I canβt pinpoint it, but there is something very wrong with the economy of Western Europe
Itβs incredibly hard to hire anybody to do work here and you end up doing most things yourself
You are moving apartments - you paint walls on your own
You need to hang window shades - you buy a drill and install them yourself
Same goes for most household chores and tasks
Hiring anybody is expensive af compared to salaries here, you need to wait a lot, and also the quality is usually subpar
I understand it - the labor should be paid fairly
But also most people you meet here are not rich - they barely make ends meet
If you earn >β¬60k yearly, fly more than 2 times a year and travel more than twice a year, you are already living a top tier life
Meanwhile in the US, labor is also expensive but people constantly hire each other to do things, spend money and it makes the economy grow and everybody becomes richer, consumes and travels more and as a result the economy does even better
In global comparison Europe becomes poorer, but we are trying to reduce consumption, make labor even more expensive artificially, while we should do the opposite: increase consumption and stimulate entrepreneurship