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>6% growth would be the envy of many countries. Yes, but China on the whole is still fairly poor. It's much easier to catch up - many poor(er) countries that g

>6% growth would be the envy of many countries. Yes, but China on the whole is still fairly poor. It's much easier to catch up - many poor(er) countries that get their economy going again show immense growth until they get catch up with the rich countries. Much of the eastern bloc (that recovered well) are in a similar situation.

yogthos 7y ago
US on the whole is also fairly poor. For example, 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck can't afford an unexpected 400 dollar expense. And China has far better support for the poor than US with things like healthcare, education, and public transit. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-cant-handle-a-400-unexpected-expense.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...
- ElonMuskrat 7y ago
  You have no idea. I've been to poor parts of China. People heat themselves with the coals of wood-fired stove which they used to cook meals. I once saw a family that owned a government subsidized washing machine. They couldn't afford the electricity to operate the machine, so they use the tumbler to store household items.
  - yogthos 7y ago
    Have you been to Flint where there's no drinking water?
    - EpicEng 7y ago
      You're making an incorrect generalization about a large country by misleadingly citing isolated examples which seem to support your point once you realize that you can't back your initial argument up in a meaningful way. You may as well be arguing that England is a poor country because London has a low income neighborhood or two. Stop grasping at straws.
      - yogthos 7y ago
        There's nothing misleading about it. One percent of the population in US owns more than half the wealth in the country. Majority of the population lives in impoverished conditions without access to basic needs such as public transit, healthcare, or education. This is a well documented fact, and if you think I'm grasping at straws here's you're just utterly ignorant.
        EpicEng 7y ago
        >Majority of the population lives in impoverished conditions without access to basic needs such as public transit, healthcare, or education Where are you coming up with this nonsense? Let's see the numbers. >This is a well documented fact Oh, well if you say so then.
        yogthos 7y ago
        >Where are you coming up with this nonsense? Let's see the numbers. Where do you think all the people working in Amazon gulags come from exactly. You think people work 12 hours shifts pissing in bottles because they enjoy it. >Oh, well if you say so then. It's like you're too stupid to use Google or something. Here you go little buddy: >Here's another number that may surprise you – to be in the top half (50%) of all earners you need to earn more than $29,999.99 a year. The number of people earning less than $30,000 accounts for 48.06% of the population. https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/ https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/ here's another simple chart you might be able to comprehend https://i.redd.it/pg5w8ws3b0o31.jpg https://i.redd.it/pg5w8ws3b0o31.jpg
- nomel 7y ago
  I don't think "living paycheck to paycheck" is a good metric for quality of life since there can be a large cultural influence. With the median income in the US being 5x higher, I imagine $400 of unexpected expenses would be much worse for a Chinese citizen, assuming they don't have something saved up of course.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >US on the whole is also fairly poor. Relative to whom exactly? Us engineers posting on HN? I'm not making light of anyone's circumstances here, but living paycheck to paycheck doesn't make you poor, and billions of people around the world would love to be that "poor" (and many of them live in China.) Very different definitions of "poor".
  - yogthos 7y ago
    Dude, people in your country die regularly because they can't afford basic medicine like insulin or have an easily treatable medical condition.
    - EpicEng 7y ago
      "Dude", you obviously just don't want your incomplete world view challenged. Details matter here. Yes, Flint MI has a drinking water problem and it's deplorable. That doesn't generalize to the rest of the nation. Health Care is an issue as well. Our low income citizens have coverage problems and it's an issue being debated at the highest levels currently. If you care to dig further, you'd also find that we have better health outcomes for those who are covered than does most of the world. It's a complex issue, but just like your Flint comment, it doesn't generalize to "most people in the US are poor". I'm fine with have a reasoned discussion, but you don't seem to want that, so you're not worth talking to.
      - yogthos 7y ago
        I mean US income inequality is highest level ever recorded, but sure I'm the one who's unreasonable here. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/income-inequality-reached-highest-level-ever-recorded-in-2018-2019-9-1028559996 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/income-inequ...
- NicoJuicy 7y ago
  Some reports also say families don't save money because there is insurance if you can't pay the expensive healthcare. Don't know if it's true though.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    I don't quite get this statement. Insurance generally doesn't trigger on "if you can't pay", it's so you don't have to pay to begin with. Savings don't play into it, if you have insurance coverage there is no need to save money, it's effectively already paid for.
- kayaeb 7y ago
  Living paycheck to payckeck with a new phone every 2 years, a new car lease upgrade every 5, a mortgage on a 3 bedroom house, and eating out 4 times a week, and 1000 TV channels is hardly what someone would consider 'poor.' It's just sustainably stressful and largely optional. This is why I feel the paycheck-to-paycheck metric/rhetoric is obnoxious, on 100k a year I can live paycheck-to-paycheck if I so desire, on 20k a year I can live at 75% of my means and save 400$+ as well. People's personal choices are not a comment on the economy, they're a comment on the fiscal education system. I personally save about 33% of my paycheck on 32k per year in one of the top 10 most expensive global cities.
  - salty_biscuits 7y ago
    Look at health outcomes, us has a declining life expectancy, china has almost caught up and will probably overtake soon. Is that just fiscal education?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - kayaeb 7y ago
      I said that not having 400$ is a failure of fiscal planning and doesn't indicate that the population is poor. Declining life expectancy is not an indication that the population is poor either. Consider that obesity, which is linked to higher mortality rates, did not become an issue until the 1900s in countries that passed wealth thresholds allowing such a problem at scale. Similarly with allergies, car crash fatalities, lead poisoning in paint, any number of life-shortening effects come from wealth in a society and are counterbalanced by improving health care levels.
      - ineedasername 7y ago
        I was with you on car crashes & lead paint, but how do allergies come from a wealthy society? Or do you mean that only in a wealthy society are there resources/medical infrastructure available to diagnose them?
- adventured 7y ago
  > 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck can't afford an unexpected 400 dollar expense The 40% claim (regarding N% of Americans that can't afford a sudden ~$400-$500 expense) is entirely fraudulent, and repeated ad nauseam as an easy - and ignorant - hit on the US. The real number is around 12%-14% at worst. The routine Fed survey that most people reference (while ignoring what the Fed actually said) makes this clear. Numerous well-written articles have been posted over the last several years pointing out the fraudulent nature of the claim. Here's the money line from the Fed that buries this lie: "The Fed also asks respondents how a $400 emergency expense that they had to pay would affect their ability to pay their other bills. Eighty-five percent report that they would still be able to pay all their bills. Only 14% say that the emergency expense would result in their not being able to pay some bills." A Bloomberg writer recently demolished it as well: > The question comes from the annual “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” by the Federal Reserve. The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent). Note: that's the origination of the error. The propagandists then remove the 61% and magically claim that everyone left (~40%) can't cover the expense. > Instead, as the Fed report makes clear, though “the remaining 4 in 10 adults” “would have more difficulty covering such an expense,” many of them would be able to make it work by carrying a credit card balance or borrowing from friends and family. > The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.” > The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses. > The common misinterpretation of this finding in the study is particularly strange in light of two other questions on the same survey. The Fed asks respondents whether they are able to pay all of their bills in full. Only 17% say they can’t pay some bills. Again, 17%, not 39%." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-400-emergency-expense-story-is-wrong https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40... https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/report-economic-well-being-us-households.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/report-economic-... https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/middle-class-doing-okay-no-need-gloom-doom/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/middle-class-doing-ok... https://www.cato.org/blog/it-true-40-americans-cant-handle-400-emergency-expense-0 https://www.cato.org/blog/it-true-40-americans-cant-handle-4...
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > US on the whole is also fairly poor. No, its rich but insecure. That's not the name thing as poor, though it can feel like it.

yogthos 7y ago

US on the whole is also fairly poor. For example, 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck can't afford an unexpected 400 dollar expense. And China has far better support for the poor than US with things like healthcare, education, and public transit. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-cant-handle-a-400-unexpected-expense.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...

ElonMuskrat 7y ago
You have no idea. I've been to poor parts of China. People heat themselves with the coals of wood-fired stove which they used to cook meals. I once saw a family that owned a government subsidized washing machine. They couldn't afford the electricity to operate the machine, so they use the tumbler to store household items.
- yogthos 7y ago
  Have you been to Flint where there's no drinking water?
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    You're making an incorrect generalization about a large country by misleadingly citing isolated examples which seem to support your point once you realize that you can't back your initial argument up in a meaningful way. You may as well be arguing that England is a poor country because London has a low income neighborhood or two. Stop grasping at straws.
    - yogthos 7y ago
      There's nothing misleading about it. One percent of the population in US owns more than half the wealth in the country. Majority of the population lives in impoverished conditions without access to basic needs such as public transit, healthcare, or education. This is a well documented fact, and if you think I'm grasping at straws here's you're just utterly ignorant.
      - EpicEng 7y ago
        >Majority of the population lives in impoverished conditions without access to basic needs such as public transit, healthcare, or education Where are you coming up with this nonsense? Let's see the numbers. >This is a well documented fact Oh, well if you say so then.
        yogthos 7y ago
        >Where are you coming up with this nonsense? Let's see the numbers. Where do you think all the people working in Amazon gulags come from exactly. You think people work 12 hours shifts pissing in bottles because they enjoy it. >Oh, well if you say so then. It's like you're too stupid to use Google or something. Here you go little buddy: >Here's another number that may surprise you – to be in the top half (50%) of all earners you need to earn more than $29,999.99 a year. The number of people earning less than $30,000 accounts for 48.06% of the population. https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/ https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/ here's another simple chart you might be able to comprehend https://i.redd.it/pg5w8ws3b0o31.jpg https://i.redd.it/pg5w8ws3b0o31.jpg
nomel 7y ago
I don't think "living paycheck to paycheck" is a good metric for quality of life since there can be a large cultural influence. With the median income in the US being 5x higher, I imagine $400 of unexpected expenses would be much worse for a Chinese citizen, assuming they don't have something saved up of course.
EpicEng 7y ago
>US on the whole is also fairly poor. Relative to whom exactly? Us engineers posting on HN? I'm not making light of anyone's circumstances here, but living paycheck to paycheck doesn't make you poor, and billions of people around the world would love to be that "poor" (and many of them live in China.) Very different definitions of "poor".
- yogthos 7y ago
  Dude, people in your country die regularly because they can't afford basic medicine like insulin or have an easily treatable medical condition.
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    "Dude", you obviously just don't want your incomplete world view challenged. Details matter here. Yes, Flint MI has a drinking water problem and it's deplorable. That doesn't generalize to the rest of the nation. Health Care is an issue as well. Our low income citizens have coverage problems and it's an issue being debated at the highest levels currently. If you care to dig further, you'd also find that we have better health outcomes for those who are covered than does most of the world. It's a complex issue, but just like your Flint comment, it doesn't generalize to "most people in the US are poor". I'm fine with have a reasoned discussion, but you don't seem to want that, so you're not worth talking to.
    - yogthos 7y ago
      I mean US income inequality is highest level ever recorded, but sure I'm the one who's unreasonable here. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/income-inequality-reached-highest-level-ever-recorded-in-2018-2019-9-1028559996 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/income-inequ...
NicoJuicy 7y ago
Some reports also say families don't save money because there is insurance if you can't pay the expensive healthcare. Don't know if it's true though.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  I don't quite get this statement. Insurance generally doesn't trigger on "if you can't pay", it's so you don't have to pay to begin with. Savings don't play into it, if you have insurance coverage there is no need to save money, it's effectively already paid for.
kayaeb 7y ago
Living paycheck to payckeck with a new phone every 2 years, a new car lease upgrade every 5, a mortgage on a 3 bedroom house, and eating out 4 times a week, and 1000 TV channels is hardly what someone would consider 'poor.' It's just sustainably stressful and largely optional. This is why I feel the paycheck-to-paycheck metric/rhetoric is obnoxious, on 100k a year I can live paycheck-to-paycheck if I so desire, on 20k a year I can live at 75% of my means and save 400$+ as well. People's personal choices are not a comment on the economy, they're a comment on the fiscal education system. I personally save about 33% of my paycheck on 32k per year in one of the top 10 most expensive global cities.
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  Look at health outcomes, us has a declining life expectancy, china has almost caught up and will probably overtake soon. Is that just fiscal education?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - kayaeb 7y ago
    I said that not having 400$ is a failure of fiscal planning and doesn't indicate that the population is poor. Declining life expectancy is not an indication that the population is poor either. Consider that obesity, which is linked to higher mortality rates, did not become an issue until the 1900s in countries that passed wealth thresholds allowing such a problem at scale. Similarly with allergies, car crash fatalities, lead poisoning in paint, any number of life-shortening effects come from wealth in a society and are counterbalanced by improving health care levels.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      I was with you on car crashes & lead paint, but how do allergies come from a wealthy society? Or do you mean that only in a wealthy society are there resources/medical infrastructure available to diagnose them?
adventured 7y ago
> 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck can't afford an unexpected 400 dollar expense The 40% claim (regarding N% of Americans that can't afford a sudden ~$400-$500 expense) is entirely fraudulent, and repeated ad nauseam as an easy - and ignorant - hit on the US. The real number is around 12%-14% at worst. The routine Fed survey that most people reference (while ignoring what the Fed actually said) makes this clear. Numerous well-written articles have been posted over the last several years pointing out the fraudulent nature of the claim. Here's the money line from the Fed that buries this lie: "The Fed also asks respondents how a $400 emergency expense that they had to pay would affect their ability to pay their other bills. Eighty-five percent report that they would still be able to pay all their bills. Only 14% say that the emergency expense would result in their not being able to pay some bills." A Bloomberg writer recently demolished it as well: > The question comes from the annual “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” by the Federal Reserve. The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent). Note: that's the origination of the error. The propagandists then remove the 61% and magically claim that everyone left (~40%) can't cover the expense. > Instead, as the Fed report makes clear, though “the remaining 4 in 10 adults” “would have more difficulty covering such an expense,” many of them would be able to make it work by carrying a credit card balance or borrowing from friends and family. > The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.” > The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses. > The common misinterpretation of this finding in the study is particularly strange in light of two other questions on the same survey. The Fed asks respondents whether they are able to pay all of their bills in full. Only 17% say they can’t pay some bills. Again, 17%, not 39%." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-400-emergency-expense-story-is-wrong https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40... https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/report-economic-well-being-us-households.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/report-economic-... https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/middle-class-doing-okay-no-need-gloom-doom/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/middle-class-doing-ok... https://www.cato.org/blog/it-true-40-americans-cant-handle-400-emergency-expense-0 https://www.cato.org/blog/it-true-40-americans-cant-handle-4...
dragonwriter 7y ago
> US on the whole is also fairly poor. No, its rich but insecure. That's not the name thing as poor, though it can feel like it.