Americans feel poor despite being orders of magnitude richer than most others because our gov. cannot provide cheaper public options to costly private goods. You don't need a big house if there's a vibrant public square, you don't need a car if there's a train every 5 minutes.

Poor people’s two largest expenses are housing and transportation.Guaranteed jobs have to be somewhere. Most of them will be in big cities, because that’s where everybody is. The ones in the country will be few and far between.That means to get to your government-mandated job, you’ll either need to live in the big city or have a car. Living in the ... See more

Rich kids should go to public schools. The mayor should ride the subway to work. When wealthy people get sick, they should be sent to public hospitals. Business executives should have to stand in the same airport security lines as everyone else. The very fact that people want to buy their way out of all of these experiences points to the reason why... See more