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Comment by soldehierro | Hacker News Reader

> Americans are almost universally wealthy.

I would beg to differ. Sure, the average standard of living and "lifestyle" in the US is above many countries, but to say that everyone is wealthy is a flat out lie.

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"Lie" implies intent to deceive. Since it's hard to accurately read intent on the internet, it's better to find a different word to express disagreement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you! the usage of "lie" is becoming common while people actually mean "wrong"

I don't know where you are from, but for people in developing countries even a lower middle class American life is far better than being relatively rich and fighting the daily hassle of living in their home country.

I am distinctly aware of the many differences between life in America and other countries, especially less developed ones. As an American myself, I'm greatful for the prosperity that many of my compatriots tend to take for granted, but I absolutely believe it's a mischaracterization to call Americans universally wealthy. There are definitely places in America where conditions mirror those in developing countries. (Native American reservations especially)

Americans pets are wealthier and better fed than 99% of the world’s people.

Ask me how I know.

> Americans pets are wealthier and better fed than 99% of the world’s people.

If so, that would, mathematically, also include a minimum of about 75% of the US population, and that assumes the entire global top 1% is American, which it isn’t.

328 million/7.9 billion ~= 4.15%

The poorest Americans are definitely much poorer than the poorest western europeans [1]. Western Europe has 196 million people (about 2.4% of the world population) [2].

I'd estimate that 10% of the world population (790 million people) has a comfortable modern middle class life. It's just an intuition. Northen Europe as 106 million people.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/western-europ....

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