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

>The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience.

This is true, but understated in a crucial manner. By global standards, the greatest enduring strength of the US economy has been its ability to recover from downturns. More than anything else, that has pulled it ahead of competitors time and time again. When the early '80s financial crisis hit Japan with a lost decade, Volcker (PBUH) pulled the US out of the doldrums and back into a growth phase within three years. When the Asian financial crisis hit at the same time as the dotcom bust, the US recovered more efficiently than the erstwhile "Asian tigers". When the 2007 financial crisis went worldwide, aggressive measures by the Fed and a willingness to risk inflation restored growth faster than in Europe. When COVID hit, economies around the world dived, but even with political divisions running at their highest since 1876, the US again restored growth more quickly than almost anywhere else — now growing at competitive rates with China.

There are a variety of theories about this, but one iniquitous postulate I've heard is that the US makes it a lot easier for companies to do layoffs — not a happy proposition for those directly affected, but what could be worse for an economy than having thousands of people working on something that just isn't working? Many worker protections — for health, safety and family — have become more popular with economists recently, but when the subject of being able to fire people comes up, there is still a sort of grim understanding transmitted in whispers: paying someone who isn't making progress makes us all worse off in the long run.

Of course we can also trace the roots of some profound social malaise — including the collapse of whole cities — to the cutthroat nature of employment in America; there is no free lunch.

> No, not really as exchange rate fluctuations are avoided using constant international dollar benchmarks.

There are ways for GDP to increase while economy contracts. As the simplest example, an informal sector may become formalized and be partially reduced in the process due to new bureaucratic obstacles.

> This been explained multiple times in this thread already including a link to the OECD FAQ on GDP PPP.

I don't see OECD FAQ claiming anything close to what you imply. It actually claims that "The major use of *PPPs is as a first step in making inter-country comparisons* in real terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and its component expenditures."

> Nominal GDP isn’t a measure of individual wealth either, it is however a very good indicator of national economic growth.

A nitpick: if we talk about growth, we should talk about the change in GDP. Anyway, how is the change in nominal GDP any better than the change in GDP PPP?

> GDP PPP doesn’t include housing costs, at least not directly it includes a component which is called imbued rent which tends to grossly underestimate the actual cost of housing in a given country.

The rent is included directly. Imputed rent is fictitious income that exists to account for housing services homeowners provide to themselves to make comparisons easier between situations where the rate of homeownership is different. If it grossly underestimates the actual cost of housing, it simply means it is calculated incorrectly. As a sidenote, for lots of other services such adjustments are not made (eg eating out vs cooking at home, paying a housekeeper vs cleaning yourself).

> Housing in the EU is generally more expensive than in the US both to rent and to buy nearly every country has a massive housing shortage and inflated prices.

I don't think any EU city can compare to the US juggernauts such as NY and SF in terms of housing shortage and inflated prices.

PPP is usually meant to compare economies and control for differences in cost of living, not comparing time periods. Inflation is when you compare the same economy in two time periods.

Furthermore, economic growth is measured in "real" dollars, aka, excludig inflation. If US prices doubled as you say, then their economy is therefore now four times as large in the new, inflated dollars.

None of this has anything to do with fiat currency. The same would be true if you measured in kg's of gold, but you'd have to account for the gold-cost of living ratio instead of fiat dollar inflation.

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Sure, feel free to compare American poverty-level people to poverty-level people in countries with stronger safety nets.