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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

#641

Post by oblio »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #398
oneTbrain23 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I’d like to see a European brick and mortar house survive a Magnitude 8 earthquake, which is a requirement in San Francisco.

This is how modern European brick houses are built:

https://stock.adobe.com/de/images/unfinished-brick-house-sti...

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

#642

Post by oblio »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #609
didntcheck wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Not really. Europeans aren't some superior noble ascetics. Indeed. In my town center, on the weekends, the streets are full of Teslas, luxury cars and SUVs of the well off people from the suburbs with nice houses, coming to the city for shopping and indulgence in various forms of consumerism and showing off (mostly inherited) wealth. Europeans are just poorer and more unequally wealthy than Americans, with fewer peo…

> Europeans are just poorer and more unequally wealthy than Americans, with fewer people owing most of the wealth, not more righteous.

Europeans are poorer but the US generally has higher inequality, whether you look at Gini, IHDI or mean versus median wealth. Especially the wealth comparison is jarring for the US (about 6:1, most of Europe is at 2:1 or 3:1).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

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

#643

Post by HPsquared »

nvm0n1 wrote: post #631
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…

> cancer patient is diagnosed, the GDP goes up. Is this how we measure economic progress? Yes, obviously so! Diagnosing cancer early is one of the best ways to save someone from it. The cancer is there anyway, it's a natural occurrence. The economic activity that leads to and follows a cancer diagnosis is what economists call wealth: the things we do for each other than make each side mutually better off. All the exa…

I think it was more that the harm caused in these (presumably) avoidable examples is not counted negatively. Preventing cancer makes less GDP than curing it; smoothly transporting oil without incident makes less GDP than spilling it.

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

#644

Post by woliveirajr »

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…

Why not use the price of BigMacs and how many an average worker can buy?

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

#645

Post by eigenlicht »

legitster wrote: post #94
balozi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is great as long as you are not poor. You don't have to be rich, just don't be poor.

Arguably it's probably worse to be poor in Europe than in the US. The amount of cash assistance a homeless, jobless person gets in France is almost half of the same benefit in the US. But it's hard to get a 1:1 comparison because the data in Europe on things like homelessness is shockingly poor. Most of the major European cities have strong dispersion/anti-camping laws. Because homelessness is kept more out of sight…

A very interesting angle, you don't read this often though it seems there is something to it and for some time now I had a quite similar impression. It's almost as if the US are doing specifically better with border cases and "extremes", on both ends that is. For that reason I'm not sure if it holds water if or as long as you're "just poor"; very poor is a different story though. Especially in the case of homelessness it seems to me like at least the big cities (even in not so blue states..) are _way_ more active on that front, also proactive, aggressive in the good sense, and there's lot more opportunity to get assistance or advice. More often than not privately based of course, something in particular we hardly know over here (where it's gonne be the churches, at best). Apropos kept out of sight: true, but that is also changing and noticeably so. Living in a rather smallish town in Germany, just recently I ran across something you might as well expect somewhere in the rundown parts of LA, I've never seen it round here before: a person, mid-aged male, that apparently had "moved into" my bank; which has a lobby that's (well, was^^) kept open overnight for the ATM service and stuff. Even used it as a toilet, obviously. Why? Well again, I just don't think there are too many options. And coming to think of it I could even understand it: 24/7 CCTV, certainly doesn't subtract from your safety (subjective or not), there's light, air-conditioning (we too are having a heat wave), any more wishes? This indeed is Germany, 2023.

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

#646

Post by noelherrick »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #32
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?

What about: - Your access to mRNA vaccines - Your access to cleaner air due to electric car adoption - Ditto for energy security and renewable sources of electricity - Your chance of dying in a car going down due to new safety features - Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces - Your much improved ability to work from home, cutting out ~2 hours of commuting…

I understand your point - whenever people ask what era I would like to born in (that's not the future), I always say now. I really like mRNA vaccines, the discovery and proliferation of mindfulness/meditation/mental health, antibiotics, supercomputers strapped to our wrists, etc. Even things like food have gotten better than from when I was a kid (that one could be personal).

However, just because it's good, doesn't mean it couldn't be better. I think this all the time - why can't the rich be rich without inflicting cruelty and suffering on people? You can have your millions, just give us healthcare, housing, public transit, vacation time, and fair pay, and stop dumping chemicals in the water, torturing animals, warming the planet, addicting folks to opioids, and promoting guns and the use of personal vehicles.

We don't have to imagine or fantasize about improvements the US could make - we have an example right in front of us with many social democracies in Europe. When a car backfires, the French don't assume it's an active shooter. When a Dane gets into an accident, they don't take a taxi to hospital. When your CEO gets trolled on Twitter and decides to fire 70% of the staff, you don't have to worry about it because you have an employment contract, and he simply can't.

We have to do better.

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

#647

Post by unstatusthequo »

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…

Nobody believes China’s numbers, anyway. Take whatever they say and halve it. Then multiply by 1/3 of pi. Or pick a random number you like from roulette. Any of those could be more accurate than China’s actual numbers.

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

#648

Post by staticman2 »

standyro wrote: post #146
staticman2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"- Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces" If things were improving "exponentially" like you claim, our lifespan would be accelerating and these "miraculous" treatments would allow us to live 100s of years. What's actually happening is our lifespan is not increasing, and in some years has been decreasing. >>maybe you're depressed But if these "miraculous" "…

When I was a child in the early 90s, the likelihood they gave my mother to survive leukemia was slim to none. It was essentially a death sentence. And she died. Now if you get leukemia in 2023, it's something close to a 70% survival rate over 5 years with significantly better treatments. That seems dramatic to me.

Sure but if life expectancy is not increasing then technology (or social change) is not just saving people, it's making them sicker as well.

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

#649

Post by throwawaylinux »

ChatGTP wrote: post #623
throwawaylinux wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually think it's the opposite, I always see Americans getting really snarky about Europe, I could go back and find plenty of examples but I have better things to do. I'm responding to a (one of the many) cases of people being strangely upset and irrational about a simple fact about the US doing better in this one metric recently. There is no "opposite" about it, I never said it does not happen the other way ar…

I'm responding to a (one of the many) cases of people being strangely upset and irrational about a simple fact about the US doing better in this one metric recently. There is no "opposite" about it, I never said it does not happen the other way around, I'm questioning why it is happening this way around in this thread. And again that is making people upset and bringing up other unrelated things, which is quite ironic…

> If it happens both ways then it doesn't matter why,

Wrong.

[snip bitterness]

While we're dispensing with unsolicited advice about what is and is not important in how we think, you can just choose to not be upset by this stuff. The fact is here that lots of people are getting irrationally upset by the this GDP story. You can make peace with that and just move on without having to start bashing America or Americans. Ranting about how you think the average American has a hard time imagining more to life than money and things like that is just deeply weird. Fascinating though, so feel free not to take my advice and continue with it.

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

#650

Post by happyraul »

nocoiner wrote: post #633
fransje26 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, would prefer monthly shoot-outs to help regulate my population. And low-paid wages below the poverty line. And fentanyl as a substitute to affordable healthcare. Folks, please leave your notebook in your bag and search elsewhere for a role model.

Against my better judgment, I’m going to make a statement that sounds incredibly crass, but is directionally true: those are all travesties that no decent society should accept, but at the end of the day, they’re rounding errors. There’s plenty that’s wrong with America, but there’s no other country within the same order of magnitude of scale (or, hell, expand that to either a population of 50+ million or an order of…

By what criteria do you judge the US to be "a pretty darn good place to live" compared to the EU?
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