Notably, very little of the US economy is plausibly basic needs (a roof over ones head, basic nutrition, actual basic medical care, etc.). The vast, vast majority is essentially luxury goods and services, but Americans have been conditioned to think what the rest of the world considers luxury is actually basics.

If Americans actually cut back to actual basics (a fixer upper small house in a less desirable area), shared a older used car instead of buying several new ones (or a big truck!), made homecooked stews and beans and rice instead of eating out all the time or prepackaged food, stopped buying the latest fancy phones, took care of their health instead of gastric bypasses, dialysis, etc.

Hell, even if the average American stopped taking expensive vacations!

The world economy would likely collapse overnight, no joke. And it would likely be uglier than the Great Depression domestically.

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like_any_other 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> a fixer upper small house in a less desirable area

A lot of an area's desirability has to do with crime rate. Bulgaria has a homicide rate of 1.088, and the US 5.763. So what would be considered a very safe, friendly neighborhood in the US, would be average or worse in Bulgaria. In this sense, "luxury" is flipped - what Bulgarians would consider basic, would be "luxuriously safe" in the US.

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lazide 4 days ago | parent [-]

What I’m referring to is random suburb and/or middle of Kansas type areas, which generally have middling to low crime rates in the US.

They’re often not close to jobs or very interesting socially, however.

Jobs and social opportunities are why Sofia is the big draw it is in Bulgaria, for instance.

I do see Bulgaria in general as being 3.8/100k for murder? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Bulgaria].

Inner cities and specific (relatively uncommon!) rural areas (often in the Deep South) are what are dangerous in the US, and paradoxically even inner cities are often expensive to live in. Here is a map of homicide rate on a county by county basis [https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_US_county_h...].

People often move to LCOL areas anyway to escape the crime and high costs of the cities when there are economic issues in the US.

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pjc50 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

"Cost of living" correlates fairly well with the available jobs and incomes in a region. You generally can't move to a LCOL region while also having a high paying job. Which is why the possibility of full remote work was so exciting for so many people.

	▲	lazide 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		True, though COL tends to lag the actual jobs (both up and down) for various reasons. Which we definitely saw with remote work - both pros and cons.

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aksnsman 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

	▲	lazide 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Having in group/out group dynamics where the outgroup is systematically stomped on does cause problems eh? Or do you think the reason why the Deep South (and these inner city areas) is such a consistent problem has nothing to do with history?

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arduanika 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is true.

Bernays did more to end the Great Depression than Keynes, and to prevent its recurrence post-war. Sad truth.

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wpm 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Hell, even if the average American stopped taking expensive vacations!

Lmfao what world do you live in where they haven't?