[wyager]

> A factory making billions to its owner doesn't improve the revenues, wealth or standard of living of more than 1 person... A factory producing luxury Louis Vuitton handbags... is irrelevant to the living conditions of the workers

> Come on, this is Econ 101 and basic logic.

You griping about luxury goods on principle isn't "Econ 101" or "basic logic".

You can look at basically any material metric you like (cars owned, house size, etc.) and Americans come out ahead. Nominal GDP numbers are kind of nonsense, but they're directionally the same nonsense everywhere, so they actually work OK as an international comparison.

[sofixa]

> You can look at basically any material metric you like (cars owned, house size, etc.) and Americans come out ahead

Rate of personal bankruptcies? Homeownership rate? Median household net wealth?

The amount of cars Americans have on absurd loans is entirely irrelevant to their personal wealth or lack thereof.

[wyager]

> The amount of cars Americans have on absurd loans is entirely irrelevant to their personal wealth or lack thereof.

The allocation of debt is essentially irrelevant - there are materially more, bigger, better cars per capita in the USA. Whether those cars get repo'd and transferred to richer Americans is irrelevant - you can't fake the material presence of more stuff.