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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

#751

Post by mistersquid »

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…

> there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburbs

With regard to the United States, you’re not even close. 80% of the US population live in cities. [0]

[0] https://pac.org/impact/rural-americans-vs-urban-americans#:~....

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

#752

Post by Etheryte »

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…

This is just straight up not true. You need a legal body in a country if you want to hire someone on payroll there, you most definitely do not need one just to sell your goods and services, that's the entire point of the single market. It sounds like you've misunderstood a second hand recollection of someone else's struggles?

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

#754

Post by dathinab »

Is "Americas's economy" soaring or "Americas top .1%s economy" soaring?

Because as someone not from the US it often looks a lot (a very big lot) like that in recent year most economical growth exclusively went to a very small minority of US citizens but not the US as a whole.

Like wasn't people economically struggling while the Democrats claiming everything is fine 'cause look economy is growing one of the more believable reasons of people not voting for Democrats (!= voting for Trump)???

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

#755

Post by pattt »

Different regions play complementary roles in the global economy. The oversimplified description is that the US drives innovation and risk-taking, Europe prioritizes social welfare and sustainability and Asia powers manufacturing. Forcing everyone to compete in the US-style growth race would be disastrous - imagine the burnouts, resource drain and market instability if every country tried to be Silicon Valley. Plus, many Europeans simply don't share the "get rich quick" mentality - they value work-life balance and social security more. Whether we're being pushed into this growth-obsessed game is another debate. Ideally, regions should focus on their strengths while maintaining independence. Europe can keep its social model while smartly adopting tech, Asia can focus on sustainable industry, and the US can lead in innovation. It's like an ecosystem - diversity makes it stronger. The goal shouldn't be for everyone to play the same exhausting game, but to maintain different approaches that complement each other.

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

#756

Post by PittleyDunkin »

qeternity wrote: post #726
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…

> It feels like much like defense spending, it create jobs, but it doesn't create value. This is the safest period in human history by a huge margin. It may not feel that way given the ultra connected, headline consuming nature of most people these days. But it is true. Global trade has lifted more people out of poverty than anything else, and that was first enabled by maritime trade which was implicitly secured by t…

It certainly provides value—mostly the internationally wealthy. Certainly not to the people footing the bill, who are largely restricted from accessing the windfalls of these profits.

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

#757

Post by phtrivier »

qeternity wrote: post #726
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…

> It feels like much like defense spending, it create jobs, but it doesn't create value. This is the safest period in human history by a huge margin. It may not feel that way given the ultra connected, headline consuming nature of most people these days. But it is true. Global trade has lifted more people out of poverty than anything else, and that was first enabled by maritime trade which was implicitly secured by t…

> This is the safest period in human history by a huge margin.

There has been almost ten times more victims of conflict in 2023 as in 2005. [1]

And, as you said, we are now a bit more aware of those deaths (although I suspect a large amount occurred in conflicts that don't make western news headlines.)

The number of victims might pale against WWII, of course - but we're slowly arriving at time where WWII is not only "last century", but a "century ago".

I don't think anyone compared the figures of the Vietnam War of the 1960s to the US civil war of 1860s. Or did they ?

Anyway, in the average life span of an average human being with a normal memory, this is more likely to be one of the _worst_ period.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-armed-conflicts...

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

#758

Post by cbg0 »

anovikov wrote: post #674
Slartie wrote: post #651

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. That's not exactly true. The single market has been a great thing for companies producing physical products. That's also what was in mind of the people who designed the single market. They wanted to unify standards for physi…

Simple way to eliminate language barriers is to introduce English as main language of schooling, thus making all next generation bilingual. It's done by middle and upper classes anyway so idk why commoners are intentionally left in the dust by the System. Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway. It's stupid to pretend otherwise.

> Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway.

No, it isn't. At most you could say that a part of our culture is American, but even amongst each other, EU countries differ quite a bit in terms of culture.

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

#759

Post by pmb »

oblio wrote: post #680
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…

They're most likely talking about digital. Look at Netflix, a different catalog in every country.

They said it was currently worse than it used to be before the EU. That is not true.

Netflix engaging in complicated IP rights negotiations does not mean the existence of the European Union is pointless.

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

#760

Post by cbg0 »

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…

> If you want to do business in every EU country you basically have to register a business in each of them.

This is false. Some types of business that are more heavily regulated do require you to set up a local branch.

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