That isn't a coherent argument; the latter does not support the former. The median American has a lot of money and disposable income compared to almost any other country.

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kdheiwns 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

America is in a weird situation where people have a lot of money in terms of the number and it converts well to other currencies. But it feels worthless within American borders.

An American can get a very sad and bad sandwich for about $20 in a mid sized American city. They can get a full meal with fresh ingredients in most of the rest of the world for $10 (no tip either). Some places even under $5.

An American can rent a dump in a high crime city for $2000 a month. They can get a nice home for $500 a month in many other countries.

An American can pay hundreds a month for health insurance that rejects their claims and covers absolutely nothing, resulting in a medical bill of tens of thousands of dollars. Medicines can cost thousands as well. They can pay out of pocket for treatment in another country and it'll cost hundreds, and medicine will cost a few bucks.

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jackcosgrove 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's not weird at all it's the difference in most cases between products and services produced by local labor vs products and services produced by more abundant, cheaper labor elsewhere. I don't complain about $20 meals because I think inequality is bad enough.

The only thing in your list that could be cheaper without underpaying local workers are pharmaceuticals.

	▲	kdheiwns 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Labor is cheaper elsewhere, yes. But people getting paid lower salaries in other countries are still getting health care, affording rent, affording restaurant meals, etc. America has a strong problem where local salaries are high and prices far outpace them, despite the country being dependent upon things produced by salaries that are a fraction of typical salaries (underpaid farm labor, restaurant staff being paid under the table below minimum wage, meat plants employing children, technology all produced in "cheap" Asian countries where locals can afford rent and get health care, clothes produced in countries that pay pennies per hour, etc).
	▲	stuxnet79 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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xemdetia 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The health insurance is the part that just is hard to relate to much of the world which is where the fear/sadness comes from. It is the undertone in any wealth discussion. So many people in the US see their family and friends get medically bankrupted for one reason or another and insurance being tied to employment makes everything awful.

The fact that you simply can't save enough to get medical care is foundationally depressing.

	▲	bombcar 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Health insurance should have little effect on children's happiness (both because the USA provides baseline child healthcare to all, effectively, and because kids don't and shouldn't even know what "health insurance" is). So perhaps we can cross-reference that to see if health insurance is causal (also 60% of Americans have health insurance and 'losing job' is way more about losing income than insurance).

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mbgerring 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’m tired of people saying this. I was in Taipei recently and had to do a reality check, because obviously, the exchange rate means the food seems cheap, but I checked again against local incomes, and yes, it turns out: Taipei has abundant cheap food relative to local incomes, beyond the wildest dreams of most American cities.

Americans need to stop telling ourselves this lie. We get so little for our money compared to other countries, and we should be furious.

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2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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anthonypasq 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

so you think restaurants are the most important indicator of wealth? Americans are rich in land and cars. Whether thats important to you is a different question.

But I think the average resident of Taipei would trade their street food for a 3000 sqft house with a yard and a pool and a quiet neighborhood and 2 large luxury vehicles.

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mbgerring 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The average American doesn’t have this. The average resident of Taipei would not trade their quality of life for the actually equivalent quality of life in the United States. Source: multiple Taiwanese immigrants I know personally, planning to return home for this reason.

	▲	bombcar 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You have to look at net migration flows and whether things are constrained.

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ljf 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Look at the US median and consider again how many times that figure your own salary is.

And then ask your if that person on the median salary has a lot of disposable income?

They might be richer than someone in a poorer country, but the median in the USA, is not rich _in_ the USA.

	▲	bombcar 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Rich is relative, it's always somewhere around "makes twice what I do" and poor is "makes half what I do" - and I'm, of course, solidly middle class. This seems to be true if I'm flipping burgers at McDs or if I'm on a first-name basis with Warren Buffett.

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abraxas 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, lots of money and no taste.

And by lack of taste I don't mean McMansions. The entire country is a little bit of a corporate dystopia. It's the end result of capitalism running with very little restraint. Sure, lots of people make great paycheques. But cities look and feel like crap, lack good mass transit, lack human scale, public education is on the ropes, healthcare is rationed according the level of wealth rather than need and people make individual choices that are just textbook cases of the Tragedy of the Commons. Good (at least in the short term) for them individually and disastrous for the society as a whole.

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metalliqaz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A lot of money, but disposable? HCOL takes up the slack in so many cases.