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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

#731

Post by 71bw »

mmmBacon wrote: post #461
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.

Given European demographics and the changing political landscape, it's hard to imagine that the quality of life in Europe can remain as it was through the 1990-2010's. Additionally, many European cities are essentially museums, riding on what was built centuries ago, with little innovation. If you don't believe this, just go to a German city that was completely destroyed during the war. I'd imagine that Europe is at…

>The situation in Georgia and in Ukraine is what you get when European affairs are left to Europeans.

What are you smoking?

>Additionally, the EU's inability to supply Ukraine with basic military equipment such as artillery shells is indicative of how Europe is devoid of industrial capacity and couldn't rally in its own defense if it had to.

https://www.president.pl/storage/image/core_files/2024/11/12...

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

#732

Post by jaco6 »

DanielHB wrote: post #643
hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Like how much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. What percentage of the GDP is all that infrastructure (sewage, heating, power plants, power transmission, car production, road maintenance)? Sure that create jobs, especially lower-skilled jobs which are important for society. But at the same time they didn't really need to exist. It feels…

Sewage, heating, and power plants are included in GDP figures. Government spending is a GDP subheading. And such things certainly create value. I derive significant value every day from my warm, insulated, suburban bathroom.

Furthermore, your assertion that the defense industry doesn’t provide value is questionable. Until you can convince the various state governments of the world to unite in a global superstate, defense spending is a necessary deterrent to invasion and exploitation by other states, so it is, in fact, valuable.

And while I agree that suburbs aren’t the ideal form of urban organization, they aren’t actually the cause of all the social ills that you imagine them to be. Depression and addiction are driven by loneliness, and loneliness is almost as high in urban societies as suburban ones. Obesity may be slightly aggravated by car dependence, but it is still historically high and a major problem in the walking/public transport countries of Europe.

So no, the demon of suburban car dependence does not provide the explanation for all ills.

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

#733

Post by mfld »

pmb wrote: post #648
pelorat wrote: post #632

Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA. We basically coast along. We don't live on credit, but debit, and most people have zero investments outside their house. We're content and risk adverse and don't care much for the stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it). In places where higher education is cheap, or even sometimes free (like Sweden), there's less pr…

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. [citation needed] because I think this is extremely false. It is easy to underestimate the pain caused by having all the pre-euro currencies and pre-EU tax laws (yes there was the Schengen zone and EEC, but the EU uniformity…

I think it is getting better year after year, in small steps. For example, B2B taxation within the EU (by use of the reverse-charge mechanism) has become quite easy in recent years. Of course, depending on the product, diverse local rules may apply.

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

#734

Post by drsim »

jaco6 wrote: post #732
DanielHB wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Like how much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. What percentage of the GDP is all that infrastructure (sewage, heating, power plants, power transmission, car production, road maintenance)? Sure that create jobs, especially lower-skilled jobs which are important for society. But at the same time they didn't really need to exist. It feels…

Sewage, heating, and power plants are included in GDP figures. Government spending is a GDP subheading. And such things certainly create value. I derive significant value every day from my warm, insulated, suburban bathroom. Furthermore, your assertion that the defense industry doesn’t provide value is questionable. Until you can convince the various state governments of the world to unite in a global superstate, def…

> Obesity may be slightly aggravated by car dependence, but it is still historically high and a major problem in the walking/public transport countries of Europe.

I’d like to learn more about this. That hasn’t been my personal experience at all. Looking at the national level is challenging, as urban and suburban and income levels must be a strong factor.

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

#736

Post by [deleted] »

yccs27 wrote: post #660
vasco wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election How does the election tell you anything about the economy? Are you injecting a bunch of your reasons why you think people voted for X or Y or is there a factual argument behind that sentence?

There was a poll asking "what was your motivation to vote the way you did", and "the state of the economy" ranked pretty high among Trump voters (don't remember where I saw it though, sorry).

[deleted]

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

#737

Post by mfld »

mrweasel wrote: post #729
pmb wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. [citation needed] because I think this is extremely false. It is easy to underestimate the pain caused by having all the pre-euro currencies and pre-EU tax laws (yes there was the Schengen zone and EEC, but the EU uniformity…

The current EU laws (especially tax laws) aren't helpful for businesses. If you want to do business in every EU country you basically have to register a business in each of them. Sure, you can sell goods for €10.000 - €20.000 to another EU country without much trouble, beyond that you need to setup a business in each country, sometimes you even need employees or at least an office in a country to be able to do so. I…

Really? Most companies I know have just a single representative or billing endpoint in the EU.

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

#738

Post by piltdownman »

jasode wrote: post #684
DanielHB wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Like how much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. What percentage of the GDP is all that infrastructure (sewage, heating, power plants, power transmission, car production, road maintenance)? Sure that create jobs, especially lower-skilled jobs which are important for society. But at the same time they didn't really need to exist. It feels…

> much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. [...] , but it doesn't create value. The "value" is for the citizens that prefer suburbs style living. People who prefer dense city living with mass-transportation and walkable errands like European cities or downtown NYC/Chicago are missing the fact that there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburb…

What proportion of DINKs versus Families live in the suburbs vs the cities?

The simple answer relates to raising kids - both in terms of safety/enrichment and in terms of basic things like school catchment areas, distance to young peoples amenities, and distance to the average friends house based on school catchment.

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

#739

Post by xenospn »

chewz wrote: post #713
caseyy wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets acr…

> Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. Total valuation of LSE Euronext is laughable compared to NYSE or Nasdaq. (5,7 vs 30 + 16 trillion USD). Not to mention that largest European company is producing scarfs and handbags vs Nvidia, Apple or Amazon. It is XIX century vs XXI century comparing EU to US.

I thought the largest European company is making a miracle drug that is making fat Americans less fat?

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

#740

Post by xenospn »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #697
caseyy wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets acr…

> This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders. There is absolute friction for people to even move across the borders. I moved to Sweden a few years ago and it took 8 months before I was fully part of the system. Now I am looking…

Welcome to Norway! I hope you like bureaucracy :)
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