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What ? Where are you going with this ?
What does that have to do with your question ?
You asked "why" and I gave you an answer.
The US and European governments are structured totally different.
You're trying to compare apples to oranges here and I'm not biting.
So you already knew the answer. Just come out with a post stating your preference..not posing a baiting question.
Good call out. I agree the way it is posed is as a "gotcha."
A shame too. This is an interesting observation/question, and I share the OPs interest in it. Especially since some act like any government role is always bad.
I am in the middle on this one. Some government intervention seem inevitable, but what form should it take? How can or should government affect class mobility?
My general impression is that worker's rights have gradually eroded in the USA for at least 30 years, due to union busting, a general drift to the right politically, aggregation of corporate power in the top echelons, and globalization of labor. I don't think the anti-labor viewpoint has been so strong in Europe, but I would be interested in hearing more.
I would add that the current situation is a bit temporally unique. Boomers are delaying retirement, and they dominate all the upper earning classes in business and government. Until they begin to exit the stage, younger workers will not be able to advance into the top earning slots. We have been frozen in the current configuration for about 15 years, and those at the top making hay are not eager for the party to end. But of course, it must eventually. I don't know how widely this pattern holds in Europe. Probably in Germany, France, and the UK, but in the more recently ascendant economies (Poland, Czech Republic,etc.), power may not be so aggregated in the boomer class.
As to the OP, I actually think it's easier to climb the ladder here moreso than in Europe. I'm not so sure that the labor laws in Europe lend themselves to upward mobility moreso than stagnation for individual workers. I supervised German employees, and they seemed to get to a satisfactory station in life much younger than Americans on average without moving up very far. They were happy to have a safe, secure job....and as long as it paid the bills and they could take their 6 week vacations, they were fat and happy.
The same can be applied to Americans. It's just that this country has real unemployment of over 20 %. Sure Germans probably don't work 70 hours a week. But they get paid the same in 40-50 hours. Germans are more productive/efficient per unit than american workers. Plus they know most of the time more than one language which makes them able to compete in countries all over the world. They don't get into college debt as well, that helps too. No doubt america excells at the top, but the middle class keeps evaporating. A lot of those european citizen come over here to excell at the top as well.
When I lived in Sweden (early 1990s), I was impressed by the work/life balance of the Swedes. They seemed to work hard, but everyone took a 6 week vacation every year, usually to the Mediterranean or SE Asia or America. They also had wonderfully appointed homes. Not McMansions like us, but compact, clean, well furnished and pleasing places. They also seemed to take time off for family leave and fitness (obesity was much, much rarer), while being highly productive overall. Maybe it is germanic efficiency, but I was impressed by the whole package.
Here, we seem less balanced. People are either working all the time, and in poor health, or overconsuming relative to their incomes, overspending on school, etc. Not taking vacations, or splurging on bit debt-fueled trips. I am not really sure if the middle class Swedes earned more, or were just more efficient in their life choice, or whether the system helped them somehow.
It's all perception my friend. More people think of themselves as middle class then blue collar or working class.
If you are better off today than your parents were that is mobility.
I am better off than my parents who were better off than their parents.
That is climbing the economic ladder.
My grandparents were blue collar, my parents (father only) were blue collar.
I am white collar (college degree, office job).
Thankfully I kept my blue collar upbringing and have been able to live beneath my means and save a bundle.
I think that attitude towards blue-collar work is part of the problem in the US. In Europe people don't mind working in blue-collar jobs, there is nothing negative about it, it is the foundation of manufacturing. From your and other people's comments I conclude that is not the case in the US, that somehow people are supposed to move from blue to white-collar work.
Why is social upward mobility higher in Europe than in America?
Because those who receive public assistance in the U.S. have a birth rate 3 times that of those who actually earn the means to support themselves, save and invest, and increase their wealth. The highly disproportionate birth rate of the welfare-dependent and the exponential overgrowth of that population makes the statistics falsely appear as if upward mobility is difficult in the U.S.
It's not an upward mobility problem; it's a disproportionately high welfare-dependent birth rate problem.
Those statistics mean very little without looking into the reasons behind them. I suspect higher estate taxes in the European Union accounts for part of that difference. I prefer letting the children of the wealthy to keep their social class. I prefer Bud to them snooty beers anyways.
Of the European nations only Norway (Luxembourg is really not a fair comparison), a nation with a more homogenous population, outscores the US when it comes to PPP' the economic stat that matters the most. If we could get our involuntary minorities to take a job we would surpass Norway quite quickly.
Because the 1% hoard all the money. Its a sick country this USA
Yeah, the 1% just hides their billions under their matress and uses it for pillow fill.. They dont at all create jobs.
Look at Buffet for example, no wait, he's got hundreds of thousands of employees.. lets go to Gates.. wait, another bad example..
Here, I'll let you list a few billionaires that got rich all by themself.. Go ahead
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