Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals • Hacker News Board

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

#781

Post by jokethrowaway » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

leokennis wrote: post #669

And yet, mysteriously, somehow, as a European, I am pretty glad not to be a US citizen right now. I earn more than enough to live while working only 36 hours per week and my government is not run by lunatics.

I'm glad for you and vehemently disagree.

Taxation is ridiculously high, public service has abysmal quality so I need to pay for private care to get healthcare in time and crime runs rampant on the streets. Albeit it's still not as bad as the US.

Our politicians are completely deranged.

The only thing keeping me in EU is the fact that taxes in the US is still pretty high tax / high cost of living, too many people are woke and crime is too high. Landscapes, history, culture and food in Europe are also unbeatable.

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

#782

Post by NeutralCrane » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #642

mrtksn wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, just looking at the examples of "stagnated and failing economies" like Japan should be a give away that this measure is total BS. In Germany a life saving brain surgery creates 5K USD of economic activity and the same surgery creates 500K USD of economic activity in the USA. True story, a YouTuber I'm following recently had her mother operated in Germany and then again in the USA and she made a video about…

> I'm worried because I don't believe in(goodness of?) revolutions That's strange, revolutions have been the some of the most acute moments that improved things for the world population and brought rights to the common people. I'd definitely not want to live through one because it sucks for those during it, but it's great for those that come after.

That’s probably survivorship bias. The Nobel Prize in Economics for 2024 was awarded for research that has demonstrated that the single most influential factor in the wealth of a nation is the stability of its institutions. Frequent civil wars, coups, and revolutions in certain regions of the world have left them further and further behind.

So I think in general, revolutions are high risk high reward gambles. The rare ones that work out and align with the needs of the population make important strides for humanity, but most revolutions fail or are corrupted and end up a net negative for the society.

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

#783

Post by Jensson » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #775

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…

> If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. Yes they do. How do you visit her? What do you do while you're together? Eat some food? There's almost no way your visit doesn't register on GDP. In reality, economic growth makes peoples lives better in simple, concrete ways. Ironically, we've started to question this only because we've become so rich due to so much growth that we're…

> What do you do while you're together? Eat some food? There's almost no way your visit doesn't register on GDP.

People typically eat food even when they don't visit someone as well, the total amount remains the same. It is really common to just cook food and eat together, your life doesn't get better if you go out to eat eating your parents home cooking doesn't register on the GDP.

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

#784

Post by watt » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #54

croes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the US economy is built on debt

All economies are built on debt... It's basically how money works...

it only works for US Dollar because USA can pay back its debts by printing more money. other economies actually have to work for it.

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

#785

Post by jprete » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:14 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #776

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…

That doesn't really matter if all you're doing is measuring the relative change in GDP though, and the amount of activity that doesn't register on GDP isn't increasing. In other words, if you assume non-GDP activity is constant, then GDP does genuinely and accurately reflect economic growth. Indeed, this is one reason why economists recommend GDP as a useful measure of growth in a country year-over-year, but not for…

The GP's point matters quite a lot, because the ratio of GDP to non-GDP value is going up. Terms like "financialization" or "commodification" describe a process that makes things visible and measurable. I think this is also what the book Seeing Like A State meant by "legibility".

And the whole reason it's a bad thing is that the human values that can't be converted to a measurable, tradeable commodity are often thrown away, because they're invisible to the commodification process.

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

#786

Post by bluGill » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:16 PM UTC

dartos wrote: post #779

crazygringo wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really matter if all you're doing is measuring the relative change in GDP though, and the amount of activity that doesn't register on GDP isn't increasing. In other words, if you assume non-GDP activity is constant, then GDP does genuinely and accurately reflect economic growth. Indeed, this is one reason why economists recommend GDP as a useful measure of growth in a country year-over-year, but not for…

> We really are seeing massive amounts of innovation in the economy that improve people's lives Name some? The issues people care most about atm seem to be getting worse (housing prices, cost of living, etc)

Cell phones are getting better. There are lots of websites on the internet. Batteries are getting better. Cars are getting better.

It is very common to focus on some large things that are bad and think that is the big picture without considering how much all the little things really add up to.

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

#787

Post by massysett » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #776

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…

That doesn't really matter if all you're doing is measuring the relative change in GDP though, and the amount of activity that doesn't register on GDP isn't increasing. In other words, if you assume non-GDP activity is constant, then GDP does genuinely and accurately reflect economic growth. Indeed, this is one reason why economists recommend GDP as a useful measure of growth in a country year-over-year, but not for…

> Now, if you think that a massive social transformation is underway of non-GDP-registering activities to GDP-registering activities -- e.g. people used to care for their grandmas, now all those people have gotten jobs to pay for care assistants to do it instead -- then yes GDP will show "false growth" in productivity. But that really doesn't seem to be a major factor.

But isn't that the issue?

Before: one working-age person in the household worked part time, or did not work at all. She (it was usually a she) could get the kids off to school, pick them up after school, check in on grandma, do the shopping, cook a simple meal.

Now: the working-age person goes to work, perhaps because the family fell apart, perhaps because other rising costs (e.g. health care) forced it. Before and after school care is paid for. Someone is paid to check in on grandma. Walmart+ or Amazon occasionally delivers heat-and-eat meals.

GDP went way up! Amazon contractor has a job delivering boxes. Someone is paid to check in on Grandma, and someone else to watch the kids. Someone works in the factory making heat-and-eat meals.

But are we really better off? Is it better to staff out the kid- and Grandma-watching and to heat up a dinner in the microwave? I'm not sure anyone knows the answer to that question, but I'm certainly not sure that "we really are seeing massive amounts of innovation in the economy that improve people's lives."

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

#788

Post by crawshaw » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:20 PM UTC

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…

Enormous amounts of valuable activity is not captured in GDP and never has been. This makes it dangerous to take two GDP numbers from different polities (or even GDP PPP) and compare them to compare their wealth.

However, change in GDP can tell you something broader about a society. It is a compounding value, which means only a trivial amount of GDP change can be explained by moving some of a society's value into or out of the GDP measure. Over a century, the compounding effect eclipses the non-measured component.

So if two societies, over the long term, have different GDP growth numbers, one of those societies will end up rich and the other end up poor.

Slow down GDP growth even a little and you will impoverish your grandchildren. They will have to choose between becoming doctors in their poor society, or emigrating and waiting tables in the rich society.

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

#789

Post by dartharva » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:22 PM UTC

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…

All the points you listed apply to India as well, with its multilingual states and conservative scarcity-driven mindset. Yet entrepreneurship is growing here at rates never witnessed before.

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

#790

Post by MichaelZuo » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 2:23 PM UTC

crawshaw wrote: post #788

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…

Enormous amounts of valuable activity is not captured in GDP and never has been. This makes it dangerous to take two GDP numbers from different polities (or even GDP PPP) and compare them to compare their wealth. However, change in GDP can tell you something broader about a society. It is a compounding value, which means only a trivial amount of GDP change can be explained by moving some of a society's value into or…

Perhaps growth rates in GDP PPP would be even better for comparing between countries?

For example in the case of Ireland people might be misled if they looked only at nomial GDP growth…