because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
- 71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving.
When we say America, we can't just mean the 20% who are ok. It has to mean the 70% who aren't. America is not rich. It used to be. It is not now.
income data alone does not tell a very complete story.
This phrase is used so often, but I don't know how meaningful it is supposed to be
A family might make $300,000 a year and be living "paycheck-to-paycheck" while also maxing out 401k contributions, paying a mortgage on a $2 million home, and paying $80,000 a year in private school tuition.
Are we supposed to think that such a family is in worse financial shape than a family making $40,000 a year but with minimal expenses and a few months of living costs in a savings account?
Mr $300k may have zero months in an emergency account, but be stable in his job as a doctor and not worry about finding work - and may actually "feel poor" because he barely has any "fun money" to waste and feels he can't buy coffee in the morning.
Mr $40k a year may have 6 months of expenses in the bank, saving half his income to FIRE, and know that anytime he wants to he can buy that coffee - and sometimes he does.
Net worth likely says Mr $300k is worth more than Mr $40k - but that may not be true forever, and Mr $40k may be "retired" at 50 while Mr $300k is perpetually working until death.
Who is rich, who has wealth, and who is happy? There are no clear answers.
I mean, should we live in a world where the only way to create savings is by denying yourself any fun? You've picked a number, $1k, because it sounds good to support your argument, but maybe after paying for the essentials, a family has $200 left per month. Should we expect that family to never go to the movie theater, never go out to a restaurant, never splurge on a nice piece of clothing or jewelry, never do anything fun at all? Do we think it's ok for people to have to live like that?
So sure, maybe if they spend that $200 on fun stuff, it's not "living paycheck to paycheck". But maybe that's just a bad metric, or just too poorly-defined to be a reasonable way to measure anything.
Idk if people thought differently about this in the past, or just didn't care, or just weren't able to see the myriad ways that people get to live (social media) when they are not wage slaves. But something is wrong.
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/how-candice-m...
Happiness for him was somewhere between having zero dollars and being $33 million in debt. His influencer wife seems to have no humility, has moved to Miami where she can continue her partying lifestyle and going to yoga classes.
Its' both maddening and saddening. To what point does the ostentatious display of wealth serve if it leads to suicide? A few years of looking rich at the cost of the rest of life? We have no choice but to assume he was willing to make that trade-off. So it's angering to think a person would believe that.
On the other hand, suicide is the ultimatum when a man thinks his pleas are unanswered. Being surrounded by old-money socialites, I can imagine the feeling of having to leave the club being a fate worse than death. But how can an average guy have any sympathy for that, much less this guy's own feelings of himself.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/16/facebook-p...
(Well, that's a relief.)
Not for any meaningful definition of "living paycheck to paycheck". Per Federal Reserve studies, the percentage of the population with no excess income after paying for necessary expenses is 10-15%. That's still a lot of people but it isn't 76%.
For everyone else, it is a lifestyle choice.
Per the BLS, the median household has ~$1,000 leftover every month after all ordinary (not necessary) expenses. That includes rent, car payments, healthcare, etc.
Americans have a crazy amount of discretionary income compared to the rest of the world.
So why don't they take it out of that thousand they have at the end of each month? America is suffering economically and I don't think we help anything when we pretend it's not.
People don't like saying America is rich because it defies their beliefs, but the actual stats don't lie. Every American I know that has moved to Europe (and I have lived there as well, in Munich) moved there with, shock...American money and savings. So they don't actually get the initial start many Europeans do and it clouds their view to think that's just how all Europeans live.
That doesn't guarantee that this will always be true, but given Europe's current trajectory, even with the US's many shortcomings...it's hard to say Europe will catch up anytime soon.
E.g, self-reported but with TikTok noise added.
All of this stuff tries to be factual and scientific about something that is a feeling, really - if you're $80k in debt (not that I know ANYONE like that no, sirreeeeee!) and have no plan and don't even know how much you owe each month, you're going to be stressed and pissed and always surprised.
If you're in the exact same situation but have it all documented and budgeted and planned for (what I call "knowing exactly how fucked you are") you'll be much better off mentally even if not financially (at first, that will follow).
Do you have any sources for this? The reason why I personally don't believe your claim is because every single US citizen I know lives paycheck-to-paycheck, quite literally
Are most of these people allocating every dollar that comes in each month to bills, living expenses, and savings? Sure, but that doesn’t mean they have no money left in the paycheck.
A lot of people are "see money spend money". Regardless of their paycheck amount, they find ways to spend it all. This does not mean they are poor.
Pro football players, for example, are famous for quickly spending their $millions into bankruptcy.
So why does it always end with the judgement falling on one side? Because facts do not a complete case make.
What is so sad is how much better it could be in the U.S.… but for some odd notion that Billionaires and Corporations are thought to owe so little and the people of this country thought to deserve so little.
See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count...
Russia and Iran are the second and third largest suppliers, but their goods are sanctioned. They also 'only' produce half / a quarter of US output.
Also contrast this with, China (#4) and Qatar (#6) that produce 258 and 170 billion m3 respectively.
It means nothing for the US to be the biggest oil producer in the world when the proceeds and riches of "producing" that oil are hoarded by a small number of oil barons.
The top 10 individually have more wealth than Iceland, which is 83rd.
The top 25 combined have a wealth of $3.2t, more than Belgium, which is 20th.
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.
This seems to be true if I'm flipping burgers at McDs or if I'm on a first-name basis with Warren Buffett.
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.
The only thing in your list that could be cheaper without underpaying local workers are pharmaceuticals.
The fact that you simply can't save enough to get medical care is foundationally depressing.
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).
Where can I found out more about this? I have about $2,500 in medical bills to pay for my kids on my desk right now.
For 4 visits to get regular antibiotics (amoxicillin and ceflex), one just happened to be at night on a Sunday, requiring an emergency room visit. Is that “baseline”?
PS In the future, those same teachers will need their former students to vote for extra taxes to fund their (the teacher's) retirement. In the words of the janitor from "The Breakfast Club", "I wouldn't count on it".
Americans need to stop telling ourselves this lie. We get so little for our money compared to other countries, and we should be furious.
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.
American agricultural/food practices is a legit reason why food in this country is 20-40% higher than elsewhere. Because capitalists want to squeeze every cent of profit before they fuck off into the abyss.
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.
america has a wealth per adult of 551,350 germany has a wealth per adult of 256,180
if you exclude the top 10 highest wealth holders in each country its 543,385 vs 252,811.
america's a rich country compared most other countries its also got huge wealth in equality because its top .001% is something that doesn't exist anywhere else
PS The only thing Germany is richer in than the US is snobbery and rudeness. Seriously, I wouldn't live there for any amount of income or cost.
The most luxurious hotels in the world, the most decadent, aren't in Washington. They're in places like Teheran. Like Islamabad. Like Kinshasa. Things like, hotels where 5 prostitutes on standby per room is standard.
The richest people in the world are people like Putin and Xi Jinping. Communists "defending the rights of the people". And whoever it is in the US at the moment don't remotely compare to them in wealth.
And what people are complaining about, in the US, but equally in Germany (well I only know about the Netherlands firsthand, but ... look at the map) is not how good or bad they have it. Simply about "how bad it's getting". In other words, they're complaining this year it's a little bit worse than last year. A tiny little bit. THAT, they can't deal with. Absolute level of wealth? Income inequality? Doesn't really matter.
And the scary question is if they'll go to war over that. They certainly have in the past.
Sure you can afford the best room. But can you afford 100 prostitutes on standby? Choice matters.
Sure you can afford the best room with 100 prostitutes. But can you afford to give 100 of your "friends" rooms with 10 prostitutes each? Can you afford to have the hotel just kick every other guest out at your whim?
Can you afford to just own the entire hotel, have it fully staffed in case you drop by with 100 friends, 24/7? (ie. what Putin does) [2]
How about 1000? (totally not a reference to Erdogan's Palace that one) [3]
To go back to North Korean "socialism"'s accomplishments: can you have such a hotel on wheels?
How about 1000, but give each of those 1000 servants in addition to the prostitutes.
How about ...?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_B52kyj-vA
Typically, it would seem that is indeed the case from most calculations I've seen. I mean, are you really worth a million dollars if you have to be homeless to access those dollars?
Housing is actually quite liquid as it is incredibly easy to mortgage. More likely you are overestimating how much housing value is actually there. The majority of American homeowners have already tapped into that liquidity. Owning a house that is worth, say, $1MM on the open market doesn't necessarily mean that your net worth is $1MM.
There is a huge difference between someone with a net worth of 1M (owns a small home, still needs to work for a living) and a net worth of 30M (can get more than 1M per year of capital revenue without working).
And I'm not even talking about billionaires.