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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

I never realized USA was such a cheap place.

Here in Moscow, toast with coffee might easily run 10$ and that raises no eyebrows.

The beauty of the US, compared to many places I've traveled, is the higher-than-average wages and lower-than-average prices.

This is why you can pick almost any suburb in America and see middle-class folks with giant houses filled with two cars and a mountain of junk made in China.

I'm not sure the average wage is higher. Average prices do seem lower. But it is more complicated than that (there are parts of Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa where stuff is really cheap!). I'd qualify by saying for the basket of goods I consume, the prices seem lower.

I had the same reaction!

Coffee and some good toast at a nice Cafe in Brisbane (Australia third largest city) would also run around $10.

It's also the same in Stockholm.

Of course, the waiters in Australia also get paid a more decent minimum wage than in the US.

I would say the same of Sydney.

I'm in a second-tier, if I'm generous, but realistically a third-tier city in the Netherlands and €7.35 will buy you breakfast with coffee for take away only - sit down will cost more.

Not sure where the writer is coming from - goods and services will cost more than the sum of its raw materials, news at eleven. He complains about the settlers eating toast and it not costing as much - sure, if you make your own toast, you won't pay as much either. No settler had even the option to just go out and buy toast and coffee.

Very similar here in Japan (Both Tokyo and Kyoto). The price for a glass of soda usually starts around 500 JPY (about $5 US). 100 JPY on the street in a vending machine and 150 JPY from inside of a train station :)

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