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Are You Richer Than Japanese People?
Foreign visitors always say "Everything is expensive in Japan". I agree them but it does not mean that I think we are rich. The point that should be considered is the ratio of the prices of things to our income. I think the Japanese personnel is most expensive in the world, and it makes the price of things higher. So we need much money to live and the personnel goes up...it goes around in circles.
I happened on the list of the prices of BigMac in the world, and made the program below. Select your country from the list box then the price of BigMac and average yearly income of your country will be displayed. The amount of income is based on the GDP per capita of each country. (These are not equal though)
And the percentage of BigMac price in your income will be also displayed. This is important. As for Japan, this ratio was 0.0083. The ratio of this number to the Japanese one will be indicated at the rightest column. If this number is larger than 1.0, relatively, the BigMac of your country is more expensive than Japan. And if you are happy with the price, probably you are richer than the average Japanese people.
However, man shall not live by BigMac alone. So I also made the next table. This shows the ratio of the prices of various things to our income. (Oh my god, it takes 11 years or more for us to buy a house even if we didn't buy anything else!)
Japanese average yearly income (GDP per capita) 3,102,000 yen| item | price (yen) | price/yearly income(%) | price/monthly income(%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| indipendent house | 35,000,000 | 1128.3043 | 13539.6518 |
| room rent per month (1 room plus kitchen) | 70,000 | 2.2566 | 27.0793 |
| room rent per month (2 rooms plus dining room and kitchen) | 108,000 | 3.4816 | 41.7795 |
| beer (330ml bottle) | 190 | 0.0061 | 0.0735 |
| coffee | 300 | 0.0097 | 0.1161 |
| coca-cola (350ml can) | 120 | 0.0039 | 0.0464 |
| t-shirt (plain white) | 1,000 | 0.0322 | 0.3868 |
| TV (32inch) | 150,000 | 4.8356 | 58.0271 |
| the lowest rail fare | 130 | 0.0042 | 0.0503 |
| postage (letter) | 80 | 0.0026 | 0.0309 |
| movie ticket | 1,800 | 0.0580 | 0.6963 |
| gas (1 liter) | 110 | 0.0035 | 0.0426 |
