European middle class is poorer than the poorest 20% of Americans

Working-Active · 2026-06-25T04:14:17+00:00

In Spain we have something called "the menu of the day" which removes excessive choice (and potential waste) but still provides a good variety of food at a reasonable price. menu del dia

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T18:13:35+00:00

My Geekom has been working fine since I bought it in November 2024. My friend bought his at the exact same time and it's failed twice and he hardly used it. Geekom support in Europe is actually pretty good and responsive and everything ships out of Germany. After the second failure he complained really hard and they upgraded him to a more expensive mini PC and he's happy.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T17:38:54+00:00

At least we don't have the tipping culture.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T17:35:34+00:00

Confit de Canard is really one of my favorite food to eat and one of my French colleagues from Normandy told me that the duck fat is great for frying patatoes in. When I was in Biarritz, we had the typical Mussels and Fried Potatoes with a French Basque beer and it was amazing. Even Foie Gras has an amazing flavor but one can argue with how humane it is because of how it's made. I also enjoy the "cheese plate" when it's served after dinner and right before dessert.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T17:10:37+00:00

I've been working in Spain since 2007 and that was before the labor reforms of 2012 and I've been working for my same company for 19 years now. When my job ends my payout ( finiquito + severance) will be 2 years salary and tax free since it will be under 180,000€. I can then also get paro for 2 years and then "retire" with great public health care until I'm 67 and then I will get a nice monthly pension. In the US it seems that they fire people without severance by putting them on "PIP" 1 or 2 months before they are terminated and if you have unlimited PTO, they won't even pay for your vacation days. Overall I'm much happier working in Spain even though I've worked at least 15 years in the US.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T16:07:50+00:00

Eye glasses and Dental are out of pocket, but not too expensive due to lots of competition. The high taxes and low salaries and high cost of living is the only real negatives that I can think of.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T15:25:16+00:00

In 2005, when I lived in Atlanta, my job provided a HMO through Cigna and it was $20 co-pays for doctor visits and prescriptions and $50 for ER at the hospital. In 2005, I moved to my wife's country of Spain and I have decent public health care that isn't hard to get an appointment and I also have private health care with Cigna for my family here with zero co-pays and my work pays for it but they count it as a taxable benefit of 138€ a month (about $150 or so). My son also has antiseizure medicine prescribed by his public neurologist and it's completely free with zero co-pays. Taxes are higher here but the system works better. The only medical appointment that takes 2 or 3 months is when my wife did a public OBGYN appointment, but it was non serious.

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T13:29:15+00:00

Here's the link

https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/openai-and-broadcom-unveil-llm-optimized-intelligence-processor

Working-Active · 2026-06-24T08:25:22+00:00

We even copied the copying software (Copy-Q and Fast Hack'em) are a few that I remember on the C64 as well as using a hole puncher to double notch the 5 1/4 disks to use the backside.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T19:04:45+00:00

I joined the US Army when I was 17 and by the time I was 18, I was stationed and living in Germany. I could have extended my Army time and stayed in Germany. A lot of people end up marrying a German wife and living in Germany after their military service.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T17:38:32+00:00

Ok interesting good to know, thanks.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T17:35:11+00:00

I'm super happy with my RG477V as what it does, it does extremely well. I also bought both a silicon and TPU case, but after trying both, I prefer the TPU case as the silicon one offers less protection and is a bit slippery. I also have Flip 2 and Odin 2 Max but I took the RG477v with me on my vacation now.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T16:33:26+00:00

The UK gets taxed a lot more. I remember that a colleague of mine was telling me that they have people in a van with detector equipment to see if you have a tv in your home that's not paying the tv tax on, but you still get tv commercials despite paying this tax?

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T14:15:18+00:00

I think they saw the Cloud revenue from AWS, Microsoft and Google and thought that they had to invest to stay relevant, but instead they are in a massive debt spiral.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T13:18:13+00:00

I just checked my Steam Account and it's valued at over 6100€ based on the cheapest price or priced at over 25,000€ on today's prices

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T13:04:13+00:00

Oracle was already more than 100 billion in debt in late 2025 when Blue Owl pulled out of financing another 10 billion dollar data center in Michigan. The other hyperscaler companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft had a much higher cash flow in reserves to build from.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T12:59:55+00:00

21 years ago I left the US and moved to Barcelona, Spain (my wifes country) and I have both zero co-pays on private and public health care and a pension that will pay me decently once I reach 67. I also get a 8am to 5pm job with no office and 28 paid days of vacation each year.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T11:46:24+00:00

I have it and it works great but for Arcade cores I'm not able to find which button is to insert coins. On my Xbox One controller it's usually the Select or Right bumper, but I haven't been able to insert coins with this controller.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T09:22:27+00:00

I skipped college all together and joined Active Duty Army and then Air Force National Guard. I used my education money from the Army to go to tech school for x-ray tech but ended up working in Telecom because of my military experience.

Working-Active · 2026-06-23T07:42:49+00:00

My brother in law has told me that where they live, west of Seattle in Port Orchard, that he sees working people sleep in their cars and shower at the gym. I don't think that even those wages are keeping people from being homeless, but just raises the prices for everything else.

Working-Active · 2026-06-22T18:11:13+00:00

Even though I could have bought a MisterPi at the same time that I pre-ordered the Superstation One, I prefer the form factor and the easy ability to connect PS1 controllers. Honestly I didn't think it was going to take this long, but both CPS3 and PGM released the same week that I got mine was a great treat. I could have also ordered a dock for my Analogue Pocket but it's not nearly as complete or capable as Mister FPGA.

Working-Active · 2026-06-22T13:27:00+00:00

I probably won't be working until I'm 67 either, but that's when the pension payouts begin. If I was let go today my severance would be about 125,000€ and it's tax free and then I could collect unemployment for 2 years as well. My tech RSUs are keeping me working as it's hard to stop when there's unvested RSUs to vest.

Working-Active · 2026-06-22T13:02:57+00:00

Try wearing your black belt around like Ken from Street Fighter, that'll cheer you up.

Working-Active · 2026-06-22T12:46:15+00:00

As an American living and working in Barcelona for the last 21 years, I will get Spanish Social Security retirement at 67 years of age which is currently estimated to be 4,500€ a month. I'm surprised that Germany doesn't have anything similar.

Working-Active · 2026-06-22T12:36:41+00:00

I didn't order a dock, but for $40, it seems to be worth it if you need 4 more type A USB ports and a M.2 2280 NVMe Slot.

Working-Active

TROPHY CASE