Rbit,
One last comment. I have lived in the Phillipines, back when children up to age ten couldn't afford pants and shoes.
I have also, more recently, spent time in Thailand where working class wages aren't that much higher, I don't think, than Ecuadorian.
BOTH incredibly impoverished Phillipino culture of decades ago, and current Thailand "impoverished" culture, seemed rich and happy, compared to comparable strata in the US.
Again, US "poor" are actually quite rich and entitled by world standards. (The only exception I would note of real US poverty on an experiential level, are the mentally ill/druggie/homeless US population, and the extremely aged in some areas of the country, where services are not available).
US is extraordinarily impoverished on a spiritual and community level. Our "culture", for the most part, is vapid, wasteful, arrogant, and consumer oriented.
I expect it to be like an A-bomb going off when the decades of US imperialism and militant arrogance meets what the US DESERVES ... and deserves or not, is coming.
Zombie Apocalypse indeed!
In all seriousness, if you pay attention to the rest of the world, you can see many instances where poor countries met fiscal disasters with way more class and camaraderie than the US entitled seem able to muster. That said, prices in the US on staples, such as basic vegetables and medicine, are insane. $5/day seems to go quite a long way in places like Ecuador or Thailand, provided you know where and when to shop, and how to conserve when you can!
My brother recently came back from travelling extensively, and with complete safety, in rural “impoverished” parts of the Philippines. The locals reportedly said they "don't understand" what is going on in the US. They said that in the Philippines, "Everyone KNOWS that if they don't work, they don't eat. And if they don't eat, they die." And that seems to motivate sanity, and working, and eating, well enough.
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