EU has done really well on passing big laws such as GDPR in the recent years, while the US can’t even seem to decide whether to fund their own government. Why do you think Europe is doing better than the US? One would think that since EU is more diverse it would be harder to find common ground. And there were examples of that during the Greece debt crisis. But not anymore, it seems.
My European lifestyle differs from that of the US largely because of Europe’s lack of remedies for individuals who are damaged. In the US you can fearlessly enter contracts & loosely buy any product/service you want because consumer protections are far superiour for consumers willing to take action.
Europe’s style of consumer protection ignores the individual. If many consumers get burnt/scammed by the same supplier, regulators will take action on behalf of the people if there’s sufficient critical mass of numbers of people affected. And when a fine hits, the victims still get no compensation – just satisfaction of knowing the baddy was corrected. More commonly you get burnt in a one-off transaction in which case you’re a neglegible case.
This means I’m incredibly cautious about who I do business with in Europe. I do not front money to contractors. If a deal seems too good to be true, I walk. When there is no confidence in consumer protection, fewer transactions happen. And now that I see how unenforced the GDPR is, I distrust data controllers with my data and often opt not to transact for that reason.