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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

#391

German here. Austerity? Over-regulation? An oligopoly of tech-incompetent local enterprises? Just guessing here. As a student in 2007, I started being an avid follower of what Big Tech was doing and was flabbergasted that local tech enterprises didn't seem to notice or change anything. In CS at university they didn't teach programming (only as an aside) but all the funny theoretical OOP fluff that the community right…

Germany is an economic lion held back by its inability to digitize (even when it does it's half measure still attached to the past) and its development of deep relationship with untrustworthy countries (Russia being the prime example.) Trying to buy the 49 Euro Ticket can be done online but still requires approval by a human and an IBAN. That's my current favorite recent example of Germany making absolutely no sense…

Strange, I bought mine via an app and paypal.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I earn $100k somewhere in Eastern Europe, then deducting all taxes and recurring costs like health insurance, rent or mortgage, from what’s left I may be able to buy more MacBooks or trips to Korea than someone from San Francisco. It is misleading to compare just a few imported goods to make conclusions as well.

You’ll be surprised at how much housing costs in Eastern Europe these days…

Still cheaper and sturdier than the cardboard house in USA. European houses typivally made of brivks and mortar. Cant say that in USA. Even 5mil house in San Fra, a significant portions the house is made of wood and drywall. Pounching through American wall is hollywood pastime. Cant find a similar think in other countries hollywood.

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Yeah, and it says "Uses with limitations: To analyse changes over time in relative GDP per capita and relative prices".

> PPP cannot be used to measure growth, period.

> PPP increase indicate absolutely nothing.

No, refer to paragraphs 32-34 of the overview from the PPP Manual: https://www.oecd.org/sdd/prices-ppp/PPP%20manual%20revised%2...

> Nominal GDP increase indicates an increased production

No, it doesn't. Value = price x volume. If value has gone up, it means either price or volume had gone up, but you cannot say more than that; for that you need real GDP.

> In fact PPP often increase or maintains its level in times of crisis when income level drops and unemployment rises.

Yeah, GDP and GDP PPP are both imperfect metrics. They are just proxies and should be treated as such.

> 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.

So what? It doesn't change the fact that nominal GDP fails horribly as a metric for such cases.

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These stats drive me up the wall because the US is more diverse than every single European country . The life expectancy in California is 81 and in Alabama it’s 74. That’s the difference between the UK and like, Latvia. This matters because when you look at these crude aggregate stats, people naively assume that it means that everything is a bit worse but the actual American story is usually more like broad prosperit…

What a weird way of framing it. The USA is compared with EU, so it doesn't matter if USA is more diverse than single european countries. As you point out, EU is also very diverse.

Surely the point was that the difference between internal regions of the EU and USA are much higher than that between the averages. Someone worried about lifespan in either would do much better to look at local outcomes and the reasons for them (c.f. figuring out why Latvia lags the France, or what's wrong in Alabama that Massachusetts is so far ahead) than it is to dither over what the people across the ocean are doing.

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

#397
post #96

Note this chart shows nominal dollars, not PPP-adjusted. The EU has certainly kept up with the US when looking at PPP GDP from 2008 to 2022: US grew from $14.8T to $25.5T EU grew from $14.3T to $24.3T What that means is that the prices of goods are inflated in the US compared to similar goods in the EU. That's all. Want something interesting? Look at China who grew from $10.0T to $30.3T over the same period (!) Sourc…

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.

For this purpose you're not measuring growth but rather comparing it against someone else who uses a different currency.

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

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll be surprised at how much housing costs in Eastern Europe these days…

Still cheaper and sturdier than the cardboard house in USA. European houses typivally made of brivks and mortar. Cant say that in USA. Even 5mil house in San Fra, a significant portions the house is made of wood and drywall. Pounching through American wall is hollywood pastime. Cant find a similar think in other countries hollywood.

I’d like to see a European brick and mortar house survive a Magnitude 8 earthquake, which is a requirement in San Francisco. The US used to have lots of brick and mortar construction, just like Europe. After those buildings were all destroyed by strong earthquakes, they switched to steel and wood, which can survive a strong earthquake. Europe style construction is not allowed in much of the US because it demonstrably isn’t safe.

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

#399

German here. Austerity? Over-regulation? An oligopoly of tech-incompetent local enterprises? Just guessing here. As a student in 2007, I started being an avid follower of what Big Tech was doing and was flabbergasted that local tech enterprises didn't seem to notice or change anything. In CS at university they didn't teach programming (only as an aside) but all the funny theoretical OOP fluff that the community right…

Germany is an economic lion held back by its inability to digitize (even when it does it's half measure still attached to the past) and its development of deep relationship with untrustworthy countries (Russia being the prime example.) Trying to buy the 49 Euro Ticket can be done online but still requires approval by a human and an IBAN. That's my current favorite recent example of Germany making absolutely no sense…

Yeah, this kind of article would never fail to mention Russia and Putin. But what is never mentioned:

1. Germany has no energy sources. USA had blown up the pipelines delivering cheap energy from Russia that German industry needs badly (so, German industry has been closing and has declining output since), also in just as brain-dead move Germany closed all its nuclear plants.

2. USA is deliberately suffocating German economy. First, dieselgate. Then, "fine" for Deutsche Bank for "provoking crisis of 2008". Then making Germany loose access to cheap energy and providing money to German industrial companies that want to move their plants from Germany (where they have no future due to lack of energy and other resources that were imported from Russia) to USA.

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

#400
post #340

National debt US 2013 16.83 trillion dollars 2023 32.33 trillion dollars EU 2013 13.19 trillion dollars 2023 14.5 trillion dollars

I guess this shows that deficit spending works to increase GDP, but we already knew that.
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