comment: >
  
  To be fair, he doesn't state income tax. If you include all taxes, including the VAT that you pay for buying anything it might go over 50%
context: I don’t think you understand what materialism is. Or what Europe is for that matter. >
  
  Or how great Europeans are at wasting less. Considering USA has twice or more co2 emissions. >
  
  During my first trip to Europe, what you said, blew me away when I witnessed it firsthand. I was staying with a friend who is rather wealthy and he had a half sized refrigerator when I asked why he didn’t have a full-size one. He replied “how much stuff do I really need to keep cold at any given time“ adding that he almost never threw away food, because nothing ever sat in his refrigerator very long. And eating at what were essentially fast food restaurants and having the drinks served in glasses, the food on plates with silverware and trays. At the end of the meal, you just carried your tray, utensils, and dishware to a little conveyor belt where everything was washed and reused. There was also no such thing as what Americans call trash day. Anything organic was composted and anything recyclable was separated, and sent for recycling. it would be easy to dismiss claims they generate half the CO2 that Americans do as hyperbole, but having witnessed it I have no doubt this is the case. >
  
  Idk a lot about EU laws but I thought that each country mostly had control over it's carbon footprint rather than the EU. Why whould we count them separately? >
  
  To compare with US, better take the EU as a whole. Doesn't make sense to compare Portugal or Estonia to the US.
  And the EU does have ghg emissions regulations. But they are not as strict as those in France, Switzerland (non EU country, but still abides by many EU laws to get access to EU single market), Sweden, etc. >
  
  Europe is not a country.
  I know some Redditors find this concept difficult to grasp, but it's true - Europe is not a country.
  As an actual European (Bulgarian, to be precise), I find it difficult to make generalized statements about other European nations. Hell, I can't even say how materialistic Bulgarians are. >
  
  I mean that’s 100% a fair assertion but it doesn’t stop the average redditor (or people doing the same thing about Americans… you say that about your country, Bulgaria of 7 million people; now the US is 330 million people
  Edit: to be clear I agree with your comment, just pointing this out >
  
  Europe : European Union
  North America : Unites States of America
  I think this is where the disconnect comes in for  some Europeans. You all realize the EU somewhat resembles the US government before its Civil War in the 1860s? Many more decisions were left up to individal (nation) states, and the federal government existed to facilitate things like trade, currency, and mutual defense. Slavery, admittedly a bad thing, was enshrined as a state's right to decide before the Civil War. 
  Conversely, in today's world, suggest that the EU, their federal government, run things like healthcare and education. Tell me how that conversation turns out. >
  
  You do realize that Europe does not equal the European Union? >
  
  Yes, but in shorthand talk, 95% of the time, when people say europe, they mean the EU part of europe. Same way that if you say America, you generally mean the United States, even though there are other countries >
  
  
  Yes, but in shorthand talk, 95% of the time, when people say europe, they mean the EU part of europe
  
  No they aren't, they're including places like the UK in there. Are you suggesting they're somehow omitting Switzerland when they refer to Europe? >
  
  This isnt an opinion, it’s simply false. >
  
  And dumb, don’t forgot that. >
  
  I live in The Netherlands. I genuinely think that people are a bit less materialistic here than in the US (although we're still quite materialistic).
  That is because education and health care are cheap and taxpayer-funded, which means that you don't need to hoard a lot of wealth just to be able to survive a medical emergency and get your kids to university. Yeah you can say that we still care about having healthcare, and we do, but due to the way things are set up we're spending much less hours / energy trying to earn a lot of money so that we can financially survive an emergency.
  Also, there's much less of a car culture here -- I have a driver's license and don't have a car, even though I could afford one and have a job, because I simply don't need it. Hence there's less focus on having a big / nice car.
  Also, income differences are smaller. A burger flipper might make something like 1500 euro per month while a senior programmer might make 4500 euro per month. In the US, those differences are much bigger. So in the US, there's more of a temptation to work long hours. >
  
  High fashion is much more a thing in Europe than America. Like is there even a single high end American clothing brand?
  Spanish people for example are well known as fashionable but like they’re largely dirt poor by American standards >
  
  For Americans even Germany is a 3rd world country lmao. According to them a country is considerable of the 1st world if you have more money to spend in luxury stuff you're not even going to use. What, you live in the happiest country in the world, your students are the most educated in the continent, your public transport is one of the best in the world, the air is super clean, there are no homeless people, poverty doesn't exist etc? That doesn't matter because there are less Bugattis in the streets so less expansive cars=poor - (I'm not taking about any specific country, it's just an example). I live in a very touristic area and I've heard a lot of Americans saying that "people here are so poor, there are no cars here!" No bro it's just that you are in a literal Limited traffic zone 💀💀💀 >
  
  West Virginia is literally considerably wealthier than The UK let alone Spain. 
  Americans seems way more materialistic because they simply have way more money. 
  France has a GDP per Capita of 43,000, New York? $105,000. >
  
  West Virginia is a miserable place, full of poverty, drug addicts, high suicide rates, high unemployment rate, etc. etc. And is a very good example on why you should never rely only on GDP  and GDP per Capita ... >
  
  However they’re picking of their opioids and a (relatively) expensive Pickup Truck and OD’ing in their 2200 sq ft House. 
  Yeah Wheeling WV isn’t a nicer place to live than Seville.  But people do have more disposable income. So they can buy more crap >
  
  In a country with 100 people, one person alone owning 100 million, while 99 have zero, has the same average as all of the each owning 1 million 
  Finland is very similar to West Virginia in terms of GDP per Capita, house ownership rate, population size (only 3x bigger), very rural, etc.
  However, in 2019, their disposable income was almost identical at about $38k. Even though Finland has free healthcare, free higher education, stronger labor laws, higher taxes, etc. etc.
  That's due to less inequality (Gini coefficient of 0.26, i.e. in the ideal zone between 0.15 and 0.33. While the US as a whole is at 0.45. Which is excessive and considered a 3rd world country level of inequality)
  Thus even if Finland is more or less as rich as West Virginia (on average, and per Capita). Their quality of life is way better, and their disposable income the same.
  Also the Finnish are ranked among the happiest on the planet. While West Virginia is ranked the most unhappy US state in America. >
  
  Yeah whatever but this is about buying crap not QOL and West Virginians have similar disposable income levels of rich Northern European Countries and are the poorest state in America.
  Now imagine New Jersey vs Bosnia or Maryland vs Portugal or Washington State  vs Belarus. The average American simply has more money to blow on stuff so they do. They’re not inherently more vapid 
  Americans tend to buy more crap cause they have more money >
  
  Well, that's where you are wrong. An average is the same if one person holds all wealth, or if it's equally distributed among everybody. Just like 4 young 25 years old students partying, and a 97 years old grandma babysitting three of her one year old grand kids, both groups have an average age of 25 years old.
  The disposable income you mention is an average! Most Americans are no where near that. (West Virginia median wage = $26k.... So disposable income is even lower, for half of them). >
  
  Median and average tell a very similar story because the gap is so huge between the average European and Average American. 
  If you think  the median income of Connecticut and Croatia are remotely comparable you’re an idiot. 
  (Also you’re confusing individuals and households this median disposable incomes for households is higher than wages earners) >
  
  The more time I spend on Reddit, the more brain cells I lose… 
  If we didn’t like to give and only want to take, we wouldn’t vote in governments that promote policies like wealth distribution and a strong social security net. The continent’s politics would shift as hard right as they have in America if Europeans universally didn’t like to contribute and only wanna take. The EU itself, which 27 European nations are part of, was and is literally based on the principle of wealth redistribution. The bloc has promoted development of its poorer and more disadvantaged members thru redistribution of collected funds. 
  Your opinion is false. >
  
  The United States has done that through programs over the past two centuries.  The Ohio-Erie Canal, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover Dam, and many more were all federal programs to improve poor and/or sparsely populated areas of the US. >
  
  It’s easier for a country to agitate to leave the EU than a state in the US to leave the US. I’m not even confident the US would allow any of its states to leave. >
  
  I think getting a tax break or free education is slightly different from dreaming about owning 2 SUVs or 5 shotguns. 
  Also, even if Europeans are as materialistic as Americans, Europeans seem to want nice things out in public whereas Americans seem to want nice things only inside their own house where they don’t have to share it with anyone else. >
  
  Watch europeans say this guys in American, even though he’s from Greece >
  
  I don' think you know what materialistic means. >
  
  Doh! >
  
  Dude Europe is not a country 😐 >
  
  he never said it was a country he just generalised a few countries in Europe as the views of every country in Europe >
  
  He insinuated >
  
  "Which somehow makes it better." You are right. It does make it better. >
  
  Where you think all those designer brands come from? Lol it’s the same >
  
  Europe is not 1 country... >
  
  Thats not materialism lol >
  
  Ah yes, nothing as unified and one note as Europe. You could drop me in Ukraine  and I’d be like, ‘is this France?’ >
  
  How can you put all of europe as one country? Im from Denmark and even tho hungary, greece and russia are in europe we are widely different in both economics, language and culture and cant really be put umbrella >
  
  “Everyone likes to take, no one likes to give”
  What, as opposed to the US, where you have to pay out of your own pocket for fucking insulin? >
  
  "The latter is more successful" lmao wut >
  
  In Europe you give 50% of what you earn so you want the benefits back >
  
  Basically no one pays 50% in income tax. Not even in Scandinavia.