Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by majormajor » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 8:57 PM UTC

mesk wrote: post #227

I'm thinking a lot lately about which country would be best for my future, and somehow US is never there. Maybe for me without family yes, but otherwise I see it like there, I would be one illness away from bankrupcy, one crazy kid with a gun away from family tragedy, one away from . Sure, being in top 10% is cool, but will my kids be also so lucky? And the middle class in the US already thinks they are struggling (h…

The thing about the US is that it's very unevenly distributed. So it depends on what you'd be doing and how much money you'd be making / already have.

If you have a professional-class job the US is often the best place in the world to be for illness. You'll have a fairly high salary (especially comparing globally) and an insurance plan with an out of pocket max that is probably 10-15k per year (or much less, for most tech employers). If REALLY concerned with illness, filter for places with good supplemental long-term disability insurance and live in a state that has some of their own like CA.

The US spends A LOT on healthcare per-capita. So your access to doctors / specialists / hospitals in major US metros is generally excellent and rarely has the sort of waits that you see in a lot of countries that spend less on healthcare.

The problem with US healthcare is that it's usually either (a) fucking great for you or (b) fucking terrible for you. Very non-uniform.

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

#262

Post by gigel82 » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 8:58 PM UTC

All these statements about the "booming economy" are triggering for a lot of people because this "economy" they're talking about is just an abstract notion that has absolutely nothing to do with people's financial situation.

I don't know if we need a different term entirely to make this distinction.

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

#263

Post by HellDunkel » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:01 PM UTC

When younger, i often thought about moving to the US because it offered so many amazing and creative places to work. Most of these places seem to have gone completely or are in a somewhat unhealthy state (hollywood, video games). Boring tech companies took over and often times they stared with just a website - for gods sake- this is so lame! I‘m so happy i didnt go back then- I think it would have depressed me to experience this first hand but who knows.

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

#264

Post by wg0 » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:03 PM UTC

It is basically soaring because there's a drive to pull things from China. That is posting lots of economic activity for sure.

Others in contrast aren't in that race to cordon off from China.

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

#265

Post by wtcactus » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:04 PM UTC

newyankee wrote: post #230

wtcactus wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is willingly self sabotaging their industry and energy production, in the name of some completely irrational environmentalist ideology that states that saving the planet is achieved by making Europe poorer while allowing China, India and a few others to pollute without any restrictions. So yeah, we are getting poorer by the day and on the brink of a major economic crisis. Just look at what is happening in Germ…

On a per capita and historic basis the emissions of developing countries are dwarfed orders of magnitude by Europe and Western countries. Not to talk about all the land conquered by the same countries.

Are you interested in “saving the planet” or in making sure every country gets to pollute the same per capita on a historical basis?

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

#266

Post by loufe » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:05 PM UTC

It's also the distorted ability to rack up ungodly amounts of debt without facing the normal consequences of doing that. The US economy is booming, but it's borrowing from two decades from now to fuel the moment. When their debt gets unmanageable, the world's economy will enter a depression, IMO.

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

#267

Post by badpun » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

greenthrow wrote: post #238

badpun wrote: post #197

Not a single word about shale oil and gas revolution, that started around 15 years ago? The US now has the one of the cheapest energy on earth, and probably the cheapest among the countries that matter. Pour all that cheap gas and oil onto an economy that was already a leader and you get lots of impressive growth.

It's not brought up because this is not the source of the growth whatsoever. It has only served to keep our gasoline and methane costs low compared to the rest of the world. That's nice for people but does not create massive economic growth in the 21st century of the kind being discussed. That is all coming from the tech sector. If you want to talk energy to power the server farms, the growth in energy is happening w…

> That's nice for people but does not create massive economic growth in the 21st century of the kind being discussed. That is all coming from the tech sector.

Do you have the stats that back that up?

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

#268

Post by eitally » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

loxodrome wrote: post #98

spiderfarmer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is number one in quality of life and that’s all that matters to me. If we work just hard enough to maintain and maybe even improve it, other countries can do their pissing contest.

I’m an American living in France for the past two years and cannot wait to move back to the USA. The taxes are so extreme and salaries so low that no one can even invest in the stock market. If I stay here, I will be able to leave virtually nothing to my kids when I die. The EU can take its 5 weeks of vacation and go fuck itself.

Several years ago (when I was a manager at Google) one of my employees needed to relocate overseas in order to facilitate coming back under a more preferable visa type, and they were looking at options. For the same role where they were earning $135k base in Mountain View, it was going to translate to about $115k in London, $155k in Zurich, and only $89k in Paris. They chose Zurich and ended up staying there for over five years before moving back to the bay area.

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

#269

Post by nightski » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

luizfzs wrote: post #255

But is the majority of the population thriving? It is very misleading (at best) to say the economy is strong when a good chunk of the population live paycheck to paycheck. A handful of companies are thriving, but barely any of its employees.

We need to differentiate living paycheck to paycheck out of necessity vs. choice. It might be surprising but there are a lot of people who choose to do so because why save when you could die tomorrow.

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

#270

Post by adverbly » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

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…

PPP is closer in some ways, but it's not the best... It tends to be biased against strong currencies. The USD has been extremely strong since the pandemic.