Actually the U.S. in 3rd place behind Switzerland and Luxembourg in terms of mean wealth per adult and Hong Kong is not far behind. But you are right that the other countries on the upper ranks are mostly smaller nations with large banking sectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

While I agree that the U.S. has an enormous built-in advantage over other countries, I would really highlight one other piece of data: In terms of median wealth, the U.S. is eclipsed by half the E.U. and many Asian countries including diverse economies like France. This points to a terrifying concentration of wealth, which has also been highlighted by researchers like Picketty and this could (or arguably already does) put the social fabric of the U.S. under enormous strain.

While it is true that the US mean is much higher than the median, the median person still benefits greatly from that wealth. The rich invest their wealth in business, real estate for rent, and real estate for themselves, making all these things better.

I'm currently in the EU, in a country that outperforms the US in median wealth by about 20%. While it's clear that life here is good, I'm also struck by how much worse everything looks here, from the rental real estate where I'm staying, to the generally unprofessional standard of business.

So just looking at the slightly-higher median and ignoring the 2-3x higher mean also skews the picture.

True, but look at the rental markets for the majority of Americans that don't live in the rich coastal areas. And talk about unprofessional business - you have unprofessional legal professionals in parts of the US.

Where America is great, it is great. But for the rest of it, it can be a very differently life for most of the inhabitants.

Compare "poor" America with poor (insert geographic area here).

There's no comparison. It's hugely, vastly better in the States. The only other places that have large backwater areas that can compete are maybe Canada and Australia. This is due to investment by rich people in rental real estate and businesses such as Walmart, Costco, Amazon, etc.

When a family like the Waltons have a net worth in the 100's of $Bn's, this money isn't kept in gold bars in a safe. It's actively deployed in a variety of businesses. So the poor don't get a cut of the 100's of $Bn's, but they do benefit from the investment. And in very equal countries, the opposite is true. Everybody's OK, but there aren't really any systems that stand out as being amazing.

It's an empire. Empires are good at concentrating wealth by extracting it from their surroundings.

Personally I would absolutely not want to be a poor person in the US. High crime, police violence, abusive work conditions, random shooters, health care bankruptcy, Fentanyl being pushed by medical professionals, zero Covid protections - it's a dystopian horror show.

This may surprise you, but there are locations around the world with much lower GDP and much happier people.

I find this a weird take. In my country we're always amazed that there are places in most largish US cities where it simply isn't safe to be if you aren't a native, and lethal violence is a daily occurence.

A poor person in my country is allowed to take time off for illness without fear of being fired. That time isn't subtracted from their legally mandated minimum number of holiday days.

A poor person in the US will show up to work sick because they know their boss can let them go. Their colleagues might then get sick.

While I'm not sure how common it is, I've seen US news articles lauding co-workers for donating sick days to a colleague with a life threatening illness. While they're obviously doing a good thing, the necessity of the act honestly comes across as barbaric.

A poor person in the U.S. more likely as not does not have proper health insurance, no unemployment benefits to speak of, is highly unlikely to receive disability benefits even when diagnosed with a disability, is subject to a highly prejudiced and often violent police force, must rely on a famously expensive legal system to press civil claims, must content with a social environment that in many places is shaped by easy access to drugs, has no access to government housing, can be fired at will, etc. etc.

Yes, there are many countries where being poor is even worse. But among developed economies (so about a quarter of all countries), it is hard to come up with a worse place for being poor than the U.S.

> After accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and food stamps, the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries.

https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than...

This "study" (not peer reviewed) is questionable in various ways and published by a "think tank" that has a strong libertarian agenda and an obvious axe to grind.

First of all, it compares figures from two different data sets. That is usually something that is quite hard to do correctly, because different data sets usually use different definitions for stuff like "household consumption" etc. Without a peer review it is really hard to tell if they've done it correctly and given the intricacies of economic statistics, my guess is they didn't.

But maybe even more importantly, the data concentrates on "private consumption" and thus leaves out all the goods and services that governments pay for – which is the entire point of public services like a public health care system. I.e. when a poor person in the U.S. visits a doctor, they pay for it out of pocket, the transaction will be registered as "private consumption". If I (in Germany) visit the doctor, no money ever changes hands. My contributions to the public health care system are deducted from my income before it ever reaches my account and about half don't come out of my own paycheck anyway, they are the responsibility of my employer.

So my guess would be that this "study" undercounts exactly what it professes to account for: Goods and services consumed (but not necessarily paid for) by the poor.

But how about we measure outcomes? For example in terms of life expectancy, the U.S. is much more "unequal" (if you are poorer, your are more likely to die younger) than other developed economies: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#inequality-of-lif...

And because the U.S. has worse life expectancy than other developed economies in general, poor people are likely to die younger in the U.S. than in, say, Germany in absolute terms as well. That is just one indicator but if you accept that "the number of years you live" is an important indicator for general quality of life, the U.S. seems to score quite badly on this.

This has all sorts of distorting effects. It turns out that one guy was paying a substantial fraction of New Jersey's budget, and he moved. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/business/one-top-taxpayer...

(then ended moving back again, because Florida)

Note that it put the income tax forecast at risk.

The individual taxpayer was paying ~hundreds of millions per year into an $86 billion dollar budget. It's kind of wild that an individual would be paying a tenth of a percent (or so) of a state's income taxes, but it's maybe not a substantial fraction.

Not that surprising when you have a progressive tax system and people who make tons of money.

New Jersey certainly has had budget issues and pension issues. But the current leadership has done fairly well with a budget suppress and continuing to fund the pension system. So as of now the loss of the single taxpayer while a loss to the budget hasn’t put a huge hole in the system. Obviously fully funding the pension after years of under funding will take time so we will see how it turns out.

It's basically impossible to do any financial transactions in Switzerland as an American. Even something as mundane as opening a bank account to receive your salary is extremely complicated as most banks refuse to do business with Americans. A lot of Americans there renounced their citizenship because of this.

That's due to American regulations. If any American has an account at your bank, they can audit your whole bank.

So now there are banks that will never take an American customer, and banks that specialize in Americans.

All Swiss banks are crooked that's why they are afraid of audits.

Swiss and British bankers should be hanged

I'm not sure this is the best example. The reason America puts Swiss banks with American customers under extra scrutiny is specifically because Swiss banks are infamous for enabling tax evasion.

It's a global thing, not just Swiss. USA has some high-powered financial regulations and the ability to enforce them