What is take to live in Malaysia?

 It is a risky business living in Malaysia. Kian Guan Tay's answer to How safe is Malaysia?

Cost of medication is a fraction of American but reason to admit into hospital may be a few times more than America. Life expectancy is lower and crime rate is higher in Malaysia.

The wrong view of cost of living by merely compare from item to item is naïve. Peace, safety, security and health come with cost and all this is embedded into prices in developed country.

An economy savy person would weight GDP per capita, GINI& Purchasing power. I'm not an economist however when you comparing property price of New York per square foot is 4-5 times of the same in Kuala Lumpur CBD but compare to median income, people in New York earn $32,320 whereas people in Kuala Lumpur only $2,609 which is 12.7 times higher thus people in New York is having higher affordability for property ownership than Malaysia.

This is if you compare with New York, America most expensive city. There are many city in US better than Kuala Lumpur with much lower living cost. This is even more important if you like to travel because person with higher purchasing power and disposable income will enjoy more and have better purchasing power parity (PPP)over others when traveling to different country. for example, a medium income American may afford to dine in high-end restaurant in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and China without feeling the pinch as painful as a medium incomer from Malaysia.

One must also consider safety index, crime rate, education quality, food hygiene &safety, building quality, ease of doing business, worker union, religion, employment protection, LGBT friendliness, business opportunity and pollution. Everyone have different priority.

You may want to buy the same item cheaper but you might not live a full life as happy, healthy and free as in America. This is apply universally, not just target on Malaysia. Developing country like Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sudan , Laos, Cambodia, and Vanuatu is cheaper in living cost but people generally don't feel safe, secure and enjoy the hygienity in developed country. Corruption is rampant and this lead to a string of problem from fake food that cause cancer to gangsterism, poor infrastructure and poor building standard and law enforcement that had taken unnecessary death toll.