Most European residential electric systems operate at 240v, versus 120v in the US, which means you can only backfeed a US outlet with half the power you could in a European outlet. That alone makes this system half as useful for US applications.

Remember the tmobile un-contract? This is literally from their press release in 2017: “T-Mobile ONE customers keep their price until THEY decide to change it. T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile ONE plan. When you sign up for T-Mobile ONE, only YOU have the power to change the price you pay.” https://www.t-mobile.com/news/press/un-carrier-next

Remember how they promised the FTC they wouldn’t raise prices if they could pretty please merge with sprint to become the biggest telecom network in the country? https://www.yahoo.com/news/t-mobile-promises-sprint-merger-195428217.html

I work for a private solar developer in NYS, and I can see that the state regulators are either asleep at the wheel or intentionally complacent with allowing private utilities to let our electric infrastructure rot so they can keep collecting profits off of ratepayers. We have some of the worst utilities in the country and state is currently suppressing a grassroots effort to oust RG&E, who is the worst of the worst. In general though their refusal to modernize their grid is grinding the goal of 70% renewable by 2030 to a quick halt.

I had really hoped that getting NYPA behind the building of renewables would make them a heavyweight that could take the utilities to task for their failures, it’s infuriating that they’ve fallen to more regulatory capture.

As others have mentioned, you can invest in the stock market within your 401k, though your options can sometimes be limited or saddled with high fees depending on what broker the 401k is through.

If yours is through a shitty broker then you might be better served by opening an individual retirement account (IRA), likely a Roth IRA given the limited info you’ve shared. You can open one with a broker of your choice, so go with one of the better ones like vanguard or fidelity. Using tax advantaged retirement accounts will always beat saving your retirement money in a non-tax advantaged one, all else being equal.

Edit to echo the flowchart from one of the other comments: https://imgur.com/u0ocDRI

This is the core of sound personal finance strategy in purified form. Great resource!

Definitely a bitter, almost aggressive tone to this one. It also comes off as a “fuck you, I got mine” kind of messages to say “North American infrastructure sucks, which is why I emigrated to the Netherlands”, because it’s not as if emigration is an option for most people in the US or Canada since it’s expensive and most people don’t have a viable path to a resident visa.

That being said, nothing he said was wrong, but sharing this video is probably not going to help anyone change their view.