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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

#811

Post by AdamN »

dlkf wrote: post #593
sriram_malhar wrote: post #545

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?

If we did this fifty years ago, we’d be having this discussion by snail mail.

Email was invented gratis by government and university employees who were largely paid by the public. Email worked fantastically for decades before the private sector monetized it with spam and CTAs to drive more interactions.

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

#812

Post by weberer »

_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

Its entirely because you're looking at different numbers. When the average person complains about grocery prices doubling in the past few years, they're not looking at the GDP. People take "How much money do I get in my pocket at the end of each month?" and compare it with "How much does it cost to buy what I need?". The first answer is generally tracked by the Employment Cost Index. The second is by the Consumer Price Index. If the second increases at a faster rate than the first, then people get angry.

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

#813

Post by guerrilla »

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…

> 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).

This is a contradiction. We all have pensions, and in many cases multiple pensions, up to three or more in Sweden.

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

#814

Post by PittleyDunkin »

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…

> Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA.

I think you're referring to "finance" or something. As to why we americans mostly speak in economic terms relating to the stock market—I honestly think we're just a really dumb people incapable of expressing our needs.

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

#815

Post by agp2572 »

slifin wrote: post #803

The US dollar is the world's reserve currency So countries keep huge stores of dollars in their reserves because they need it for trade Then what happens is the US starts the money printer to pay for US government services This inflates the dollar and means that everyone who holds the dollar has lost value Including Americans who are paid for their labour with dollars and do not own assets So wealthy Americans/compan…

I would argue the opposite. If you compare US dollar to every other currency the value of their currency has decreased a lot compares to US dollar. This would be a plus to hold US dollar as their own currency has depreciated and holding more dollars has helped them reduce their losses. But it has one down side is that if you hold too much US dollar the country exposes itself to US monetary policy.

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

#816

Post by semiquaver »

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…

This seems incongruous:

  > most people have zero investments outside their house.

  > stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it)
To the extent the average American has any non-house investments, they consist of retirement savings in (defined contribution) pension accounts. How does this differ from your description of the average European?

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

#817

Post by dartharva »

chmod775 wrote: post #358
slibhb wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don't really understand what you mean. While their reach is global, it's largely American companies that are creating the tech value, no?

They're creating "value" the same way the British Empire did for China around 1800. It's almost 1:1 the same dynamic. Bad decision-making of individuals is exploited to make them act against the best interests of their country and ultimately themselves, causing money to flow outwards in exchange for virtually nothing, which is then used to import things of actual value from the hapless victims. A modern twist on this…

This argument falls apart when it comes to explaining the $1.4Trn market which is just IT/tech services, the providers of most of which are offshore even when the tech developed is American. By your logic the massive IT Services/Consulting industry that is driving India's economy is actually bad for the country and that it should go back to being a cluster of low-tech poor third-world villages.

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

#818

Post by indymike »

shafoshaf wrote: post #370
indymike wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the middle class in the US already thinks they are struggling Middle class financial issues in the US are age related. College debt, cost of raising children, buying a home combined with low entry wages put young people in a hole it takes 10-30 years to crawl out of. But when they do they quickly accumulate wealth. There are also a lot of people who choose to not save. That is a choice you don't have to make.

Not to mention that A LOT of millenials are about to inherit a ton of money from the Baby Boomers. The Boomers are just lasting longer because of advances in health care, all of whom are on Medicare which is government funded health insurance. In fact, about 40% of Americans on are federal healthcare between Medicare and Medicaid.

I think GenX will mostly be the beneficiary of the inheritance boom.

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

#819

Post by caseyy »

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…

The business I mentioned depend on American infra which depends on Chinese components that run, often, open source code written by Americans, Europeans, Russians, and many others. It’s a globalised world. But your claim was that EU has an environment that can’t sustain or cultivate new successful businesses. Evidence suggests that is not the case.

Countries with a strong social safety net are not experiencing the stagnation in quality of life you describe. Once again, look at the evidence. There are various quality of life indices.

Sorry but chasing money at every opportunity does not lead to better outcomes. This is very evident in capitalist western countries now with record inequality, private capital dictating politics, CEO and other shootings in the streets, healthcare poverty and so on. I’m not against capitalism as many EU welfare states are still fundamentally capitalist, but I’m just saying the quality of life claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Yeah, you need an accountant and a lawyer to do business across the single market if you don’t want to learn the local laws. I don’t think you wouldn’t in the US though. Compare and contrast CA consumer and corporate laws to TX laws. They are quite different. You would benefit from a lawyer. They aren’t that expensive in the EU compared to running a business though — I currently retain a lawyer for €2.5k per year. So about €200 per month. This is from a private corporate law firm in Eastern Europe. They prepare 4-5 documents every year for statutory needs for that price and do an excellent job. If your business has at least 5 employees or meaningful investment (VC, angel, etc), this becomes a negligible cost. You are totally right that dealing with bureaucracy in the EU is a total headache, as I believe it is in Cali and so on. But I claim that this headache can be removed with a minor expense and therefore it is not a meaningful obstacle.

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

#820

Post by dartharva »

dyauspitr wrote: post #452
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #201

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.

>China and India are just burning the coal for everyone else. India has 19 nuclear reactors it is planning to complete by 2030. 7 under construction now to be completed by 2026.

..which is still a ridiculously smaller number than what it should be aiming for.
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