Part of the problem is that once you get rich you spend a lot on diminishing returns. How much better off is your outlook if you're currently 40 years old and

Part of the problem is that once you get rich you spend a lot on diminishing returns. How much better off is your outlook if you're currently 40 years old and expected to live to 78 instead of 76. Not much. If you could time travel you'd arrange that the resources that you would have devoted to extending your life those last two years be instead devoted to more time with your children while they were young, more time at the beach, more time preparing food and hanging out with family or having sex. And we can talk about $4000 poorly made cars and laugh, but the difference between a $12k Toyota and a $60k BMW is marginal or even negative if you prioritize things like reliability or maintenance. They are better only if you are richer and can afford the maintenance. The life of someone in Costa Rica is, on average, worse than someone in Canada, but not by the 4x difference in PPP adjusted GDP, and certainly not by the 5x+ difference in raw GDP numbers. But you're right, I wouldn't use PPP to build a military. Raw numbers work better there, so you get both an upvote and a generally dissenting comment.