[seren]

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage.

At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

[remarkEon]

I've spent about a month in Europe for the last three years on vacation and travel there for work semi-frequently. I've considered moving (wife says no, for now). I agree with you on the finance part. I'd need to accrue some significant coin to make this move make sense financially (plus finish becoming fluent). What I'd tell you is this "cope" isn't really cope. Americans just don't have many options for cities that have clean and reliable public transit, beautiful architecture, and safe streets. There's exceptions, obviously. But ... those exceptions are not, say, Vienna.

Edit: I suppose it isn't just the transit and the architecture and the safety that's the draw. Many in America, even if they're "conservative" (whatever that means today), are willing to pay more in taxes if it means free health care and a functioning bureaucracy.

[_g7d8]

You don’t need to become fluent in a European language before moving there. Most expats don’t. Having some familiarity will help, it’ll become much easier to learn the language when you’re actually in the environment, and no one will expect you to suddenly speak their language when you get there.

[rcarr]

I would say this depends on the country. You can obviously survive without learning the language but you are definitely better off learning it, particularly if you want to integrate with locals. It’s also country dependent. Somewhere like the Netherlands or one of the Nordics where everyone speaks fluent English you’ll probably be ok not learning but if you tried just speaking English in France they’ll consider you a massive arsehole.

[_g7d8]

I didn’t say that you shouldn’t try to become fluent at all eventually, it’s just not a prerequisite before moving.

[remarkEon]

Yeah, I know. I guess I just consider it a polite and respectful thing to do. At a minimum you should speak enough to "get around in an emergency" before you move there. Maybe that's just my midwestern sensibilities.

[klabb3]

I’d second parent’s point. Im Swedish, lived in the US for 8 years now, and am moving to Spain. I speak a little Spanish. Obviously I intend to learn more, but it’s not a prerequisite to know everything up front, that’d be a catch-22. This is of course how I treat others as well.

Learning is 99% for yourself to socialize and thrive, and maybe 1% showing respect. I think actions speak louder than words, and being kind and respectful can take many forms.

I say this because I’ve seen first hand how travelers, expats and tourists from the Anglosphere self-limit at least a bit more than us who grew up speaking less common languages. We’re used to the discomfort and misunderstandings, and hand gesture our way through sometimes. I’d say most Europeans can relate to this strongly. (Of course, we always joke about the French, who refuse to speak English even if they can, but I think even that’s a dated stereotype these days)

Best of luck with your plans.

[jefozabuss]

Speaking of Vienna: is anyone here who work from there remotely (for a non-Austrian company)? I heard it's a bit complicated due to you need to have an in-country representation of the company or similar.

[FirmwareBurner]

Vienna and Austria in general sucks for tech opportunities including remote due to tax and work laws. Also buying real-estate is eye-wattering expensive when you look at local wages (being non-NATO country means it's a safe harbor for oligarchs to lauder their money and also a cash based society means a lot of black untaxed money gets put into real estate).

You're getting absolutely hosed if you move here for tech work. It's great if you're on government jobs, minimum wage/unionized jobs and living in rent controlled flats though and need frequent government support but if you're a skilled professional, living on real estate off the private market, then basically anywhere else in Europe is better bang for your buck than here.

As an expat there I don't think quality of life in Vienna is that WOW to be honest, it's just that it keeps being promoted by The Economist every year at winning this title they invented, based on some random requirements they set up, to the point I feel it's basically and ad paid by the city of Vienna (Austria already pays a lot for such international advertisements to support their tourist industry) to lure expats to wage-dump themselves and work here and cover the labor shortages (the "most livable city" title comes up a lot in job ads targeting foreigners).

It's basically the Canada of Europe: high real estate costs , low wages, with generous subsidies and social nets for the less well off Austrians.

[whyever]

It's possible, but complicated for the employer: they have to found a branch in each employee's flat unless they have a permanent establishment in Austria.

[motbus3]

As a non European, I can see some patterns that happen to my country 10-20y ago. There is a systematic de-funding of education and health care to prioritise the same private sectors. It is hard to explain in few words, but at least in my country we realised it too late.

[stuaxo]

Neoliberalism is fairly explicit that the government shouldn't do anything - everything is farmed out to for profit businesses with light touch regulation - enshitification of everyday services is the result.

[pas]

That's the result of "lack of neoliberalism", which is about efficient market-based solutions. Of course it turns out that just as socialism neoliberalism also tends to fall into a pathological state (regulatory capture, oligopolies, etc).

In the end these labels are pretty useless, the underlying problem is pretty easy to describe, is the system sufficiently just and cost effective or not. It doesn't really matter if it's market-based or it's done through some magic lottery system.

...

That said, services are suffering from cost disease big time. Healthcare and education badly needs productivity increases, otherwise quality has to drop to get back to sustainable funding levels.

[stuaxo]

In the UK, our healthsystem was the best on most metrics before the Tories came in and now it's behind on most.

Next will be Kier Starmer for Labour who main promises seem to be to keep the policies of the incumbents.

(Health used as an illustrative area but this applies across the board).

[theironhammer]

Neoliberal ideology is deeply entrenched in the Angloshere. UK even more so.

Kier Starmer thinks Corbyn lost because he was a Socialist. It was about Brexit. "Get Brexit Done" was a master class in political expediency. Even Boris was wise enough to sprinkle a little "socialism" with his levelling up policies.

Kier Starmer looks like he's going to score an own goal in the last minute of extra time.

[m000]

> At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

Shouldn't a stagnating GDP translate to a stagnating quantity/quality of services? If things are getting worse while GDP stagnates, it appears that there is a gross mismanagement of the same amount of resources.

And I'd dare to say, that this mismanagement typically boils down to the privatization of (previously) predominantly publicly-operated sectors. A soon as the publicly-operated provider shuts down, profiteering starts.

[nvm0n1]

"Getting worse" can be relative. If progress in your country had stopped in 1920 then it would be fair for people who lived there to think things had got worse over the past 100 years when they look to America and see how people live there.

[murderfs]

Europe, with the exception of the countries directly bordering Russia and Greece (buying weapons to point at fellow NATO member Turkey), has spent decades underinvesting in national defense, arguably freeloading under American hegemony. Now that that's coming to an end, expect things to get worse.

[piva00]

Freeloading? The USA spends massive amounts on its military exactly to maintain hegemony, European countries weren't going around the globe to fight pointless wars based on shaky (or completely fabricated) casus belli. There was no reason to spend a lot of tax money on military equipment, training, upkeep, just because. Russia's complete invasion of Ukraine shook Europe's defence outlook and created a reason to invest in it but that's it.

The USA providing security guarantees is not freeloading, it's USA's strategy to hegemony, it's how the USA has kept it...

Investing in defence without participating in wars (or to defend your hegemony) is just a waste of taxpayers' money, it's money that could go to healthcare, to education, or to any other improvement in quality of life of your citizens. I'm very glad that Europe hasn't been burning trillions of dollars on stuff just made to kill people.

[pauldenton]

European nations were not paying the percentage of GDP on defense as they promised.