The quality of life has drastically improved in Poland and every year it gets better - salaries go up, new companies enter, lots of VC and entrepreneurship, tons of events. I find that there's more to do in wroclaw than chicago in terms of entertainment. And there's something for everyone whether it's a sporting event, concert, even random people playing music in the square or doing street performance. You don't really see that in the us.
The us has been on a steady decline for a long time. For me I view it as starting to go down hill in the mid 2000s, but older generations say it's been on a steady decline since the 80s. Only reason why the us is still well off is because it came from such a strong position. For the average person life in the USA is a drag. Even for someone who is upper middle/middle class many of the things that use to be associated with that socioeconomic status are becoming rarer. Like take home ownership for example. Or wages - wages have been stagnant for decades. People were making an average wage of 40 50k since like the 90s and that's still an average wage today. But back in the 90s you could buy a whole shopping cart of food for $100 or pay rent for a nice apartment in a good area for $500. Now the same shopping cart will run you $300 and rent in the same apartment $1500. It's just not a good life. People in their 20s even educated ones don't even have kids anymore because it's too expensive. A study revealed about a quarter of millenials don't even date because they feel they can't afford it. And the worst thing is that people are so brainwashed always talking about politics or some other b.s. and it's all just distraction on how rotten the whole system is and how ****** their situation actually is and it's not getting any better.
Sure we have freedoms to talk ****, carry guns, have the most perverted types of sex, etc. But so what? What happiness does that bring when young people drown in debt just to get some $15 $20 job despite a degree - and those are the lucky ones who will snag a 40 50k a year job w benefits, many of older ones on social security have to decide between spending their $1k on groceries, medicine or rent. The middle aged with kids can't even afford a family vacation and if they do it's rarely one overseas. They'll drive to some water park a few hours away.
And it's only going to get worse. That's why I'm getting the hell out of here. the sad thing is that most Americans don't travel and don't know about how people live in other developed countries. If they did they wouldn't be yelling USA number 1. They'd realize how ****** things actually are here and even compared to say a poorer country like Hungary - free education, free healthcare, great retirement benefits.