Hello all.
I like this sideways action just below the ATH, it helps the moving averages going up, and isn't too stressful.
I know many here are from the US, and from many sources I'm reading about I get the impression the cost of living there, at least in big cities, is crazy. With people earning 100K$ saying they're poor, must live with parents etc. And women asked about the income of potential mates in the street saying below 200K or 300K they won't talk to you.
Yet I see the average salary in the US is 60K. And even looking at jobs offerings in the US, in my field where I make about that salary in France (estimated, because there are a lot of taxes and contributions between what my company pays and what I get at the other end...), I don't see offers that high, maybe 80K, with a lot of responsibilites, experience, a long list of tasks...
How do people get to earn 200K in a salaried job, are they all managers of big teams, or stars in their fields ? Sometimes I come across people on youtube earning crazy amounts while seeming to be very dumb (not talking about selling their bodies or being influencers either), it's a bit frustrating.
My two cents:
A lot of it is purely down to luck to where you are born.
Despite huge differences between rich and poor many middle - upper class people in the US, work in a field which can leverage the US' primary fiat reserve currency of the world position well.
The US was historically positioned well over the last several hundred years for it to become the holders of the primary reserve currency.
The declaration of independence went hand in hand with the separation of church and state (which was already happening under British rule), whilst the rest of the world has since wasted enormous energy and lives following imbecile dictators, moronic socialist experiments and atrocious backwards religious nonsense (many still do).
A free capitalist society with minimal government and religious interference (or at least checks and bounds being in place) has shown to be the best environment for family units to thrive in.
Often countries outside of the US have only done well when selling their resources (whether its energy or its labour force) for dollars.
It's questionable however whether the US' debt ridden backing over the last several decades can keep the primary reserve currency position in place. Many challenges that brought previous empires (Roman / British) down appear to be flourishing: immigration / invasion, corruption, fracturing centralist rule.
Things seem to be somewhat unravelling and political division that we have seen only elsewhere seem to be taking stronger hold in the US now.
I personally think some of the division we now see is also coming about exactly because many are replacing religion (since its going out of fashion - rightly so) with politics.
And of course politics is NOT separated from state/government.
Some can see this and the potential dangers that may lie ahead, and probably why Bitcoin exists. Minimal corruption possible.