Yeah we know. Americans also have 2X the obesity rate as EU, significantly more than that in mass shootings, lower average life expectancy, significantly more CO2 emissions from electricity production and with 2x the energy usage and electricity consumption per capita, 30% less renewable electricity production, 3X the murder rate, and we reserve the word “football” for the ball game that mostly involves kicking one with your feet.
The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
731–740 of 767 posts
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#732Earlier 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…
(Aside: I have mixed feelings about this antiwar line of argument in 2023, because while it seems generally good to be antiwar, it also seems like these arguments come mostly from Russian-aligned forces. To whom my answer would have to be something like -- "yes, let us be anti-war. You first."
But that, while possibly more important than what I'm about to say, is not what I really did want to say. Which is --)
Eisenhower uses a phrase of considerable rhetorical power here --
> those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-- because he is essentially quoting the Beatitudes, and anyone who is familiar with them will fill in the rest.
Slightly less powerful to me (because it seems to equally reference William Jennings Bryan), but still very strong is
> humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
which is again extremely Christian imagery.
I'm not sure these phrases resonate so strongly with people today, but in those days they went straight to the heart of the question: What is it that is good?
I also really like the sentence,
> This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
because it focuses on the dichotomy of life vs. death, which again I think is very important. One could go in very positive green directions also from here. Some adjacent words would be: flourishing, abundant, fertile, growing. Frankly pagan things.
And, things that our economic metrics again tend to discount.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#733Earlier quoted context omitted.
This misses the reason so-called McJobs don't pay a "living" wage. You're not supposed to earn a living wage doing zero skilled work. You're supposed to develop skills and move up in the working world. Why are people stagnating instead of moving up? That's a really good question.
> Why are people stagnating instead of moving up? That's a really good question. It's a difficult question to answer thoroughly, but there should be a few obvious factors. Most of the labor market is effectively priced out of acquiring higher valued skills/degrees that would improve their career. Their opportunities for advancement are laughable. So, then, why is that?
Parent poster: trickle-down economics definitely works. Just think about it.
Also parent: Why are people stagnating instead of moving up? It's a real puzzle.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#734Earlier quoted context omitted.
"OER is also a lagging indicator due to it being calculated on current rental expenses, not market rate rents." What kind of an argument is this? Clearly the OER must be a current indicator (i.e. not lagging) if it is based on current rental expenses. The small section of the population that is in the market for a new place to live should not be taken as the average for the entire population. If anything the market r…
Rents are negotiated for a fixed period of time and are not necessarily increased to the market rate every year, hence the current price being paid being a lagging indicator of market prices. If you were tracking the inflation of banana prices and the market price for bananas went up 10% year over year, does someone having a fixed price contract from a year ago affect the actual inflation of banana prices?
Your definition of "actual price" is different than what it should be. The CPI should show an average of what the populace is currently paying for rent. That is to say some people are locked into a low rate from years ago. Some people are locked into a slightly higher rate from a year to just a few months ago. Still others are paying market rates if they just negotiated their prices recently. CPI does not and should not show only what those paying the current rates are paying. It should show an average of what the entire population is paying.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true, but it is also true that USA is perhaps the most geopolitically-secure state in world history and should be spending among the least on national security (per capita). Americans don't even know what genuine "national defense" feels like. Instead, we have a world-class propaganda complex dedicated to rationalizing our unnecessary overseas military adventures and proxy wars. The idea that blowing up a gov…
> USA is perhaps the most geopolitically-secure state in world history and should be spending among the least on national security (per capita). I think it glosses over too much complexity to simply state that, because part (not all! Geography is the other part) of the reason why we are so secure is that people know that we have that strong military. If the US were known as a soft target, who had neither the will nor…
What developed countries are victims of piracy nowadays?
There's an in-between the US and Somalia when it comes to control of territory.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#736German here. Austerity? Over-regulation? An oligopoly of tech-incompetent local enterprises? Just guessing here. As a student in 2007, I started being an avid follower of what Big Tech was doing and was flabbergasted that local tech enterprises didn't seem to notice or change anything. In CS at university they didn't teach programming (only as an aside) but all the funny theoretical OOP fluff that the community right…
None of the above. The true reason is that Germans are too conservative to invest in tech. You cannot have startups without investors and Germans will keep money in the bank, buy real estate, even invest in index funds, but startups give them too little of a guarantee of a return. You can remove overregulation, whatever it may consist of, but there will still be no funding at least not when compared to the US. But Ge…
That would have been true for most majors.
The universities and colleges around the world have not adopted to the new reality where knowledge up to Master Degree level is essentially freely available to everyone with an internet connection.
But colleges are still needed - if only for human reasons. And that's where I believe they should emphasize. A place where young people discover what they want to do and weigh their options. Instead of being assigned a major and mostly determined coursework.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#737Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also myopic to think that having a large conventional army that deters rivals from attacking smaller trade partners is not beneficial. Also, the US Navy protects vital global sea lanes that benefit US trade. Also: > Neither Russia or China can be said to threaten the US with their military China is arming up at a huge pace, even outside of nukes.
> It's also myopic to think that having a large conventional army that deters rivals from attacking smaller trade partners is not beneficial. No one suggested that it isn't beneficial. What I said is that the benefit has to be weighted against the alternative benefits. > China is arming up at a huge pace, even outside of nukes. I'd argue that one large reason they're doing so is the threat they perceive themselves to…
That's not a valid reason since the US has had a large military since 80 years ago.
Don't fall into that trap.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#738Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany is an economic lion held back by its inability to digitize (even when it does it's half measure still attached to the past) and its development of deep relationship with untrustworthy countries (Russia being the prime example.) Trying to buy the 49 Euro Ticket can be done online but still requires approval by a human and an IBAN. That's my current favorite recent example of Germany making absolutely no sense…
Strange, I bought mine via an app and paypal.
The official Bahn and even the MVV require an IBAN. To get my ticket, I had to wait 3 days using the MVV app to get a person to approve it.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#739Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#740Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany is an economic lion held back by its inability to digitize (even when it does it's half measure still attached to the past) and its development of deep relationship with untrustworthy countries (Russia being the prime example.) Trying to buy the 49 Euro Ticket can be done online but still requires approval by a human and an IBAN. That's my current favorite recent example of Germany making absolutely no sense…
Yeah, this kind of article would never fail to mention Russia and Putin. But what is never mentioned: 1. Germany has no energy sources. USA had blown up the pipelines delivering cheap energy from Russia that German industry needs badly (so, German industry has been closing and has declining output since), also in just as brain-dead move Germany closed all its nuclear plants. 2. USA is deliberately suffocating German…
There is no evidence that the US blew up the pipeline other than a crackpot journalist (citing a single source he can't name) that did something 20 years ago and has come up with nothing since. "Germany has no energy sources," is just false, they were warned for decades on this topic. They had plenty of time to diversity, but they didn't.
"USA is deliberately suffocating German economy."
This is just patently false.