The US is especially expensive, that's a bad comparison. Germany too is not exactly cheap. Recently (the last four years or so) Taiwan too has become more expensive and I think one day the lack of affordable housing for new buyers etc may cause serious problems. But until then it's way cheaper than the US. Or go to Japan: Living is not cheap in the big cities, but outside it's very different. A few USians are buying houses in Japan now and find ways to move there.

And talking of cheaper: The big cities in the PRC are in several ways more expensive than Taiwan now...

Is our quality of life really better than Chinese?

I don't know, you're the one who is dissatisfied. Speak for yourself.

An interesting exercise is to calculate what the average income of a nation will buy the current things we have.

The propaganda in the USA is rather rich and many enjoy the positive light in their hunger capitalism creates

My only opinion is that capitalism in the US is woefully unregulated. So I think it is a mistake to make claims like this meme does. It's not capitalism that is at fault, but the current form of governance is - you know, citizens united, corrupt lobbyists and representatives, monopolies that create high rents and so on.

But it is our own voters who elect bad leadership that create these problems.

Complaining about the rich is looking backwards. Better to look forward and improve governance that fixes wealth inequality.

If you aren't born into wealth, your only capital is your labor

That's only part of the story. Most successful people are not born into wealth. Just about anyone with gumption can achieve a good life in the west. Perhaps you are thinking of Royalty or Casts or other cultures.

True, but not because of capitalism as a economic system.

This whole topic is way out of my depths, but didn't china begin to prosper once they introduced capitalism into their economic system?

My point is to quit making capitalism the scapegoat for US dysfunction and focus on what's really the cause.