Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 1001 posts

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

#291

Post by sangnoir »

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.

> But is the majority of the population thriving?

Looking at the numbers: low unemployment, strong consumer spending, average income increasing at a rate higher than inflation, I'd say the majority is doing better than most years. They might not feel that way though, and we've been in a continuous vibes-cession since COVID.

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

#292

Post by VirusNewbie »

amrocha wrote: post #157
naming_the_user wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a huge generalization to me. The US, UK, EU and realistically most developed countries I would say have fairly similar quality of life within margin of error. I've travelled a fair amount and everywhere is basically the same. For an individual it's really going to come down to lifestyle and what you prefer. Some people like urban living and walkability, if that's you then you probably want Japan or ol…

[flagged]

I have an objectively higher QoL than almost anyone in the EU or Japan who wasn't born rich.

After many years as a SWE without a college degree, I was able to buy a large 5 new 5 bedroom house within ~25 minutes of my employer in a beautiful city, I have a full time nanny for my children, a luxury car, padded retirement, and plenty of other money to buy what I want.

Where else can a smart, hardworking person achieve that who didn't come from generational wealth?

I'm not so unique either, I have some friends I've known who similarly didn't come from money and have been able to build up careers that support a wonderful lifestyle.

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

#293

Post by buffet_overflow »

sangnoir wrote: post #291
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.

> But is the majority of the population thriving? Looking at the numbers: low unemployment, strong consumer spending, average income increasing at a rate higher than inflation, I'd say the majority is doing better than most years. They might not feel that way though, and we've been in a continuous vibes-cession since COVID.

> strong consumer spending

I’d like to see that plotted against average consumer debt

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

#294

Post by kwere »

harrall wrote: post #239
rich_sasha wrote: post #48

One thing this article doesn't touch on is the soaring government debt, which is now really quite big: 120%, and IIRC if you add municipal debt, it's more like 140%. That is high. It also seems like much of the recent growth has been fueled by this debt. It's unclear how this is going to unwind. America can afford, apparently, to run their deficit hot, but not forever and without limit. So at some point they have to…

US debt has been this high before. You lend someone money based on whether you think they can pay you back. People still buy US debt because the US is good with its promises. It’s the same reason the US dollar is the reserve currency… the US govt knows how to keep it reasonably stable and has decades of success at it. Does the US use this to their advantage? Sure. But it doesn’t matter… you just need to be better tha…

the last time debt was this high was WW2, after it millions of working age men came back contributing to the economy. today the opposite is true, millions of people are exiting the workforce to retire, draining resources like Social Security. It's not sustainable, but US can tap into immigration policy to kick the ball down the road for decades

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

#295

Post by _yb2s »

HellDunkel wrote: post #263

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 exp…

The US still is absolutely an amazing place to do creative work. Most of the fun innovative stuff is done in small companies, startups, and academia. Big organizations find it hard to not stifle creativity with bureaucracy- so they’ve taken to just buying the creative work once it’s out there.

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

#296

Post by pests »

deaddodo wrote: post #282
HellDunkel wrote: post #263

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 exp…

What do you mean by "unhealthy state"? Hollywood (the location) has always been skeazy/decrepit location (at least, after the 60s). Hollywood (the idea) is still going fine...other places have just developed their own media output too. One thing getting stronger doesn't mean the other is now sick, unless your only mental model is "defeatism". If anything, the US not being the only media producer in the world has made…

I think you are debating whereas OP was just sharing a memory.

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

#297

Post by DonnyV »

sokoloff wrote: post #274
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.

I know plenty of people making $250K/yr or more who are living paycheck to paycheck. At that point, it's not really the company that's the problem...

Here come the "its an individual's problem not a systemic problem" anecdotes. But when you look at all the data....its a systemic problem.

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

#298

Post by deaddodo »

bloppe wrote: post #165
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 matters on an individual level, but not at all on a national level. GDP at market exchange rates is what actually matters in terms of what a country can accomplish on the world stage. And even on an individual level, PPP struggles with accuracy, because things are only ever roughly equivalent. There's a reason why so many individual people are trying to move from China and India to the US and EU, despite all the…

> because things are only ever roughly equivalent.

This is what people seem to misunderstand about PPP. PPP applies for daily/internal market goods. The cost of milk, eggs, clothing, etc. Which is definitely important. On a more macro scale it also compares a VW Vento in Mexico with a VW Jetta in the US...two particularly different cars with ~6000usd gap in price.

In other words, it compares basic goods for living; fudges some basic "luxury" goods, and pretends that that's representative of lifestyles. It ignores (in Mexico, for example) the fact that consumer electronics are ~20-40% more expensive (if available at all), access to truly equivalent basic luxuries (a VW Jetta for a VW Jetta) is still slightly more expensive, access to equivalent security/infrastructure/business guarantees nigh impossible to receive, and just the vast gulf of wealth inequality that exists, etc.

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

#299

Post by sangnoir »

staunton wrote: post #284
seydor wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech is not a 'problem'. It has replaced Finance in the pecking order of power relationships. Since US controls it , it can exert control everywhere where its tech goes. China shielded itself from it early on.

> Tech [...] has replaced Finance in the pecking order of power relationships Not at all obvious to me. Is there any particular measurable thing you're referring to, or is this just your personal feeling?

Follow the money. Which companies are better at vacuuming money from all over the world into their countries of origin and exporting the rules, norms and regulations that everyone else -including domestic competition - has to play by. Is HSBC/JP Morgan more effective at this than Google/Apple?

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

#300

Post by rich_sasha »

mywittyname wrote: post #213
rich_sasha wrote: post #48

One thing this article doesn't touch on is the soaring government debt, which is now really quite big: 120%, and IIRC if you add municipal debt, it's more like 140%. That is high. It also seems like much of the recent growth has been fueled by this debt. It's unclear how this is going to unwind. America can afford, apparently, to run their deficit hot, but not forever and without limit. So at some point they have to…

> So at some point they have to start cutting expenditure and paying that debt off. They don't have to cut expenditures at all. Since the Fed controls rates, they can manage the debt by adjusting interest rates. There's nothing preventing them from driving interest rates below 0% and being paid to accept money. And the Fed can buy T-Bonds at below market rates and slowly destroy excess money in the economy in a contr…

You can do all this at an accounting level. But ultimately US government is buying things with debt, ie paying for goods and services from third parties with an IOU, and can only do it if people think they are getting a good deal.

The way you get shafted with debt is inflation. Barely a few years ago bond yields were around 0. If you lent money to the government then, you're already very behind because of inflation - you're not getting any interest, and by the time you are repaid, the money is worth far less than before.

Furthermore, the Fed can't really let interest rates diverge too much from inflation, since the mismatch drives inflation further. That's why the rates are around 4% now, even as the economy is slowing. They have to be up to contain inflation.

So then, as the election was playing out, you could see bond yields fluctuating in line with inflation expectation. Whenever Trump said something that sounded inflationary, like tarrifs, bond yields jumped up. That's not the Fed doing it, that's lenders demanding more interest from the US govt.

Now I agree the US can get away with this more than other places. They aren't far off Italian levels now, and that would be considered teetering around crisis levels. But it's fantasy to conclude the US can keep magicking money every year with no consequence.

Post reply on HN