[FrenchDevRemote]

It's a complex issue. When so many "skilled workers" move to your neighborhood that your rent doubles and that you can't afford to do grocery shopping in your neighborhood, it makes sense to be angry.

The US top 1% are number 1, the US bottom 10% have it worse than most or even almost all people from western Europe.

[asukumar]

You are correct that most of Western Europe is ahead at the first decile, but you are incorrect to imply that it’s at the top 1% that the advantage goes away. In fact, the US meets the richest EU countries at the 50th percentile (meaning the median person is equally better off) and at the 90th percentile, you are much much better off in the US - it’s not comparable. The fact is, for everyone middle class (not by a local definition of middle class - literally middle) or above, the US will have you significantly better off. https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68...

[FredPret]

Your linked article looks at PPP income.

Here are two that compare wealth, showing the US 50th percentilers doing significantly better than European ones. US median wealth according to this is $162k: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b....

And it's hard to get this data for Europe but looking at the "Median" column for this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe it looks like the US middle class would slot into fourth place, just below Denmark which is at 165k, and far ahead of say, Germany, which is at 65k.

[dathinab]

Through the argument here is more about living standards then how "well of" someone is from a materialistic POV.

Like one thing I realized is that it seems that you need to earn way more in the US to have a similar level of living quality/standard compared to the EU. As far as I can tell I probably would need to earn ~50% more to have the same quality of live level in the US compared to where I live now. Through it probably depends a lot on where you are in the US/EU.

[ryandrake]

Isn't the USA middle class shrinking though? We're quickly bifurcating into a "really better off" group and a "really worse off" group, with little in the middle.

[satvikpendem]

Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing. NIMBYs around the world are the primary force stopping that from happening, that is why there are housing crises everywhere in the world. Contrast that with somewhere like Singapore where government housing is pretty good and plentiful in supply, they do not have such issues.

[dathinab]

> Supply. The answer is and has always been to build more housing.

IMHO not really

The supply of affordable housing in the place where it's needed often can not be increased due to physical limitations and building luxury flats being more profitable. And the "demand" is often not driven by people living there, but investment stuff.

I.e. if we purely look at "supply of housing" (ignoring price) and "demand of housing" (to live in) there isn't a problem at all in most cases.

Through I agree with NIMBY making it worse, especially given that it's often not even their backyard. But the neighborhood of properties/land bought as investments and them blocking things for investment reasons.

Through the main reason is IMHO still housing being used roughly "like stocks".

[rangestransform]

Luxury flats absorb demand that would otherwise outcompete locals for the existing housing

Unless you make all existing housing so shitty that local professionals would turn their nose up at it, in which case you have bigger problems

Not building luxury housing at all would only be a solution with domestic mobility restrictions like China

[dathinab]

> locals for the existing housing

no it doesn't

that would only happen if the demand is based on people who want to move there

but if it is based on interest/dynamics more similar to stock markets like we currently have then there isn't a physical limit on (artificial) demand as such local housing gets bought up first (to potentially be upgraded to luxury flats) and then they still build more luxury flats

[satvikpendem]

It's been statistically shown that any type of housing reduces market pressures simply because it is more supply in the market and over time that makes a difference.

[AmVess]

NIMBY's and clueless, greedy politicians.

Here, the county owns some land that it is going to put 100 houses on. They are going to put houses that cost 3x more than the locals can afford. Why? More money from property tax, and to hell with the average person.

The knock on effect is that regular houses will become more expensive, and in 10 years, only the top 10% of earners will be able to live here.

[thiagoperes]

The downstream issues are not related to immigration, otherwise house prices would have fallen in Lisbon.

Look at examples such as Singapore, Dubai and many others that adopted an entrepreneurial attitude and figured out the infrastructure to support that growth.

When will they blame when the immigrants don’t come but the problems remain?

[JetSpiegel]

Yes, Dubai figured their infrastructure so well, their airport was closed for days when it rained.

Singapure is a dictatorship fuled by Chinese money, should a NATO country be supported by them? Will the US invade if we sold them the abandoned American base in the Azores?

[dathinab]

more relevant is if your country can capitalize on the workers

like if a lot of skilled workers move over but

- they (mostly/majorly) don't settle, just stay for a few years

- they don't create companies in your country

- they don't work for companies in your country

- the companies they work with might directly compete with your local companies and now with having local representatives can do so better

Then if the tax breaks are worth it is solely a question of taxes they pay + money they spent vs. implicit cost of disruption they cause. Which might not be always worth it.

On the other hand the US doesn't focus on attracting digital nomads, they focus on their biggest/best companies attracting intelligence for themself. Which has a high chance of profiting the US especially given that they also tend to attract young talent which then build their business network in the US making it quite likely that they if they found a company they do so in the US.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the US bottom 10% have it worse than most or even almost all people from western Europe

America’s bottom 10% are absolutely comparable to Europe’s bottom 10% when one considers actual access to services and material standards of living. (I’m assuming you mean EU’s, not Europe’s, because as terrible as being homeless in America may be, it sure beats being bombed.)

[FrenchDevRemote]

I said western Europe, not Europe, +/- all of western Europe is EU expect the UK and Switzerland.

It's not comparable, the benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA.

[JumpCrisscross]

> said western Europe, not Europe

My bad.

> benefits you get in western Europe are 10x better than what you get anywhere in the USA

Benefits you’re entitled to. France, for instance, has put a lot of services behind an internet portal. Add to that the stigma of utilising them in many villages and you get low utilisation rates.

I would imagine the poor in Europe are a bit better off. (If we limit ourselves to the coastal states, the answer may be surprising.)

[moltar]

I highly doubt it’s foreigners to be honest.

I live in a plain Portuguese neighborhood of Porto. There are virtually no foreigners. At least I never see any when walking around or going to a grocery store. I maybe see one a day out of 100s of Portuguese people.

Yet my local Portuguese landlord keeps jacking my rent every year by a huge margin way exceeding the government norms.

Who forces them to do that?

They don’t even live in the city. They live outside in the Douro valley.

It’s just pure greed.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. They see average values went up and they adjust accordingly.

And why did the values all of a sudden go up on my neighbourhood with no foreigners?

[kranke155]

The average rental in Porto has been exploding upwards due to the influx of airbnbnization and foreign income flooding the real estate market.

What you are describing is a second order effect.

[endisneigh]

Why would you compare bottom US to only Western Europe? Also, do you have a source on your claim? I’m skeptical that the US bottom 10% have it worse than “most or even almost all people from Western Europe”

[piker]

Do you have a metric to support that theory? It’s good for the European story for that to be true, but hard to quantify.

[FrenchDevRemote]

I don't have the exact metrics, but free healthcare, free education, and enough benefits to not be homeless and hungry seems like more than what poor Americans get.

[lotsoweiners]

Poor Americans have essentially free healthcare. It is called Medicaid.

https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html

Over 82,000,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid.

https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medica...

America has lots of programs that assist poor and/or disabled people: SNAP, Unemployment, VA, SSI, SSDI, TANF, Section 8, Childcare Assistance etc. Some people don’t want to bother to apply/jump through hoops to get them but they exist.