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

The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 767 posts

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#151

Post by blibble »

lyu07282 wrote: post #98
futureshock wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. The hope was that young refugees would become net positive GDP contributors for decades, an idea borrowed from the US. If that has failed, it’s due to a failure of integration. Europe can actually be quite a racist place and in many ways the US is better…

The US’s secret sauce is that is an empire that can, will and does constantly project its massive military and clandestine power around the world to further its interests at all times, while never having to deal with any of its blowback. And then americans laugh at the EU welcoming refugees you created in the first place, or pretend the EU is socialist while laughing at its massive energy crisis caused by its complet…

pretty certain it's the germans that decided to use the russian gas

meanwhile the US was pretty upset about the idea

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#152

Post by rafaelero »

ChatGTP wrote: post #145
rafaelero wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said GDP equals quality of life, what are you talking about?

What is the point of GDP as a metric then? Who is the economy serving? Why have an economy if it's not improving quality of life to some extent. GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product

There are a bunch of benefits of having economic power that doesn't relate to happiness. Power projection and resilience to hard times are some of them.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#154

Post by stevenwoo »

midasuni wrote: post #5

All “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?

Piketty breaks this down in historic terms for all countries for which data is available in Capital and Ideology, tldr, a very small percentage of people have gotten much richer than everyone else for the last 200+ years, it's just gotten extreme after progressive taxes and regulations were rolled back in countries circa the Reagan/Thatcher years. I dunno if it's still up but the web page for the book had all the data.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#155

Post by actionfromafar »

selectodude wrote: post #105
lyu07282 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US’s secret sauce is that is an empire that can, will and does constantly project its massive military and clandestine power around the world to further its interests at all times, while never having to deal with any of its blowback. And then americans laugh at the EU welcoming refugees you created in the first place, or pretend the EU is socialist while laughing at its massive energy crisis caused by its complet…

Pretty sure Europe's massive energy crisis is an own goal caused by replacing all their energy generation with Russian natgas.

The own goal was buying the gas in the first place!

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

slibhb wrote: post #65
notfromhere wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. Growth in the economy has to increase real wages, and real wages need to keep pace with housing, food, healthcare, etc increases in order to be meaningful. More jobs are only good if they actually provide a living wage.

I don't agree: having more stuff makes people's lives better even if that doesn't show up in terms of real wages.

Not if they can't afford the basics, though. Another way of framing the problem GP is pointing out is: necessities are getting increasingly expensive relative to trinkets and niceties.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#157

Post by sva_ »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #153

As a European I have sometimes feeling that we are skanzen of the world. Don't get me wrong. It's much better than to be battleground like before.

> skanzen

Outdoor museum?! I couldn't really find a definition for this term.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#158

Post by janalsncm »

This is a bit of a frame trap. Here’s another metric:

==2021==

Life expectancy in EU: 80

Life expectancy in US: 76

==Rolling back to 2008==

Life expectancy in EU: 79

Life expectancy in US: 78

What’s the point? Maybe GDP isn’t the most important indicator. The US can double it’s GDP by making healthcare more expensive and extracting every last dime from the elderly, but can it actually improve quality of life for people? [1]

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?location...

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#159

Post by actionfromafar »

philwelch wrote: post #121
Sterm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it did US life expectancy wouldn't lower today than it was in 2008.

That’s mostly due to obesity, which is a consequence of the quantity and (flavor) quality of food getting better over time; a side effect of economic prosperity.

You meant getting worse.
Post reply on HN