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This question hs so many tentacles, I don't know where to start.
OK. I live in the USA. My regular ongoing household budget that I live on is around $10,000 a year, from Social Security. That is roughly equivalent to the per-capita GDP of Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ukraine. So I guess I live about as well as a mid-range single person in one of those countries. I have a safe and well-maintained 2-bedroom apartment, I do all my own cooking, I have internet but no cable nor cell phone, I have no car.
Bad comparison
The way to compare is how many hours a person has to work to afford paying for their basic needs
People in the U.S. Make s lot of money but college and health care are not free
Bad comparison
The way to compare is how many hours a person has to work to afford paying for their basic needs
People in the U.S. Make s lot of money but college and health care are not free
Using per-capita GDP is also a bad comparison, but it's all we've got and it's the one that is traditionally used to define the terms of the thread.
Climate, in which they live, has much to do with it.
I'd rather be dirt poor in Central America, where you can sleep under the stars 365 days a year, without freezing to death or cooking to death, than in Chicago, Minneapolis or NYC.
And they have a much greater transportation system down there. Ride the vans if you've got the money, if money is tight, then ride the chicken buses, and if money is really, really tight, then you ride in the backs of pick-ups! No need whatsoever to own a car!
I've seen those shacks in Central America, with tin roofs, and a little garden space outside, or space to raise chickens, so go eat your heart out the dirt poor of the U.S.!
I'm thinking it was a mistake and should have been coloured blue. What do you think?
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So, what's the threshold or criteria to move from "Third World" to "Second World" or "First World"? Are you suggesting that The Bahamas is a "First World" country? I have family there, and although the country has a relatively high GDP per capita, and ranks relatively high on the HDI, I think the citizens know they are a "Third World" developing country. And that's not something they're necessarily ashamed of.
The average poor American couldn't comprehend a life with a lack of clean, running water, recurrent epidemics, economic instability to the point of having worthless or near worthless money, and the vast amount of warfare, organized crime, and elevated levels of random violence that accompany life in a third world country.
I think a third world country is defined by a lack of one or more of the following...clean water, plumbing, ample food supply, access to education, thriving businesses, police protection, doctors and hospital systems.
The poorest of the poor in America has all these things, plus cable TV, a free Obama cell phone, food stamps, free education, and aid of various kinds.
I've never traveled to a third world country, but from what I understand they aren't necessarily as destitute as people make them out to be, especially outside of sub-Saharan Africa and rural South Asia. Their incomes are smaller, but they don't have to pay nearly as high rents as people in the West, and food while more basic tends to be cheaper than it is in the "First World".
As far as human rights go, many Third World countries grant their workers more rights than the United States does, and some of them are better functioning as democracies than we are, with less plutocratic influence. Places in the Third World that haven't been plagued by HIV tend to have life expectancies nearly as high as ours.
Is someone who makes close to minimum wage or lives off SSI and food stamps really that "lucky" compared to the average citizen of the developing world? Many of them can't afford a home, while in the developing world people can at least build their own huts or live in favelas. Being homeless in America is tantamount to being a refugee, you're essentially a stateless person even if you have citizenship because without an address you can't really do much of anything.
The social status of a poor American is probably worse than that of a typical Third Worlder, who wouldn't have a stigma because most people are at a similar financial level. America's homeless are analogous to the untouchables in India in the sense that better off people resent them and view them as smelly parasites and crooks unworthy of any sympathy, unless they're veterans.
Does a poor American really have better access to food, health care, shelter, safety and the occasional luxury than the average person in China, India, Russia or Brazil?
Russia is not a Third World country by any stretch.
Here is a small peak at what Russia is like...
The average poor American couldn't comprehend a life with a lack of clean, running water, recurrent epidemics, economic instability to the point of having worthless or near worthless money, and the vast amount of warfare, organized crime, and elevated levels of random violence that accompany life in a third world country.
These are also third world characteristics, but the third word is the majority of the world, obviously it'a lot more diversificated than that, including the image above.
The average poor American couldn't comprehend a life with a lack of clean, running water, recurrent epidemics, economic instability to the point of having worthless or near worthless money, and the vast amount of warfare, organized crime, and elevated levels of random violence that accompany life in a third world country.
Very few places in the third world still lack clean running water.
Americans are more at risk from recurrent epidemics than any other country in the world, from allergies to autitism to emotional disorders to restless leg syndrome, most of them with contributing dietary or environmental causation. Third world countries do not need to spend $1,100 per person per year on drugs to stave off these epidemics.
The only reason the "vast amount of warfare" occurs in someone else's country, is because that's where America goes to start the wars. So you have a point there, you have more to fear from an American soldier or US-exported weapons in the third world, than in the USA.
Organized crime? Do third world countries have Payday Loans charging 600% interest?
Gangs of narcoterrorists in high school? Americans have already been conditioned by fear of random violence to keep themselves locked in their cars and houses.
Last edited by jtur88; 09-24-2015 at 07:03 AM..
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