I knew that if I clicked into this thread, I'd learn about how this was actually bad news.
Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
481–490 of 1001 posts
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#482These 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.
I like 'click and mortar business'. Much better then 'bits and atoms'.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#483But 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.
That's true of course and an important part why everything is so polarized. Without getting too political I don't believe the current direction is sustainable and that the start of the down spiralling already has happened.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 took "unhealthy state" to mean a toxic work culture, with long hours and low pay. If you work as a low level actor/writer, you have to audition all the time and are about to get replaced by AI.
That’s because there are many many more people who want to be actors/writers than there is demand for those jobs.
This is the market telling you to pick a different career.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ar…
This is the common expat mistake. Your cost of living can grow very high, if you try to replicate your old lifestyle in a country that doesn't support it. With the same approach, you can also find that living in the US is 2x to 3x more expensive than in Western Europe. (I personally settled for 2x by making some compromises.)
No, not really. I specifically use meat as an example because you can buy a chicken pretty much everywhere in the world. To be clear, there are SOME things everywhere that are exceptional and cheap. Here for example I can hire a cook, two maids, and a driver for next to nothing even paying well above average wages, but having a dishwasher or air conditioning is an unthinkable luxury and even a vacuum is quite rare. Then there are a million little things you can't change at any price; you can't drink water from the tap even in my sparkling luxury apartment on the poshest block of the nicest city, and if I ever needed serious medical care I'd be on the first plane back to the US. There are tradeoffs everywhere but when you factor everything in including the overall quality of life in the city itself, prices are quite similar everywhere around the world...as you'd expect, since that's how markets work.
My point is that the cost of things is more similar than people think, not what you should or should not buy as an individual, and that these adjusted PPP numbers do not make for valid comparisons. 99% of the time when PPP is used in the popular press someone is trying to bend the numbers to distort the real economic situation to try to further whatever narrative they're pushing. You will never see these people making the argument that Alabama is poised to overtake New York economically because on the average salary you can afford a larger apartment in Mobile than in Manhattan. To me these arguments sound equally ridiculous.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#486Earlier 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.
Real wages (adjusted for inflation) have fallen since November 2020. https://www.statista.com/chart/32428/inflation-and-wage-grow...
Wow, talk about a deceptive article. It’s so completely shady the writer surely did this on purpose to fool people like you.
Here’s [1] the wage graph from BLS during that time period, same source as the author. See that incredible, record setting spike at precisely the month in question, never seen before or after? Gee, what do you suppose did that?
The US had just poured 2 trillion into wages for free for pandemic recovery.
This is why you shouldn’t fill your head with nonsense from such crappy sources. Liars will lead you into your own echo chamber. Read proper economic journalists until you learn enough not to believe stuff like that article.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#487But 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.
US Federal Reserve studies indicate that the percentage of US households with no excess income after necessary expenses (as distinct from "ordinary expenses" as a term of art) is on the order of 10-15%. This definition roughly matches most people's intuition of what "living paycheck-to-paycheck" means. That isn't nothing but it implies 85-90% of Americans are not actually living paycheck-to-paycheck. There is another…
> The median household can easily accumulate a million dollars in inflation-adjusted net worth, not including their house, over a 40 year career.
That sounds like barely enough to retire on.
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#488But 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.
US Federal Reserve studies indicate that the percentage of US households with no excess income after necessary expenses (as distinct from "ordinary expenses" as a term of art) is on the order of 10-15%. This definition roughly matches most people's intuition of what "living paycheck-to-paycheck" means. That isn't nothing but it implies 85-90% of Americans are not actually living paycheck-to-paycheck. There is another…
Half your comment reads like chatgpt generated it. What's the point?
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
US Federal Reserve studies indicate that the percentage of US households with no excess income after necessary expenses (as distinct from "ordinary expenses" as a term of art) is on the order of 10-15%. This definition roughly matches most people's intuition of what "living paycheck-to-paycheck" means. That isn't nothing but it implies 85-90% of Americans are not actually living paycheck-to-paycheck. There is another…
> The median household can easily accumulate a million dollars in inflation-adjusted net worth, not including their house, over a 40 year career. That sounds like barely enough to retire on.
For reference elder care facility in CA Metro Area is like $20k/MO and in MA suburb is like $11k/mo.
At $15k/mo you can get like 65 months of service.
Not counting income from savings or SSI
Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals
#490America is so prosperous that there's armed guards in grocery stores here in Seattle.