An ex student of mine is now an FO with China Southern on the 777. he's making 15,000 RMB per month. Thats $2500 AUD. I think the days of QF salaries will draw to an end in the next decade or so.
The thing that gets lost in this argument when comparing total wages is the buying power of the wage in the country involved.
I recently went to a 711 store in Bangkok and bought a can of Heiniken, two bottles of Lipton iced tea, a small bottle of iced coffee, two pieces of banana bread and a roll of mints - the total cost was 130 Thai Baht (about $4 AUS). I imagine that it would be difficult to buy a can of Heiniken, alone, for $4 in Australia. I have no research to support this, but I reckon that Australia must currently have one of the highest costs of living in the world.
If the buying power of your US dollar is four times higher in Thailand than it is in Australia (for example), then for the same lifestyle, you only need a quarter of the wage in US dollars. I would love to see someone convert the table at the beginning of this thread to take into account the buying power of the US dollar in each of the countries mentioned, so that we had a true comparison of apples and apples.