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Showing Original Post only (View all)Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really Is? [View all]
Sorry if this was posted before. Should be required reading, imo.
https://eand.co/do-americans-know-what-a-massive-ripoff-american-life-really-is-8804aa6b65fa
Ive recently moved to the States shudder for a year or two. And Im shocked at how expensive just life is. For no good reason at all.
When I put my economist hat on, a fact becomes clear to me. American life is a gigantic rip-off, one of the worlds biggest, and thats why America is now effectively a country of poor people, and that makes it a nation of angry, cruel, and selfish ones, too.
But Im getting ahead of myself. Let me start over. American life is the biggest ripoff in the world. Or at least one of the biggest, in the top five, certainly. Just existing. It costs way, way more than it should. So much so that America cannot ever move forward as a society. So, trapped in a cycle, which economists call a poverty trap, Americans now stay poor.
Americans dont quite get this, though. Why would they? Theyve never lived anywhere else. So let me give you a few examples which, especially if youre American, might be illuminating. Well begin with basic bills, and then zoom out from there.
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I feel like a cat that just coughed up a hairball after listening to that and shutting it off again.
NullTuples
Sep 2021
#161
So you don't like the message so you want to kick the messenger. Get out of bubble much?
Bernardo de La Paz
Sep 2021
#32
At no point did he claim to be downtrodden. He's talking about America's working poor and
FSogol
Sep 2021
#9
Elitist fuckwad living ivory tower lifestyle telling how the poors how poor they are? Fuck him
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#21
I lived in Greece, Thailand, the Phillipines, not London, Paris or Berlin, so I should shut up, eh
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#26
Oh I just decided to stir things up, went to Walmart and got prescipt sunglasses for $94, I'm good
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#75
I also lived for months at a time in Colombia, Peru and Brazil, yeah, Americans are spoiled, you bet
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#85
Do their citizens have to start go-fund-me campaigns to help pay for health care too?
tenderfoot
Sep 2021
#106
What health care? Villiage doctors,drink water from the rivers, be lucky to have a toilet that works
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#110
Yep, all guilty, its OK though, civilization ends when the power goes out, its only a matter of time
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#128
Fuck him because he is right? I've lived many years in USA and Canada. . . . nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Sep 2021
#33
He's got his whole "We're DOOMED! USA IS DOOMED, EUROPE IS DOOMED!" Schtick going for him, yeah
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#102
You're comparing rent with purchasing? Where I live (SoCal) lower incomes can't afford to purchase
chia
Sep 2021
#87
You realize you need a sizable down payment, plus there's PMI until your equity is over 20%
chia
Oct 2021
#175
There's a lot of people in this thread that make Ayn Rand look compassionate
tenderfoot
Sep 2021
#154
WTF? This is the sort of emotional, illogical, "patriotic" reaction that the Rs have relied on for
KPN
Sep 2021
#56
Statistics show we do well in cost-of-living compared to Europe. But Afghanistan is cheap.
Hoyt
Sep 2021
#13
Utilities, loans (borrowing to pay for things), etc., are included in "cost-of-living." But it is
Hoyt
Sep 2021
#20
COL index includes healthcare. New York and California are expensive the rest of the country isn't
uponit7771
Oct 2021
#191
Food is cheap, but health care is hellishly expensive in US and not great unless you have gold. . nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Sep 2021
#35
Europeans are pissed because they ain't got a Starbucks on every corner.... and
3Hotdogs
Sep 2021
#15
What do you mean? The whole Democratic Patty is Both Sides because of a few people?
betsuni
Oct 2021
#194
IKWYM but they are outliers, not representative of the Democratic party, at least IMO.
JudyM
Oct 2021
#203
Yes, Americans have been deluded with propaganda while corporations take in enormous profits
dlk
Sep 2021
#19
Well, in the few urban centers of Europe I have been, driving is not a thing...
Moostache
Sep 2021
#98
We pay so much for healthcare so we don't have hundreds of thousands dying of treatable issues
IronLionZion
Sep 2021
#62
He fails to mention how lobbyists buy the politicians to enact the laws that protect them, and
bucolic_frolic
Sep 2021
#63
Median Household Income in the US varies from $67.5k to $79.9k, depending on source
Martin Eden
Sep 2021
#68
I totally disagree with the idea that life is immeasurably better in Canada.
BobTheSubgenius
Sep 2021
#72
My grandparents homesteaded on the Saskatchewan prairie in the early 1900s.
Grasswire2
Sep 2021
#146
I guess the price would depend, as the price of all land does, on location and quality.
BobTheSubgenius
Oct 2021
#213
Absolutely. This country is one giant corporation that chews up and spits out its citizens
budkin
Sep 2021
#93
Umair Haque publishes many deep and dark articles a week - I read them on medium.com
erronis
Sep 2021
#103
Veilikovsky sold a lot of books on the DOOMSDAY scenarios too, Worlds in Collision Earth in Upheaval
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Sep 2021
#112
Very accurate and depressing article. And the sad thing is NOTHING will ever change here
beaglelover
Sep 2021
#118
Umair has made SO many mistakes in logic that I'm beginning to believe it's on purpose.
Equomba
Sep 2021
#162
$100 or less for heating, electricity and gas? Don't know if I paid that little in 1983...
chia
Oct 2021
#178
Because Republicans politicized religion and created a media empire to spread their propaganda.
betsuni
Sep 2021
#157
I guess he's never been to Tokyo, London, Singapore, the Emirates, Dubai, or Disneyland.
marble falls
Oct 2021
#174
Carefully selected statistics and vague generalizations do not describe ANY country accurately
DFW
Oct 2021
#184