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by WarmWash1 days ago |
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upvoteby pjerem1 days ago|
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Sorry but I don't share your view. A society where the bottom 50% can't live a decent life is just dysfunctional. I don't care which country is best for the riches (and actually, Europe is good for the riches), I care that the economy is there to allow everyone to live a decent and meaningful life.
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upvoteby WarmWash1 days ago|
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The issue is that "decent life" is a benchmark that (besides being subjective) is set relatively rather than absolutely.

So being in the bottom 50% in the US sucks when you look around your country, but is actually pretty "decent" when you look around your planet.

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upvoteby 0xDEAFBEAD1 days ago|
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This perspective implies that you should be vigilant to keep out poor or unskilled immigrants who might struggle to afford the quality of life you require for citizens.
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upvoteby 0xDEAFBEAD1 days ago|
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>You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each.

Poverty in the US is similar to poverty in Sweden, according to this dataset:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha...

But the median American earns far higher wages than the median Swede:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income

I think there is just a lot of misinformation out there. Americans love to complain, and other countries love to criticize the US. These effects create systematic misconceptions which no one bothers to fact-check.

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upvoteby WarmWash1 days ago|
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I mean the real unspeakeable secret is how the American mid-high-middle-class/upper-class has so effectively turned financially transparent despite being the wealthiest group in the country. The 65% to 99% are just an absolute hulking bag of cash.

The battle in the US is between the mid-low-middle-class/lower-class and the 1%. Which is just so incredibly effective at diverting attention from where all the actual money is. When you can pull your head out of the swamp of social media and fountains of clickbait/class ragebait, there is this huge elephant sitting in the room with it's finger over it's mouth doing the "shhh, be quiet" motion.

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