My family's salary was $200 a month
I hear this shit and I think about my grocery bill today, in America. Like, what could you buy for $200/mo in Ukraine in 2004? What was rent? What was a month's worth of electricity?
Like, never even mind Communism v Capitalism. Americans have no clue how bad they have it, because there's always some guy on the other side of the planet living a depressingly normal existence on 1/10th of the salary you need to get by in the States. It looks fucking hellish on paper, but when you're living in the literal bread-basket of Europe its surprisingly easy to fill up your shopping cart when you compare it to some college kid who blows that same $200 at Whole Foods on dry pasta and laundry detergent.