Just looked at the latest cost of living data and it's wild how Swiss cities completely dominate. Zurich, Geneva, and Basel basically occupy the top spots for most expensive cities in the world - like, Zurich is sitting at 112.5 on the index, which means it's about 12.5% pricier than New York. And New York is already expensive at 100. The whole top six is just Switzerland. All six.

What's interesting is how the ranking works. They use NYC as the baseline with 100 points, then compare everyday stuff like housing, food, transportation, utilities. So if a city scores 112, you're paying roughly 12% more than Manhattan. If it's 60, you're getting 40% off. Makes sense when you think about it.

Beyond Switzerland, you've got the US cities showing up - New York obviously, but also Honolulu at 94.4, San Francisco at 90.7. Apparently tech demand is driving a lot of that housing cost spike in California. Then there's Norway with Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen all scattered through the list. Singapore and Tel Aviv round out the expensive cities in the world category for Asia and Middle East.

The salaries in these places are actually pretty insane too. Zurich averages around CHF 7,000 to 9,000 monthly, which is roughly $7,900 to $10,170. That's wild. So yeah, living there costs more, but you're also making significantly more. Europe basically owns this ranking, which kind of tells you everything about where the wealth is concentrated right now.