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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

#441
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…

The EU is an export-based economy, so that's great that people in the EU can drink cheaper beer and pay less in rent, but if they want to buy imports, they're absolutely poorer.

Even though I can afford it, I mostly do not need new imported stuff and second hand you can get a lot of things (mostly everything besides Apple stuff) at bottom prices. Many people unfortunately dump stuff after new shiny comes out and some even give them to me for free. My iPhone was a gift from a friend who bought the latest. It’ll go for many years still. My nreal (xreal) now was a gift because another friend didn’t like it and couldn’t be bothered to sell it.

But obviously I can live without these things and for vital things, like laptops, washing machines, dish washers or tvs (not really vital), they cost peanuts second hand.

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

#442
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In CS at university they didn't teach programming That's quite alarming.

There is a myth at German universities, that programming is too practical. So basically you brew there computer scientists with couple internships where they see how programming works.

> There is a myth at German universities, that programming is too practical.

Am I understanding this correctly that students don't get programming assignments?

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

#443

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. Also, the US was bombing a couple of Middle Eastern countries then: creating the said refugees who could reach Europe on foot and/or boat, but not the American mainland .

Which countries? I imagine they were already churning out refugees. Syria, for example.

US intervention turned Syria from a relatively quick civil war (to be won by Assad and his Russian pals) to a conflict of interminable duration. Elements of the fight against Assad were connected to groups arising from the chaos in Iraq, in the wake of the US invasion (remember ISIS?) complicating matters and surely leading to even more suffering for non-combatants. IIRC the bulk of the refugee waves came after the initial clashes, when US aid and air cover let the resistance dig in for the long-term rather than getting quickly crushed by government forces and their allies. Somewhat later, the ISIS mess made it all even worse.

Whether all this was in some sense worth it for mysterious realpolitik greater-good reasons—I dunno. Looks pretty bad on its own, anyway. Not enough help to win—but just enough to keep the fight going forever. Doesn't make much sense to me unless the point was to accomplish exactly that (to disrupt Russian and/or Iranian interests in the area without pushing too hard? To keep Syria too distracted to mess with Israel? Destabilize Syria so it can't interfere with Iraq's fledgeling state? I have no idea what the real motivation is or was, but it sure as hell doesn't seem to have been "help the Syrian people"—if it was, we've screwed that up pretty badly)

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

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumption is a terrible proxy for quality of life. It's also terribly USAian of you.

don't you know CONSUM = HAPPY ?

Pollution is good. Consume more. Money before anything else. Buy more junk. L

Btw, we need budget for more They Live glasses to distribute freely

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

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people who lived in the USSR in the 1970s and missed it.

Good for them, I know plenty others who didn’t including my entire family. That still isn’t the point, the quality of life in the USSR wasn’t a close 2nd to the US in fact when the USSR economy started to fall apart in the late 70’s and 80’s it too switched to PPP because hey our bread is cheap even if you need to stand in line to get it. And Guyana today isn’t a better place to live in than France or Canada, and Bul…

>Good for them, I know plenty others who didn’t including my entire family.

There's a YouTube channel where an interviewer talks to people in various Russian cities today about the war and other topics. Loads of middle-aged and older women and men (esp. women it seems) say they want the Soviet Union back.

Your family was one of the malcontents that left. The people still there really do miss the authoritarian Soviet Union and want it back, and they fully support any warmongering necessary to achieve that goal.

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

#447
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

So, the US grew but kept its GDP to debt ratio relatively similar to Europe's? That's awesome actually.

Gini coeeficient

USA 41.5

EU 29.6

Debt is often used as a justification for spending cuts, often targeting the middle and lower classes

It's a weakth shift. The EU could double it's debt and give the money to the companies and would be on the same level as the US, GDP and debt wise.

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

#448
post #29
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?

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.

This is not true if you look at actual data: https://nitter.it/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#m

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

#450

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. Also, the US was bombing a couple of Middle Eastern countries then: creating the said refugees who could reach Europe on foot and/or boat, but not the American mainland .

This is just plain wrong. The millions of refugees came from Syria. The US was hardly bombing Syria at all, it just bombed Libya. Actually it was mostly EU countries, in particular France, that pushed for fighting the Assad regime at the time. The Obama government didn't even want to be involved at first.
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