When you get to compare the average lifestyle though, this is a joke...
US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
211–220 of 248 posts
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Texas has literal shanty towns with 100,000 American citizens living there so I think this is a situation where statistics (or the ones presented) are highly inaccurate or deeply mischaracterized: https://www.google.com/search?q=texas+colonias&sxsrf=ACYBGNT...
For some perspective Bulgaria, an EU member state, has a population of 7 million and an average salary of around $700 per month, or $8,400 per year. That would put you way below the poverty line in the USA. Minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 an hour. A full-time minimum wage worker in Texas can surpass the average Bulgarian's monthly wage in under 2.5 weeks. And that's just the average wage. More than half of the 7 milli…
That is in pure $$. According to wikipedia, the PPP according is $24,485. There is 80-90% house ownership. Income tax is 10%. It's hard to make a reasonable comparison like that.
Another example is Czech Republic, which has the lowest poverty rate in EU - under 10% before Finland and Netherlands. And yet it's way after them in the wealth list.
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you’re not replying to the post! Pointing to the plight of people in the Texas colonias tells you literally nothing about the point made in the post you’re replying to. If it was talking about people at the bottom 3% you’d have a point. As to your changing the goal posts by talking about healthcare. There is nothing “perverse and dishonest” about measuring which country is the “richest” based on capacity for cons…
OP's claim that the poorest 20% of Americans have it better than middle class Europeans which I pointed out is false. Can you prove that the poorest 20% of Americans have it better than middle class Americans? Engaging with you was a complete waste of time.
How did you show the study OP cited as “false” by pointing to google image search of migrant communities on the border of Texas and Mexico?
Also, France has slums too: https://www.thelocal.fr/20171020/more-than-570-slums-house-1.... Any assertion that the French are better off than Bangladesh must be “false.”
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#214Hmm, US does not look or feel like the richest nation on earth. Is that just me?
It's nowhere near evenly distributed.
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#215Hmm, US does not look or feel like the richest nation on earth. Is that just me?
Probably because the income inequality is higher. If you think of some famous super rich people I am sure most of the names you think of will be from the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#/media/File:2...
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
> United States ranks #22 in median wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... It's off-topic, but could someone explain how is Ukraine last on that list? 40$ for median wealth and ~1.5k$ for mean wealth sounds incredibly low. I knew Ukraine is in not great economic shape, but completely last sounds insane.
This measures "wealth", not income. You can be in the top 1% of earners, but if you save nothing, you can still have a net worth of $0. Apparently, the median Ukrainian has only $40 to their name, by whatever means they measure wealth. However, Ukraine has compulsory socialized retirement funds. Minimum wage is $160/month. The median US-American supposedly has 60,000$ to their name, which must be mostly due to IRAs.
Yes, I understand that wealth is not income, but in Ukraine there are plenty of oligarchs worth multi-billion sums. Dividing that wealth over whole Ukraine population is definitely more than 40$ per person.
Though probably that's where rampant corruptions comes in and I will just guess that rich oligarchs "on paper" have little to no official wealth in Ukraine (have no clue how wealth is calculated country-wise if it's international)?
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
My Apologies for my early morning grumpy post, without re-reading. Here is the more fixed one : > Over a career, the value of tuition free college for the average American comes nowhere near the extra taxes and lower income they’d have in France That is so bullshit. What matter is not, of course, the difference of cost between tuition fees and taxes. What matter is that everybody, even the ones that can not afford th…
> My Apologies for my early morning grumpy post You're responding to someone who consistently misrepresents the facts about healthcare and healthcare spending in different countries, so a level of grumpiness is somewhat expected.
Rayiner’s posts tend to be some of the more interesting and well thought out posts I see on HN.
I don’t always agree with his:her conclusions and I’m sure sometimes he/she is wrong, but the content is generally better than 95% of posts on HN.
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#218I am as American as they come but wealth as reported by this article is a false metric. The Swiss have an amazingly high quality of life and standard of living. For most Americans, I don’t think our quality of life is anywhere near what it is in Switzerland.
Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#219Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland
#220I suspect using the median net assets instead of the average would lead to vastly different results.
Actually the 20% poorest in the US has it better than the average EU middle class. Ref: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20...
That's such a bs article: The World Bank’s “preferred” indicator of material well-being is "consumption" of goods and services. This is due to “practical reasons of reliability and because consumption is thought to better capture long-run welfare levels than current income.”
So all it says it that the poor from US consume more than middle class in Europe. Of course, being to the US and seeing how they replace things disregarding the environment I'm not surprised by that conclusion.
I'm earning six figures in London and I'm consuming a lot less than the poorest in US and try to reduce it as a maximum so my carbon footprint is small.
When I went to France I saw so many people bringing their own containers to the supermarket which was great because it reduces consumption.