Capital focus

[IlliniDave]

Who are the Americans you talk to? In this group here on ERE you have a bunch of unusually independent-minded people who are trying to avoid the system through financial independence so of course we're not sitting around pining for more money to be taken away from our neighbors and handed to us. We generally are striving for self-sufficiency.

In the wider sense you see a lot of people out there who have fallen prey to the various efforts of the last several decades to divide the American people against themselves: "Lower-" and "middle-" classes versus "the 1%", Democrat versus Republican, etc. So you see large numbers of people who are aligned with one side or another and just mindlessly repeat the talking points of their team without thinking about anything. I go home and listen to my family and you'd think Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were stopping by every other day to shake them down, and on the inbetween days the conservatives were coming by to rob them to give money to Gates and Buffet. I reside in the southeast and the typical person here feels like they are being taxed to death to give free stuff to illegal immigrants and welfare recipients, and to pay for big government intrusion into their schools and lives.

Jacob brought up a good point that I hinted at many posts back. The US is far from homogeneous. Our government was set up 250ish years ago to leave a lot of autonomy for the individual states. That has eroded over time, but but it still exists and was deliberate. I grew up in a state (Illinois) that is larger than NZ and tried very hard to be pro-labor/progressive. Now they are swamped in debt and on the verge of being unable to pay pensioners. Ironically, back in the 1970s there were a lot of folks from my part of the state who were moving just over the border to Wisconsin because they could get a bit more in a welfare check there. Of course now Wisconsin has had its own problems. There are other progressive strongholds that are still doing fairly well like Seattle/Washington. The point is there is no one-size-fits-all declaration you can make about the failures of the US.

I don't remember the numbers exactly but something just over 70% of the revenue the government takes in goes toward the combination of entitlements (things like SS and Medicare that recipients paid for), welfare/public assistance-type programs, and paying off the interest on the national debt. Most of the so-called "poor" in this country have quite a lot compared to the median person on the planet, so it's hard to see a burning platform for a more heavy-handed and global approach to forcibly redistributing wealth. There are certainly pockets where issues exist, but money has been thrown into them for at least 40 years with little effect, so I'd argue it's more an issue of tactics than seed capital.

The US provides a lot. Most of what it provides does not come "from" the government. We are currently demonizing one of it's great virtues--the fact that a person can accumulate wealth at an above average rate, even if they are not a trust fund baby. Actually, as a group, people who inherit a lot tend to fall in social class over their lifetimes, and most of the people that get into the top 10% or higher are first generation wealthy.

[thrifty++]

Who are the Americans you talk to?

An early 30s lawyer from Kentucky for whom being in NZ is the first time she has been able to come to another country. Using up her 2 weeks annual leave was apparently a one off and big deal. She loved the lifestyle in NZ and that there is a business culture of allowing time off work and forced holidays of minimum 4 weeks a year plus 11 days public holidays. She is trying to find a way to move here.

A late 20s analyst to despises everything about the USA economic system and is over here on a work permit and is adamant to find a way not to have to move back to the USA. He constantly speaks of how the USA system makes life difficult for people at the lower end of the spectrum and funnels wealth back up to the top.

A mid 30s change management professional who left USA for Japan in her mid 20s and then ultimately moved and stayed in NZ from thereafter. Said she does not ever wish to return to USA and left specifically as she was concerned about getting stuck in the oppressive work culture of USA where there are minimal labour rights.

A mid 20s teacher from Maryland who is doing everything to try get residency in NZ despite it costing all of the remaining money she has. She is unhappy with the US economic system and doesn't want to be a part of it.

Mid 30s IT professional and mid 30s PR Professional from California. Immigrated and gained residency. Were unhappy with the oppressive business culture in USA, long working hours and that in their case their salaries were actually lower.

The only person I have heard who did not complain about US economic systems was an early 30s teacher. He instead complained about how expensive NZ is. Which is probably true. He moved back to USA to San Diego mainly to live in a city with a bigger population.

You will note that the above sample is largely middle class, not lower class. You probably have to be middle class to get here. All have expressed dissatisfaction with US economic systems as part of why they left or wanted to leave. So it does make you wonder when you start to repeatedly hear these things.

[IlliniDave]

That's interesting. But it's a self-selected population of people that don't like it here, so consider the possibility that they are not representative of Americans on the whole, and possibly not completely unbiased. I know hundreds of Americans. Almost all have complaints. None are interested in emigrating. If your acquaintances are happier working less over there, more power to them. I work a lot of hours in a year, but also get 5 weeks leave plus 13 paid holidays. I don't think I'd like oppressive work culture over there

[jacob]

@thrifty++ - This is selection bias in action. You're not meeting people who left other countries to stay in the US because they preferred that. Well, ...

I was a late 20s scientist and now a 40ish ERE-guy who left the supposedly happiest country on Earth where everybody gets free healthcare, 6 weeks of mandatory vacation, a nice pension and practically unlimited unemployment assistance in order to escape the oppressive tall poppy syndrome of my native culture where everybody better be equal lest... I find Americans [on average] to be much more welcoming and tolerant of individual differences (subcultures, opinions, ... ) than any other country I've been to (14 of them). And if some particular American does not agree with me, I can easily find one who does no matter how outrageous my idea is. Live in an old school bus? No problem. There are people who do that. Design a firing range for howitzers? Sure, in Nevada Blog about extreme early retirement? There will be people reading.

Being who I am(*), the US works better for me than Denmark. That's not to say that the US is "better" than Denmark or the other way around(**). More that certain nations fit certain personalities better. I'm positive that I'd be happier in Denmark if I was more "average" with average skills, desires, drives, etc. since Denmark is pretty much built on optimizing everything for "average". The US is the land of opportunity. I think that "opportunity" is often confused with the American Dream which is some version of "everybody gets a lot of stuff" these days [whereas it used to be that "if you worked hard, you'd get a lot of stuff"(***). I'd rather see "opportunity" as the option to do what you want without too much cultural resistance. That option does not exist in a lot of countries.

(*) An extremely opinionated individual who can usually back it up too.
(**) I consider Switzerland to be the "best" country in the world. In that sense that if I were to design a state, I would make it just like Switzerland.
(***) But as has been pointed out above ... since getting a lot of stuff is relative, this is a moving target. Hence, people in the US live in so-called poverty while simultaneously owning cars, smartphones, and 50" LCD screens. Sure, they'll go hungry for the last week of the month but that's more a problem of priority. What do I want? To spend the last 10% of my money on lottery tickets or food. The poorest choose the former. (Yes, 10%!)

For example ... ever wonder why there are less than a handful (I think two total) of Japanese (not counting emigrants, like school teachers of which there have been a few) on the ERE blog, EVER?

Because the idea of ERE is anathema to Japanese culture.

I should probably also note that a big difference between the US and other countries is that because the US is big, Americans tend to look inwards. The average American (not on this site) can tell you more about Paris Hilton than they can about Iraq ... despite invading Iraq! Conversely, the average other-country can probably tell you more about US election politics than they can about the prime minister or president of their nextdoor country. IOW, while US foreign policy is a strong focus of most countries, a lot of Americans are entirely ignorant of what's going on wrt the rest of the world and US foreing policy. This is of course unfortunate and inexcusable. But it is what it is. And it explains a lot of US behavior.

Another big difference as was mentioned above is that in most countries, you have a strong state government that makes the laws. The regions/municipalities/cities are then solely in charge of implementing these laws. Conversely, in the US, the average dim bulb can be completely unaware of national level politics. For example, whatever the geniuses in Washington do affects me way less than what the geniuses in Chicago do. Again, compare to the EU. What goes on in Brussels is not nearly as important as what goes on the in capital of each EU member country.

[subgard]

The US is absolutely awash in carelessly spent money, and it's very easy to set up a small business to capture some of that money (depending a bit on what state you live in).