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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

#471

Post by hef19898 »

yorwba wrote: post #434
FredPret wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Economic growth is best measured excluding inflation, but the chart in the tweet uses "current prices" aka the 2008 values are in 2008-dollars and the 2023 values are in 2023-dollars, including all the inflation that happened in between. (I've seen actual economists get confused by this meaning of "current", mislabeling a "current dollars" chart from 2019 as being in 2019-dollars, even though it wasn't inflation-adju…

Especially when accounting for negative GDP growth in the EU in 2012 and 2013, and the huge hit the EU took in 2020. 11% isn't nothing, but the both economies grew, one a bit more than the other, and that is hardly the end of the world one could be made believe by looking at the chart nased on current USD.

Sometimes lying with numbers is way, way to easy...

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

#472

Post by danjac »

toyg wrote: post #456
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.

Given actual vs perceived social mobility in the US compared to Europe, it could be argued that the US reached that point some time ago:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

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

#473

Post by moomin »

FredPret wrote: post #344
dogma1138 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Call me back when this translates into regular working people’s salaries and health care outcomes and we’ll talk.

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

#474

Post by severino »

nonethewiser wrote: post #380
actionfromafar wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The own goal was buying the gas in the first place!

Is that not what he just said? Surely a prime example is Germany shutting down nuclear and and bypassing Ukraine as a Russian natural gas hub woth Nord Stream 2. Whoops.

That was not the mistake. The mistake was not to put NS2 into operation due to pressure from the US, and now, cutting ties with Russia while you keep shutting down your nuclear.

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

#475

Post by SubjectToChange »

dougmwne wrote: post #172
blibble wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty certain it's the germans that decided to use the russian gas meanwhile the US was pretty upset about the idea

It was economical to buy the Russian gas delivered by pipeline. The US wanted to sell its more expensive LNG. And it ended up getting its wish after it supported a western aligned Ukraine and while no one wants to claim responsibility for blowing up nordstream, someone definitely blew it up and it helped cement the US as the gas supplier of Europe. I think the message is clear that it’s best not to upset the US.

Do you really believe that the USA would commit an act of war against Russia to… sell Europe natural gas?

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

#476

Post by severino »

blibble wrote: post #265
FpUser wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"and if he wins then Eastern Europe is next in line" I doubt Putin is suicidal. Eastern Europe is in NATO, hence protected.

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…

> that will that rebel against anti russian oppression

So you mean it's OK to oppress people just because they are Russian, or speak Russian? And the bad guys are those against oppression?

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

#477

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

Alupis wrote: post #404
bandyaboot wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m looking, but I must be missing the part where you provided details to justify your own assertion of it being obviously true.

TFA, among other economic articles, statistics, etc support this assertion.

The parent article is a tweet of a graph, and it says nothing about trickle-down.

> other economic articles, statistics, etc

Ah well, you're wrong. "other economic articles, statistics, etc" clearly do not support this.

I mean, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." but lets bring the citations:

> trickle-down economics has never been advocated by any economist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Economi...

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

#478

Post by sangnoir »

misja111 wrote: post #450
sangnoir wrote: post #103

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 .

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.

> The US was hardly bombing Syria at all, it just bombed Libya.

I was mostly thinking of Syria and Daesh, and had forgotten about Libya. A non-insignificant chunk of refugees headed to Europe transit through Libya - which didn't use to be the case before Gaddafi was deposed.

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

#479

Post by ffhhttt »

mrb wrote: post #122
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.

" 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.

If you want to measure the standard of living there a much better indicators than GDP per capita for that.

PPP is also a deeply flawed concept because comparing the quality of goods and services in the context of different consumption patterns. However if you really want to use you should look at median income (with social transfers etc.) rather than GDP.

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

#480

Post by zooi »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #304
janalsncm wrote: post #158

This is a bit of a frame trap. Here’s another metric: ==2021== Life expectancy in EU: 80 Life expectancy in US: 76 ==Rolling back to 2008== Life expectancy in EU: 79 Life expectancy in US: 78 What’s the point? Maybe GDP isn’t the most important indicator. The US can double it’s GDP by making healthcare more expensive and extracting every last dime from the elderly, but can it actually improve quality of life for peop…

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…

The stats comparison is of the US and the whole of Europe.

The difference between states is big but you go on to say that it's as big as the difference between two European countries. Your comparison only points out Europe is as least as diverse as the US and still has a significantly higher life expectancy.

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