The western proletariat has such an artificially inflated standard of living
No one can afford a house or health care and half of American adults are functionally illiterate. 2/3rds are medically overweight. Food is primarily processed sugar. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year due to preventable diseases, car accidents, gun violence, drug overdoses, and suicide. A million people died from COVID and the government response was to stop counting. Natural disasters go entirely ignored by state authorities. Young Americans today die younger, have less buying power, and are far more miserable than the generation preceding them.
However, they can acquire huge mounds of plastic at a low dollar amount, so I guess living standards are pretty good
I think this is very important to mention. There is currently no good, common, international quantified measure of 'standard of living'; Exactly like GDP, it's mostly measured by the largely made-up value of arbitrary goods.
No one can afford a house or health care and half of American adults are functionally illiterate. 2/3rds are medically overweight. Food is primarily processed sugar. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year due to preventable diseases, car accidents, gun violence, drug overdoses, and suicide. A million people died from COVID and the government response was to stop counting. Natural disasters go entirely ignored by state authorities. Young Americans today die younger, have less buying power, and are far more miserable than the generation preceding them.
However, they can acquire huge mounds of plastic at a low dollar amount, so I guess living standards are pretty good
I think this is very important to mention. There is currently no good, common, international quantified measure of 'standard of living'; Exactly like GDP, it's mostly measured by the largely made-up value of arbitrary goods.