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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

#611

Post by boudin »

didntcheck wrote: post #544
amrocha wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really. Europeans aren't some superior noble ascetics. People want to consume, and their demand exceeds their ability in practically all situations. So USians are getting more of what they want while most Europeans would jump at the ability to do the same. For the record, I am European myself

Do you have anything to backing this statement? It sounds really false to me. Around me people are not into consumerism at all and are making an effort to not buy, buy second hand when needed, repair and maintain what they own based on environmental impact concerns, not economical. The current energy costs has had an impact but people were behaving this way before that.

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

#612

Post by sixstringtheory »

Qwertious wrote: post #581
dmurray wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More specifically, some valuable types of activities are not even measured in GDP - if you build your own table out of roadside scrap, then you might be immensely satisfied by the table, but it will contribute $0 to GDP. If you follow free instructions online (and look various stuff up on Wikipedia), that will again improve your life but not GDP.

I wonder how that kind of reclamation project could be valued in terms of avoidance of waste, avoidance of expenditure of new resources, and the skill development of the person doing the work (in terms of either/both faster pace of the same value created in future reclamations, and/or future marketability of the skills towards a saleable product).

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

#613

Post by piaste »

nonethewiser wrote: post #269
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…

> By my own anecdotal estimation Well here is an actual study that found the poorest 20% of Americans consumed more goods and services than the average people from affluent countries. Including Europe. https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than... This matches my anecdotal observations of everything being smaller in Europe, people owning less, and energy being so expensive.

This is an odd set of numbers. Italy is higher than Norway; Portugal is higher than Denmark. It suggests that whatever they are measuring is not very intuitive.

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

#614

Post by sixstringtheory »

blitzar wrote: post #556
euroderf wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you let the aristocracy go on for too long eventually they claim divine right. Well, the US has become a bastion of neo-feudalism, so there's that.

Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth.

How 'bout them apples?!

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

#615

Post by soco »

thomasz wrote: post #566
logicchains wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That being said, the policy of austerity implemented during the Euro crisis was pretty catastrophic and arrested growth prospects for a whole generation. It was an austerity policy in name only given government debts have only continued to increase since then. There's a demonstrated correlation between high government debt and lower growth.

Nah, that’s demonstratively wrong dogmatism. Obviously it’s not a good idea to take three times your national GDP in debt to build three oversized airports next to each other because your family owns your nations construction business. But letting education and infrastructure collapse and watch a whole generation grow old without any chance meaningful workforce participation and without a chance at having a family is…

This tendency didn't start at all with the Euro crisis. Remember Thatcher? She put this economic model firmly in place and everybody started to copy it, fiddle with it, without ever questioning its basis anymore. So it's not "a whole generation" but at least "two whole generations" - and it doesn't look like it's gonna stop the trend any time soon, public service keep getting defunded and big companies keep getting tax cuts.

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

#616

Post by imtringued »

selectodude wrote: post #267
clipsy wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cutoff for 90th percentile in the US for individual income is $132k[0], certainly not >$200k. I'm guessing you looked at household income. [0]: https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-individual-income-perce...

Your numbers are adjusted for CPI. They’re not nominal.

Your objection is nonsense.

>Median individual income in the United States was $46,001. It is up from $44,225 in 2021.

The graph shows 2022 with a median income of $46,001. That means the 2022 data hasn't been "adjusted for CPI" because duh. When you adjust for CPI you choose a reference year which can't be anything but nominal and other years are brought to the same price level. This means that the $44,225 from 2021 have been adjusted upwards to $46,303. You can disregard the 2021 numbers, just as clipsy did (he only posted numbers for 2022), and just click your way to the 2021 post if you want the nominal numbers for 2021.

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

#617

Post by ChatGTP »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #605
fragmede wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how pervasive money is in everything we do, even just hiking in nature (how much did those hiking boots cost you? Did you get a cheap pair or an expensive pair? How long will they last until you have to buy a new pair?), or just having friends over to chat (their money status has an effect on how they're doing). There's more to life than money, but it's pretty central.

>There's more to life than money, but it's pretty central. Europeans miss the point that you still need money to fund all those generous social benefits we have. Without money and a stagnating economy there will be less welfare to go around. I've lost track of how many financially illiterate people told me "I don't care about the economy, as long as we still have great quality of life" who miss the part where that gr…

Europeans miss the point that you still need money to fund all those generous social benefits we have.

Not entirely, of course you need money but you need people who believe in the cause to work towards it and make sacrifices. I work for a NFP, I took a paycut to do it. I'm happier for it.

I think a lot of America goes wrong because most people want their cake and to eat it too. Free healthcare? It will require sacrifices in the form of higher taxes.

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

#618

Post by Joeri »

gruez wrote: post #355
8note wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But all things being equal, wouldn't you rather have an immigrant who * speaks the local language * is highly educated (eg. post-secondary degree) * is young * has expertise in an in-demand industry than one who is missing one or more of the above? For non-refugees, you can screen for the above factors and only admit the ones who are qualified, but for refugees you can't.

Refugees have a selection mechanism as well because you have to be enterprising and resourceful to travel all the way to the EU. The US became big by taking in the unwashed masses fleeing Europe, and I think much of its entrepreneurial spirit goes back to that origin story.

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

#619

Post by karp773 »

HPsquared wrote: post #564
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Eisenhower put it well. "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick sch…

With all due respect to Eisenhower, this is an example of incredible political myopia. A country does not exist in a political vacuum and has to be able to protect its freedom and the very right to exist. So freedom is not free but comes at a price. How high the price is depends on the situation. Sometimes it's very high, unfortunately.

Complaining about this fact is as productive as complainig about gravity: if only we could float around effortlessly, imagine how much we would save on bridges and roads and fuel!

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

#620

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ChatGTP wrote: post #617
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's more to life than money, but it's pretty central. Europeans miss the point that you still need money to fund all those generous social benefits we have. Without money and a stagnating economy there will be less welfare to go around. I've lost track of how many financially illiterate people told me "I don't care about the economy, as long as we still have great quality of life" who miss the part where that gr…

Europeans miss the point that you still need money to fund all those generous social benefits we have. Not entirely, of course you need money but you need people who believe in the cause to work towards it and make sacrifices. I work for a NFP, I took a paycut to do it. I'm happier for it. I think a lot of America goes wrong because most people want their cake and to eat it too. Free healthcare? It will require sacri…

Let me know when you meet the first people who voluntarily agree with paying higher taxes. Everyone I know in EU wants to pay less taxes, not more, as they don't trust the state with how it has spent their taxes so far (aka on corruption and cronyism).

Canadians pay higher taxes than Americans and their social services aren't that much better now that the US's. Why isn't it working for them if higher taxes and not a stronger economy is the solution?

Whenever the state says "give me more of your tax money so I can take care of you", check your pockets.

To be fair, I'd also agree with more taxes, provided those in power would be held accountable and punished severely for mismanaging it and that they would try to address growing inequality, but as long as they're unaccountable and spend my taxes like drunken sailors giving it to their golf buddies in the private sector while pushing for austerity for the plebs while the rich get richer, I'll do everything I can to pay less taxes to the state so I can defund it of the capability of improper spending, and use that extra money to take care of myself and my loved ones.

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