[Obadiah]

Outside of taxes, nothing too surprising here. Of note, Americans spend about 13% of their income on food. This is probably among the lowest, if not the lowest, percentage of income of any nation on the planet.

Second, and of interest, is that the wealthy spend a lot more on insurance as they must protect the greater amount that they have. Also, the wealthy spend more on entertainment because I presume they both have the resources for more exotic type of entertainment experiences and they likely have far more leisure time than the common working stiff.

[1010RD]

Spot on and if we were to eliminate crop subsidies you’d see an exponential growth in effective farm management. Even so, yields continue to rise as technology makes farming more effective.

The next big drop in costs should have been housing, but zoning laws and building codes block that. If housing fell just 10% in cost that would be an enormous break to the average family.