Incredibly things are just as expensive or even more so here in the South American country of Bolivia as they are in the United States. The exchange rate here is less than 7 Bolivianos to $1 (U.S.), actually, it is 6.86 Bolivianos per Dollar U.S.
Bolivia used to be one of the cheapest places to live on earth, but (thanks to globalization and austerity) the cost of living is about that the same in the U.S. but wages are not even a tenth of what they are in the States. I truly feel for the poor people here, who are about 90% of the population, that have to live on less than $2 a day. Can you imagine surviving on $60 a month or less in the States? Incredibly it CAN be done but you'd have to live with your parents and/or other family members and pool your incomes together with everyone working and contributing just to make ends meet.
Here in Bolivia poor people cannot afford to be unemployed, and that is why unemployment here is low, everybody has to work and has to contribute; no work, no eat. That is how things are done here in Bolivia.
The truly evil people are the filthy rich who have monthly incomes of over a million who insist on the globalization of their prices and services but base their salaries on 50¢ or less an hour, while they live lives of shameless luxury. The attitude of the rich disgust me because it causes so much suffering to innocent victims, and they, "the rich" feel there is nothing wrong with it, it is just business as usual.
My point of view, one that is not hypocritical, is that if a person wants to charge a fair price for a product or a service, Why not pay a fair price to your workers so they can live a decent life and not in abject poverty? However, here in Bolivia, even suggesting that notion to the rich would be utterly out of the question.
Poor people here in Bolivia are truly generous but the rich people here are some of the most stingiest people on the planet. Living here in Bolivia helps me see how the WORLD is.
The world economy generates over 100 Trillion Dollars, and that is just the income, not the value of assets or anything else. If income were evenly distributed to everyone on the planet, every individual would receive a monthly salary of over $1,200.00!!
However, we have the world where half of the wealth belongs to only 62 people, and 99% of the world's income goes to only 1% of the population!
There has never been so much money ever in history and world production has never been greater, due to technology, and this is true even if you consider it on a per capita basis, yet we let people starve to death and even deliberately do so for political and economic reasons. It blows my mind!