This means China isn't happy at all. They need to fake that 7.0% growth every year for eternity, even though everyone knows it's all fake data, and most likely they're not even growing.
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Happy nations don't focus on growth
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#12> Policymakers should care more about happiness inequality rather than mere income inequality. Policymakers are probably very concerned with happiness. Their own ;-)
They are probably very correlated
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#13I read a similar things a few weeks ago. They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I'm guessing it was saying this is the cause of crazy inequality and "the jobless recovery."
I'm not sure I buy all of it (the U.S. wasn't really a world power prior to the world wars, so they'd be dismissing that and other gains if it was their whole premise), but like this article, something to think about.
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#14The nations mentioned are some of the most advanced in the world, and their lower-than-world-average GDP growth is being used to show that "it's not all about wealth". I don't think this article makes a very good point.
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#15Although I'd have to poke around for the specific sources, I've read papers that showed that, in fact, subjective well-being increases continuously with wealth (per capita GDP). However, the increase is not linear, but rather logistic--which makes intuitive sense, since a $5,000 pay raise for an employee making $25,000 a year isn't the same as for one making $100,000. On the other hand, I've also read that the increase in wealth past the much-referenced $75,000 level doesn't significantly increase emotional well-being (unconscious positive/negative feelings).
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#16I read a similar things a few weeks ago. They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I'm guessing it was saying this is the cause of crazy inequality and "the jobless recovery." I'm not sure I buy all of it (the U.S. wasn't really a world power prior to the world wars, so they'd be di…
That's somewhat misleading in 1800 the US population hit ~5.24 million vs England's ~9.2 million, it had more than doubled over the prior 30 years. Economically and Militarily England was much further ahead. But, unlike Europe the US's wars of conquest and genocide where mostly vs the Native Americans. Consider, Ohio only joined the Union in 1803.
By 1870 the US GDP PPP(98,374) was at near parity with the UK (100,180). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P... and had a slightly larger population.
Around the mid 1800's the US was clearly a world power, but in the way Germany is today. Big enough to have real impact, but not a super power.
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#17Shadowban test
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#18This means China isn't happy at all. They need to fake that 7.0% growth every year for eternity, even though everyone knows it's all fake data, and most likely they're not even growing.
What makes you think China's growth is fake?
It is somewhat fake. Digging a hole and filling it shows up on GDP statistics even though it is pointless and adds no real wealth to the population. Chinese growth is a lot like this. A lot of production for the sake of production. They tend to have overproduction in many sectors. So they their GDP growth is made up of a lot of stuff nobody is demanding. Of course this kills profits, but since China had capital controls investors can't move their money elsewhere.
This is why Chinese growth is considered unbalanced. Also a great example of the stupidity of obsessing about GDP numbers.
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#19The nations mentioned are some of the most advanced in the world, and their lower-than-world-average GDP growth is being used to show that "it's not all about wealth". I don't think this article makes a very good point.
Exactly. This is a classic case of a confounding variable. The happiest nations are also the richest ones. The richest ones have lower growth than developing nations precisely because they are the richest: developing nations can achieve growth by increasing their literacy rates, building infrastructure, and making other capital expenditures (e.g. farming equipment, high-tech machines for factories). The richest ones already have all of that, so their growth needs to come from elsewhere.
Re: Happy nations don't focus on growth
#20I read a similar things a few weeks ago. They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I'm guessing it was saying this is the cause of crazy inequality and "the jobless recovery." I'm not sure I buy all of it (the U.S. wasn't really a world power prior to the world wars, so they'd be di…
What use is power if it doesn't make you or your descendants happy?
How is being a world power a gain, if, by doing it, you sacrifice the very tenets that your country was founded on?
What use is power if it begins the process of curtailing freedoms and privacy for the minorities and majority (respectively), all the while aggravating the problem by funding problematic groups (causing a feedback loop)?