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Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

economist.com

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Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#131

Post by Gareth321 »

CalRobert wrote: post #10
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…

No idea, but as an American who moved to Europe it's crazy how much ambition is casually discouraged ("the notions on him!") and investors are chickenshit scaredycats offering tiny numbers. Pathetic pay too. But I still live in Europe because I prefer well designed cities and everyone (mostly) having ample vacation time.

> Pathetic pay too.

If you're after better pay head to London, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, or Norway. You won't match those San Fran FAANG wages but they're still very good. I live a VERY comfortable life in Denmark and it's such a great place to raise a family.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#132

Post by WBrentWilliams »

wyager wrote: post #117
WBrentWilliams wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, race is shorthand for class. In the US, class is not supposed to be noticed. Race is difficult (and insulting) to ignore. See also: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520261303/being-black-livin...

Many of these conditioning effects persist even when controlling for wealth. Evidently there are other factors at play. Perhaps dietary differences, differences in medical requirements, etc.

A few confounding factors. Cross-checking and citation left and an exercise to the reader:

Immigrants that get through the (metaphorical and literal) gauntlets to get into the US skew longevity via a Darwinian reading.

Staying to any traditional diet, working with what is in season, has health impacts.

Immigrants form communities out of necessity. Strong communities lead to longer lifespans and has a decrease on childhood deaths.

None of these confounding factors corrects for the race-as-class indicator. They simply have a mathematical effect of smearing the statistics.

There is a difference between wealth and class. Class implies wealth, not the other way around. Hence why many die in hospital, despite having wealth, due to their race implying class. This shorthand leads to many outcomes, including calibration of equipment problems that are masked by the race-implies-class effects.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#133

Post by jabradoodle »

wyager wrote: post #53
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…

> 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.

I don't think this is the defense you think it is, that minorities could live in such conditions they skew the statistics of the population is not a rebuttal.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#135

Post by AnimalMuppet »

brookst wrote: post #80
lostlogin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Banks seems exempt from this. I’m not financially savvy enough to know if bailing out banks is good or bad. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...

Utilities in general even. Nobody wants municipal water supplies failing quickly. But for core commercial actives it seems like a fair observation.

No... but having them spend two decades failing slowly isn't the answer, either.

I agree that utilities are a special case. The main point is that you don't want them to fail at all, ever. If they do fail, well, there aren't any good ways for that to happen.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#136

Post by Teever »

pseudo0 wrote: post #87
ttul wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in…

> And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Feel free to move to Canada if you want half the wages, twice as expensive housing, a…

I think you've got cause and effect backwards. Or rather, you don't quite realize that it's a feedback loop.

Canada heavily subsidizes the healthcare and post secondary education of all those people who then move to the US, often those people move back in retirement for the healthcare.

That no doubt has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy as Canada pours resources into people and America reaps the benefits of that while Canada suffers.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#137

Post by hollerith »

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?

Tesla certainly. Most of Intel's fabs are in the US.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#138

Post by pcrh »

ddol wrote: post #56
CalRobert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea, but as an American who moved to Europe it's crazy how much ambition is casually discouraged ("the notions on him!") and investors are chickenshit scaredycats offering tiny numbers. Pathetic pay too. But I still live in Europe because I prefer well designed cities and everyone (mostly) having ample vacation time.

As a European who moved to California the societal stigma around young ambition in Ireland was brutal. When I started my first company in my 20’s and spoke to friends and family about it a phrase I frequently heard was “ah here, why would you stick your head above the parapet?”[0] Having seen the kinds of Irish startups that get funding from Irish VCs they both tend to be run by Irish men in their 50’s/60’s who’ve be…

Having been in both the UK and Bay Area, I agree with your points about VCs.

However, the average age of tech founders in the US is older than you might expect, being well above 40yrs. Experience does count for something.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#139

Post by Quarrel »

wyager wrote: post #119
kwhitefoot wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes because if you add 'race' to the data then clusters appear that align with that extra data. Of course it doesn't mean that 'race' is a causal factor, it can be that it correlates with some other data that is not included such as poverty.

For many outcomes (including medical outcomes) the differences do not go away when conditioning on wealth/income, so if there's a separate "root" causal factor, we have not yet found it.

In most we have found it and it is slavery.

Re: Lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

#140

Post by pseudo0 »

Teever wrote: post #136
pseudo0 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Feel free to move to Canada if you want half the wages, twice as expensive housing, a…

I think you've got cause and effect backwards. Or rather, you don't quite realize that it's a feedback loop. Canada heavily subsidizes the healthcare and post secondary education of all those people who then move to the US, often those people move back in retirement for the healthcare. That no doubt has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy as Canada pours resources into people and America reaps the benefits o…

They generally don't move back. Anyone who qualifies for Medicare (10 years of employment in the US) will get significantly higher quality healthcare through Medicare than they would receive in Canada.

The problem is that Canada's healthcare system is a command economy. The government decides how many med school spots there are, how many residency places, and how many procedures will be funded each year. In order to keep costs down this results in rationing. You can't even pay out of pocket - it is against the law for Canadians to purchase private care in Canada. The end result is that people with means end up going to the US, and everyone else waits 6-12 months for medically necessary hip or knee replacements. Even critical medical imaging is backed up weeks. I know someone who waited multiple weeks for urgent cancer screening. The same scans are available in the US in 24-48 hours, for a few hundred bucks.

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