Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Germany is poorer than Appalachia. It also has higher unemployment than Appalachia. The only Appalachian state with similar income is West Virginia. Even Kentucky is richer.
It's definitely more egalitarian, but not by much anymore. Income inequality in Germany has been growing much faster than in the U.S. Income inequality is outrageous largely planet-wide, and Europe is a long way from the egalitarian postwar decades. Since the 1990's and Chancellor Schröder, inequality has skyrocketed.
And inequality is not important if medians are high. Who cares if there are a bunch of billionaires if the average family is making high incomes? Who cares if there are no billionaires if the average family is poor? Median incomes in the U.S. are over 50% higher than in Germany.
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Again, you believe GDP can be translated into wages or personal assets. And worse: that everything must be converted in US Dollars ignoring local prices. Really, you should take a look on the very definition of GDP.
BTW, life expectancy in West Virginia (US$ 56,000 GDP per capita) is 72 years old (!!!!!!), like Bangladesh. Yes,
Bangladesh (US$ 2,400 GDP per capita). Brazil, a country with the highest number of homicides in the world, lots of car related deaths, it's at 77 y/o (now higher than the US).
One would think those West Virginians, with all this flashy money you say they have, they could at least to pay for a decent hospital, right?
Do you see dollars, euros, pesos or reais buy different things in different places?