Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but no defence budget protects against those. what?!? what do missile defense systems do then? nothing?
In practice, nothing (against multiple multi-warhead ICBMs). If your foe only has one or two ICBMs maybe you have even odds. Against any nuclear-armed nation other than present-day North Korea, nothing. Even if you could intercept 90% of missiles/warheads if the opponent fires 20 (or 2000), you're screwed. There are multiple stages of flight in which one can attempt interception, but only the final stage after separa…
The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
761–767 of 767 posts
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#762Earlier quoted context omitted.
You meant getting worse.
No, I didn’t. Obesity is a side effect of having so much food that calories are cheap and plentiful. That’s why obesity rates are rising everywhere in the first world. It’s also something virtually unprecedented in human history.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#763Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#764Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure about your 'iniquitous postulate'. If such a correlation existed, you would expect all countries with weak employee protection to enjoy economic growth that is better than their peers. That doesn't seem to be true. If you look at the employment protections of the UK[0], and compare them to the US[1], they seem fairly similar. And yet, the UK has very low worker productivity, worst-in-class economic growt…
Due to some recent mishaps in the UK's foreign policy, it probably isn't a great index comparison for economic growth in the 2010s. However, prior to 2016, it was a high performer among European nations. >If you look at the employment protections of the UK[0], and compare them to the US[1] I think you meant to include citations at the bottom, but I don't see them.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#765Note 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…
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#766Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tools created will be used, the cost of the US and Russian war arsenal is far greater than just the monetary cost to build them. One could argue that a weapons destructive force should be counted against it. To strive for peace is not near sighted, it is the only way forward.
The world’s more peaceful during the era of American Hegemony than it’s ever been. Odd how having a gigantic military with hundreds of millions of people under it’s umbrella seems to have stemmed regional conflicts from erupting. You can’t prove that regional conflicts would erupt should the US become more isolationist but any history book should quickly show you human’s propensity for war. It also turns out that hum…
Both the US and Russia have used their weapons to decimate other economies. It is very hard for us to prove or disprove your point.
Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X
#767Here’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…
I think it's definitely less common in Europe, but I did want to mention that there are European FIRE communities. See this one for Spain: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpainFIRE/ or Bogleheads Spain: https://bogleheads.es The wealth tax also makes FIRE harder, but there are exemptions that make it more manageable. Here is information about the wealth tax in Valencia: https://atv.gva.es/es/ipatrimoni Let's use a married c…
I overestimated the tax by a lot, I misread the chart and was adding the "Cuota" (sum of previous row taxes) from 1 row below what I should have.
They only pay 3,108.51 on the first 668,499.75. This puts the total tax at about half of my estimate, so only a ~0.35% drag on their 2M portfolio.
It's a very progressive tax, basically goes up 10X for really rich folks (>10M they take 3.5% of total wealth).