Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Um, it's my understanding that when measuring income and determining poverty levels, the cost of living is a part of the calculation.
Also, we're talking about a lot of people here. The top 20% vs. the bottom 20% means a lot of people. This includes urban and rural dwellers. If you start parsing it by considering that some pay as much as $1,000 per month on transportation, you start splitting hairs. If you're paying $1,000 per month for transportation, you are likely plugged into a metropolis with many high paying jobs. If you're paying $1,000 per month on transpiration, you're earning an income that allows you to pay $12,000 on transportation per year and still make a living, otherwise you wouldn't have that job. And the idea of paying $1,000 per month on transpiration would probably shock those who earn $2 per day. The poverty point in China is set at $1.25 per day by the World Bank. But I don't think it matters, I doubt there are many people who can find a way to pay $1,000 per month on transportation unless they really wanted to.
What are you trying to get at, exactly? Tomato sauce is probably the worst measure you've considered.
Are you trying to say that things are better in China than in the U.S.? Should the U.S. adopt a more socialistic/communist system? Or are you saying simply that the average U.S. citizen is as oppressed as the average Chinese citizen?
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Without getting into painful details regarding statistical data used to compare different economies, my point is - as a result of cultural differences measuring the quality of life is difficult and prone to many problems when looking at data. Also, keep in mind that the measurements we use are going to be biased toward what we think is important - "we", being western industrial economies.
I am not interested in a discussion of "better", this can never be clearly defined. I simply argue that there are differences. Some people may place great value on being able to choose from 50 varieties of spaghetti sauce, others could careless - you can not say one is better.