Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 528 posts

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#101

Post by Gareth321 »

jhbadger wrote: post #66
swalling wrote: post #17

”Average incomes have grown much faster than in western Europe or Japan. Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France.” The article casually dismisses the counterpoint that the US trades high income for a lower social safety net. The average French person has a life expectancy of 82. In Mississippi it’s 74.9, on par with Lithuania. Even Vietnam…

Life expectancy figures are misleading though. Many people take it to mean "this is how long an average elderly person is likely to live" but is an average of all ages at death meaning more young people dying brings down the number. As the article mentions, the primary cause for lower American life expectancy isn't that its old people are dying younger but rather the violence and drug epidemics causing more young peo…

I don't see the substantive distinction in this context. If people are being murdered at higher rates in the U.S., this lends weight to the argument that America is doing something wrong, socially, compared to France.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#102

Post by safety1st »

non- wrote: post #6

> The flexibility of the labour market helps employment adapt to shifting patterns of demand. Already many of the workers in America who were laid off from Alphabet and other tech firms at the start of the year are applying their sought-after skills elsewhere, or setting up their own businesses. In continental Europe, by contrast, tech firms are still negotiating lay-offs, and may think twice about hiring there in fu…

Labor laws in various countries tend to push companies toward one end or the other of a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is hire fast/fire fast, the other is hire slow/fire slow. The US is very much toward the hire fast/fire fast end of the spectrum, relatively speaking.

For tech companies in particular hire fast/fire fast seems to have worked well. It creates a more competitive labor market. That makes sense because tech is a new industry where things are changing all the time, skills are evolving, so it benefits from a labor pool which can adapt quickly.

Is it good for workers though? Many people would say it isn't great. You become an employee for the sake of stability and in a hire fast/fire fast culture, you have less of that. It's not so good for quality of life when you're always afraid of losing your job.

The counter-argument is that in a situation where it's hard to replace people the cream doesn't necessarily rise to the top and there are less opportunities for top performers to get paid what they're worth (a common complaint in European tech). If you don't mind getting out there and marketing yourself and playing the job market aggressively, you can make a lot of money. If you would rather avoid all that it's a source of anxiety and something you want to avoid.

One place where I think the US system has it wrong though, is in tying health care to employment. This is catastrophically bad from a quality of life standpoint and bad for keeping the labor market fluid as well because it creates perverse incentives which are unrelated to whether someone's actually good at their job or not.

Overall I'm personally of the view that it's good for different parts of the world to have different ways of doing things, and if you truly can't stand the overall package you're getting on a particular continent, maybe you should move. (I did and I don't regret it. I might do it again one day. I am continually surprised by how many people seem to utterly hate the place they live, and yet don't leave it!)

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#103

Post by oytis »

pphysch wrote: post #38
crop_rotation wrote: post #8

How would Europe even compete with America in the long run. America just has so many advantages (massive influx of talented workers, one country, better equiped with natural resources, the supremacy of the dolllar). There are many other reasons some of which might not seem clear cut. The average American or European life requires an economy which is on average much better than the average for the world. If you do not…

> How would Europe even compete with America in the long run. Via "Eurasian integration", specifically the development of transport and logistics megaprojects across the heartland of Eurasia, strongly linking Europe to East Asia by land. But conveniently timed geopolitical events have delayed that somewhat.

The said geopolitical events have shown that Eurasian integration is a pipe dream. Unless we see geopolitical surprises with the opposite sign analogous to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#104

Post by lostlogin »

cozos wrote: post #89
jandrewrogers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US manufacturing continues to grow almost monotonically, it is wildly successful. The only thing that has declined is manufacturing jobs due to the high levels of automation used in American manufacturing.

what are some successful stories of American manufacturing?

The arms industry?

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#105

Post by pcrh »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #19

> Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France. Damn...how does a country get so rich?

Anyone who has spent time in both places will recognize this comparison as self-evidently flawed, probably for reasons underlying the statistical methods used.

A comparison of the human development index between US States and European countries produces a result more in line with the lived reality: https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#106

Post by [deleted] »

hotpotamus wrote: post #55
wyager wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average French person has a life expectancy of 82. In Mississippi it’s 74.9 Like 90% of these "gotchas" for southern states (including lifespan comparisons) end up decreasing or disappearing entirely when you condition on racial demographics. Not to say that invalidates the problem; just that comparing Mississippi to France doesn't make sense at all from a demographic standpoint.

Why does race need to be brought into it?

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#107

Post by jsnell »

crop_rotation wrote: post #13
non- wrote: post #6

> The flexibility of the labour market helps employment adapt to shifting patterns of demand. Already many of the workers in America who were laid off from Alphabet and other tech firms at the start of the year are applying their sought-after skills elsewhere, or setting up their own businesses. In continental Europe, by contrast, tech firms are still negotiating lay-offs, and may think twice about hiring there in fu…

The European approach makes a lot of sense in other stable industries (Automobile/Steel). But in a fast moving quick changing (e.g. Tech) industries, all it does is prevent new risky companies from starting and making it harder for them to adapt. Maybe it is a good thing. But only time can tell that. So far to me it seems like the American approach is winning economy wise.

Small companies are typically exempt from mass layoff regulations. And obviously nobody can force a failed company to continue operating. That should cover most of the "risky new company" case.

Maybe there's some marginal effect in the willingness of established companies entering risky new business.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#108

Post by ipnon »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #12

Kind of ignores income inequality and that any benefits are going to top income earners. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... The article claims income-tested benefits have doubled since 1979 and that incomes for the beneficiaries has increased. At the same time, earned income as a share of the economy has decreased - those folks need the extra benefits because they are unable to earn it, n…

Thomas Sowell once pointed out that billionaires are correlated with millionaires, and millionaires are correlated with a middle class. Most countries without billionaires are not great places to live and work. Governments without rich people to tax do not accomplish much in the way of welfare.

Take a look at a map of countries with billionaires.[0] I would argue those with billionaires are much better at providing social welfare than those without.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#109

Post by dauertewigkeit »

safety1st wrote: post #102
non- wrote: post #6

> The flexibility of the labour market helps employment adapt to shifting patterns of demand. Already many of the workers in America who were laid off from Alphabet and other tech firms at the start of the year are applying their sought-after skills elsewhere, or setting up their own businesses. In continental Europe, by contrast, tech firms are still negotiating lay-offs, and may think twice about hiring there in fu…

Labor laws in various countries tend to push companies toward one end or the other of a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is hire fast/fire fast, the other is hire slow/fire slow. The US is very much toward the hire fast/fire fast end of the spectrum, relatively speaking. For tech companies in particular hire fast/fire fast seems to have worked well. It creates a more competitive labor market. That makes sense becaus…

Your comment really highlights the absurdity of having a one-size-fits-all policy across the whole labour market.

But ultimately I don't think it is labour laws that made it so that OpenAI is American and ChatGPT was developed in the US. That is just one aspect of a much bigger picture.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#110

Post by pcrh »

jhbadger wrote: post #66
swalling wrote: post #17

”Average incomes have grown much faster than in western Europe or Japan. Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France.” The article casually dismisses the counterpoint that the US trades high income for a lower social safety net. The average French person has a life expectancy of 82. In Mississippi it’s 74.9, on par with Lithuania. Even Vietnam…

Life expectancy figures are misleading though. Many people take it to mean "this is how long an average elderly person is likely to live" but is an average of all ages at death meaning more young people dying brings down the number. As the article mentions, the primary cause for lower American life expectancy isn't that its old people are dying younger but rather the violence and drug epidemics causing more young peo…

It's more likely that the "value" of income in the US is overestimated in international comparisons. If one compares not only lifespan, but also other measures of human health and experience, the differences between US states and European countries makes a little more sense, see: Top 20 states and European countries with the highest Human Development Index: https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png
Post reply on HN