[qsort]

> high taxes, low productivity, broken justice system, slow and intricate bureaucracy that does not really work

All of those things are absolutely true. I mentioned taxes because taxation at 46% of the GDP (pre-covid) is just ridicolous.

[toqy]

I don’t know why you guys want to be America so bad. Nobody I personally know that has had the chance to move to the EU has ever returned. Roughly a sample size of 5, but you get the point.

[sharikous]

Sample size of 3. Nobody who moved to America returned to Europe

[dopidopHN]

Sample of one: can’t wait for my wife to be done with stuff here, so we can pack our stuff and go back in Europe. I will leave a salary that I will never even remotely approach in France.

But quality of life… oh man quality of life. Or education, I don’t want my kids to deal with education here.

But y’all are lovely.

[CalRobert]

When I sat down and did the math I realized moving from northern California to Ireland in 2013 has had a total opportunity cost of something like $1-$2 million, and that's conservative.

There are plenty of things to like about the EU but let's not kid ourselves, America is pretty nice if your goal is to be wealthy (and most people want that, even if they won't admit it).

The Americans the EU would be best for are, for the most part, the ones who can't get a visa.

[asdadsdad]

Ah! The good old EU vs US discussion - always comes back!

[asdadsdad]

Summary - if you're "meant" to be rich, i.e. you do what it takes, you'll probably be anywhere in the world. Is life in Europe more interesting, cultured, and sophisticated than living in nyc and vacationing in florida? probably.

[CalRobert]

Maybe? I don't know. Europe is a continent. I like my field in Ireland but it lacks a lot of what NYC would have to offer.

[asdadsdad]

like what?

[CalRobert]

Tacos, hackerspaces, museums, Doro wat....

[wil421]

Everyone I know has returned. Sample size of ~8.

[toqy]

It’s also not the general consensus I find by reading peoples experiences across various platforms online. I went to school for a year in Germany and greatly enjoyed it.

Of course I expect a different opinion from the top 3% income tech bro libertarian bent of the HN user base. But I haven’t seen a compelling reason here to think life for the average American is better than it is for someone in the EU.

[CalRobert]

You're right - for the average American it's worse. But average Americans can't move to the EU, for the most part.

For high earners the EU comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The effective tax rate on a 200k income in Finland is over 50% for instance. In the US even the _marginal_ tax rate is nowhere near that.

[dopidopHN]

I never looked at the actual rate but I just did my taxes here in the US.

And I was surprised to see that on average I pay almost a net month of salary. ( I pay 10k in 2021 so far, I will get a small return )

While in France, I was paying a month of my salary as well. ( roughly 3k / year )

Listening to French media, I thought I was moving to a tax heaven while going here. Meh. I kinda pay the same thing.

Except I don’t get any benefit and half my salary needs to be stashed away to important, non négociable futur use. ( while that part is done for me in France automatically though socialized taxes )

I understand why you guy don’t like taxes thought : you really don’t get much back.

[boulos]

Actually, the marginal tax rate on $1M in California is over 50% (37 federal plus 13.3 state).

For 200k (euros), that's $250k or so which is 35% federal (single filer), 9.3% California for 44.3%. (Which I would argue isn't that far off).

It would probably be more useful to compare effective tax rates and what you get for them. In the US, Social Security applies to the first $147k now (so on $250k that's 3.6% effective), but you also get a small retirement income. In Finland, I assume people get services in exchange for those taxes that you might be paying for in the US (e.g., healthcare, childcare, education, and retirement income), so you can't just compare using "what are relative tax rates like?" as a question.

tl;dr: taxes and services are nuanced!

[dopidopHN]

Exactly. Yes my salary in France was more than half my salary in the US.

But a very large chuck of the difference are “cotisations” a word that does not exists in English and is often inaccurately translated to “taxes”.

Those cotisations is money I will get back once old, sick, or un-employed. It can’t be spend on buying new fighter jet or fixing the roads.

[CalRobert]

Very true - the other side to this is it's a _LOT_ harder to get to 200k+ in Europe than in California.

Anyway, I like the EU, but it still is a harder place to build wealth on the whole. Where I am you pay tax on _unrealized_ gains in ETF's (called deemed disposal), CGT is high (33%), and you get much less advantage saving for retirement than in the US.

On the other hand, if I lose my job, unemployment benefits more than cover our monthly expenses if we pare back a bit. Our overhead is low.

If it tells you anything I went back to California to start a company. Then, after someone drove a car in to my wife and the cop lied about her statement and she was lucky not to get a huge bill (it was the first few months of Obamacare before the horrific deductibles came in), AND she took her 1 week of vacation and that was it for the year, we decided to hell with that and moved back to the EU.