> And no, wealth inequality is much higher in the US

Absolute numbers don't matter as I was saying the issues caused by wealth inequality such as housing crisis are much worse in the EU.

> We also have wayyy less violent crime

Fair but I will say ours is very concentrated to specific areas / demographics so the average person rarely has to deal with that.

> LGBTQ+ rights are way better covered here (with the exception of a couple countries that should really be booted out of the EU). Also really important for me.

So they are worse?

> Military equipment is something that we're now buying a lot from the US where prices are really high, and once we move that to European vendors we can get a lot more for the same money

That's a two decade plus plan that hasn't even started and is already running into issues. Doesn't help that the EU needs weapons now not in 20 years.

> And we don't need so much. I don't need or want a car, a big TV, daily takeaway coffees etc.

It's one thing not to want it's another to not to be able to have.

It really matters which state you look at. Wealth inequality, gdp per capita, and median wage are all better in several eu members than in the US, and that still holds if you factor in housing and cpi in general. There are other states where that is really not the case. Its mostly the Scandinavian countries outperforming the us on these metrics and they are relatively low population in comparison so its kind of an odd one to make. If the goal is total gdp, who cares about the median wage, then the us/china plan does make more sense, but neither of those plans work without the other existing and cooperating.