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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

#341

Post by dogma1138 »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #324
dogma1138 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So can GDP. No, not really as exchange rate fluctuations are avoided using constant international dollar benchmarks. > Why isn't it a good measure? Why is it worse than pure GDP? This been explained multiple times in this thread already including a link to the OECD FAQ on GDP PPP. Nominal GDP isn’t a measure of individual wealth either, it is however a very good indicator of national economic growth. >The GDP of th…

> 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…

There is literarily a table in the FAQ flr what PPP can be used for and what it cannot be.

PPP cannot be used to measure growth, period.

Nominal GDP increase indicates an increased production, PPP increase indicate absolutely nothing. In fact PPP often increase or maintains its level in times of crisis when income level drops and unemployment rises.

The US is far bigger than NY and SF and even then many EU cities can more than compare… The housing stock is far cheaper in the US and you get far far more for your money.

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

#342

Post by lisasays »

FpUser wrote: post #307
blibble wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it'll never be so obvious that NATO can declare it as an attack you've seen the playbook in ukraine twice now there will be an russian speaking minority in estonia/lithuania/... that will that rebel against anti russian oppression, guerilla warfare against the authorities, then they'll hold an rigged referendum, then a decade later the Russian government will formally annex what they've effectively controlled for yea…

[flagged]

In Ukraine Russian speakers are hardly the minority.

What's this supposed to mean?

Certainly it's not referring to the portion of native speakers.

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

#343

Post by mikeyouse »

umeshunni wrote: post #199
cypress66 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of that life expectancy gap is due to obesity I'd guess.

Most of it is due to the opioid crisis in the US afaik.

Covid, overdoses & accidents accounted for 2/3 of the decline;

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-t...

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

#344

Post by FredPret »

dogma1138 wrote: post #323
mrb wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That GDP does not increase my quality of life. " I agree. As I said in my first post: "prices of goods [eg. healthcare] are inflated in the US compared to similar goods in the EU". So concretely, if healthcare prices increase in the US, but remain constant in the EU, this would increase the PPP GDP of the EU. What I meant to write is: if the PPP GDP increases in the EU faster than in the US , with all else being equ…

GDP PPP in the US is identical to the nominal GDP in the US since the purchasing currency in the US is the US dollar. > What I meant to write is: if the PPP GDP increases in the EU faster than in the US, with all else being equal (eg. stable population) it would imply the standard of living is increasing faster in the EU than in the US. No it doesn’t mean anything of the sort in fact high nominal GDP to GDP PPP ratio…

US economic performance is all the more OP if you take into account that it's a huge country of 350m people and has a diversified economic base.

For a tiny banking nation or petrostate to be rich is unsurprising.

But when it's half a continent, the world really ought to take out their notebooks and go into full copycat mode - at least as far as economic policy and attitudes are concerned.

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

#345

Post by thanksbucko »

dogma1138 wrote: post #320
scythe wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn’t know how much money you have, it doesn’t measure the purchasing power of individuals. No per-capita metric does this. You have to use things like the median wage to capture the purchasing power of individuals. For example, Equatorial Guinea's GDP/c is among the highest in Africa, but due to insanely high inequality and oppression, people are better off in Senegal or Rwanda. Guyana, which recently discover…

Exactly, your GDP PPP can be double that of the US and it does you absolutely squat if the median wage is 10 times lower. I swear I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen this low level of topical knowledge in a post on HN as this one.

Thanks for posting clarifications and disputations, seriously. I naively thought all the PPP business meant something that I’ve since learned it does not.

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

#346

Post by gruez »

jfim wrote: post #313
ilikehurdles wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What piece of the CPI adjustment formula are you arguing is so flawed that is negates any "real" gains of wages? And why do you believe the markets haven't caught on and started following a better metric? To bring things back a bit, the argument was that > housing and other costs like childcare have increased astronomically during that period negating any real gains Yet, gruez is downvoted while citing CPI-adjusted w…

The CPI only includes OER (owner equivalent rent), not housing prices. OER is also a lagging indicator due to it being calculated on current rental expenses, not market rate rents (eg. when people move and their rental expenses get adjusted for the market). A study by the San Francisco fed in 2022 [0] calculated that based on Zillow market data, the rent component of the CPI is to increase by about seven percent each…

> The CPI only includes OER (owner equivalent rent), not housing prices. OER is also a lagging indicator due to it being calculated on current rental expenses, not market rate rents (eg. when people move and their rental expenses get adjusted for the market).

And that's fine, because the CPI is for the whole country. Not everyone is a renter looking for a place right now. Some people do indeed have houses and therefore their housing costs are locked in perpetuity. If you take nominal wages, and deflate that using cpi-with-market-rents, that would indeed more accurately describe the plight of someone who's renting, compared to normal cpi. However, it would also make it the situation look worse than it is for someone who owns their home, because their housing costs are essentially fixed. You might empathize more with the former and think their plight deserves more attention. That's fine, but the specific claim being made was for the economy/country as a whole, not for a specific demographic.

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

#347

Post by rjzzleep »

soligern wrote: post #333
dogma1138 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses PPP for measuring growth, GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either. The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

Why isn’t it a good measure? It costs maybe $0.50 to get a reasonable full meal in India, you’re not going to get anything close to that in the US. In second tier cities in India, people can rent a reasonable studio for $50/month, you’re not getting that anywhere in the US. Why shouldn’t that be a relevant metric?

Because obviously then all the MBA's, business consultants and other useless services industries don't get the real value they deserve on paper.

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

#348

Post by 8note »

gruez wrote: post #228
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…

>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. This sounds like post hoc justification. If you want immigrants, wouldn't you want to pick the best and brightest, rather than whoever washes up on your shore?

Depends on what you need -- chemical engineers can make for good pizza delivery guys, but that's not making the best use of them

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

#349

Post by vkou »

rayiner wrote: post #289
dogma1138 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses PPP for measuring growth, GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either. The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

I think Americans would disagree with the implication that the US has done particularly well over the last 15 years, even though going by nominal dollars that seems to be the case.

Americans with wealth or property have done great for themselves. They currently feel that the economy is in the dumps, but that's just because talking heads on Fox are telling them that it is. They can't articulate why the economy is in the dumps.

Americans who are between the ages of 15 and 35 feel like the ladder has been pulled up out of their reach, and they've felt this way for the past decade. Mostly because property owners have reaped most of the benefits of the past two decades.

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

#350

Post by philwelch »

Sterm wrote: post #272
philwelch wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If food is killing more people than it used to that's not an improvement in food.

If you have so much food even the poorest people can get fat, you are a richer and more prosperous society than 99.9% of human history.

Btw obesity is rising in Europe as well.

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