After about a month of traveling through Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, we are headed back to the states tonight. It was a fascinating trip in so many ways. We spent the bulk of our time in Chile, and that's a country that is simultaneously rich and poor.
The US typically ranks in the top-10 for GDP per capita measured at purchasing power parity. (PPP tries to factor in the cost of living.) Most of the states ranked ahead of the US are city states like Singapore or Monaco or close to it like Liechtenstein and Qatar. Only Norway and Switzerland have higher GDP/capita and have larger populations - and even then, they are relatively small. All of this is to say that America is a really rich country.
Chile ranks at 59, beneath Russia, Bulgaria and Trinidad and Tobago. Uruguay a few spots lower at 62, Argentina lower at 65. All of this makes these countries fairly rich by South American standards. What's interesting is that Chile has roughly the same wealth inequality as the US, but with much lower overall income. Using the World Bank's GINI coefficient, the US ranks 108th with a GINI number of 39.8 (1 is perfect equality, 100 perfect inequality). Argentina's GINI number is 42. So they are both poorer and less equal than the US. Chile, which had years of neoliberal economics, has a GINI number of 44.9. That's starting to be "bad". Uruguay is closer to the US at 40.8.
So we saw some real poverty on our trip, though largely from the window of our car. We saw the same homelessness issue that we see in America. What was most striking was that we saw a very industrious population in all three countries, and yet one thing that stood out was the size of homes.
This is a major feature of American wealth that we only sometimes talk about. Our homes are pretty damned big. In southern Chile, we saw large tracts of cookie cutter single family homes. If I had to guess, I'd say they were probably smaller than 1500 square feet. Given the uniformity of them, they were probably built during one of Chile's intermittent socialist governments. We also saw structures barely better than shanties that seemed to be the main form of housing.
Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Santiago are huge, wealthy cities. I'm writing this from the wealthy section of Santiago ("Sanhattan") and even here, you can tell that a lot of apartments are pretty small. Really Manhattan itself would seem to be a comparison.
These three countries are fairly wealthy in the global scheme of things (outside of the US/Japan/Europe axis), yet there is still something that would strike most American visitors. Of course, it's a great place to visit because you can have a luxurious dinner for two with drinks that costs almost half of what it costs in the states. (That's what PPP measures.)
The final metric is the Human Development Index. It looks beyond wealth at life expectancy, education and social equality. This is where the US trails Europe (and Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan). We rank 21st (opioids have not been kind to us). Chile is tied with Qatar at 42; Argentina is at 47, Uruguay - surprisingly to me - is at 58. There are 191 countries on the list. So...pretty good.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this.
I suppose that it's the nature of travel. On the one hand, we've learned so much about how there are different ways to organize a society and "do things". By American standards, the traffic laws are pretty lax, but drivers are exceptionally careful and skilled - by necessity. We drained that from our roads by giving people massive SUVs to drive. Dogs roam the streets and are largely taken care of by the neighborhood. Crime happens, yet it's rarely violent. Family seems SO important here, and children are both adorable and well-behaved - a sure sign they are deeply loved and attended to.
Yet, for all the wonderful things we have seen and done, I'm looking forward to home. Even if it means I'm getting 3 hours of sleep tonight.
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