Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

831–840 of 1001 posts

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

#831

Post by makeitshine »

chasd00 wrote: post #522
Buttons840 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of debate over the true state of the economy, but it seems that, one way or another, pessimism abounds. Consider, the top voted comment on an article about how good the economy is a disagreement. I wonder how many of the negative effects of an actual bad economy can also be caused by widespread pessimism? Is it better to have a bad economy filled with happy optimists, or a good economy filled with unhap…

It’s tied to politics. If your team isn’t in power was just voted out then the economy sucks or is teetering on the brink of disaster. However, if your team is in power or just voted in then things are looking great or will turn around soon.

I just look at things like this and worry. https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe

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

#832

Post by klohto »

Slartie wrote: post #651
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. 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…

Read up https://www.eu-inc.org

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

#833

Post by senko »

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 you're both correct.

EU Single market is a massive improvement, but it's not yet really single market like in the States (although there can be a bit of legislation/tax barriers between states there as well, depending on your location and line of work).

Also, it's hard to understate just how open the US is. For me, an European living in the EU, it's as easy, or easier (larger wallets, single language) to sell (digital/online products/services) to Americans. For digital goods, might as well skip the EU.

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

#834

Post by talkingtab »

This is corporate propaganda. A corporate take on America based on stories that are atypical. The US is a country where the stock market is soaring while more and more people are not paid a living wage, are homeless and cannot obtain fundamental health care. FT is a written for and read by those fewer and fewer people who benefit benefit from this situation. As tech people we are often the beneficiaries of the ever growing disparity between the haves and have-nots, so we do not want hear or think about where this road leads us. Not a good place folks.

America has given free reign to Corporations with United vs FEC. The preamble to the constitution now reads "We the Corporations of the United States".

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

#836

Post by TomK32 »

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 is still a collection of different countries, with different languages, and the people in one country doesn't really care about what happens across their border or which new and up-and-coming company they have to offer.

14 million EU citizens who live (as of 2020) in a EU country other than their own beg to differ. I'm one of them and know about the plentiful of rights that I enjoy as a EU citizen to live in another country. There are dozens and dozens of cities that attract students and workers from all EU countries.

Regarding the single market, well the Brits are learning the hard way how easy the flow of goods and wares was when they were still part of it.

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

#837

Post by senko »

caseyy wrote: post #655
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. 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…

Mostly agree, but this is not entirely correct:

> Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US. This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on.

Here are two examples:

Spotify, a Swedish company, had to go country-by-country to cover the EU because each country has separate regulatory bodies (eg GEMA in Germany,ZAMP in Croatia, etc...). It was in the US a lot earlier than in some EU countries.

Klarna is still not available in my country (Croatia). The banking union is not there yet and Croatia is too small a market (understandably). So, by mere fact of being in the EU, Klarna does not cover the entire EU.

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

#838

Post by insane_dreamer »

If you look at the "American economy" as "corporate growth and wealth", then yeah, it's doing great. Best in the world.

But if you look at it as "the economic wellbeing of the country's citizens", then it's average at best.

The second measure is the one that matters. Enough with the debunked trickle down economics bullshit.

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

#839

Post by [deleted] »

talkingtab wrote: post #834

This is corporate propaganda. A corporate take on America based on stories that are atypical. The US is a country where the stock market is soaring while more and more people are not paid a living wage, are homeless and cannot obtain fundamental health care. FT is a written for and read by those fewer and fewer people who benefit benefit from this situation. As tech people we are often the beneficiaries of the ever g…

[deleted]

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

#840

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN