Great Moments in Economics

So NPR's program "Market Place" is doing a series on The New American Dream. Basically it's about how the American Dream (home, car, 2.5 kids) is happening or not happening in other countries. They seem to be focusing on car and home ownership. Yesterday was China and we learned that there isn't enough room to have suburbs, much less homes in them for all the people there and that even if money weren't an issue that many folks driving cars would be a disaster.

Today was India. The guy they had on was great. Now you'll have to imagine the lilting Indian accent as he responded to the question of car ownership in India. "The wealthiest top 5% will follow the American idea of having a car as a status symbol. The next 10% will want to have that and work towards it. The remaining 70% don't have a chance in Hell." I had to laugh.

To me it really does seem silly and of course ethnocentric to try to apply a cliched American goal to the rest of the world. Why would they want the same things we do? Their economies are different, goals are different and opportunities are different. Perhaps that is what this series is pointing out, because it really does seem unusually naive for this program.