.

Then you're either putting impossible requirements on the new place (e.g. "and my friends have to all live there") or you're simply not looking. Throw a dart at western Europe. Any of those places will provide a better quality of living for most people.

[anamax]

> Throw a dart at western Europe. Any of those places will provide a better quality of living for most people.

Which direction is the immigration pressure?

[loewenskind]

Irrelevant. Look at any standard of living study. They'll all have most of western Europe above the US for the average person. Most western European countries have more incoming migration than they are comfortable with.

I also think you'll find that migration pressure to the US has started to slow. You may still have a large amount from Mexico but that is about opportunity, not a testament of the US being the place to be.

[anamax]

> Irrelevant. Look at any standard of living study.

Hmm. You don't think that people's preferences tell us anything?

> They'll all have most of western Europe above the US for the average person.

American poor people are stereotypically obese and have multiple cars and big screen TVs. While those things are bad for them....

Oh, and they have free healthcare too. (Never confuse insurance with healthcare.)

It is true that the gap between the poor and the rich is greater in the US, but by that measure, hunter-gatherers were better off than modern europeans.

> Most western European countries have more incoming migration than they are comfortable with.

As does the US. However, immigration pressure comes from everywhere.

Why is comparing the pressure between {your favorite western European country} and the US irrelevant?

> I also think you'll find that migration pressure to the US has started to slow. You may still have a large amount from Mexico but that is about opportunity, not a testament of the US being the place to be.

Huh? Opportunity is surely one factor in "place to be".

That said, I agree Mexico vs the US doesn't tell us anything about US vs western Europe, just as Turkey vs Germany doesn't tell us anything about US vs Germany.

[loewenskind]

>Hmm. You don't think that people's preferences tell us anything?

It's irrelevant because it's an incredibly over-simplistic metric and it's subject to manipulation (i.e. everyone hearing 2nd and 3rd hand the US is the greatest country in the world, which in some ways it was some decades back and deciding to go there).

>American poor people are stereotypically obese and have multiple cars and big screen TVs.

Done with credit. You could have the same thing in Romania if they let everyone had 5 credit cards, different credit for their house, difference credit for their car and different credit for the place where they buy their TV.

Being fat doesn't mean they're getting more food, it means they're getting more bad food. A better thing to look for would be a place where the poor are not hungry and not malnourished.

>Oh, and they have free healthcare too.

What are you talking about here, ER care? Can they get a hip replacement for "free" like they could in e.g. Sweden? Why are cancer patients divorcing their spouses to ensure said spouse wont end up losing his/her retirement money paying medical costs of a dead person?

>Why is comparing the pressure between {your favorite western European country} and the US irrelevant?

Because it's impossible to quantify why this pressure is happening. Is it because of coincidence? Misinformation? Informed choice? Opportunity (e.g. "we can walk to the US but can't afford to get to where we really want, and anywhere seems like it would be better than here")? Given that we can't say with even the slightest amount of confidence, this number is almost completely meaningless.

A number that would have more meaning would be if some place had no or negative immigration but that's not the case in any first world country as far as I'm aware.

>Huh? Opportunity is surely one factor in "place to be".

But it speaks to the location of the actor, not how good the country he's going to since he is choosing the new country over less than the whole set (i.e. if someone leaves mexico to go to the US that is more likely to mean that he/she chose to go the US over staying in mexico or going somewhere else in middle america than to mean that he chose it over France).