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Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

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571–580 of 1001 posts

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

#571

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.

The metrics they use to measure this appear to show productivity growth when it’s just an inflation bubble.

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

#572

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.

This is a common trope, but it's wrong. Americans' hourly wages and the disposable income is far higher in the median than that of people in the EU.

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

#573
post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gdp is really bad, countries don't even use the same counting methods. I think in the Netherlands they started using criminal activity to pad up gdp growth. Also money printing and inflation is a good way to up gdp. I like energy production and consumption a lot more, modern economies pretty much come down to using energy to either transfer or modify goods, services or data.

> energy production and consumption a lot more which is all well and good, except when you have increases in efficiencies in energy consumption, which would show up as a drop.

Increasing efficiency often causes an increase in consumption, not less [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

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

#574

I like Vinod Khosla's take (on Twitter): Stop measuring GDP and instead measure the total income of the bottom 50% of the population and optimize policy for that. Additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality?

I would have thought Khosla to be quite intelligent, but then he says this:

> additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality?

I'm not that smart but I'm pretty sure that X = Y here, and X - Y = 0.

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

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This the guy that illegally keeps fencing off public beach?

I would say this is a pretty good example of an ad hominem attack. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem If the standard is that someone has to be unimpeachable before they can suggest a well-being metric than no one can.

No this is an example of pointing out hypocrisy. He says that others should do what he is not willing to do. If he were to practice what he preached, the bottom 50% of income earners would have access to his beach.

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

#577

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.

all industries today are 'tech'. It's silly to continue this 1970s classification of everything.

Google should be reclassified under the equivalent of Dewey Decimal system publishers and magazine printers.

Netflix is a movie producer.

Adobe is an art supplies producer

Few companies today: apple, microsoft, etc qualify as tech.

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

#578

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.

It’s mentioned in the article and the referenced document from Mario Draghi a few months ago on the plan for EU reforms.

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

#579

I like Vinod Khosla's take (on Twitter): Stop measuring GDP and instead measure the total income of the bottom 50% of the population and optimize policy for that. Additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality?

I would have thought Khosla to be quite intelligent, but then he says this: > additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality? I'm not that smart but I'm pretty sure that X = Y here, and X - Y = 0.

Reminds me of the Sacha Baron Cohen bit where he suggested to Bernie Sanders that we move the 99% into the 1%.

I think a generous reading is Khosla was referring to capital rather than people, which is something similar to Gini coefficient. Very generous.

On the other hand, maybe people like that, who for no reason aside from their massive personal fortune have a huge megaphone, deserve less generosity and should give everything they write a sniff test first. Idk.

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

#580

I like Vinod Khosla's take (on Twitter): Stop measuring GDP and instead measure the total income of the bottom 50% of the population and optimize policy for that. Additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality?

I would have thought Khosla to be quite intelligent, but then he says this: > additions and exits from this group can also be tracked. We get what we measure. Will this raise income inequality? I'm not that smart but I'm pretty sure that X = Y here, and X - Y = 0.

Yes? It sounds like it is the churn rate he wants to measure. Which could be used as a proxy og social mobility.
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