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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

#871

Post by vel0city »

massysett wrote: post #787
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…

> 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-ag…

I've got two young kids in full-time daycare. Our daycare is crazy expensive. We tried the route of one parent stay home to be a caregiver this year. In the end, our kids weren't continuing on the same trajectory as what they were when they were in daycare. One child continued on part-time at the daycare doing a two day a week schedule and was noticeably falling behind his peers in his education and socializing. Not for a lack of us trying, my wife was very active in trying to be with both kids. But two very young children can be quite demanding. And in the end our house was messier (kids tearing everything apart all day long versus just a few hours), we still had pretty much the same diet, my wife was more tired and frustrated at the end of the day, etc.

My wife is back to having a wage, and both kids are back to full-time daycare. They both really enjoy school. And comparing them to their peers who stay at home, they're usually way ahead when it comes to counting and numbers, vocabulary, spelling, reasoning, and social skills. Which I mean makes sense, they're around people who got degrees in education with professionally thought-out lesson plans every day.

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

#872

Post by dukeyukey »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #548
roenxi wrote: post #14

This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they…

https://mishtalk.com/economics/purchasing-power-parity-silli... GDP PPP is meaningless for both geopolitical power and what it means for the average citizen. The average citizen in EU is much better than the one in China/India despite what the PPP numbers suggest as GDP per captaincy matters more. China and Russia resort to bartering due to US sanctions because GDP matters, and not GDP PPP [1]. PPP should be used to…

> The average citizen in EU is much better than the one in China/India despite what the PPP numbers suggest as GDP per captaincy matters more.

I mean, the PPP numbers say the average citizen in the EU is way better off thant he average in India or China, so eh?

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

#873

Post by startupsfail »

jayd16 wrote: post #865
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. How do you mean? There are travel expenses and you were also doing that instead of consuming. Saving shows up in the numbers so I'm really not following what you mean here.

There are no travel expenses, if grandma lives in a walking distance (or a couple of bus stops away, not that uncommon in Europe). She is also fine watching her grandkids from time to time, to everyone’s delight.

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

#874

Post by dukeyukey »

0xBDB wrote: post #248
DrBazza wrote: post #207

These articles also gloss over the US market is 400m English speakers with one set of legislation, more or less. Europe is 20+ languages and 20+ sets of legislation. That’s a colossal advantage. And any clicks and mortar business gets the benefit of absurdly cheap shipping costs compared to Europe.

Business law is a state issue in the U.S. The reason that the U.S. has one set of legislation (more or less) is that 50 states (well, 49) have voluntarily adopted the Uniform Commercial Code. There is absolutely nothing stopping Europe from doing the same or similar except lack of political will.

Turns out political will is a hell of a lot easier in a single country like the US, than 27 like the EU. Especially when the US has fucntionally one language, and the EU has who-knows how many.

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

#875

Post by dukeyukey »

loftsy wrote: post #696

I long for a US-like entrepreneurial attitude here in the UK. Business people here think that they are playing zero sum games. Everyone looks to the govt for funding and direction. I am reflecting on Deepmind. This company saw the AI revolution before anyone else. London based. They did an amazing job. Sold to Google. The problem is that long term the growth and money now goes back to the US. Maybe the UK is just too…

The UK already has world-leading companies (as do many smaller countries), but it's very very hard to produce planet-scale wide-appeal consumer companies dur to market size. Even if it does happen, the temptation to appeal more and more to the US market is irresistable.

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

#876

Post by codexb »

_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…

Typically, loans and credit being more difficult and costly to obtain, higher prices for everything, and a growing number of large layoffs aren't signals of a booming economy. Inflation has a tendency to well, inflate productivity metrics. If we're spending twice as much for the exact same stuff as we did 5 years ago, we haven't doubled productivity.

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

#877

Post by commandlinefan »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #863
_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…

I'm not saying the economy is good. But according to polling, many folks who said the economy was "poor" before the November election now believe it's doing great. All in a very partisan fashion, of course: https://jabberwocking.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/blog_mi...

Not to put words in your mouth, but this comment seems to imply that politicians successfully painted a negative picture of the economy that didn't reflect reality and used that to win the last election. While I wouldn't put that past them, why was it successful this time and not every time? Nobody even tried to pretend the economy was bad when Clinton, Bush or Obama were up for re-election, because it obviously wasn't.

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

#878

Post by adamc »

Havoc wrote: post #860
_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…

That’s also not a US phenomenon. Hearing the exact same in UK too. The stats say things are ok but people standing at grocery checkout disagree Strong divergence of 1% and rest

As someone doing OK economically, when I go to the grocery I see the same thing they do: Prices are going up on key items much faster than income is rising. I didn't vote based on that, but that doesn't mean they are wrong that it's a problem. It's easy to imagine that if you were barely making it, things are worse now.

Rising income isn't a phenomenon that hits everyone equally.

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

#879

Post by s1artibartfast »

jayd16 wrote: post #865
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. How do you mean? There are travel expenses and you were also doing that instead of consuming. Saving shows up in the numbers so I'm really not following what you mean here.

If you pay someone to clean their room or watch their kids, that becomes part of GDP, whereas if they simply do it out of love or social obligation, that isnt part of GDP.

Savings isn't part of GDP.

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