Yes, but German society is structured to require much less energy, just as Dutch society is structured to use much less land.

If you put Germans whose lives function in a US-style, even just getting to work will be a huge drag.

Misery depends on the structure of society. Here in Sweden I can walk to work. This means that I'm spending zero money on travel to work, and that my travel to work contributes $0 to Swedish GDP. But this is actually better than if Swedish GDP were higher and I was traveling by car.

This is one way in which GDP can be extremely misleading.

Per Wikipedia, in 2018:

* Median household income in Mississippi: $44,717

* Median wage in Germany: €5,370 per month, equals $73,565.

So even the individual median wage in Germany is more than 50% higher than the median household income in Mississippi.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

This doesn't actually seem to be true based on a quick googling, i.e. Germany has somewhat higher median income.

But in addition to the raw numbers, you have to keep in mind that they don't account for cost of living and that different countries account for various services differently, especially health care.

This just demonstrates that there is something wrong with the statistics.

Okay and what exactly do you get for that income? What are the material outcomes for having a "higher" income than Germany? Because I know very few people that would openly choose to live in Mississippi versus Germany.