Is there a reason to trust your anecdote instead of looking at data? I'm sure this topic has been researched.

Yeah it’s called the gini index. US isn’t great but isn’t anywhere near the worst.

In absolute terms though just look at pictures of e.g. rural Russia va Moscow.

Thank you for bringing up this data point! I'm sure we both agree that's a much better argument than "trust me" :)

I understand, however it was a disclaimer not a "trust me". One of the main reason such metrics are not as reflective of the reality is that for developing countries, the taxes are not reported accurately. A lot of wealth is officially unreported - and it is a massive amount. Such things are not captured by official statistics, by virtue of being unreported income, which leads to an incomplete or distorted picture of reality.