Us Americans use our vehicles to pick up a Hot Wheels jungle gym at Toys R Us, then we spend 3 hours on the freeway driving to another state to pick up some In N Out. We keep 8 large dogs in the back 4 rows, and have to hit Wal Mart to pick up a pallet of toilet paper to clean up. You can't understand our lifestyle requirements.

EDIT: Yesterday I had to run to the store to pick up a vat of queso. I'd like to see you Europeans do that in your Mr. Bean cars.

Living standards in the US are higher than the UK? What?

Yes?

I doubt there is any conventional metric for "standard of living" (which basically means per capita wealth/income) where the UK would be higher than the US, at almost any point on the income scale (even adjusted for the imputed value of the more extensive public health system in the UK).

That doesn't mean the UK is "worse" than the US, or that it has a lower quality of life, just that it has (and has had) a lower standard of living for decades. Few countries car match the standard of living of the US.

while agreeing to your point about living standards, i would add that there are almost no countries matching US military spending, foreign debt levels or energy consumption per capita

Well given the fact that Western Europe barely has a military outside of all the US troops there, it’s a lot easier to keep those debt levels low.

I suspect one factor here is that the US has, for practical purposes, no passenger intercity rail network, and has a somewhat less developed budget airline market.

That said, I find it notable that the average price of new cars in the US has typically been rising faster than income over the last decade or so. This would indicate, bluntly, effective advertising, rather than resources, being a big driver of the huge car thing. Average new car price in the US is creeping up on average annual income. This isn’t just an American problem, incidentally; it’s happening in a good few countries.

Longer term loans are also more common now. 5 years was typical but now 7 years is becoming even more common.

Safety features have added a lot to prices.

Not sure that’s right. Base prices don’t really seem to have risen; people are just buying higher end cars.

I'd reference https://carsgenius.com/are-new-high-tech-car-safety-features...