I'm European because of US healthcare, insecurity, inequality, bad food culture, urban planning, and danger from natural and man made disasters, quality and cost of education.
Every single one of those things is better in my new European home.
For me (and I didn't fully appreciate this until I moved here) there is an incredible amount of mental overhead in the US.
Questions you don't have to ask yourself in Germany:
- What happens if I get very sick? Do I have enough savings for cancer?
- What happens if I lose my job? Do I have enough savings to get by if my job fires me?
- What happens if something happens to ny car? How will I get to work? How will I get my groceries?
- What happens if someone has a gun in this crowd? How will I get out? How can I protect people? Is that sound just a car backfiring or is that a gunshot?
- Am I saving enough for retirement? How will I get healthcare when I'm old? How do stocks in my retirement account work? Is this person trying to help me retire or trying to make money off of me?
Naturally most of these problems can be resolved with enough money.And you can have a comfortable life in the USA with enough money. And if we're being honest there are European counties that struggle with similar but maybe not all at once.
There are many things I miss about the US, and maybe someday I'll return. But there is much less financial/life planning related stress for me here
All fantastic examples. A semi-joking game we used to play at my high school was "Firework or gunshot?". A few more to add:
- If I call the police, will they help? Will they help me? Many people I know are SCARED by the police when they're just minding their business, which I'd say indicates something wrong. We nearly had a civil war in 2020 over police killings.
- Very little walking or biking infrastructure. Very long distances between commercial and residential areas too. Even trying to be environmentally friendly feels pointless sometimes when you have to drive 10 or 20 minutes just to go to a recycling center.
- Workers' rights are a joke in the US. OSHA regulations are only followed after someone gets a bad enough injury. Good luck getting any compensation for that too, the phrase "worker's comp" is a joke all by itself.
- The cost of secondary education is ridiculous. I have loans from college, as do most of my friends, and we've been paying those of and will be paying for years to come.
You're very much correct that some or all of these can be resolved with enough money. But even for someone with the cash and connections to make such a drastic and expensive move, it's a lot. I'm sure as time goes on I will find more examples.
Thank you very much for your (and the GP's) input. Interesting perspectives.
As I said, I was hoping for more personal experiences like "this happened to me so I decided to leave" than just perceptions and perceived fears which can be too easily influenced or biased. I can understand how they add up and create stress but so does flying for a lot of people - while being one of the safest modes of transportation.
For example, going to the US, my main fear was violence, and more specific gun violence and terrorism. Luckily I never encountered either, even if there were quite a few shootings and even 9/11! during my very stay. Today I'd just say these are statistically insignificant events (as horrifying as they are).
Secondly I was terrified of losing my job - with everything it entailed, especially my work visa. And I did get fired, eventually. Luckily the whole thing went swimmingly, with COBRA & severance pay picking up the slack during a short search and my next company continuing my visa sponsorship.
I was also afraid of cops (thanks, Hollywood!) but all encounters I actually had (noise complaints during parties and traffic stops) were quite amusing & polite.
In the end I had an amazing, positive experience living in the USA and it also helped me appreciate and understand Europe better. After all the years living in the EU now I could write a whole lot more about the horrors here (corruption, bureaucracy and the Russian threat easily come to mind) but that's not the topic and I am too old to believe there is a perfect place for everybody. Each choice is personal and it's composed from countless subjective, even subconscious factors - so good luck with yours!
There was literally an attack on the US Capitol building three years ago. There was a Nazi march on the Tennessee state capitol building six weeks ago. I don't need CNN to see it with my own eyes.
I belong to an ethnic minority in Germany and had real Nazis, not Neo-Nazis, as neighbors growing up. Just because you don't know how racist the average German views are, doesn't mean it isn't so.
- CDU, which is politically the closest to the Republicans, is by far the strongest party now
- AFD, actual Neo-Nazis, are the second strongest party in recent polls
- East Germany is basically a giant No-Go area for PoC, with a couple of exceptions.
I appreciate the actual response! I'd like to point out that I didn't say that Germany doesn't have racists or Nazis - as a matter of fact, I'm well aware of this, and in particular I'm aware of the rising popularity of AfD. I don't like this and I won't defend those groups in any way. But I don't think I'm wrong stating that we have more Nazis, unless you're going to be a stickler about which white supremacists are and are not Nazis.
- The US Republican Party is far right and going farther. The Democratic party is also on the right. There are basically zero federal politicians on the left, the best you can get is basically center.
- We had an attack on our federal capitol building three years ago by white supremacists. Nazis carrying flags with the hakenkreuz marched on the Tennessee state capitol about six weeks ago. The number of groups like this is rising swiftly, even the police are in on it.
- We have done very little to stop this, we even had our previous president praising them. It's an embarrassment to our country, honestly. We were so proud to have beaten the Axis powers in WWII - and now we're going down the same path.
