>>10589
You get it wrong:
i am not discussing who pays for what or how much it costs.

My only claim is that in Cuba everyone gets very good and guaranteed medical service pretty much comparable to what only wealthy people get in the US

Thus in that aspect people in Cuba are more wealthy than in the US.

Yes you may not be able to buy new iPhone or luxury car in Cuba, but we should start with satisfaction of the basic needs first.

Another example is that in the soviet union absolutely everyone had a decent house or apartment to live and plenty of income to pay for all their basic needs and even put some of that for entertainment or savings
There were NOBODY living in poverty.

On the other hand US had plenty of homeless people and people living in poverty who cannot even satisfy their physiological requirements.


so we chose first decide how we measure wealth on the country, as if you rob everyone and give their money to one guy making everyone into his slave then show him to all world and brag that our shithole is super wealthy because we have this one billionaire who use dollar bills as toilet paper.
Or alternatively you measure mean wealth your country ending with some decent average result between that billionaire and zero wealth majority which is also pretty meaningless.

situation is exactly that in the US
if you take a total average you get that everyone has about 200 000-500 000 savings
but if you remove 1% of the wealthiest people you reduce that to 20 000-50 000 on average which is not even remotely enuogh for retirement or paying all those medical bills in case of disaster

16.6 Million U.S. Households Have a Negative Net Worth, so in essence those americans are less wealthy than those naked people in Africa.


So I would rather suggest to rely not on the total wealth accumulated by oligarchs but on the poverty level in that specific country when measuring wealth.

also we have to make sure that everyone's basic needs are satisfied, or else it is unfair to measure your wealth if you own a mansion but you have no medical insurance which maybe costs just as much as all that your mansion.
or if you make 50 000 and then spend 40 000 on the work related expenses you only make 10 000