This is a wonderfully counter intuitive finding from the new Credit Suisse Wealth Report. There're more poor people in America than there are in China. No, really, this is true, when measuring by wealth. We've not got the detailed number of the United States alone as they're offering the information [...]
  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    And then we have to acknowledge that these numbers are all entirely wrong...We are not including, for example, any valuation of future Social Security benefits. Nor any value of human capital: that Harvard degree (if it was in, say, puppetry) might not be worth what was paid for it but it's worth something. Nor what is the greatest source of wealth for everyone in the developed countries: that happenstance that we were born into developed countries. Countries where if we go broke the children will still get educated, we'll still get medical care, food, shelter and all the rest: the value, in short, of being a citizen of a country with a developed welfare state.

    lol imagine thinking that if you're broke in China you can't send your kid to school or get food. Or that the poorest of the poor in the US are going to even get their Social Security benefits (which you only get if you hold a job, and the amount you get is dependent on your income ie higher income higher social security) or that they have "human capital" like college degrees!!!

    So, the correct answer is that there's simply no poor people in America or Europe, even though the way we measure wealth means that it appears that there're more poor people in those two places than there are in China.

    :cope: :xi:

    • luigi [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Countries where if we go broke the children will still get [...] medical care

      The US, that country where it's famously easy for the poor to access healthcare.

      even though the way we measure wealth means that it appears that there’re more poor people in those two places than there are in China

      Except when similar measures of wealth shows capitalism in a good light (e.g. those fudged figures that show that global poverty has reduced), it's totally fine.

    • ssjmarx [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      if we go broke the children will still get educated, we’ll still get medical care, food, shelter and all the rest

      holy shit the only one of these that's true in America is education, and even then it's not like your kids get to have a good one when you're poor.