181–190 of 248 posts
US has high average net wealth per capita but is not close to top in median net wealth. Switzerland is close to top in both measures. Median tells how rich the typical person is. United States ranks #22 in median wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
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It’s mainly for tax reasons: “If you are a homeowner in Switzerland, you have to pay income tax on what is known as its ‘rental value’. The rental value theoretically represents what you as owner would receive if you rented the property to someone else, i.e. what that tenant would pay you in rent. At the same time, you can deduct mortgage interest payments and other costs for the upkeep of the property from your taxa…
Wait, you have to pay income tax on income you could theoretically receive? I'm fascinated to know what possible justification there is for this? (Genuine, not rhetorical question.)
But hey, if you make above their estimation, you don’t pay extra. But if you don’t invest, you still pay...
I really like how simple it makes the tax calculation (at least when you know how to value your assets).
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I am replying to the post and you're off somewhere else faltering in your efforts. Even at the 20th percentile ain't no Americans better off than middle class Europeans unless you operate under a perverse and objectively dishonest analysis structured to favor your own views. CanShootGuns+500 AccessToDecentHealthCareThatWon'tBankruptYourFamily+15
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…
Engaging with you was a complete waste of time.
I 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...
"The high consumption of America’s “poor” doesn’t mean they live better than average people in the nations they outpace"
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The way you adjust for the first effect is to adjust by Purchasing Power Parity, which they did.
Well, you try to adjust by Purchasing Power Parity. That works well for things where you can directly compare, like the price of an apple. However, it doesn't work so well for other goods and services, e.g. single payer health care vs health care costs in the US, because at best you're comparing apples to oranges. On top of that, it does not account for things you may need in one nation but not in another. E.g. cars…
The "I don't need it" argument only goes so far. You can't go shop a lot of groceries. You can't transport bigger items. You can't go on a road trip. You travel according to whatever public transport affords you.
I might just as well say "I don't need it" in regards to healthcare. You don't need it until you do, but then you can't afford it.
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You would be correct, the US lags far, far behind in median wealth, behind countries like Korea and Spain. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/australia-tops-median...
And the US ranks ahead of both Germany and Sweden in median household net wealth. Those two are almost universally held up as extreme achievers on quality of life and both have notoriously good economies.
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Napoleon had the same problem with his soldiers, and solved it with lots of sycamores. Atlanta could put some temporary structures to give shadow also.
Napoleon never set foot within a thousand kilometers of a similar climate, the closest he came was in exile. The humidity is the main attraction to the show and cares little for shade, peachtree, sycamore or otherwise.
US has high average net wealth per capita but is not close to top in median net wealth. Switzerland is close to top in both measures. Median tells how rich the typical person is. United States ranks #22 in median wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
Also, on that same chart, the US ranks #5 on mean wealth, and the numbers are way higher than in the linked article. Clearly this is highly dependent on how you measure.
* Americans are not rich, there are rich Americans. America is high inequality country.
* Swiss are rich.
btw. Credit Suisse uses total wealth, sum of assets minus liabilities.
TIL Switzerland is the richest nation on earth. If I was going to guess, I probably would've guessed Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg.
Visit Zurich. Prices are ~2x what they are in my (fairly pricy already) area in the US. That's the direct consequence of high median income: businesses charge what the market will bear.
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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...
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...
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 million residents live below that. For every cherry picked colony in Texas, there's several even poorer villages in the post-Soviet states to cancel it out.