And yet with all that money you can’t buy European quality of life in the USA
I once corresponded with someone whose ambition was to open a vegan breakfast restaurant: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelettes"
The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
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Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#72Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#73Here’s a better comparison. The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience. Plus there’s a slower growth rate even in the good times.
https://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/...
That said, these numbers are very misleading and do not show well what a person’s life looks like in the US. By my own anecdotal estimation, in the EU low and medium income people live a better life than in the US and have more livable wages, relaxed work culture, and enjoy a strong safety net. The missing GDP growth seems to show up in the upper middle to high incomes where it is extremely hard to pull away from the pack and acquire wealth. Things like early retirement and FIRE are almost unheard of in EU countries. Stock investing seems much less common. People mostly seem focused on more conservative investments like real estate that has a lower yield and liquidity than equities. Luxury spending seems limited to small consumer outlays like fashion or travel, not large wealth building outlays like McMansions. It is really, really uncommon to hear of someone making more than 100k USD and taxes in most countries take a bigger bite. There are even significant wealth taxes in some countries. For example in some parts of Spain the wealth tax is high enough that it would be impossible to live off investments as the safe withdrawal rate is so low that you would need millions to fund a modest income.
All of this is deep in the political psyche that wants to cut down the tall poppies.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The stats look much better if you compare the number of hours worked. When accounting for that, US is at the level of Scandinavian countries. Obviously, Spain is still seriously lagging.
OK, well how about we compare New England to Europe? Or just Connecticut and Massachusetts? If you start cutting out this and that country from the EU then you need to cut out Mississippi and Idaho from the US. People always compare the US holistically but conveniently pick and choose which part of the Eurozone they want when it benefits their argument.
Materially, the USA is better off, that’s for sure, but in the west we’re well past the point where being better materially means having a better quality of life.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are technology developments, not GDP. Of course, technology developments are part of why GDP grows, but it's possible for tech to improve for everyone while only a minority reaps the economic gains.
Are any of the things I mentioned only available to "rich" people? Unless your definition of rich is literally everyone in the US and Europe (which could be a fair definition) - then I disagree.
My point isn't that only rich people can access technology, it's that even if everyone, rich and poor, gets the direct benefits from technology, that's separate from benefiting from an increased GDP, which is what the post you were originally replying to was talking about.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#76All “growth” in gdp seems to go to rich people. Normal people have seen stagnant wages and increased costs from the owners. Why should I care if gdp isn’t increasing when I don’t see any gains whether it does or not?
while it's true and it s very unequal the difference has become so big that even the poorest americans are richer than most europeans.
Yes but so many Americans are on Instagram and Tiktok that they feel poor since they are inundated with stories about people doing better than them.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#77IMHO the west as a whole will need to re-consider its metrics. Europe, not only Eurozone, lag in absolute numbers of economic activity but the life quality is not that different from the US and arguably it’s even better depending on what is important for you. An appendicitis generates more economic activity in the US but Europeans die les from it. On the other hand, Europe does lag on post soviet era tech(that’s anyt…
I was recently talking with a friend who moved to Germany and loved it. But now that he is raising a family he is planning on moving back to the states.
There's definitely a quantity/quality difference. Things in Germany are just nicer. But at a certain point, the "niceness" of things doesn't matter to you much anymore when you are trying to raise a family of 4 in a 800 sq ft apartment.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But she decided that life really wasn’t very exciting and she had no opportunity for growth whatsoever Dirty little secret in the US is that for very many people, there's no opportunity for growth whatsoever either. It's a relatively small section of society that even gets access to that opportunity. A lot of people in the US would trade their 'exciting' life of working 80+ hours a day to barely be able to pay the…
Ah yes, spoken like someone who has never lived outside the US. I’m American but I’ve been an expat most of my adult life. I love the rest of the world. But Americans simply do not realize how good they have it.
> Ah yes, spoken like someone who has never lived outside the US.
Remember assumptions make an ass out of you and I. I've lived a big chunk of my life outside the US. I have plenty of experience with life outside the US. I also have plenty of experience with life in the US, including that outside the wealthy insula of the major cities.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#79> "An aging population that values its free time set the stage for economic stagnation."
I mean, the outrage! How dare they!
When are we going to get over this obssession that your value is your job? Eh?
A vast number of unskilled labor jobs being able to provide solid employment for the vast majority of people are not coming back. AI is going to eat a bunch more jobs. These jobs are not coming back.
Either we're going to figure this out together or human society is in for a very bad time.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#80All “growth” in gdp seems to go to rich people. Normal people have seen stagnant wages and increased costs from the owners. Why should I care if gdp isn’t increasing when I don’t see any gains whether it does or not?
What about: - Your access to mRNA vaccines - Your access to cleaner air due to electric car adoption - Ditto for energy security and renewable sources of electricity - Your chance of dying in a car going down due to new safety features - Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces - Your much improved ability to work from home, cutting out ~2 hours of commuting…
"- Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces"
If things were improving "exponentially" like you claim, our lifespan would be accelerating and these "miraculous" treatments would allow us to live 100s of years. What's actually happening is our lifespan is not increasing, and in some years has been decreasing.
>>maybe you're depressed
But if these "miraculous" "exponential" medical improvements were real, we would expect to see less and less people who were depressed every decade. Instead, depression rates have been increasing.
One might also suggest if the world were DRAMATICALLY better as you claim, depression rates would be going down, not going up.