In general, it is difficult for us to understand what is happening in the American economy. Especially at the micro level. Everything is very different there. Now I will try to explain.
Our main economic indicators are GDP, gold reserves, foreign trade, and trade balance. And at the micro level – the average salary, minimum wage, subsistence level, savings in banks, free disposable balance of funds (here most Americans will exclaim “how, do they have something left?!”).
And most of the analytical articles use these terms and concepts.
In the USA, everything is completely different. Their analytics is filled with: public debt, municipal debt, corporate debt, household debt. And at the micro level: average household debt, mortgage debt, automobile debt, educational debt, credit card debt.
Because of this, it is very difficult to compare – because you have to operate with completely different concepts.
For example, we have a successful (economically) person – a person who earns a lot and therefore has a high level of consumption and a substantial supply of free funds.
And in the USA, a successful person is the one who can pay more interest on debts, therefore owes more to banks.
A successful American person is the who owes a million dollars for a good education, seven hundred thousand or more) for a house, under a hundred thousand for a car and somewhere else 13-15% of his monthly income goes to servicing a credit card.
Personally, for example, I could afford to work hard on a project, earn decent money, and then take “academic leave” for six months or more — read a lot, upgrade my skills, relax, travel, make new friends.
But the average American can’t. He is loaned head over heels and lives “check to check”, from paycheck to paycheck.
And if you suddenly remain without work for at least a month – these are serious problems. Non-payment of rent(or mortgage) leads to eviction (eviction orders, court rulings with the police come, and put out). Non-payment of three months for a car leads to confiscation. And if the problems drag out longer, then there is only one way out: live on the street.
By the way, a maximum of 30% of Americans have their own housing.
Because while you are paying a mortgage, housing is legally owned by the bank. Many do not even try to buy their own one, but prefer to live in rented apartments all their lives. Which also does not add confidence and reliability in life.
So how is it possible to make comparison in such a situation? In Russia, even the majority of the “poor” have their own housing, and many of the “successful” do not.
We have a “poor” when he has almost nothing. And they have a “normal” when 50-70 thousand dollars of debt per person (or two hundred thousand per household).
In Russia, everyone has compulsory medical insurance. Meanwhile, in the United States, “a doctor for everyone” remained a pipe project that even most Democrats consider unrealistic because it is “too expensive”. And about 16% of Americans have no health insurance at all. No one.
Free higher education, again. There is no such thing. Take an educational loan, study, then in twenty-thirty years you will give it back. May be. Because it is full of fifty-year-olds who have not yet paid for tuition.
Or the same pension. In our country, the deficit of Pension Funds is compensated by the state, and if your private pension fund went bankrupt on stock market speculations, go steal it.
And it is the same in all the fields.
Because of this total difference in almost everything, it turns out to be difficult to describe how much the average Russian actually lives better than the average American.
Liberals, of course, are trying to manipulate, comparing life somewhere in Manhattan with life in the Russian outback. Although in reality, the Hamptons need to be compared with the Rublyovka, and the outback – with the Rusty Belt.
And by the way, in all cases, the comparison will not be in favor of the United States.
Although believers in the Blessed West to explain all this is useless. They will all the same answer to all the facts and calculations in their traditional style, claiming that we are lying. Like those zombies who yell that “In the US everyone has health insurance that covers any costs”.
Alexander Rogers, specially for News Front