So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

The town square comparison for twitter needs to be called out when it is brought up, I don't want to be in a town square after closing time when every drunk is there shouting their opinion at me and when the only toilet is backed up and overflowing. I follow a handful of accounts and some of the brain dead nonsense that seeps through makes my brain bleed.

Freedom of speech is obviously important, but so is quality of speech. It's wasted on so many people these days.

I'm on Bluesky but to be honest the move broke my habit - maybe I was going to move off these kind of platforms anyway. I now subscribe (paid) to a couple of 'old media' sources on line and watch a few podcasts (some paid some not), and look at a couple of tech websites where I used to follow their journalists. I do wonder whether Bluesky will end up having difficulty moving on when so much of it's audience is there only because it's like 'old twitter' and will resist any changes away from that model.

There is nothing hilarous about the reality of the situation. Two decades ago EU GDP per capita was almost three quarters of that of the US. Now it's barely over half. The only reason millions of people are not following your instruction to 'go to live' there is because they cannot.

GDP per capita is rather meaningless when it can be so easily skewed by a few billionaires.

Meanwhile people go bankrupt in the US over healthcare, the place incarcerates more of its population than anywhere else and mainstream politicians defend school shootings. I see nothing to envy in the place, honestly.

The EU per capita also includes that of numerous states that were effectively under Soviet occupation and the EU has taken on large costs in trying to bring them up to Western European standards.
The poorest states in the US are those suffering long term consequences of state sanctioned racism within the US itself.

Try some reality yourself.

The claim was that the GDP per capita of Mississippi ($53,061 in 2024) is higher than that of the EU ($43,305 in 2024).

Read more. Post less.

2 thirds of bankruptcies in the US are because people end up in debt because of healthcare. What a society to aspire to.

GDP means fuck all when you have to work two jobs just to pay your rent, get just 10 days off work a year and can't afford to go to a hospital when your health is in danger.

It has a bit of a basis in tradition. Historically, Europeans emigrated en masse to the US for opportunity. The population went from a few million in 1800 to over 75 million in 1900. They often brought their savings and were particularly entrepreneurial and/or hard working. Coupled with that were relatively strong institutions designed to ensure law and order along with rewarding innovation.

After the war, people were still going over. Then Europe caught up. The Coal and Steel Community which would become the EEC and eventually the EU was founded and Europeans never had it better. One could still go to the US to "make it" but that because less and less applicable to more and more people when Europe was offering similar levels of opportunity.

I think the turning point against the American model was Reaganism and the rise of the modern right. They turned against the new and the innovative in favour of protecting oligarchs and incumbents. The idea of the free market is that a new product or service with disrupt the market and either topple the incumbent(/s) or force them to adapt. In today's America, this is less and less likely. Antitrust has been pummeled and the big tech firms are now global titans who can either buy out challengers or kill them with lawsuits.

Today's Ireland has its problems but it's realistically never been better in so many ways to be someone living in Ireland. One can enjoy generous annual leave, reasonable workers' rights, solid democratic institutions and never have to worry about going bankrupt over a hospital bill. I just see nothing to envy in the US, except for some of their countryside of course but we've plenty of that as well.