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Social Comparisons

December 19th, 2006 at 03:57 pm

Ever wonder how much money the average Canadian, American, Japanese, etc make?

Ever wonder about the average amount of credit card debt each person carries in your country?

What about the average personal debt? And the amount of cash in one's pocket/wallet?

What about the average number of credit cards that each person has? How about bank cards?

What is the average networth by age? and what about the average mortgage size and term?

Social Comparisons can be fun and also depressing. The question is, where are the data? Where can I find the answers to my questions? Does anyone know?

Has anyone else been as curious as I am? Why do we lack such info? I've spent the past hour searching on the web for some kind of money stats page, but I have been unsuccessful.

Hmm..maybe no one else cares..

Posted in General Inspirations | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “Social Comparisons”

  1. miclason Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 03:59 pm 1166543974
    1166543974

    maybe everyone else is just too scared to do that!

  2. tinapbeana Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 04:15 pm 1166544948
    1166544948

    while i think it's true a lot of folks don't care, i think the info is also made scarce for pseudo-political reasons. say we all find out that Umboslovekia has the lowest rates of personal debt combined with the highest rates of personal savings and overall networth (standardized of course for cost of living). we'd all say WOW, right? way to go Umboslovekia!

    but then we start wondering what their government is doing ours/yours isn't. not what THEY'RE doing, or how their CULTURE might lead to this phenomenon, but what the GOVERNMENT does that leads to this.

    we want to believe that all humans are created equal (and they are) and that all cultures are created equal (but they're not). some cultures emphasize different values, and as a result those cultures will sometimes have different monetary trends. but we want to believe all cultures are created equal even if they're not, so if Umboslovekia is doing so darn well then their government must have played a part, as opposed to their culture. if their government can do it (which it didn't) then our/your government can too (but obviously it can't).

    as a result, our/your government gets a flack about why we're not doing as well financially as Umboslovekia. the governments learned their lesson with the whole 'which country has the best education system' fiasco, and i don't think they're gonna make this kind of fiscal comparison all that easy to do.

  3. princessperky Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 04:32 pm 1166545952
    1166545952

    Err, maybe the trouble is the cure isn't Umboslovekias government, but its people.....

    you see such and such statistic, and think what is the Umboslovekian govt doing so right? and the real question is what is the average umboslovekian PERSON doing right?

  4. StressLess Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 04:39 pm 1166546355
    1166546355

    I'm curious, too, and don't have time right now to research it. Maybe on a long winter evening, after the holidays.

    I did read something recently about how in Europe, they use debit cards much more heavily that we do here, and use credit cards less. I also came across an interesting type of account, I think in Scotland, that we don't seem to have here in the U.S. It was a credit card, but you could pay extra on it and build a credit balance which earned interest. In other words, with the same card you could run up debt OR debit your "savings account." I wonder how common that is around the world.

  5. sarah Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 05:00 pm 1166547602
    1166547602

    Much of this data is available through the U.S. census. For example the average American Family earns about 43,000 a year.

  6. tinapbeana Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 05:01 pm 1166547697
    1166547697

    Err, maybe the trouble is the cure isn't Umboslovekias government, but its people.....

    you see such and such statistic, and think what is the Umboslovekian govt doing so right? and the real question is what is the average umboslovekian PERSON doing right?
    that was exactly my point, perky Big Grin the gut reaction is to ask what such & such gov't does to make such success possible, when in fact it is the culture/norms of a society that drives the results

  7. threebeansalad Says:
    December 19th, 2006 at 06:13 pm 1166552007
    1166552007

    Credit cards and debit cards are virtually non-existant in many developing countries- even among the middle class. My cousin from Ukraine stayed with my parents for 3 months this summer. He had a part-time job so my mother held a joint bank account with him that provided him with a Debit card. He LOVED the concept but had never seen such a thing before. I'm not sure if this was due to his age (19) or inexperience, but he did have trouble using the account responsibillity and keeping things balanced. When I traveled in Ukraine the only place I was abe to use my cerdit card was in large stores in Kiev... no place else accepted them.

    Between-country comparisons are difficult also due to the variance in govt provided social services and penions. It would be interesting to see such data, though.

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