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> Everything is so expensive that people can't live on low wages and be content.

I live on low wages and am content.

I work a hundred-something days a year at a job any idiot can perform and manage to keep a roof over my head in a pretty decent neighborhood and food in my belly. If I really want something all I have to do is work a few extra days or weeks until I earn enough to buy it then go back to my regular slacker schedule.

It’s not an unusual phenomenon. It’s just the market at work, changing the prices due to changes in supply and demand. The price of people (aka their wage) goes down because the supply of people has gone way up.

The quality of life is equalizing across the world and this is how. Those who were higher have to go down, those who were lower will go up.

> For example, I recently heard from a friend with family in China that Americans who go to China can make $50 an hour private English tutoring rich Chinese kids. How can wages be rising so much in China and they are still wildly undercutting us?

China is a country of HUGE income inequalities. You have a few people that make millions and you have few hundred million people make $500/year. The middle class for them makes only $800/month. Money all flows to the top to the government/state firms, and much eventually flows out to Canada/Australia/US.

> The other weird thing is Americans who move to low cost south east Asia locations and run dropship ecommerce stores that make $2000 a month and live like they were making 10 times that in the bay area.

Living abroad is good for young singles, bad for anyone else. There's bad weather, dirty food, dirty water, food poisoning, no access to good healthcare, lots of noise and pollution. Not to mention if you're an entrepreneur, you are not putting down a root, not making network connections you need for sales, not going to meetup events and learning new technologies, etc.