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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

#451

Post by hef19898 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #101
mrb wrote: 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.

I am by no means an economic expert, but I shared this chart yesterday, GDP 2008-2022 in current international dollar:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...

Now, I have no idea what thebdifference between constant USD, current USD and the international versions are, and wpupd be happy if someone cpuod explain it since the differences are huge, but measured in curren international USD, the EU and US GDP charts move more or less in parallel with the EU one being a little bit lower. But of course, a chart that shows a huge delta developing makes for much better headlines, and more eyeballs on the article...

EDIT: Just played around some more, the numbers only allow for sensationalism whem using current USD, taling any other constant value the story is a lot different. And the root cause seems to be two periods, 2012 - 2014 when the EU GDP growth was significantly below US growth (it was negative for the EU in 2012 and 2013), and 2020 (EU -5.7, US -2.8). So, if everything it is old news, or worse just a wrong representation of data to justify headlines and narratives (looking at you WSJ, not some Twitter thread).

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2...

GDP chart in constant 2015 USD:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?location...

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

#452

Post by jmeister »

talldatethrow wrote: post #7
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?

Does all growth go to the same rich people, or do more people become rich?

>For example, if you’re looking at static inequality, Europe appears to be more egalitarian than the United States—their wealth is more evenly distributed across the population. But Taleb uses some statistics of dynamic inequality that propose America may be fairer than Europe. In Europe, more than a third of the five hundred wealthiest people inherited their wealth from family dynasties that have lasted for centuries. Compare this to the US, where 90% of the wealthiest five hundred people entered that list less than thirty years ago.

>Here’s another statistic on dynamic equality in America: 10% of Americans will spend at least one year in the top 1% of income earners, and more than half of all Americans will spend at least a year in the top 10% of income earners. Since what we’re trying to do is allow the market to reward those who contribute to society, greater turnover among the rich in the United States is a sign of fairness.

https://www.shortform.com/blog/types-of-inequality/

https://medium.com/incerto/inequality-and-skin-in-the-game-d...

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

#453

Post by thomasz »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #416
mrb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. " Still, if PPP GDP increases, with all else being equal (eg. stable population) it would imply the standard of living is increasing. That is why PPP GDP captures a more accurate measure of the real world. Said another way, what truly matters isn't "GDP growth", but changes in purchasing power/quality of life.

> Still, if PPP GDP increases, with all else being equal (eg. stable population) it would imply the standard of living is increasing. PPP is weird. Many of my costs were higher when living in China since imported things were more expensive, and there were lots of extra taxes to consider. It didn’t feel like I had more PPP except when eating out and consuming services. You definitely can’t use PPP to buy imports.

PPP is meant to account for things like a haircut in San Francisco creating way more economic output than a haircut in rural China, and therefore inflating the numbers. It doesn’t completely solve the problem of comparing the economic output of a 747 to the economic output of a haircut in rural China.

If you are used to the lifestyle of the western upper middle class and consume the associated products, the effects of the PPP adjustment will not be that meaningful to you. The same isn’t true for people who have to use most of their income to buy basic necessities like shelter, food, transportation and so forth.

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

#454

Post by misja111 »

bamfly wrote: post #443
nonethewiser wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

US didn't want to be involved in the Syrian conflict at all in the beginning. It were its European allies, in particular France, that were pushing to intervene and fight the Assad regime.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-the-united-states-has...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-un-idUKBRE87...

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

#455

Post by miguelxt »

dmoy wrote: post #312
dougmwne wrote: post #73

Here’s a better comparison. The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience. Plus there’s a slower growth rate even in the good times. https://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/... That said, these numbers are very misleading and do not show well what a person’s life looks like in the US. By my own anecdotal estimation, in the EU low and medium in…

> For example in some parts of Spain the wealth tax is high enough that it would be impossible to live off investments as the safe withdrawal rate is so low that you would need millions to fund a modest income. What are the numbers there? I heard of the wealth tax above €3 million, but is there more?

The €3 million one is a new "temporary" tax since this year from the central goverment. "Impuesto al patrimonio" has existed for long and it depends on where in Spain you live. It's not applied in the region of Madrid, and the it kicks from a net worth of €400k in Aragón. In all regions your main residence is exempted.

For a net worth of €4m, you'll pay €60k in Aragón to €22k in Vizcaya to €0 in Madrid.

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

#456

Post by toyg »

dougmwne wrote: post #73

Here’s a better comparison. The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience. Plus there’s a slower growth rate even in the good times. https://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/... That said, these numbers are very misleading and do not show well what a person’s life looks like in the US. By my own anecdotal estimation, in the EU low and medium in…

> All of this is deep in the political psyche that wants to cut down the tall poppies.

What you call "cut down tall poppies" others call "correcting thousands of years of aristocracy-fuelled unfairness". European wealth has much older roots. In a few centuries, Americans will likely reach a similar political point.

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

#457

Post by bamfly »

misja111 wrote: post #454
bamfly wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

US didn't want to be involved in the Syrian conflict at all in the beginning. It were its European allies, in particular France, that were pushing to intervene and fight the Assad regime. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-the-united-states-has... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-un-idUKBRE87...

Interesting, thanks for the context.

[EDIT] Worth noting that (and, yes, I checked Wikipedia because I don't trust my mental timeline on this) US aid dates back to 2011, before even that 2012 article about Euro allies agitating for intervention, but overt direct action (air strikes) by the US didn't start until 2014. Probably one of those things that only the youngest of us will ever get anything resembling a full, clear story on, given some of the early intervention ('12 and '13) beyond non-lethal aid was evidently by the CIA (unsurprisingly) and carried a price tag (I gather over ~4-5 years, to be fair) of perhaps a billion dollars. Maybe in my twilight years I'll get to read an account of this whole thing that makes any amount of sense. I'm really hoping it's not just one of those "yeah, we fucked up and couldn't admit it so we kept fucking up for quite a while longer, on the taxpayer dime and at the cost of immense human suffering" things we do sometimes. But at least it looks like, if it was a mistake, the UK and France were making the mistake with us. Which is... something, I suppose.

[EDIT EDIT] Looks like Jordan and Israel played a key role in tipping the scales for getting Obama to agree to that early CIA op, and the Saudis were also participants once it got going. Sigh. The usual players, for US intervention in that region, I suppose. Israel and the Saudis make sense, but I'm not well-read on Jordanian foreign relations. I'd suppose they're just broadly Saudi-aligned, and I know they're relatively friendly with the Israelis.

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

#458

Post by dmurray »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #331
landemva wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it would imply the standard of living is increasing. In USA, GDP includes the explosion of numbers of hospital admin staffers, energy prices doubled, and production of munitions which are given to Europe. That GDP does not increase my quality of life.

This reminds me of an old "ad" (not sure it was ever placed anywhere) questioning a similar tendency [1]: > For years, economists have defined the economic health of a country by its gross domestic product. Trouble is, every time a forest falls, the GDP goes up. With every oil spill, the GDP goes up. Every time a cancer patient is diagnosed, the GDP goes up. Is this how we measure economic progress? Economists must l…

This is usually called the broken window fallacy, from an essay by Bastiat in 1850.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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

#459

Post by tinus_hn »

futureshock wrote: post #89
tinus_hn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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 don’t doubt the intention and I don’t blame those people either; if you work really hard and still live in poverty it’s only logical to move to a country where you can live reasonably on handouts. It’s just not sustainable.

The statistics are clear, these are just facts.

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

#460

Post by thevania »

interesting, but where is all that "prosperity" going in the US then? the one percent?

what i imply is that its not like an ordinary US citizen has 2x better quality of life than an ordinary EU citizen, I would strongly suggest that is far from the truth as i worked and lived in both US and EU and earned top dollar in both

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