Sorry, I just don't buy that you can summarize the life satisfaction & economic output of 140 million people with a single number, not to mention that GDP is a

Sorry, I just don't buy that you can summarize the life satisfaction & economic output of 140 million people with a single number, not to mention that GDP is a pretty bad measurement as far as single numbers go [1]. It's much, much, much more complicated than that. Anecdotally, my experience living in Japan vs the United States is that it's much better to be poor in Japan than poor in the United States, for various social / economic reasons (for instance, national healthcare in Japan, car culture in USA). At least before COVID-19, small businesses in Japan seemed to be doing pretty well, compared to the United States. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/765781fe-f136-11e7-b220-857e26d1aca4 https://www.ft.com/content/765781fe-f136-11e7-b220-857e26d1a...