> I agree it is far from cut and dry. I have lived in Africa and Asia for 5 years - the rest in USA. Billions of people today do not have electricity and clean running water in their house.

I don't have potable running water in my house (in Indonesia). The water is clean enough I feel comfortable brushing my teeth in it and showering in it. Not clean enough I can drink it without boiling it. We don't have central hot water (just some small units on the showers), only some rooms have air conditioning, etc.

On the other hand we have some other luxuries. We have a bottled water dispenser in our home that dispenses near-boiling water for tea or coffee (with child safety devices no less). We have two maids who keep the house clean and help with the children.

> I agree there are quality of life issues in the USA that are obscured by cash wealth.

I think the larger issues are this:

1. Cash wealth != capital wealth. The median US household is far more capital-poor than the median Indonesian family. I would define capital wealth as accessible resources that can go into capital investments minus total debt. It has little bearing on balance sheet wealth (and can be significantly above or below that).

2. We an extraordinarily multi-layered approach to discouraging small business in the US. This includes regulation aimed at large businesses which has, in some cases, made small business flat-out illegal (see the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act), complex tax codes which lead to large corporations paying less taxes than small businesses, a health insurance regulatory framework that chains people to corporate jobs (not new under Obamacare, but exacerbated by that), and the like. Self-employment is the privilege of the wealthy in the US, and that undermines everyone.

When I was in the US, my AGI was in the 70k range (after deductions and the like) and it wasn't always that easy to make ends meet with children. Making $20k/year over here would be an improvement to be honest in terms of quality of life. Two of my three kids were born over here without medical insurance, and the care set me back a lot less than the one who was born in the US with insurance (which nearly put me into bankruptcy--- I think I calculated our out of pocket expenses after insurance were over $10k).

> We often are comparing our "shortfall" to this tiny little stretch of time and location that was great and worrying that it isn't fair it isn't quite as great as that.

I don't know. I am more concerned that we tend to think of ourselves as uniquely well off, but....

1. Homelessness is criminalized in the US (especially in Democratic-voting urban centers!) far more heavily than over here in Indonesia.

2. Having a business is easier over here than in the US unless you are a foreigner (why my business entities are effectively owned by my wife so I can avoid the minimum investment limit).

3. Care for the elderly is better because people care for their relatives more closely. Also this means that people invest more heavily in their children's education and businesses since children are retirement policies.

What we have done in the US is to substitute "things" for "people" among the poor and the picture isn't pretty. So often I hear how we don't want the US to be "a third-world nation" but the fact is we have a lot to learn from less well off countries about how to live more socially and sustainably.