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Indeed us Americans don’t grasp how rich we are, even the relatively poor among us when compared to the rest of the world. My European coworkers are noticeably poorer and have much less wealth than our US-based employees, working the exact same job and sometimes even lower-ranked. To them, a 100k euro salary is “living like a king” even though it really isn’t and that salary is just about middle class in America these days.
It’s actually odd to me how little their 100k goes in their countries. The average salary is way below, closer to 30-40k, maybe 50k. And yet they still don’t seem to meaningfully be able to stay ahead of the curve and create wealth. It strikes me that a lot of this is due to the tremendous amount of old people that are living high on the hog with generous government assistance (and the required taxes), or maybe just tons of competition for prime European real estate with global capital? I can’t seem to find a definitive answer, it’s odd to me that if you’re making 3x the average salary you’re not able to put a lot away in wealth. That should persist even after taxes, which really are not much worse than VHCOL cities in the US these days.
Yeah, 100k euros would be a very high salary here. I don't know many people earning that much, especially not in Nova Scotia. Despite that, our cost of living and our taxes are very high. To earn that much, you'd have to either be a specialist in medicine, one of the more highly paid university professors, or a very successful lawyer. In other parts of the country, the salaries are a bit higher and you can also make a lot in the trades.
One reason it's hard to get ahead is probably that the economy is set up to favour old people. It's a problem here and it's probably worse in Europe. The population in my city is exploding and rents are insane. But there has been an emergency rent cap since Covid and so people with new leases are paying way more than people who have lived in their apartments since before covid. So a huge share of your salary goes towards rent and income taxes.
Something else I noticed in Boston when I was Bumble was that so many young women around 30 years old had fancy titles and seemed to have really good careers. I think old people here don't like to give people opportunities, or maybe they just don't exist. Most young people leave after they graduate.
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The problem isn't demand for real estate, it's the limitations on the supply which are unnecessary and should be disposed of.
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The issues with housing exist with or without competition from international capital. The issue is the combination lack of construction with massive credit expansion.
This has mostly benefited older people but that wealth is now starting to trickle down so it's more looking like big city house owning natives Vs everyone else division where the former have been handed an immense pile of wealth the last 30 years or so for no reason at all. Unless you're part of the housing owning class it's incredibly hard to compensate with a high salary (especially given the compressed wage distribution) but if you are, even a low salary is enough to live very well on.
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I have noticed this as well. It is literally crazy! If you have a normal USA wage you're a king in Spain.
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