A question of perspective - How wealthy are Americans in the grand scheme of things?

Question

Point A -
Americans have millions of computers, Xbox's, iPod Nano's, Jaguars and expensive Latte's from Starbucks.
Meanwhile there are children dying of starvation all around the world. An alarming number of American companies are producing their goods in 3rd world countries run by harsh dictators because the production cost is cheaper than using American labor.

Point B -
Most Americans are working to pay off debt. College loans and credit card debt have many Americans chained to their desks and they will most likely never make enough money to travel to Africa or Malaysia to see the starving children for themselves.
In fact, most of the refugees from hurricane Katrina were renters and so when their homes were lost, they did not even recieve any insurance moneys.

So just how wealthy are Americans? Are they the emperors in new clothes?
Or are they just slaves to the system?

Answer 1

Yeah, the average American is more ghetto-fab-rich than rich, if having actual non-borrowed cash in your hands is what defines "rich". But as far as necessity and novelty go, when many people in the US living under the "poverty line" can have cell phones as a matter of course, I'd say we're still high rollahs on the global scale. Losing sleep at night 'cause you can't pay your cable bill is vastly different from losing sleep 'cause your children are starving.

Answer 2

Compared to the global average, the average American is indeed wealthy.

Compared to other Americans, the average American is most likely not very wealthy.

This is precisely why things like offshore outsourcing (tech support to India, programming to Russia, production of goods to China, etc.,...) happens - it drives costs down because an American can't live off 5.00 American dollars an hour, but an Indian or a Russian can live very well off 5.00 American dollars an hour. Or the company in China can make a huge profit buy taking the difference and paying based on local wages with local currency.

This also serves to drive wages down in America without lowering cost of goods, creating more relative wealth disparity between Americans - look at what is happening to the middle class - its disapearing.

This is why America is afraid of the Euro currency. More and more countries are beginning to use it as the standard where they used to use the American dollar. Take Saudi Arabia for instance. If oil prices are started to be measured in terms of the Euro, the price of oil would then be subject to supply, demand AND the exchange rate or the Euro to Dollars. If that happens, the value of the Dollar will go down and oil will be more expensive.

A huge reason why the America is considered wealthy is due to the stability of the dollar provided for by it being used as a standard world wide.

Regardless, in terms of American dollars, someone spending American dollars IN America might be in poverty. That same person spending the same amount of American dollars in an economy that values the American dollar might be very wealthy in terms of what that dollar buys in their country.

The answers REALLY depends on what is being compared to what.

Answer 3

It probably a lot easier answering How poor are Americans? News reports this week stated for the first time since 1933 (that's 74 yrs) savings accounts of Americans ranked a minus 1% value. (Remember that Bush also "lost jobs" for the first time in 74 yrs.) Greed makes the world go 'rond. Having maxed-out credit cards makes you prosperous? Well, I preffer being debts free! The gap between rich and poor widens, with fewer controlling larger fortunes and more families struggling to buy essentials; while contributions to charities dwindle. Items like cars (and TVs) once considered luxuries are no longer such. But, who needs a $5. cup of coffee? Unfortunaltely, we have seen in this country an increase in politcians supported by voters who think the poor starving masses are themselves to blame. These same poiticians will never help those by which they will not gain financially. They also ignore promoting education and birth control to lesson burdens of poverty and the opposites (Liberals) are chastised as trouble makers.
Assuming the 'grand scheme of things' is 'quality of live' values, we are very poor nation of human beings.

Answer 4

Wealth in America is so disparate that the question cannot even be answered. Some have achieved wealth of unimaginable proportions, yet the average net worth is only a little over $100,000, and most of that is in home equity.

Meanwhile, there are millions of poor, people with little or no net worth whatsoever.

The most tragic is the working poor. They are taxed 15% of their income to pay into a social security scheme that they most likely will never receive benefits from. They tend to die just as they become eligible for the benefits . . .

Answer 5

one important factor to consider is the rate of growth of the economy, the founders of capitalist theory make the point that a growing economy will produce wealthier inhabitants with more buying power than a wealthy nation that has a stagnant economy. Basically if our economy does not grow at a quick enough pace, we could be the richest nation in the world, but have workers with nothing to show for that. Currently, our economy is not growing at a fast enough rate.

Answer 6

Actually the American people are living in a house of cards which is going to collapse at any time soon because of global warming and natural disasters,They have lost the ability to hunt and feed them self and are totally dependent of Wallmart and such.In so called third world countries the people might be poor moneywise but rich in resources ,Im not no bible humper but somewhere in the scriptures it says,ite easyer for a cammel to walk through a needle hole than for a rich man to ge to heaven.

Answer 7

They are slaves to their bills. Far to many people thinking that having all this stuff means they are wealthy. It is soooooooo not true. Having money making you more money is wealth.

Just heard that only 20% of the people here have even $2,200 saved up. Good gawd teenagers should have 4 times that much. But people keep spending, buying, and wanting things that ultimately cost them more money.

Too bad I say.... I am just damn glad I will not fall into that poor way of thinking !

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh life is good !!

: )

Answer 8

There are some very rich people in the US, but for most of us we are the deeply in debt majority. Most of us are so in debt, we have no choice to work, work, work and then when we can work no longer we retire and are on Social Security or Social Security Disability and we get pittances and go further in debt until our estate is eaten up by debt and we have nothing left over but a bunch of bills.

Answer 9

Boy you sure are obsessed with starving children. What on earth makes you think that Americans would all hop on planes to Africa to see starving children if they had no debt to pay off? Why the hell would anyone ever want to go to Africa now that you're not allowed to kill elephants? Yeah I bet you really brighten up a party, Captain Bringdown.