It may not be a strick financial planning topic, but as I saw many active members having international background, so I'd like to hear your views on this.
The question is is US living standard is definitely higher than that in other countries? Or alternatively, is the cost of living is really cheaper here?
may not compare on an apple-to-apple basis.
First, granted, as a bigger country, US should be able to offer its resident lower living cost than land-constraint countries such as UK, Japan, Switzerland etc. However I found American's income is not neccessarily higher than others, but the living cost is not that cheaper as most people think. For example, for many professions, UK, HK etc pay not less than US. From the living costs perspective, only imported items (e.g. clothes, electronic gadgets etc) are cheaper, many other things (e.g. utility, banking etc) are not cheap at all.... oddly, the bread/milk are sold more expensive in US than in London!
I also find people are not comparing apple-to-apple. A typical American will spend more than his make (of course, many memebers of this group are much more conservative), while in the rest of world, people spend less than he makes. So if an American who makes $100K, he may have a much more comfortable life than somebody living elsewhere (or even in his neighbourhood) who is paid the same, but may spend less.
Does this make sense to everybody?