Simon and I were walking to class today and we started to talk about cars. He started to to talk about how there seems to be very wealthy people here and poor people, and no middle class. I sort of agree with him, it really depends on how you’re making the distinctions. There certainly is a Yemeni middle class, but in comparison to America’s middle class, they are really poor. The people that are considered “poor” in the US would compare very well to the middle class here. Similarly, the ones that seem rich here don’t hold a candle to the rich back home… The upshot is that we Americans have more money, that’s no surprise. The real surprise, and one that is reinforced every day that I am here, is that our “poor” aren’t doing too badly. Discounting the drug addicts and schizophrenics on the streets, our “poor” live much better than many, if not most, of the people in the world. Almost all of South America, Africa, and Asia have much more serious poverty issues than the US. It struck me today that I no longer really worry too much about our poor back home because they just don’t seem that poor to me anymore. Income inequality is not a problem, absolute income is…
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