/b/ - Random

>Pros
-rights
-hamburger
-still a rich country despite inflation
-i can go to basically every country on earth with my passport with little to no hassle
-i can sate my bloodlust by blowing away home intruders with a shotgun

>Cons
-boomers infesting higher government
-hot dog
-high cost of living
-european seethe because they don't live in the best country on earth
-all my taxes are spent on letting politicians live a better life than I ever will, lining the pockets of billionaires, or war instead of making the country better
-i would rather bleed out in an alley than pay for an ambulance

>>299567
>-high cost of living

how bad is it?

t. brit

>>299571
>Americans spend half their income on healthcare while brits spend less than 10 percent.

You are getting what you pay for though.

UK and EU have horrible health care.

>>299572
Your source is clearly wrong
"On average, households spent $2,200 annually on premiums, while median out-of-pocket costs were $800, with the median spending amount for both combined metrics totalling $3,700 per year."

https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/133m-americans-spent-more-10-income-premiums

Even in the poorest part of the US, it's only 14-17% "In the south, it is not uncommon to find large premium contributions relative to household income, according to the study, with five states reporting between 14% to 17.4% of income spent on premiums."

>>299575
Median household income in the US is 80k a year too.

You can make a shit ton of money here but the cost of living is so high. Rent and groceries are high but even minimum wage is crazy money in other countries. That's why there are so many illegals because they can send back 50$ and feed their family for almost a month. But all you can do here is work and work and the landlords and corporations take all your money and taxes. And they use your tax money to fund wars and build more missiles so we can keep being the most powerful country. It's all a big fucked up scheme to be the most powerful.

>>299575
Lmao out of what donkeys asshole did they pull that 2200 annually on premiums. That shit won't give you full coverage and they will find any reason to deny you any of the money you put into your premiums even if you're paying 500 a month (which is typical for full coverage but can be more)
That article was probably paid for by united lmaoooooooo

Are they really the best states?

The only places in the US I would bother visiting from a different country are the National Parks, Southern California, Hawaii, and I guess NYC if you're into that sort of thing. I've also been wanting to do Florida, but only if I could make it an extended road trip. Many Americans are completely delusional about what cities here are worth an international vacation. And if you don't want to rent a car, just forget about it.

>>299614
>what cities are worth a vacation
In America? Imo they all kind of suck shit unless you wanna buy stuff. There's not much culture in the cities in America. I like European cities better. Much more walkable and prettier buildings/city parks.

>>299429
I don’t pay for any insurance or premiums whatsoever. I am living happily in a small town where rent is extremely low, and my job is online. I am one accident away from disaster but I have yet to experience it.

>>299589
Both of those states are aweful.

>>299568
Many people are just scraping by because it costs a paycheck and a half to rent a small apartment in most cities. I live with my mom though so I don't experience it personally. Also the fed likes to print money which heavily contributes to inflation leading to prices going up while your pay basically goes down since money is losing value and most companies don't want to raise wages to balance inflation.

I was surprised that most of California is actually horrifically ugly. And smells like shit. Garbage everywhere. I have no idea why so many people desire to live in that shithole.

There is pros??

Is the cost of living is really that bad in the US?

>>301661
Reaganomics was absolutely not a necessary evil and financialization destroyed America's economy and future more than anything else.

>>301676
i think nona means necessary in the sense of keeping capitalism afloat. overturning the keynesian consensus kinda let the whole thing barrel forward on momentum and vibes

I'm from the US but live and work abroad. I'm seriously considering naturalizing because the US seems awful now and I can't see it getting better.

>>301711
NTA but one area where things will just keep getting worse is how uneducated the population is. Liberals cry about this a lot but it is just true. We are at a point where kids are struggling to read and write. Not at grade-level, at all. And if people aren't educated that makes every other problem worse.

>>301721
Agree. Teachers are pressured to pass students who are epic failures and do not understand the elementary concepts required to move on. Then, those students are even more hopeless in the next year. The cycle continues, and those who could and should be learning more are stranded on sinking ships.

Kids have to be allowed to fail, because they will do only the bare minimum. Sometimes that minimum is enforced by good parents who say 90s or no food (because truthfully, that is not hard to achieve in almost any american school), but often it must be enforced by the school (and by extension, the local government). A person who has not learned enough to be more than deadweight on the back of American society should not be allowed to graduate.

If millions of brainrotted gen alpha moids must do slave labour for america to re-learn this lesson, so be it.

>>299589
objectively the two worst state

>pro
Free speech
>con
Expensive healthcare, no public transit

Wtf is happening in America?

>>301744
Elon fired everyone in our federal government and now it doesn’t function.

>>301735
>Free speech
Only as long as it doesn't offend jews or go against their agendas.

>>301790
good. drugs are BAD nona.
the less liquor in the world the better.

>>299572
Cope, Amerilard. People live longer on EU healthcare than even the richest Americans.
>The survival of the wealthiest in the United States was better than the poorest in the United States, but comparable to the poorest in northern and western Europe. We were surprised by that result.
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5345671/the-richest-americans-live-about-as-long-as-the-poorest-europeans-study-says

Follett in Texas looks different from Houston in Texas and even New York and Los Angeles
In any case, see Peter Santenello's series related to small American towns

The elites don't need you.

All the infrastructure has been built and the globalists will soon have robots.

>>303758
nice

>>303755
Robots are never getting cheap enough to automate all of labor.

>>303760
Who will build the robots

>>303758
We've borne enough insults
from the meddling Chinese.
It's time we made them understand
we'll keep the First Island Chain…
…with or without their approval.
'Tis the sovereign right of the
United States to navigate through the Taiwan Strait!
That's right!
Democracy must defend herself
by force of arms.
After we've fired on the Communist rascals
at Kinmen, we've got to fight!
-There's no other way!
-Fight! That's right. Fight!
Let the Chinese ask for peace!
The situation is very simple.
The Chinese can't fight and we can.
There won't even be a battle.
They'll just turn and run every time.
One American can lick 20 Chinese.
We'll finish them in one battle.
Gentlemen can always fight better
than rabble.
Yes, gentlemen always can fight better
than rabble.
What does the captain of our troop say?
Well, gentlemen, if Georgia fights
I go with her.
But, like my father, I hope that the Chinese
will call off the assault on Taiwan.
-But, Ashley….
-But, Ashley, they've insulted us!
You can't mean you don't want war!
Most of the miseries of the world
were caused by wars.
And when the wars were over
no one ever knew what they were about.
If it wasn't that I knew you–
Now, gentlemen, Mr. Butler's been
in Beijing, I hear.
Don't you agree with us, Mr. Butler?
I think it's hard winning a war with words,
gentlemen.
What do you mean, sir?
There's not a working shipyard
in the whole South.
What difference does that make
to a gentleman?
It'll make a great deal of difference
to a great many gentlemen, sir.
Are you hinting, Mr. Butler,
that the Chinese can lick us?
No, I'm not hinting.
I'm saying very plainly that the Chinese
are better equipped than we.
They've got factories, shipyards,
solar farms…
…and a fleet to bottle up our harbors
and starve us to death.
All we've got is seed oils and marijuana
and arrogance.
-That's globalist treachery!
-Sir, I refuse to listen to any renegade talk!
I'm sorry if the truth offends you.
Apologies aren't enough, sir!
I hear you were turned out of West Point,
Mr. Rhett Butler…
…and you aren't received by any decent
family in Charleston, not even your own!
I apologize again for all my shortcomings.
Perhaps you won't mind if I walk about
and look over your place.
I seem to be spoiling everybody's Bud Light
and vapes and…
…dreams of victory.

Small businesses are suffering

https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1909593137795772637

>>303782
My family and I run a small business. I'm very very concerned. Things were already bad with the economy but now? I don't know what the future holds for us since Trump doesn't seem to want to back down. I hope it'll work out…

How is this even allowed to happen? I thought there were checks and balances? One guy can just decide to annihilate our country on a whim? And that the only reason this hadn't happened before was we just never had a president who was this insane?

>>303780
The Librem5-USA American-manufactured model costs $1,600.
Why should Apple be so bad at phones?

>>303788 here
This has been genuinely bothering me and I have been trying to figure it out since I am sure the iphones price really will do much more than double whereas the difference in price between the l5-china and the l5-usa is a flat 2x multiplier.

The Librem is produced as a product. It is not a platform which is otherwise monetized. The money purism makes on the librem is their total librem revenue. There is barely a support plan and what there is is a loss leader. There is no itunes with music licenses nor google-play with revenue splitting for the librem. There is no librem family of software and peripherals that can turn a loss leader into a profit producer - it's one of the phones that still comes with a 3.5mm audio jack instead of trying to offer brand-label bluetooth audio headphones. The company that produces the librem is extremely small and their margins seem frighteningly tight from all the fulfillment and production problems they've had, because producing a ground up redesign of the concept of the smartphone with a completely new manufacturing scheme and no product-as-platform monetization scheme was high risk and low reward.

There are costs associated with the general market environment which will be impacted by tariffs. But the thing is that we already saw how supply shocks impacted the prices of the librem5. During the Covid supply shock the price of the Librem5-China rose to $1999, up from what was at the time $750 MSRP (currently $799), and the price of the librem5-USA went all the way up to $2100 from its precrisis price of $1899. Years of glass shortage and semiconductor crisis near-triple of the import costs and materials costs from China was a bit more than a 10% increase in the USA model.

The librem is also a pretty poor phone with a lot of manufacturing issues, very poor battery life, and I've heard that people can't make calls that last longer than half an hour. I followed the drama extensively and I do not recommend that anyone get one. But, the design and manufacturing and tooling and firmware issues that hit the USA model are also endemic to the China version, if not even worse, so it's not like the quality issues are inherent to American manufacturing losing its quality control.

But we can assume the Librem production cost multiplier accounts for almost the entire price of the phone. Let's say the L5-China costs $100 to produce and so $700 goes to the company, and that the USA model costs $1,590 to produce and only $10 is taken in profit. That would be a very strange relationship to the price of each production model since the Chinese version's MSRP has increased from launch alongside present day availability and the USA version which was widely available during covid has decreased in price, since that would typically mean that the USA model is still the bulk seller and the Chinese version has only minor and restricted demand. Otherwise there would be a very significant markdown on the Chinese version in order to avoid the extreme bad press the phone has received particularly vs its direct competitor the $150 PinePhone. It is more likely that there was a flat profit margin assigned to both phones and that the USA model is a poorer seller than the Chinese model. But if ~16x is the real production cost multiplier then that would go some distance to explain the idea of a $30,000 iphone vs a $1,000 one.

Apple could be making their phones as a loss leader for platform revenue, and that loss leader might be so significant that they would have to make incredible cost changes necessary after US production is brought up. But the phone would not need to bear the immediate price of retooling US production facilities, Apple is infamously storing the largest cash reserve of any company in human history in Ireland and sometimes sweats about EU tax commissions. For a phone cost of $30,000 with the abovementioned 16x production cost multiplier, if the loss taken in the production of a phone in China is $1,000 then Apple which is one of the most profitable companies in human history would need to sell at least $3,000 worth of goods and services per phone over its lifetime and the average phone replacement lifetime is about 2 to 3 years. If Apple is willing to take a $1000 loss in manufacturing in China, the base cost would be $2000 and the American multiplier would take you to $32,000, and with an equal loss accepted that would go to $31,000 to the customer per phone.

But, with the minimally expensive Chinese $1000 of loss, and Apple's massive overall profit margins being explained solely by things relating to the phone rather than the phone purchase itself being profitable. If Apple's cut of iTunes purchases is $0.1 per dollar then each phone purchaser would need to be expected to buy almost $10,000 off of the Apple marketplace every year in addition to their phone to wipe off that loss leader and put the phone firmly in a sufficient profit space to produce one more phone at loss. The average Apple consumer is documented as earning $54,000 a year (source: https://www.sci-tech-today.com/stats/iphone-vs-android-user-statistics/#iPhone_Vs_Android_Users_By_Income_Level) so that's about 1/6th of their annual income at present spent financing Apple's Foxconn child slave labor production plants overseas. That makes the iPhone more economically harmful than most cocaine addictions.

America is so jarring to visit. I was forced to due to because of my job, and it is such a weird country, with strange weird people. The energy is just wrong. It is like they are cosplaying as a country, but fail miserably. The youth is <50% White and it is like one big racial jungle. You can tell how everyone hates each other. The cities are strange, the bars are weird, the vibes are just off. The New World is ultimately a big social experiment coming to an end.(YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US)

>>303830
Less than 50%? Where did you go in particular? The USA is a big place.

>>303830
>coming to an end.
it hasnt even started

>>303830
>capitalizing "white" like stormfront Nazi
>bitching about muh yt birthrate
GO BACK

Those who say that the USA is a free and peaceful country with a balanced budget are liars.

>>303853
It's okay to be concerned about your own people

>>301048
This is only if you're a teacher though, brits only get less than 6 weeks off per year.

>>303763
Other countries.

I visited a rlly rich area of Florida to see my bf (ling distance) his family are extremely wealthy and the area was sooo clean. never saw litter anywhere. the palm trees were decorated with red bows everywhere bc of Christmas. things looked really well-maintained and pretty like the malls and such. there was so much to do despite it being a smaller ish town. we went to Disney and Universal. his family were so amazing to me and I really felt like I belonged in a way I don't think European inlaw dynamics tend to be. man I want to go back once it cools down there again but I also want to see japan. photo from the hotel we stayed at

>>305386
lucky! i'm happy for you nona.

>>305386
Your boyfriend will die one day, stay humble

>9. crystal.cafe is not a place for political debate. Refrain from posting about race/ethnicity and religion. This restriction includes discussing stereotypes, conspiracy theories and personal preferences. Gender critical discussion must be contained to designated threads.
Watch out, OP!

no

>>305388
thank u so much <3
>>305603
we're both young so im not concerned abt that right now…

>>299429

Europoor speaking. Seems to me being poor in american sucks while being middle-upper is rocks. In europe its more like being poor kind of sucks and being middle-upper class is okay. reminder that americans have the most disposable income - and yes that includes after health insurance and other things.

>>305675
I dont get that health insurance thing. Its not better here anymore. Treatment out of your own pocket is borderline impossible to pay and "free" healthcare isnt free. Normal middle class people pay 500-700€ a month for public healthcare. The last time I called an ambulance for someone in immediate danger I had to redial three times to even get an operator and the ambulance came 20 minutes later. For an old man who had a stroke lying on the sidewalk turning blue. He didnt die that day simply because he jolted back into consciousness all by himself. This btw happened in a big city with hospitals all over.
Doctors will outright tell you that you will probably get cancer but for treatment you should come if it already grew big enough to justify a cheap operation.
For an ophthalmologist I would have to drive 400 miles because I moved and most wont take new patients. I could go on and on. You are seriously fucked the moment you dont pay by yourself and those 500-700€ every month are deducted from a 50k income - pre tax.

>>305675
honestly being upper-middle class in america doesnt seem all that much better than being middle class in europe. its more the people with multimillionaire annual salaries/households/top 1% that really seem to reap all the benefits

>>299568
A grocery cashier working in a comparatively low cost of living state like Texas or Florida makes the same amount of money as a trained professional working in Japan, but if they ever want to own a home or even not have 4 roommates, they'll need to be in a relationship with two incomes driving 20 year old used cars and eating ramen noodles 4 days a week to pull it off.

In high cost of living states like California/NY, it takes the income of 5-10 middle class people in a normal country for a single person to even rent an apartment.

Why do Americans tip at restaurants?

>>305769
it's because the waiter staff only makes 2 dollars an hour

>>305386
nona where is this?? need to visit this place. im in florida