If I were to take the amount of money I make here in the United States, it is a massive amount of money compared to the living wage in the Philippines. But it wouldn’t be enough to make up the difference in what I would be giving up. That is because of the huge gap between the rich and the poor in the Philippines that there is very little “middle ground.” You have to be incredibly rich, even by Western standards, to truly live “as a king” in the Philippines.

In terms of the cost of living, food expenses, and hiring manual labor, those come dirt cheap. But real estate is still expensive, even in the Philippines, and especially in metropolitan areas where businesses thrive.

Even though my dollars would stretch farther in the Philippines, I don’t make enough to live in a decent condo in a decent neighborhood in Manila compared to my suburban house and yard here in the United States.

Regarding outsourcing, why why do you think that an individual would rather live a middle class life in a first world country than a life of affluence in their home country? I would expect the opposite, in fact: that one would rather stay near one’s family and friends, living “as a king”.