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I lived on a $300/month salary (eastern europe) and it didn't feel like getting 20x less of what I'm getting now in US for $6k/month. I simply didn't have to pa

I lived on a $300/month salary (eastern europe) and it didn't feel like getting 20x less of what I'm getting now in US for $6k/month. I simply didn't have to pay $80 for a pack of 6 pills of fairly generic antibiotic which I had to pay another $70 for a 15-minute visit to a doctor just to get the prescription for. That's what... about $25 per pill? There, I simply walked into a pharmacy and paid about $2 for a jar that felt like a lifetime supply of exactly the same pills. Food was also dirt cheap at local farmers markets, and I also didn't have to pay $60/hour to car mechanic and the same big mac at local McDonalds was only about $0.5 So... no, "a lot less with a lot less" isn't even close to an accurate description. Moreover, middlemen do introduce inefficiency, especially in tightly regulated "markets" like the healthcare: I know a fair bit of how the medical equipment market in US works, and I can tell you that you'll get exactly the same pacemaker installed for about 60% less in Germany as compared to US: that's because your friendly regional salesman of Boston Scientific really likes to fly his own plane, and the doctor who put it in you really enjoys legalized kickbacks for "research purposes". The same applies to law and finance: bribing police or settling disputes by negotiating was a lot cheaper than going to court in US armed with a $400/hour lawyer, and without 30 year mortgages real estate market actually represented real market prices as opposed to being just a trading commodity [overpriced many times over] with a side effect of providing actual housing. Instead of paying $200K for a summer house, me and my dad built our own, small but cute 800s.f. cabin. Took us about one summer of weekends and less than $2K in raw materials. I'm not saying that life was fun in a 3rd world country, but measuring the cost of living is a very, very nontrivial matter, that's all.

jmillikin 17y ago
If you think standard medical care is bad, wait until you see the state of dentistry int he US. A two-barrel caulk gun costs $3 at a home-improvement warehouse, but $250 if ordered through a medical supply catalog (with the same part number stamped on it). A dental handpiece costs $2500 to buy and $80 to repair in the US, but one can be bought new for $70 from China. And the Chinese ones work just as well, if not better. For some reason, American dentists are remarkably risk-adverse; while they'll moan and complain about how high their bills are, they'll also refuse to consider any solution unless they've personally used it for 30 years. Just getting them to use computerized practice management is Sisyphean struggle.
- Retric 17y ago
  Services cost more in the US, but most stuff costs about the same or a little less. However, you get paid at the inflated services rate. Go to the correct US store and buy a 100LB bag of cheep rice and it will be cheaper than a lot of developing nations. But go to the dentist, doctor, or a restaurant and it's cheap in the developing world. Granted most things tend to be cheap where they are produced but as long as you avoid having other people do stuff for you living in the US can be extremely cheep. PS: A friend of mine who was making 46k/year in Fairfax VA, one of the more expensive areas to live in the United States, and saved 20,000$ in one year. He was living the life of an Indian college student in the US and that's cheep. He said the only downside was washing his own clothes, but he just dumped it in the machine so it was a trivial change.

jmillikin 17y ago

If you think standard medical care is bad, wait until you see the state of dentistry int he US. A two-barrel caulk gun costs $3 at a home-improvement warehouse, but $250 if ordered through a medical supply catalog (with the same part number stamped on it). A dental handpiece costs $2500 to buy and $80 to repair in the US, but one can be bought new for $70 from China. And the Chinese ones work just as well, if not better. For some reason, American dentists are remarkably risk-adverse; while they'll moan and complain about how high their bills are, they'll also refuse to consider any solution unless they've personally used it for 30 years. Just getting them to use computerized practice management is Sisyphean struggle.

Retric 17y ago
Services cost more in the US, but most stuff costs about the same or a little less. However, you get paid at the inflated services rate. Go to the correct US store and buy a 100LB bag of cheep rice and it will be cheaper than a lot of developing nations. But go to the dentist, doctor, or a restaurant and it's cheap in the developing world. Granted most things tend to be cheap where they are produced but as long as you avoid having other people do stuff for you living in the US can be extremely cheep. PS: A friend of mine who was making 46k/year in Fairfax VA, one of the more expensive areas to live in the United States, and saved 20,000$ in one year. He was living the life of an Indian college student in the US and that's cheep. He said the only downside was washing his own clothes, but he just dumped it in the machine so it was a trivial change.