Responding to the University of Chicago law professor-initiated discussion about who feels "rich" and "poor," and why, a reader in the US writes:

I had a remarkable conversation with a very savvy woman who lives very close to the poverty line. The fear and loathing about world travel was appalling from my perspective as a global traveler. I studied first from travel books and then on the internet most of my destinations before I arrived and was constantly astounded by the rich experience of taking myself to a foreign place. Upon returning this place was forever in my memory and I always read any mention of any country, region, city, neighborhood I visited. I learned that a short stop to change trains was better than reading about it; a half day was always a pleasure; overnight stays meant a foreign breakfast; a week meant site seeing and a month meant getting to know what time the water cart woke you up in the morning and where the best bakery was if you could find it.

The person I talked to will never experience the places I have been except when a bomb goes off in London/England/NotUSA or an earth-quake strikes Tokyo/Japan/NotUSA. The poverty of experience is the worst poverty. Lack of experience of the world NotUSA is poverty on stilts.

For another time: why almost all of my "how to fix America" plans include getting large numbers of young people outside the country for a period of months or years, so that early in life they can have experiences like those the reader describes.

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