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Americans are big on appearances. Gotta seem religious. Gotta seem rich. Gotta seem happy. Gotta seem free.
Seem
crazy how people in brazil used to look up to American living standards, but it turns out americans have more inequality, violence, worse education, health system, worse food, and the list goes on
I swear the biggest lie is that America is somehow a better country because it has houses that are expensive and fast food so that it can import what essentially accounts to slave labor when they finally come over excited to work for lower wages and live in cramped housing without their social networks other than the other slave laborers.
Its probably how we make it how people not climbing financially can still feel superior. No one has to pay the debt if you can keep getting new people on a lower rung.
Americans rarely have access to real bread
Propaganda of American exceptionalism.
The US is big on wealth inequality, like most third-world countries. Yeah, lots of people are broke, but lots of people are also making 200k/year. Overall we're definitely struggling, but that doesn't mean everyone is struggling.
Lemmy also leans both older and into the tech demographic, which tend to be higher paid.
Cries in near minimum wage UK tech work. The only upside is minimum wage is actually pretty good
The US is big on wealth inequality
You misspelled "built".
Yeah, close to 6% of the population is making unfathomable amounts of money and the crazy thing is that just 6% of the population is still 20 Million people. You could replace the entire population of Tokyo with American millionaires and still have more to spare to claim New York too.
Tokyo metro area is more than 36 million people.
Yeah but the tokyo metro area is an insanely large sprawl only rivaled by the tristate area of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut.
I kinda meant just the dense city lines of both which is still an insane amount.
That entire tristate area is also 20 million people so its more people than that that are wealthy enough to think the empire as a truly good thing.
I'm guessing not admitting your finances are shit is pretty universal, no need to pick on 'Murica.
There is some truth to what you're saying but the USA are special about it. It's like, they try to (badly) act as if they had more than enough money but it's obvious they're struggling badly. Like a functional addict thinking he's hiding it well but in fact everyone knows and there's a shared social discomfort in the charade
It’s part of our culture. It dates back to when America was new. Plantation owners wanted to pretend we had a rich and powerful economy and history and culture. They made everything pristine and gaudy and exp wove looking but there was no substance. Look at the architectural decisions made in plantation houses and how the elements are still used in homes today.
We pretend we are better than we really are.
Who's pretending?
We're all broke. Unless you're a boomer trying to sell a $0.50 house you bought in the 50s you paid for on a gas station cashier salary. They're ok for the moment. But even a lot of them are going broke now too. Highest demographic of newly homeless last I heard.
Because those boomers who are broke were attempting to keep up with those who actually had money. I know a few examples...
America is a third world occupied country but everybody is in denial, obese and wearing nice clothes 😌
Because we want to spend our end of days in comfort
Toxic capitalism, instagram
That's called Modern Monetary Theory. It's a fun game until the underlying physics of our little civilizational project fails, that is to say the energy return on pumping oil out of the ground.
Do we count mortgages as debt here?
They often are, yes. I'm not sure exactly what "in debt" means to OP. But, when I use it like this I generally mean "negative net worth" not "carrying a line of credit".
I currently have a balance on a CC, but I don't consider myself in debt, because it's smaller than my checking account balance, and that's smaller than my investment account balance, and that's smaller than my retirement account balance.
I don't own a home, but I also didn't really consider myself "in debt" when I purchased my current car.
Oddly enough I would say I am "in debt to" my CC company, because I do owe money to them and they do not owe money to me. The "to X" part of the phrase restricts my consideration to just two-party financial relationship, in my mind. When you leave off the "to X", I consider all the financial relationship I have and (roughly) sum over them.
Same here, funny carry a balance, but at least for a couple of weeks I owe my credit card company.
Simply because if I use my debit card, i get nothing. Use my credit card and I get 2 to 3 percent off...
Yeah, I pay it off about twice a month, but usually between the day I schedule a payment and the day it arrives I've used the card again, so it's rare for me to have a zero (or negative!) balance.
I do like the CC rewards, but they get that my "shorting" / charging the merchant. So, if the merchant is part of your community, try to avoid involving a CC processor by paying in cash. (I think cash is a pain to deal with, so my in-built preference is for some sort of card / phone payment system.)
While I have no debts, sometimes my bank account is hovering at a $200. I hate the insecurity it gives me.
Stupidity and the art of flexing.
I've dealt with people that made it to adulthood not really understanding that if they have cash in their pocket, but more debt than that, they don't really have money available to spend on frivolous things. Some of them are my friends.
They will be "broke" 5 days of the week, but spend freely from when then cash their paycheck (or get that next payday loan!) until all they have is change.
But, I've been lucky. I got a degree without taking on debt AND the worst CC hole I had to dig myself out of was not even to the limit of one card. I think most people have to ignore student or medical or other debt just to function...
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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