>but in another country you can walk or take public transport to the restaurant or tailor without the fear of being the victim of a crime That's unrelated to t

>but in another country you can walk or take public transport to the restaurant or tailor without the fear of being the victim of a crime That's unrelated to the prices. 3 relatively poor countries are in fact much safer than the US [0], and all safer ones are poorer than US. >PPP is good to measure if people have 'enough' to live on in a particular location but for comparison between countries it's pretty meaningless. The overwhelming majority of living costs are local (especially food production), so PPP is a very good measurement. Prices of electronics and oil aren't that important for day-to-day living. You seem to ignore the fact that, even in PPP, the average Chinese is really poor. It's just that their standard of living is $12k poor, not $7k poor. [0] http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety/