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Comment by defertoreptar | Hacker News Reader

I like how they calculated consumption, rather than income or net wealth. That's a more honest way of comparing poverty in different countries.

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I'm not sure it's an entirely fair way to define poverty. In many parts of Europe you can have a relatively high standard of living without consuming (or even owning) all that much.

For example, you can have a high standard of living without owning a car (and all the 'consumption' that goes along with that), in cities that have good public transport, and a good infrastructure/environment for walking and cycling. In much of the US, that's difficult or impossible.

But if consumption capacity was equal in Europe, that consumption would shift to something else, such as food and entertainment. People in New York City don’t consume less because they don’t own a car—they spend more money eating out, etc.

And Europeans are hardly ascetics. It’s fair to assume that in both places, if people had more means to consume they would.

> "But if consumption capacity was equal in Europe, that consumption would shift to something else, such as food and entertainment."

Yes. But my point is that not all consumption can be considered equal in terms of the wellbeing and quality of life that it provides.

For example, if I was spending $5000 per year on car payments and fuel for my commute to work, that's a lot of 'consumption'. But it isn't something that makes me happy or feel fulfilled.

On the other hand, suppose I live in a city where I can walk, cycle, or ride a tram to work. My quality of life might be equal or better - yet I'm consuming $5000 less.

Americans could live in a city where they walk, cycle, or ride a tram to work. For the most part, they don’t want to. They used to have such cities, but they ripped up the tram lines and put in freeways. (Part of that is because most of the US is quite unpleasant to walk or cycle in from a weather point of view. The average high in Amsterdam, a famous cycling city, tops out at 72 degrees. In Atlanta, it’s 80+ from May through September.)

1950s technocrats didn't want to. Ripping up trams and putting in freeways was usually done in spite of public protest.

Oh, you're right, I'll just go and install a tram line now.

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.

Can't be worse than Egypt or Siria. In any case is just an idea. If there is humidity terraform Atlanta would be much easier.

> It’s fair to assume that in both places, if people had more means to consume they would.

Not the parent commenter but why do you think they would if they could?

Consumption habits across borders aren't as obvious to me because of advertising, culture, etc.

Consumption habits don’t vary that much in the developed world. The household savings rate is 5-10% in most countries, with the US being lower than famously frugal Germany, but higher than Italy or Spain: https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/916lqg-house.... (Switzerland and Luxembourg being heavily financialized countries seem to be outliers.)

I don't want to consume more, I want to consume less, because it's better for the environment.

One interesting thing I found comparing UK towns to Australian towns was the UK towns allowed a much higher quality of life because road and house block sizes were calibrated to walking, whereas Australian roads are all calibrated for two way car traffic and block sizes are huge. There is also an assumption that if you want to buy something you will drive to a local retail distribution point. It forces people to spend a lot more on transport to get the same lifestyle.

I'm not a fan of cars. It'd be nice if they were toys for the rich and Australian cities were built around everyone walking around or catching public transport.

But that does depend on luck say 20 years ago you brought a council flat in London in Westminster or those ones next to blackfriars with a view of the Thames - yes you can.

Living centrally in Paris, London etc is not cheap.

Is consumption defined as spending, though? If an apple costs $1 in the US but 25 cents in Europe, and a poor person in each place is provided a free apple by the government, did the poor person in the US have 4 times the consumption?

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 spring to mind. In the US you need a car in most places even the bigger cities, to get to work for example. In a lot of places in the EU you don't.

Having a car and being able to drive it around is a form of wealth. Cars in the US are also much more affordable.

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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