Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 January 19

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January 19

Similar lifestyle in different countries

How can I compare living in USA vs India. Would someone in US getting salary of 100 USD be considered richer than someone getting salary of 7400 INR (1 USD = 74 INR). Similarly, would someone US person having net worth of 1 million USD be richer than indian person having 74 million INR? I assume that I am wrong and exchange rate (74) is not to be used in such cases but then by what method can I compare. -- 2409:4043:2E04:31B1:C94E:34DF:BC34:A8ED (talk) 11:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• Purchasing power parity is one possible measure of this sort. --Jayron32 11:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Numbeo and other sites attempt to compare the cost of living in different cities. Their methodologies may be better or worse. Keep in mind that the cost of living varies across the US and across India. For your actual question, Numbeo US vs India. --Error (talk) 18:54, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

It’s important to know the purpose of the comparison. For example, if a US executive (or student) is being assigned to India, the company is very likely to take the different costs of living into account when calculating expatriate benefits. DOR (HK) (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

If we look at the question, the OP seems to be asking about perceptions of wealth and poverty. Purchasing power parity and comparisons of cost of living is interesting, but perceptions about wealth/poverty is actually more subjective. It seems like the OP wants to know if the same discrepancy between perceptions of 100 USD vs. 7400 INR and perceptions of 1 million USD vs. 74 million INR. The short answer is to the OP's question, is 'no'. A person earning 100 USD daily in the US (which would be below the average daily earnings of a supermarket employee, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/08/fifteen-dollar-wage/ ) would generally not be considered a wealthy person in the US. In India, a salary of 2.2 million INR yearly (presuming 7,400 daily, 25 working days a month, 12 months) would, per this statistic https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/india , place you in the top 22% of salaries in the country (albeit, trust these statistics carefully). The social status of a person with an annual earnings of 2.2 million INR yearly would be very different from that of a supermarket employee in the US. --Soman (talk) 19:40, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

[OP:] Thank you, all of you. I asked this question just to get idea about this perception of wealth. So, now can I say that equivalent salary of 100 USD is around 2000 INR (using -72.89% according to numbeo comparison linked above) and that the net worth of 1 million USD is equivalent to 26 million INR (using -65.20% in numbeo). I can't say about net worth thing but for me the 2000 INR still seems very high. I think a supermarket employee would only get around 400 INR. So why this huge difference? Also tell whether the net worth calculation is correct or not? -- 2409:4043:2E1C:2D42:188B:2620:978B:98CC (talk) 11:14, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Bill Gates

According to the articles Bill Gates and Bill Gates Sr., not only is Bill Gates the Microsoft founder's full name William Henry Gates, so were the names of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. So why is he William Henry Gates III and not William Henry Gates IV? JIP | Talk 14:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

The ordinals aren't used consistently. Sometimes, "senior" is the eldest living person by that name. So they change when someone dies. I think these days people use them more like the royals do; so that the third will remain the third in the future. Temerarius (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Everyone gets to decide what their own name is. Not everyone uses ordinals, or Jr/Sr/ or even uses them consistently. As one historical example that often confuses people, check out the history of the Quincy family of Massachusetts. You'll notice that there are 5 different "Josiah Quincy" in 4 generations. Josiah Quincy Jr. is the son of Josiah Quincy III. Why? Who knows. That's how they each decided to handle their names. There are no rules or laws that are enforced here. You are who you want to be, and you get to tell other people what they should call you. --Jayron32 13:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Anyway, from what I've heard from time to time, numerals after the name may have been confined to relatively small social groups in the U.S. before the mid-20th century, while "Jr." and "Sr." were widely used (probably more than they are today). For another perspective, all males born into the German princely family of Reuss-Gera are named "Heinrich", which results in individuals such as Heinrich LXVII, Prince Reuss Younger Line... AnonMoos (talk) 10:48, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

British MP crossing the aisle

ABC News just ran a segment about yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, talking about David Davis criticising Johnson over the COVID party at Downing Street. If I understood correctly, a government MP also crossed the aisle and joined Labour. Who was it, or did I misunderstand? 122.150.71.249 (talk) 20:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Christian Wakeford, see here for more details. Mikenorton (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Crossing the floor is the usual terminology. Alansplodge (talk) 12:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)