[superultra]

The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined.

It’s a tragedy that our own citizens are not the direct be beneficiaries of that wealth.

I think a lot about the scene in Star Trek IV when McCoy is in a hospital and says “what is this the dark ages?”

Gofundme is like a kafkaesque tragic absurdity that - hopefully - will be looked at as an indictment of the inequitable K shaped economy we’ve built, and hopefully fixed in the future.

[tomaskafka]

As a lucky European, I have US labeled as “richest third world country”.

[Tade0]

> The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined.

This framing by Forbes (any many others really) is insidious because it doesn't take into account the population number and how unevenly wealth is spread.

For instance, Switzerland is not a huge economy - around the 20th in the world, but its citizens enjoy an extremely high quality of life because both income inequality and incomes overall are significantly better that in the US.

[apothegm]

Population size is usually included in those calculations. It’s typically GDP per capita.

But I couldn’t agree more that the inequality and social safety net (or lack thereof) make the numbers deeply disconnected from QoL. Which I believe is the whole point.

[Tade0]

> It’s typically GDP per capita.

If so, then the US is ~7th, or 5th among nations numbering in the millions. Still very high, just not at the top.