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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

#311

Post by echoangle »

treis wrote: post #244
ifwinterco wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s an important point, people always compare growth as if growing from the bottom is as hard as growing from (close to) the top. People love to do this with India and china.

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

#312

Post by SoftTalker »

notJim wrote: post #307
sokoloff wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The living paycheck to paycheck stat is meaningless. It generates headlines, because bad news wins, but if you dig in, even the surveys that ask about this reveal that a large percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck are very financially secure, both objectively, and according to their own assessment. I don't have time right now, but I'd encourage anyone reading this to go find the actual source for this stat…

> Many of those people living paycheck to paycheck have a budget where they're saving or investing a significant amount of their money

I don't think that's the common understanding of what "living paycheck to paycheck" means.

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

#313

Post by sangnoir »

stcroixx wrote: post #235
nradov wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a "problem"? What is preventing other countries from building tech winners? The USA isn't launching missiles to destroy the next foreign Nvidia or Meta competitor.

I don't think it's a problem. What's preventing other countries from building something similar to the US tech companies is a combination of regulation and culture.

Is that so? What's the best American drone company again? Consumer ones, not the MQ-9 Reaper type.

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

#314

Post by gruez »

notJim wrote: post #307
sokoloff wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The living paycheck to paycheck stat is meaningless. It generates headlines, because bad news wins, but if you dig in, even the surveys that ask about this reveal that a large percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck are very financially secure, both objectively, and according to their own assessment. I don't have time right now, but I'd encourage anyone reading this to go find the actual source for this stat…

>living paycheck to paycheck have a budget where they're saving or investing a significant amount of their money

How can you be "paycheck to paycheck" if you have a massive savings pile? Are you dumping it all into 25 year treasuries?

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

#315

Post by DonnyV »

ajross wrote: post #285
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.

> a good chunk of the population live paycheck to paycheck. Is that not true in other economies? Was that not true at some (mythical?) point in the past? What number, specifically, would you like to see before you're willing to declare "The Economy is Good"? Basically the point you made is an example of the Economics of Vibes. It's non-falsifiable and allows you to justify any position you want. We're about to start…

Family needs to make $107,700 a year to own a home.

Apartment in a moderate-cost area is about $70,000-$100,000/year.

Median salary in the US is $59,300

What considered poverty level in the US for: 1 person: $15,060 2 people: $20,440 3 people: $25,820 4 people: $31,200

According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, around 50% of Americans make $70,000 or more annually.

That means about 50% of the US can not afford a place to live.

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

#316

Post by umvi »

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.

> It is very misleading (at best) to say the economy is strong when a good chunk of the population live paycheck to paycheck.

This is oft repeated by politicians (including Bernie Sanders recently), but I've seen some good arguments why this can be a misleading claim. Ex. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...

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

#318

Post by kaimac »

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.

peak hacker news comment

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

#319

Post by Workaccount2 »

buffet_overflow wrote: post #293
sangnoir wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCLACBW027SBOG

The trend is basically back to where it would be if you just extrapolated 2019.

You can even see the origin of the "vibe-session" here, things got pretty good for a lot of people in the money shower of the pandemic stimulus combined with low "stay at home" spending. Its the return to normal that has people spun with "the economy sucks".

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

#320

Post by RajT88 »

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.

The US has the highest disposable income per capital out of the whole world:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...

For all the workers are living paycheck to paycheck, they are sitting on a gigantic monetizable pile of money.

Consider this: the most popular languages in YouTube videos are English and Spanish. And did you ever notice how most videos, when they talk about units, talk about Dollars, Miles, Inches, Pounds and Degrees Fahrenheit? That is why...

To be a wealthy YouTuber seems to mean catering to people in North America (the US specifically).

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