[luqtas]

> I've never seen the gripping poverty and desperation that's common in the United States anywhere in Latin America; even the poorer communities here tend to be vibrant and well functioning, with families and little farming communities everywhere that are living life well.

with all the respect but what a naive paragraph. i suggest you to go away from touristics places or get into a poor part of any big city in Latin america. the stuff is nasty. what you are comparing is relatively stable rural families that would be an akin to a rural medium class on the USA... you can almost say in 100% of the cases a medium class North American is equivalent of someone from the upper class here. in term of goods/comfort, not work. and if you still romantize as a traveler these poor communities on the backcountry, i suggest to try a week or 2 of their work. just take the routine of a +40 y/o man to check what being 'medium class' is about. being on the hunger line with a bare house is poverty and Latin America has many examples

[koverstreet]

Have you seen the poorer parts of the United States? Or walked around the Tenderloin? Or seen what meth has done to parts of the rust belt, and the farming communities that have been hollowed out and eviscerated across the midwest?

Ever been to a reservation?

[luqtas]

you are comparing a marginalized demographic against people who belong to the middle class on Latin America. it's totally out of sense. we also have cracolandia and favelas and people dying of diarrhoea and dying of hunger in some regions.

please, don't visit a country with probably tourist type of visit and sum up a whole continent on socioeconomics or whatever category your empirical sociologic observation was

edit: since ur in Latin America and if ur not reading anything, i recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America

[koverstreet]

Ok, if you're actually from Latin America, I should apologize - I don't mean to say that those kinds of issues don't exist (and actually, I have seen some - Honduras) - I often assume I'm talking to someone from the states, and Americans have gotten insular and really out of touch, and most have no idea how much things have changed over the past 50 years.

That said, I'd rather live in middle lower class Latin America that Estados Unidos any day. The food is probably going to be better - too many places in the States Walmart is the only practical option now - health care won't bankrupt you, and people in Latin America are almost universally better educated and less depressed on social issues.

And I think a lot of that can be traced to a culture that's a bit less authoritarian, because people understand the history of why that doesn't work. Just going to war with the Mafia or the narcos is a trite answer, but it usually doesn't solve things in the long run.

Edit - also, you really should compare the poorer parts of the big cities you're talking about to Detroit or New Orleans or the Tenderloin. In my experience, people in Latin America can also have a skewed perspective. The world is a big place.