I think the Youtube comparison is a good one up to a point. It's a niche product. Everyone wants to be part of it, competing for a very very limited resource which is our attention. While with technologies like GPT or whatever comes next we empower anyone to excel in any area and create whatever (for now non-material things).
Most of our ancestors actually had less stressful jobs and worked less than we do today. The average agricultural worker 100 years ago was not even doing a part-time in terms of time spent doing actual work. More like 2h/day on average.
is not accounting differences at all:
- Europeans (and I am one) live in tiny housing even compared to people in NYC.
- we have less cars (you can claim it's due to public transport but if public transport is not available most people would not afford cars regardless.
- overall less leisure expenditures and less disposable income.
That 10k doctor is a myth and certainly not something the 100k developer will have to pay. That's covered by his company. Healthcare is an issue in US when you're at the bottom of the food chain.
last time I checked countries like Romania (E Europe) had the smallest pay gap in Europe. the issue is usually in countries like Germany, Switzerland or Netherlands.
why pay more taxes when there's no accountability and responsibility regarding spending? spending needs to get under control before raising taxes is even a thing.