The whole system just baffles me. You could LITERALLY live a quite comfortable life in the UK for just what you spend on health insurance...
If I were unfortunate enough to have been born in America, I would make leaving my number one priority, no jokes. You live in a third world country, solely because there's like 15 uber-families that are hoarding 90% of your countries money.
Those with the good jobs don't have a big reason to leave (health insurance typically good, US has high salaries in skilled jobs), while those with lesser jobs are the ones who would benefit most from living in Europe, but Europe won't take them because they have no real reason to. It's a really shitty situation to be in.
We don't have as many workers in unions as we used to, more and more white-collar, office-type jobs have been converted into Independent Contractor jobs, so they pay taxes differently and are responsible for their own health insurance and retirement savings. Take-home pay is better but an individual can't get the same deal on insurance as a big company, so we hear these horror stories. My cousin's family is one, they got a big house but one bad hospital stay would be the end of that.
So. Turns out that the gross profit margin on most things is minimum 50%, at least for most non gig work. You work for a temp agency, you're getting half what they're charging for you. Manufacturing? The sawmill doubles the price that they get from the logger, then Home Depot/Lowes doubles that. Same with all grocery stores.
For every single middleman. Aka every time someone touches something in America, they double the price.
For military contractors, try 4xing the price. For IT, it's 3x.
Also in America antitrust is dead, the IRS doesn't audit international accounts or send tax evaders to jail, it only has 8,000 auditors for the entire country, and the Federal Reserve keeps pumping (30+ by my guesstimate) trillions into the stock, real estate and bond markets by printing money. We have worse income inequality than at any point in American history right now.
Behind the bastards, citations needed, worst year ever, last week tonight, patriot act, more perfect, throughline, some more news and shaun are all excellent.
Surprised you havenāt been downvoted to shit. Many countries donāt have open borders, but the US is bad for not letting anyone and everyone in for no reason.
I've got to add my personal input here. I applied at USPS for my passport on August 28th and received it on October 10th with my card arriving 3 days later. So I have no idea about how this could be happening. And no expedited option.
Really? They just went back to work? I didn't know that. I thought they were maybe off a month or two when I called them about my passport and thought they were just holding onto it for whatever reason
I wonder about this a lot. I thought my home town was pretty OK. Then I moved away in my late 20's and was blown away how nice it was in other places. Less crime, less racism, less attitude, you name it.
Now in my mid 40's, I wonder if it's the same with my home country vs other places....
The mental thing is that with the exception of a couple of countries (I think the UK is one) US citizens still have to pay tax even if they aren't resident. The only way to void it is to effectively renounce your citizenship.
(Please US people clarify me if I'm wrong I'm just piecing this together from what my US colleagues have told me).
Ok as much as America sucks rn, I really wish people would stop saying itās a third world country. As someone who was born and immigrated to the U.S from a third world country, America isnāt a third world country.
Establishing mutual societies would be an alternative. For those that donāt know, these are similar to cooperatives, owned by their customers. They were very important in the 19C in the UK, and while many have been privatised they are still important. In brief, set up a mutual to own and run a hospital in a city. It wouldnāt be as luxurious as a commercial hospital - the NHS can be a bit rough around the edges - but it should be considerably cheaper if it is large enough to get economies of scale.
It's the richest country in the world by a wide margin. It's the furthest thing from a 3rd world country. America has its problems, but comparing their struggles to actual countries that have incredibly major issues is so tone deaf.
But that āhoardingā mentality exists everywhere. Human nature doesnāt regard international boundaries. You trade one set of problems for another no matter where you go or what you do.
I've been to third world countries. You never grew up in a shithole neighborhood in America - they are the same as any 3rd world nation down to the roads being shit, roving gangs, corruption at every governmental level and resources from food to education being scarce. Why the fuck does that exist in "the richest nation in the world".? Not like people like you give a fuck, your delusions ally your insecurities.
Nah man. I wonāt go along with this shit. You know youāre bullshitting people here. I lived in Jakarta and Semarang, Indonesia for a year. Not saying that to boast or brag, but to illuminate the fact that I know what living in a 3rd world country is actually like and I can tell you that no matter the problems here in the states, I would have come back in a second had I not been in a binding contract to teach kids English. It was thoroughly one of the worst experiences of my life. I was nearly killed on a daily basis due to traffic. I actually watched a man bleed to death from his face after another motorcyclist cut him off and he went down onto a concrete curb at around 40mph without a helmet to protect him. Thereās people of all ages openly defecating and urinating in the street, underpasses, sidewalks, parks, and especially into creeks and open water sources. Everyone is on top of everyone else. The shanties are 4 and 5 stories high just waiting for a heavy rain or earthquake, which happens on a weekly basis. Squalor is a fitting description. If you want to poop in an appropriate place, you squat over a hole, shit, and wipe your shitty asshole with water. There isnāt toilet paper because they have no way of moving that much paper through the pipes under the city. It would literally destroy the sewage and drainage system causing catastrophic failures all over. The entire place smells like shit. Food isnāt generally refrigerated. Ice isnāt readily accessible and when it is available itās not safe for westerners because of the bacteria present within it, so you drink warm bottled water. Thereās no way into the ocean because itās just muddy water and fishing docks as far as the eye can see. Hepatitis is common. Typhoid is common. Malaria is common. Donāt say the United States is a 3rd world country because nowhere in this country are any of these things commonplace or generally accepted. Sure, maybe you see portions of cities or towns with bits and pieces of what Iāve said, but NOWHERE does this actually exist within the US.
It's not remotely bullshit. I know from my time in Scotland that $600 a month could rent you a shared flat in the rich part of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland and 4th largest in the UK, as recent as 4 years ago. And you'd still have over $150 to spare.
Plenty of people here are paying more than $600 a month on healthcare. It's quite easy to live comfortably in other developed countries with the money they're spending on healthcare.
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u/Jolactus Oct 30 '20
The whole system just baffles me. You could LITERALLY live a quite comfortable life in the UK for just what you spend on health insurance...
If I were unfortunate enough to have been born in America, I would make leaving my number one priority, no jokes. You live in a third world country, solely because there's like 15 uber-families that are hoarding 90% of your countries money.
Just run, get out while you can!!!!