What did Les say about America's poor compared with the world's poor?
America's lower economic level lives like millionaires compared to the poverty-stricken of the world, even while many areas still experience abject poverty and disease; the industrialized world enjoys a lifestyle of sumptuousness. This contrast highlights the sumptuousness of the western and industrialized world, including America, against global poverty.
Les explains that while many parts of the world remain in abject poverty and disease, much of the western and industrialized world, including Japan and China as it rises, lives in sumptuousness. He stresses that even America's lower economic level lives like millionaires compared with the world's poverty-stricken. He ties this to an advertising system that convinces people they must have things whether they need them or can afford them, a world system where people live deliciously and think there is no end, prompting the warning that torment and sorrow will come.