I disagree, however I've modded you up because your opinion is valid even if I think it's wrong and you've said nothing offensive. My viewpoint is far more pes

I disagree, however I've modded you up because your opinion is valid even if I think it's wrong and you've said nothing offensive. My viewpoint is far more pessimistic: I think there's a major cultural difference between the US and Japan, and that Japanese tend to be better managers of their personal finances than Americans. Americans have much higher debt, but it's because too many of them have spending addictions, and think they deserve to live like royalty, and with the availability of easy credit get sucked into that trap. I've seen it myself far too many times. Also, perhaps education has something to do with it: Americans generally aren't taught to budget or manage their personal finances in school much from what I've seen. Maybe they are in Japan. People in America complain a lot about things like the cost of rent, etc., which is definitely true IMO, but they do also tend to splurge on a lot of stuff they don't need, such as Starbucks drinks. If Americans were really short of funds, then how do all these Starbucks on every street corner stay in business selling $5-10 fancy drinks?