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Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

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Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#61

Post by burfog »

throwawayjava wrote: post #59
burfog wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did have jobs. What happened? Undo that. It should be even easier now, given that a little remote office can be easily connected to the rest of the world.

> What happened? Undo that. 1. the construction of interstates and airports that routed around old railroad/highway towns. 2. The green revolution. Agriculture became much more efficient, productive, centralized, and automated. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_Stat... 3. Resource extraction running its course. 4. Efficiency improvements in manufacturing and resource extraction. The amount o…

You reasons mostly date to the era from 1910 to 1960. The era from 1960 to 2010 matters too, and that is more about outsourcing.

The USA already subsidizes airport service for these locations. Increasing that might be worthwhile. The same goes for good internet connections and many other services. It's like the rural electrification done a century ago.

The schools are sometimes better than the urban ones. Often there are pros and cons that could be considered to even out. We can expand Teach for America if need be, but I think things are mostly fine already.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#62

Post by craftyguy »

joefranklinsrs wrote: post #5
lovich wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy is growing but it doesn't appear to actually be flowing back into most citizens pockets. The unemployment rate is very low but wages aren't rising. Anecdotally, I am seeing more help wanted signs on retail and restaurants near me, but my friends who work those jobs are moving _farther_ away from work due to increasing rent without increasing pay. That doesn't seem sustainable

Could you link something that supports your opinion? As for me: US consumer confidence surges in August to 18 year high. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/29/us-economy-... . Consumers wouldn't be spending if they didn't have extra cash in their pocket, and they expect the economy to stagnate/decline

> Consumers wouldn't be spending if they didn't have extra cash in their pocket

The entire credit industry would beg to differ.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#63

Post by grandmczeb »

mrep wrote: post #40
purplezooey wrote: post #32

The challenge of the next 10 years will be housing. We are not building nearly enough. A fraction of what we need even to slow price growth. We still have these quaint subdivisions built in the 60s and 70s full of nimbyism and voting down all development. We need a big move here.

The only area that I am aware of that has that problem is the bay area. Yeah, you guys are fucked but every other city that I am aware of is aggressively building to supply demand for housing.

Take a look at this paper[1] for actual data on different cities respond to demand (table VI). Bay Area cities are all in the top 10 of least elastic, but there are a number of other cities with a similar level (the authors specifically call out NYC, Boston, and LA as examples of low elasticities translating into higher prices).

[1] http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Economics/Faculty/Matthew_T...

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#64

Post by grandmczeb »

throwawayjava wrote: post #54
mrep wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only area that I am aware of that has that problem is the bay area. Yeah, you guys are fucked but every other city that I am aware of is aggressively building to supply demand for housing.

Boston, NYC, and DC are all similarly fucked. Not as bad, but not good... Part of the problem is that a lot of wage growth is concentrated in areas that are experiencing a housing crunch.

> Part of the problem is that a lot of wage growth is concentrated in areas that are experiencing a housing crunch.

This is actually a really good point. There's actually a great paper that covers how much higher housing prices have hurt growth due to workers being discouraged from moving to high productivity areas[1]. The tl;dr is that if only NYC, SF, and San Jose adopted the land uses restrictions of a median US city, GDP would be about 9% higher (about $8,775 per worker assuming the labor share of GDP and number of workers doesn't change).

[1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w21154.pdf

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#65

Post by user1324345 »

dang wrote: post #20
user1324345 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Please do not post partisan flamebait to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Apparently facts are "partisan flamebait". I would be happy to write an NLP bot that parses your moderation and exposes political bias on this website. Consider an experiment where I post biases from either side, recording your respective responses and A/B test this websites moderation.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#66

Post by [deleted] »

user1324345 wrote: post #65
dang wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not post partisan flamebait to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Apparently facts are "partisan flamebait". I would be happy to write an NLP bot that parses your moderation and exposes political bias on this website. Consider an experiment where I post biases from either side, recording your respective responses and A/B test this websites moderation.

[deleted]

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#67

Post by tootie »

refurb wrote: post #27
tootie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage data is well-tracked and is shown to be growing more slowly than inflation. It's possible the high growth in nominal wages are engendering some good feelings, but actual purchasing power is dropping. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/07/12/i...

What you should be looking at is total compensation. Wages plus non-wage benefits. It’s been growing over the last few decades and out pacing inflation. The down side is a lot of that is medical insurance where most people don’t see a benefit from the higher expenditure.

If medical costs go up, that factors in to inflation.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#68

Post by austhrow743 »

mikeash wrote: post #55
austhrow743 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're still getting paid it.

If it doesn’t make you better off, what’s the point?

If paying more for medical care isn't getting you better medical care, making you being better off, then the problem is elsewhere. Not stagnant income.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#69

Post by mikeash »

austhrow743 wrote: post #68
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it doesn’t make you better off, what’s the point?

If paying more for medical care isn't getting you better medical care, making you being better off, then the problem is elsewhere. Not stagnant income.

The ultimate point here is that economic gains aren’t improving things for the average person. The exact reason for that is secondary.

Re: Second-quarter US GDP growth revised up to 4.2 percent on software, trade

#70

Post by dragonwriter »

liftbigweights wrote: post #53
joefranklinsrs wrote: post #2

I haven't seen US economy this versatile and powerful in a long time, maybe since the 80s. This economy is diversified - manufacturing jobs used to be 32% in the 60s, now it is around 9% currently, but it is growing fast this year. We now have new jobs in every sectors growing, from finance (NY), college (Boston), healthcare (east coast), government (Washington DC), entertainment (Los Angeles), oil and gas (Texas), i…

There is a lot you can criticize Trump about but what he has done with the economy deserves a lot of credit. Just 3 or 4 years ago, economists were saying that we would never see 4% growth ever again and that 1 to 2% growth was the new normal.

> Just 3 or 4 years ago, economists were saying that we would never see 4% growth ever again and that 1 to 2% growth was the new normal.

No, they generally weren't, and any who were saying that we'd never see a quarter of 4% annualized growth rate four years ago (i.e., between the Q2 and Q3 releases of 2014) was especially silly.

US GDP growth by quarter for 2014:

Q1: -1% Q2: +5.1% Q3: +4.9% Q4: +1.9%

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