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Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

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Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#241

Post by z2 »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #209
roenxi wrote: post #14

This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they…

What's this conspiracy of the US and Europe to destroy developing large economies world wide? If your plan is take over your neighbors, say you'll wipe out democracies and kill people and it's your destiny to win, then eventually the US & Europe will do something. Russia literally talks about taking over the countries around them, bites off pieces and then subverts the countries that are left. That was all before the…

Two if not three of these examples are very much related to civil wars or civil-war-like dynamics. If anything, yes, I agree that the world usually isn't so simple to unconditionally take any single side.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#242

Post by thomassmith65 »

ossobuco wrote: post #101
thomassmith65 wrote: post #22

That's an excellent summary of the economic state of the world. This excerpt is depressing... The challenge for other advanced economies is not just replicating America’s dynamism. It is to do so while retaining their cherished social safeguards. For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7, coupled with the lowest life expectancy and the highest housing costs, according to the OECD.…

> cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world That's a thing of the past. Check the consumer electronics produced today in China. Mobile devices, EVs, infrastructure, newer products are simply incredible, and I'd argue ahead of western technology on many fronts. Cheap plastic stuff now gets produced in other less developed countries.

I expressed myself poorly. I implied that the plastic goods would be okay if they weren't cheaply made. I grew up in an era where stores sold furniture made of wood and steel. That was like... less than one human generation ago. So what I actually meant is: the plastic goods inherently are cheap garbage.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#243

Post by throw__away7391 »

roenxi wrote: post #14

This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they…

I've spent a lot of time in a lot of different countries/cities with wildly different economics and I have a very different view of things.

PPP in the real world is a bit of a fraud, at least in the way people commonly use it. A lot of things you compare between two countries are in fact very different in reality. You might actually end up paying a lot more in nominal dollars for a lot of things in countries which are supposedly "cheap" to get not even the same quality. I find that the cost to maintain the same quality of life between different countries ends up being much more similar between countries than the statistics would have you believe.

I'm in a relatively poor country at the moment. On paper meat costs a fraction of what it does in the US, but what you get at the local market tastes absolutely terrible, uneatable to my spoiled western standards. I think they literally feed the animals trash. To get quality meat you need to go to specialty stores in the rich neighborhoods that caters to the country's elite. There it's actually about 10% more than what I pay at a US supermarket and it still is not as good. The same thing goes for housing, household goods, clothes, etc. In many countries you pay a huge premium for goods imported from the west, and the selection is often quite limited.

This has been my experience everywhere in the world. Excluding a few cities where you pay a premium just on the basis of the local job market, you more or less get what you pay for no matter where you go. The differences that don't fit into spreadsheets are quite significant and almost fully account for the pricing differences from location to location.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#244

Post by treis »

ifwinterco wrote: post #223
DrBazza wrote: post #207

These articles also gloss over the US market is 400m English speakers with one set of legislation, more or less. Europe is 20+ languages and 20+ sets of legislation. That’s a colossal advantage. And any clicks and mortar business gets the benefit of absurdly cheap shipping costs compared to Europe.

There are counterexamples in Asia though like South Korea, Taiwan etc. that have massively outperformed Europe over recent decades despite not having those advantages. Having said that, not sure the SK model is something to emulate given the social problems it seems to have caused

In growth, yes but GDP per capita in South Korea is still 3/4s of France.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#245

Post by timomaxgalvin »

DrBazza wrote: post #207

These articles also gloss over the US market is 400m English speakers with one set of legislation, more or less. Europe is 20+ languages and 20+ sets of legislation. That’s a colossal advantage. And any clicks and mortar business gets the benefit of absurdly cheap shipping costs compared to Europe.

This is false. The EU I more harmonised that the US in terms l trade rules.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#246

Post by slibhb »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #201

Tech is the problem. The internet is global (or perhaps two or three regions), and winner takes all - so global value creation is being experienced everywhere, but being monetised in the US stock market. Take tech out of the equation and the US is pretty much on par with EU, and China and India are just burning the coal for everyone else.

> Tech is the problem. The internet is global (or perhaps two or three regions), and winner takes all - so global value creation is being experienced everywhere, but being monetised in the US stock market.

I don't really understand what you mean. While their reach is global, it's largely American companies that are creating the tech value, no?

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#247

Post by narcindin »

francisofascii wrote: post #233
jebarker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? What do you mean by "monetized in the US stock market"?

From a stock market perspective, if you look at a graph of Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (ticker VEU), it looks like normal growth, but looks vastly different from say Vanguard Total Stock market (ticket VTI) which shows phenomenal growth. This is because VTI includes US tech stocks and VEU doesn't. Take out the tech stocks and maybe VTI would look like VEU.

To be clear VTI is only US stocks and VEU is everything else. It is confusing because "Vanguard Total Stock Market" contains only United States equities.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#248

Post by 0xBDB »

DrBazza wrote: post #207

These articles also gloss over the US market is 400m English speakers with one set of legislation, more or less. Europe is 20+ languages and 20+ sets of legislation. That’s a colossal advantage. And any clicks and mortar business gets the benefit of absurdly cheap shipping costs compared to Europe.

Business law is a state issue in the U.S. The reason that the U.S. has one set of legislation (more or less) is that 50 states (well, 49) have voluntarily adopted the Uniform Commercial Code. There is absolutely nothing stopping Europe from doing the same or similar except lack of political will.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#249

Post by [deleted] »

anon291 wrote: post #139

> Globally, the top R&D spenders are increasingly concentrated in software and computer services I always find these sorts of statements strange because most software is not intended to be software but rather something else. For example, Adobe's suite should be classified under 'art supplies' or 'video production'. While true that it's software, in my mind, it's like classifying a car builder as a metal fabricator. T…

[deleted]

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#250

Post by bananaquant »

jventura wrote: post #228
jebarker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? What do you mean by "monetized in the US stock market"?

I think the parent poster means that tech companies such as Apple, Nvidia and others are traded in US stock exchanges..

I second that. In addition, most of those companies use a portion of their revenue to buy back their shares, pushing their price up. So, the value created worldwide ends up growing the US stock market.
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