Nothing will happen if the comparison is the US, everyone here knows Americans have money and yet somehow seem to struggle even more.

In the ways that matter politically (PPP/capita not nominal), the change to the ratio is noise:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp%20ppp%2Fcapita%20us...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp%20ppp%2Fcapita%20us...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp%20ppp%2Fcapita%20us...

What can matter is comparisons with our own past, our own present. We don't want 60k American SUVs, they don't fit on our roads anyway; but we do want a clement home and easy transport, and may very well blame our leaders for oil shocks caused by America attacking Iran.

Upvote if you too, a 'poor' European, would rather stay on this side of the Atlantic.

> The NHS launders money the indebted government doesn’t have into terrible health outcomes. This feels like a benefit because it conceals from patients the true cost of their care, while its shortcomings relative to other countries are noticeable only to policy nerds. That’s how most of Europe’s welfare states work.

The UK has less debt than the US and much better average health outcomes, while spending less on health per capita. This is just intellectually dishonest framing of how welfare systems work, ironically in a piece about comparative poverty.