Every so often on the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, discourse erupts about the relative merits of Europe versus the United States. The arguments always seem to come down to the value of individual earning potential versus overall quality of life. “Amerifats” always to point to the large salaries earned in their country by software developers — or even Buc-ee’s car-wash managers — and “Europoors” always counter that the high cost of living in the U.S. cancels out the difference in pay. The latter aren’t wrong about everything being more expensive in America, in part due to a host of hidden costs of which they probably aren’t even aware. But the former have a point about the almost comical difference between a decent American salary and its equivalent in even the most prominent European countries. There’s really no comparison; the U.S. wins on that score.
In the eternal struggle between U.S. and Europe, I chose Asia. Yet if I couldn’t live here, I’d certainly look into Europe first. That has to do in part with my not belonging to a highly compensated profession in any region of the world, but also because I find it increasingly difficult to stomach the prospect of living in an American city again. Los Angeles remains one of my main subjects of interest, but after nearly a decade of living in Seoul, where nobody demands money from you on the street and where every subway station has usable restrooms, I suspect I’d struggle to reacclimate. It doesn’t help that the cost of rent, restaurants and the like, already burdensome when I left America, have since risen to what I’ve heard is the very edge of tolerability (to say nothing of other recent undesirable phenomena, like the proliferation of Fentanyl addicts).
Read the whole thing at Substack.