UK can be a strange place. We went to Farm Foods the other day which, if you don't know, is a proper bargain basement supermarket; in Pentwyn in Cardiff which is similarly a pretty low-end suburb. There were several Audis and BMWs in the car park. Ok so they weren't new, but it's still a bit of a paradox.
Outside of poverty the average comfortable US middle class has considerably more spending power than the UK
This is a bit of a complex area not least because the term 'middle class' has a completely different meaning in the US. It apples only to income, and it means the gap between actually poor and actually rich, which is quite big.
In the very typical mid-west small town in which I have spent quite a bit of time, there are lots of people with snowmobiles or quad bikes in their garages, and lots of people have cabins to go to, hot tubs and similar expensive items. But this is just displaced spending in a lot of cases. Most people never travel anywhere, they don't take a family holiday at all, and during the summer they are driving out to a lake for a day a few times. They also aren't spending as much on cars, as far as I can tell, and a fraction of the cost on housing which is very cheap indeed.
Yes, you arrange health insurance, but beyond a certain level it’s not a huge issue
I wouldn't say that. Health insurance is very expensive. You might get it as part of your professional job, but it only goes so far and you still have to pay out a lot even if you're covered. Your $500/mo insurance only gets you say $100k of cover, which in US hospitals does not go far at all. And it doesn't cover having kids either, so if you get pregnant you're down $10k even if nothing goes wrong.
Rich old people and poor young people.
Again, generalisations - we have plenty of pensioners living in poverty.
Poor young people tends to come with being young and not having built up any wealth, be that cash, property, possessions. Our inheritance system though is a mess, and it's driving more wealth into the hands of fewer people. Renting means people pay landlords through out their life concentrating the wealth. We should be actively making home ownership easier and more affordable but instead the government seems to be hell bent on increasing the costs which lock even more people out of being able to hold onto some of their wealth.
The USA is 50 third world countries sat on each others shoulders, wearing a trench coat.
that’s a great description of America. It’s the most third world first world country.